"Put 'She wrote 'Peter Halket'' on my grave" Read the full letter
| Letter Reference | Olive Schreiner: Mimmie Murray 2001.24/54 |
| Archive | National English Literary Museum, Grahamstown |
| Epistolary Type | Letter |
| Letter Date | After Start: January 1920 ; Before End: August 1920 |
| Address From | c/o Standard Bank, 10 Clements Lane, Lombard Street, London |
| Address To | |
| Who To | Minnie or Mimmie Murray nee Parkes |
| Other Versions | |
| Permissions | Please read before using or citing this transcription |
| 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. The year has been written on in an unknown hand. Schreiner left Britain for South Africa in August 1920, and thus the dating indicated.
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1
Address c/o Standard Bank 10 Clen Clements Lane Lombard St London
2
3 My dear Friend
4
5 Thank you for your splendid long letter. When you go to Cape Town do
6go to see my dear little sister-in-law, & also her daughter Ursula
7(Mrs Ralph Scott) who lives at Plumstead close to the railway station
8in the house which used to Mr Frank Jouberts. So our darling girl is
9really going to married in September! I am so glad she will still be
10near you. What a lucky, lucky man her husband will be. Thank you for
11all the news about Bobby & Kathie.
12
13 How I should love to come & see you if I ever return to Africa - but
14all is uncertain & dark before. My nephew & his wife want me very much
15to go back with them to Africa as I am so utterly alone a here, I have
16not even a friend who could arrange about my funeral if I were to die
17here. It would be so beautiful to be near my dear little sister in-law
18& all of you my dear dear friends; but I don't know where I could ^stay &^
19go in the summer to escape the heat. In the winter I would be all
20right; though I don't know that the summers are much hotter in Africa
21than here - they are only longer. If it had not been for the war & I
22could have lived in Italy in my beloved Riviera, which is just life to
23me, & have gone every year to Nauheim for the heart treatment, I
24should I'm perhaps sure have got so well I was able to work - & its
25only work that really matters. But all has to be as it must be - these
26terrible five long years shut up in a London room with bad & little
27food, little light & little fire one must just accept as one does all
28else life brings. The one bright spot was that my brother was here,
29though I didn't often see him.
30
31 My dear husband has given up his business at de Aar, he had influenza
32& then rheumatism & couldn't stand it any more. He is coming to
33England in May for a few weeks & then going on to America - he feels
34he must have change & rest. I am so thankful he is getting away, & oh
35what it will be to me to see him again for a few weeks.
36
37 I may have to come back to South Africa, as f life is getting more &
38more insupportable except for people with three or four hundred a
39years prices are still rising. Unless the government can do something
40to stop it there will be a revolution here very soon.
41
42 I will write & tell you as soon as my plans are clearer. You know of
43course that dear Alice Greene is dying of cancer? She is down in
44Devonshire & Miss Molteno & her ^Alice's^ two sisters are nursing her in
45a little cottage near the sea. She is getting very so weak she has to
46be carried on a stretcher from her bed when they take her out & the
47end cannot be far off now. She is sweet & brave.
48
49 You know of course that my dear friend Anna Purcell has lost her
50husband! It is partly to see her that I long so to go to Africa. He
51died of heart disease. Her heart seems broken, but she has her three
52dear children to live for. She did love him so.
53
54 Good bye dear. I'll write again soon.
55 Love to all the dear children. What a joy to see them.
56 Olive
57
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59
2
3 My dear Friend
4
5 Thank you for your splendid long letter. When you go to Cape Town do
6go to see my dear little sister-in-law, & also her daughter Ursula
7(Mrs Ralph Scott) who lives at Plumstead close to the railway station
8in the house which used to Mr Frank Jouberts. So our darling girl is
9really going to married in September! I am so glad she will still be
10near you. What a lucky, lucky man her husband will be. Thank you for
11all the news about Bobby & Kathie.
12
13 How I should love to come & see you if I ever return to Africa - but
14all is uncertain & dark before. My nephew & his wife want me very much
15to go back with them to Africa as I am so utterly alone a here, I have
16not even a friend who could arrange about my funeral if I were to die
17here. It would be so beautiful to be near my dear little sister in-law
18& all of you my dear dear friends; but I don't know where I could ^stay &^
19go in the summer to escape the heat. In the winter I would be all
20right; though I don't know that the summers are much hotter in Africa
21than here - they are only longer. If it had not been for the war & I
22could have lived in Italy in my beloved Riviera, which is just life to
23me, & have gone every year to Nauheim for the heart treatment, I
24should I'm perhaps sure have got so well I was able to work - & its
25only work that really matters. But all has to be as it must be - these
26terrible five long years shut up in a London room with bad & little
27food, little light & little fire one must just accept as one does all
28else life brings. The one bright spot was that my brother was here,
29though I didn't often see him.
30
31 My dear husband has given up his business at de Aar, he had influenza
32& then rheumatism & couldn't stand it any more. He is coming to
33England in May for a few weeks & then going on to America - he feels
34he must have change & rest. I am so thankful he is getting away, & oh
35what it will be to me to see him again for a few weeks.
36
37 I may have to come back to South Africa, as f life is getting more &
38more insupportable except for people with three or four hundred a
39years prices are still rising. Unless the government can do something
40to stop it there will be a revolution here very soon.
41
42 I will write & tell you as soon as my plans are clearer. You know of
43course that dear Alice Greene is dying of cancer? She is down in
44Devonshire & Miss Molteno & her ^Alice's^ two sisters are nursing her in
45a little cottage near the sea. She is getting very so weak she has to
46be carried on a stretcher from her bed when they take her out & the
47end cannot be far off now. She is sweet & brave.
48
49 You know of course that my dear friend Anna Purcell has lost her
50husband! It is partly to see her that I long so to go to Africa. He
51died of heart disease. Her heart seems broken, but she has her three
52dear children to live for. She did love him so.
53
54 Good bye dear. I'll write again soon.
55 Love to all the dear children. What a joy to see them.
56 Olive
57
58
59