Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Smuts A1/193/85
Archive	National Archives Repository, Pretoria
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	15 October 1910
Address From	De Aar, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Isie Smuts nee Krige
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Isie Smuts nee Krige, 15 October 1910, National Archives Repository, Pretoria, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

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 15th 1910
3: 
4:  My dear Isie
5: 
6:  I feel I want to write to you today. I never wrote Neef Jan to
7:  congratulate him on his safe election – but he’s knows I did in my
8:  heart.
9: 
10:  Anna Purcell writes me to-day about her visit to Stellenbosch, & how
11:  glad she was to see your mother. She thinks Ella so fine & strong &
12:  independent in character. Cron is away now in Cape Town visiting his
13:  mother; but he will be back the end of next week. I am so glad he
14:  should get a little change away from the dust & heat here.
15: 
16:  Are you going down for the opening of Parliament? My heart is bad as
17:  the heat increases. I shall soon have to leave. Oh Isie it is so hard
18:  to have to leave my husband & my dear home, & go away for months, &
19:  its so hard to find a place in a hot land like Africa. The Haldane
20:  Murrays have invited me to go & try their farm in the mountains beyond
21:  Graaff Reinet. If my heart doesn’t get better there I shall have to
22:  try Hermanus. If I have to go there how nice it would be if you & the
23:  children were there too! I know a Mr. De Villiers who has a very much
24:  enlarged heart, nearly like mine & he says Hermanus suits him better
25:  than any sea side places he has been to. I will send you my little
26:  book on the woman question as soon as I get some copies. I wish I’d
27:  felt more lively & well when I was up with you & we’d been able to
28:  discuss things, but my heart felt so big I only wanted to lie & rest.
29:  What good rest I did have, in that beautiful big room of yours. Good
30:  bye, dear. Write to me if ever the spirit moves you. If you don’t
31:  write I shall still always know you love me as I love you.
32: 
33:  Yours ever
34:  Auntie Olive.
35: 
36:  Remember me to Mrs. Hull when you meet her. She’s such a nice woman
37:  I should like to meet her again. I hope Hull will get in. Just because
38:  he’s not quite white I should like to see him hold his own. If you
39:  write address to de Aar & Cron will send the letter on if ^I’m gone.^
40: 

Notation
Schreiner?s 'little book on the woman question' is her Woman and Labour.