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Letter ReferenceSmuts A1/195/48
ArchiveNational Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date18 October 1913
Address FromDe Aar, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToIsie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Archives Repository, Pretoria, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.
1 de Aar
2 Oct 18th 1913
3
4 Dear Isie
5
6 You may like to know what my friend Mrs Purcell says about Emily
7Hobhouse
. I am so thankful she has stood the voyage so well & is
8getting so much better with the dear Purcells. I wrote, & asked them
9to invite her because I knew she would get more comfort & care in
10their beautiful home than anywhere else. She wants me to wait & go
11back with her on the 27th but I hardly see how I can wait so long. I
12wonder if you will be going to Bloemfontein to the opening of monument.
13 I would have liked to go, but of course I can’t.
14
15 Give my love to Neef Jan. Tell him to take care of my Indians &
16Natives for me while I’m away! Oh, Isie dear, if one has suffered so
17much as I have all my life since I was a girl, & especially in these
18last years, one realizes how unnecessary it is we should ever inflict
19suffering on each other. It we human creatures did nothing, but help &
20deal generously with one another, life still inflicts physical anguish
21enough on us to make human life bitter.
22
23 My friends the Pethick Lawrences will meet me when I get to England &
24take me on to Italy. It will be beautiful to be again among all my
25dear friends, but it is so hard to leave my husband & think I may
26never see him again. I shall be gone for more than a year.
27
28 I suppose you won’t be coming down to Cape Town till parliament meets.
29I don’t agree with my husband that Gladstone ought to be recalled, as
30we might get some one worse in his place, & I don’t wish the ministry
31to resign. Except Jan & Malan you have no men of great ability in this
32ministry, but if another government came in with such men as Fichart &
33Freemantle in it should we not be much worse off? The outlook in
34Africa depresses me terribly. Goodbye dear.
35
36 Yours always with much love
37 Olive
38
39 ^I am sick of Botha. I wish Jan would join the young Unionists. The
40back-veld will never appreciate him. He’s in the wrong place.^
41
42
Notation
The enclosed letter from Anna Purcell is no longer attached.