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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box3/Fold6/1907/18
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date4 July 1907
Address FromRossyvera, Norfolk Road, Sea Point, Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who ToCaroline Murray nee Molteno
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
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 Rossyvera
2 Norfolk Rd
3Sea Point
4 July 4th 1907
5
6 Dear Mrs Murray
7
8 Thank you so much for your kind letter. I am wonderfully better since
9yesterday morning, & am only keeping in bed now that I may be well
10enough to get to the house this afternoon to hear the debate on the
11woman’s franchise.
12
13 I hope I may see you there. Thank you so much for your kind invitation.
14 If I were not getting better I should gratefully accept it. But now I
15have got this room so warm & dry with continual fires & open windows
16night & day, I had better stick to it!
17
18 I do so want to see you. Can’t you come & have lunch with me on
19Saturday & we can have a nice long talk here. If Mrs Charles Molteno
20could come with you I would be so glad. Could you write at once & let
21me know so that I can get your note on Saturday morning early; as some
22other people have proposed to come on Saturday, but I would so much
23rather have you if it were possible, as I may have to go away & I want
24so much to see you again.
25
26 I have ^again^ met Mrs Macfadyen ^at the meeting yesterday^. She’s a
27bright little woman but I feel as if you were the one woman who ought
28to have been the President of the little suffrage society. You have
29the dignity & the tact & would carry with you the weight, that the
30head of such a society should have. Of course one would not now
31suggest that Mrs Macfayden should leave as she is chosen, we women
32must be so careful never to pain each other in such an organization.
33But the President ought not to be a woman, say like myself, who for
34some mysterious reason seems to act as the red flag does to ^on^ a
35Spanish bull, on unreadable of the Progressives; nor a well known
36member of the Loyal Lady’s League like Mrs Macfadyen, who seems to
37act much in the same way on the Pro South African Party women; but a
38woman like yourself who though sympathetic with the South African part,
39 has ^close^ relations who have been on the other side. I wish you would
40join & then later if Mrs Macfadyen should leave, it will be possible
41for us to elect you.
42
43 But we can talk of this when we meet.
44
45 I wonder if Betty is coming out? I have a feeling she really is this
46time.
47
48 Yours ever with so many thanks for your great kindness in asking me
49 Olive Schreiner
50
51 ^Poor little Mrs Macfadyen is going to have another baby the month
52after next, so I am sure no one need complain of her that she has not
53children enough as she has been married just five years!^
54
55