"Climbing Table Mountain, silence is golden, don't talk about personal, love you for loving Shippard" Read the full letter
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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box3/Fold6/1907/30
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date8 November 1907
Address FromDe Aar, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToMary Brown nee Solomon
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. The name of the addressee has been written on this letter in an unknown hand and is confirmed by content.
1 De Aar
2 Nov 8th 1907
3
4 Dear Friend
5
6 I haven’t been able to write of late, but it’s such a curious
7comfort to me to know you are there in Cape Town. Are you reading more
8papers? ^at meetings?^ Tell me about your work. I wish they had good man
9here as Governor: instead of giving that unhappy little Hely another 5
10years to curse us in the Cape Colony. It makes not ^such^ a great
11different to life in the Cape Colony Town if you have really nice
12people at Government house, as when the Lochs were here. I don’t
13know why I like Jews so. Even here in de Aar the little broken down
14squat Russian Jews one sees walking about interest me so. I am sending
15you a letter cut out of "Ons Land." If you don’t read Dutch perhaps
16some one will read it to to you. Sad, sad, sad, this narrowness &
17bigotry.
18
19 The stand made by the Federation in the Transvaal is fine. Dear Mrs
20Solomon
, I should like to write & tell her I thought so well of it.
21The Federation has grown wider & the Woman’s Christian Union
22narrower & narrower as time passes.
23
24 Have you seen Mrs Macfadyen lately. It is partly the same spirit of
25narrowness that opposes her because she is something new. But in time
26they will get accustomed to her then she will be "old" & acceptable. I
27am going to send her a letter of introduction to my friend Lady
28Rose-Innes
, who is going to take a house in Cape Town for a few months
29shortly: she will like & understand her. I am giving Lady Innes a
30letter of introduction to you – she was a Miss Pringle of
31Baviaan’s River you know. Many people don’t see the gold that lies
32below the surface in her nature but I’m sure you would.
33
34 I have been bad lately, always fainting, fainting like when I was here
35before. If I believed in prayer I should say "Pray for me that I may
36be able to stay here till Xmas!" I can’t bear to leave Cron alone
37here, oh I can’t do do it.
38
39 Good bye, dear one
40 Olive
41
42 ^The one only thing I have ever wished to be a Christian or Mahomidan
43or something of that kind for, is that you can pray for the people you
44love & feel as if you were helping them when you can do nothing else
45for them.^
46
47 ^We have bought a little old donkey-cart at a sale for £7 & if we can
48get a little donkey for 30/- to pull it you may fancy me driving up &
49down in my glory to the camp. I find I can’t walk any more. A turn
50out for £8.10 will be impressive. I’m rather afraid the wheels of
51the donkey cart will come off, but Cron says they look alright. You
52can ride on the donkey cart if you come in the winter!! Ask Ray to
53send me a photo of Molly if she has a nice one. But no photograph
54could bring out the elfin charm of the child. She is just like one of
55Leonardo De Vinci’s pictures.^
56