Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Olive Schreiner BC16/Box4/Fold1/1908/26
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	6 May 1908
Address From	Matjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Julia Solly nee Muspratt
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 Julia Solly nee Muspratt, 6 May 1908, UCT Manuscripts & Archives, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

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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.

1:  Matjesfontein
2:  May 6th 1908
3: 
4:  My dear Mrs Solly
5: 
6:  I was so very sorry I could not come to see you, I was so very very
7:  ill. I couldn’t even write. I am getting better here.
8: 
9:  I enclose a letter in strict confidence to you, trusting Ple you not
10:  to mention or show it. Can you not try, by ask speaking kindly &
11:  sympathetically to Mrs Macfadyen, to stop the ^her^ if she goes to the
12:  Transvaal as Delegate from the Loyal Ladys League, from also acting in
13:  any way as a representative of our little society? It would do
14:  incalculable harm if she does. Many of my friends in the Transvaal
15:  Miss Hobhouse among them are just in June going to try & start a
16:  woman’s organization. The Loyal Ladies League has announced itself
17:  as opposed to womans enfranchisement & Mrs Macfadyen ought not to act
18:  in the two characters ^at once^. I think those who voted for her
19:  re-election as president should act in this manner. I was given no
20:  vote. The paper saying the meeting was to be held reached me four days
21:  after the meeting, & enclosed no voting card or anything of the kind.
22:  We have now a powerful party in power ^in South Africa^ some of whose
23:  most powerful members like Malan are deeply strongly in favour of
24:  womans enfranchisement. If we lose the franchise during the next three
25:  years, it will I fear be largely through the unwise action of our
26:  little organization. Suppose it were needed to go to members of
27:  parliament about anything, or it were desired to influence them, Mrs
28:  Macfadyen should go to the the members of her own party Jameson, Crewe
29:  &c. You should go to Mr Sauer who I know much respects you, Mrs Murray
30:  be sent to my brother Will who profoundly respects & admires her
31:  character. (A little serious talk he once had with her once went far I
32:  think I think in determining his position) & I might go to ^my^ old
33:  friend Malan. If we don’t act with judgement we shall do harm. Let
34:  us leave the men ^in Parliament^ alone & not force ourselves
35:  individually ^or as an organization^ upon them: this men like Malan & my
36:  husband will do all they can quietly & with judgement to influence
37:  other members; if we leave them alone at i there is no knowing what
38:  they may succeed in doing. After all, all, we want is the franchise;
39:  we don’t care, I’m sure unreadable Mrs Macfadyen in her heart
40:  doesn’t, to have to have our little organization or any of the
41:  individuals forced to the front. If by by remaining quiet we can help
42:  on the cause I’m sure we all will.
43: 
44:  If a bill is brought in this ca
45:  I wish I would see you & try have a long talk. I am too ill to write
46:  clearly. I am going to write a little letter to Mrs Macfadyen of which
47:  I will send you a copy. It is the most unfortunate thing that could
48:  have happened to the cause of woman’s enfranchisement that Mrs Ma
49:  she should have been re-elected as president at the last meeting. Any
50:  other woman in the whole organization would have been better! She is
51:  the only woman who rouses fr bitter dislike among both men & women to
52:  our cause; ^& among progressives as well as S.A. Party men.^ You are the
53:  back-bone of the little organization; it’s spine & strength. Mrs
54:  Macfadyen should be its brilliant debater in public arguments. Some
55:  well known South African woman of old family & standing (not myself of
56:  course, I am too strongly anti Jingo though I don’t belong to any
57:  other South African organization) who both both men & women like &
58:  both political parties are not roused by; should be the president, or
59:  head.
60: 
61:  These should all be unreadable
62:  There are forty or fifty women I could have got to join the society if
63:  Mrs Macfadyen had not been president. I ^have^ fight for her everywhere;
64:  but having re-elected her is fatal. The difficulty is, she is such a
65:  brilliant, clever, delightful little woman to those of us who
66:  understand her, that it’s difficult for us to speak. One cannot bear
67:  to hurt her. But she absolutely must not destroy the movement in the
68:  Transvaal. Please regard all I’ve said as strictly private & return
69:  the enclosed.
70: 
71:  Yours ever faithfully
72:  Olive Schreiner
73: 
74: