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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner: Mimmie Murray 2001.24/48
ArchiveNational English Literary Museum, Grahamstown
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date After Start: Monday October 1909 ; Before End: November 1909
Address FromDe Aar, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToMinnie or Mimmie Murray nee Parkes
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease 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. This letter has been approximately dated by reference to content. Schreiner stayed on the Murrays's farm at Portlock from December 1909 to January 1910.
1 De Aar
2 Monday
3
4 Dear Mrs Murray
5
6 Thank you for your very kind letter I think I will accept your kind
7invitation & come in a couple of weeks time. I will stay first for a
8few days, & if it doesn't suit me I can then go & try Hermanus. But I
9feel so hopeful f of being able to stay with you because the place
10that f the place in Africa that suits me best is a farm in the Cradock
11district high up in the mountains. I am always perfectly well there,
12but they can't take me there as there is only a young man living alone
13there. But I fancy its more sheltered from the wind than Portlock. You
14get absolutely no north or west wind here. We've tried to buy the farm
15but they don't want to sell it.
16
17 It will be so delightful to have the company of the dear children. I
18do miss having no children about me here.
19
20 Yes, they used the religious point mercilessly about my husband too.
21It is so sad to me that many of our best & most enlightened men will
22not be in the new parliament. I specially wanted your husband in the
23Provincial council because of the Education questions that it will
24have to deal with.
25
26//It would be very nice if we could go together & have meetings at one
27or two place.
28
29 Please give me again the address of the gentleman in Graaff Reinet you
30said I was to wire to. But I will try & write & tell you when I am
31coming in good time.
32
33 My husband says he will try & come with me as far as Graaff Reinet,
34but he will have to return by the next train & cannot come out to the
35farm. How many hours are you from Graaff Reinet? It the farm in the
36direction of Murrays-Burg or of Aberdeen? The time table is rather
37puzzling but it seem that if we arrive in Graaff Reinet on Saturday
38^midday^ my husband may will not be able to leave before Monday morning
39about 5 o'clock? I will have to sl bring a good many things books &
40papers &c &c if I am staying for some time, but I could leave them in
41Graaff Reinet till there was a chance of getting them out to the Farm,
42& just take what was necessary till I know if I shall be able to stay.
43
44^I do hope so. Thank you so much for your kind letter.
45
46 Olive Schreiner^
47
48 ^My husband is away in Cape Town now visiting his Mother. I have told
49my little niece to send you "Rebel Woman" which I lent to her. My
50niece is so strong on the woman question she will be a great help to us.^
51
52
53
Notation
The book referred to is: Evelyn Sharp (1910) Rebel Women London: A. C. Fifield.