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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box3/Fold4/1905/24
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date1 July 1905
Address FromHanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToBetty Molteno
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to Manuscripts and Archives, University of Cape Town, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Manuscripts and Archives Collections. The name of the addressee of this letter is indicated by salutation and content.
1 Hanover
2 July 1st 1905
3
4 My darling Friend
5
6 I do hope you will get away to Athens & Rome. (Oh Athens!) Miss Greene
7is quite quite right when she doesn’t want to come back to Africa
8yet. What should you do here, above all she who has not her relations
9here? Politically things are sadder than they have ever been. The
10Africanders are all quarrelling among each other: the two women’s
11organisations hate each other with a hate that passes words, & the
12Womans Christian Union, (not Mrs Solomons the other) are fighting
13among themselves. There has been a bitter ^newspaper^ fight raging as no
14doubt you saw in the S.A. News & the Cape Times between Mrs
15Koopman’s
& Mrs Roos. Mrs Koopman’s has left the organisation, &
16they are fighting "like any Christians." Politically there is much
17bitter feeling too. It’s all so mean & small. I just try to forget
18it all. I am revising my novel. But you are very very happy to be out
19of it all. Our apostolic days are passed here, never during our life
20time. If there is any public fight which will be worth fighting in
21this country it will be in defence of the native & the Chinese. The
22poor, dear, old Chinamen are having an awful time.
23
24 // Cron left yesterday for de Aar for 16 days. The place seems very
25dead without him.
26
27 Olive & the meerkats & Gobalie & I make our own little world, & I keep
28a nice fire & we sit in front of it. This new little room is so nice &
29warm & I am so happy in it.
30
31 I hear as little as I can of the fighting & small life of the village.
32There is a very fine article, the best I have yet read on vivisection
33in the Contemporary for June. Read it if you can. The success of Japan
34& the possible breaking of the long night of tyranny & dark in Russia
35are very cheering to me. Goodbye my beloved friends
36 Olive
37
38 ^Perhaps I shall get one of my books ready after all & I can buy the
39farm & you come & live there.^
40
41 ^Adela Villiers has just sent me the picture of her Baby-boy. Its
42curious that he’s exactly like Malan! of Ons Land! I saw it, & when
43I showed it to Cron he saw it too without my mentioning Malan.^
44
45
46
Notation
The 'fine article' on vivisection is: Greville Macdonald MD (1905) 'Vivisection and Progress' The Contemporary Review June 1905, pp.790-802. The novel Schreiner was revising in From Man to Man.