Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Olive Schreiner: Mimmie Murray 2001.24/62
Archive	National English Literary Museum, Grahamstown
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	After Start: April 1913 ; Before End: November 1913
Address From	De Aar, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Minnie or Mimmie Murray nee Parkes
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 Minnie or Mimmie Murray nee Parkes, April 1913, National English Literary Museum, Grahamstown, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the National English Literary Museum (NELM) for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Manuscript Collections. This letter has been approximately dated by reference to content. Schreiner was resident in De Aar from November 1907 until she left South Africa for Britain and Europe in December 1913, but with some fairly lengthy visits elsewhere over this time. Schreiner was in De Aar from April to late November 1913.

1:  My dear Friend
2: 
3:  Your letter & Mr Murrays went to my heart. You are the kind of souls
4:  that have to be taken care of by your friends against yourselves you
5:  are so good & unselfish like my brother Will.
6: 
7:  Don't keep the town house for me, but if later I feel I must go
8:  somewhere I'll come to the little cottage at Broederstroom if you can
9:  have me. I can't get a niece as I have only Miss Hemming ^who could
10:  have come^ but I'll hire a coloured or white girl, if I'm not so
11:  helpless as to require a nurse: I don't want a nurse while I can get
12:  about at all.
13: 
14:  My friends in England are pressing for me to come home & try medical
15:  treatment, but you know dear friend, I myself don't think it will be
16:  of any help. My dear friend Emily Hobhouse is perhaps coming out to
17:  unveil the ^Boer^ Women's Memorial at Bloemfontein. She wants me, if she
18:  is well enough to come to go back with her in December, because she
19:  has her little maid with her who could look after us both on the ship,
20:  & she wants me to go to Florence to the heart Doctor Carloni who has
21:  so wonderfully brought her back from death to life. My husband says he
22:  is not going to Europe now & the parting with him will be bitter; but
23:  it would be better to end on the voyage than to go on as I am now.
24: 
25:  Do Will you be at Broederstroom in the summer or are you going back to
26:  Portlock? It would be so good to see you all. Your dear children are
27:  such a joy to me. I am so glad you have a lady doctor. I would have
28:  written the day before yesterday when I got your letters but I wasn't
29:  able.
30: 
31:  Thank your dear husband for his note. I shall keep both your letters
32:  as a precious treasures.
33: 
34:  I am a little better this afternoon: a kind Jewish girl whom I hardly
35:  know at all brought their cart & took me for a little drive. Riding or
36:  going in a motor car is the only thing that does me any good - the
37:  movement relieves the pain so.
38: 
39:  So good bye dear friend
40:  Olive Schreiner
41: 
42: 
43: 

Notation