"Will Schreiner's political duty, difficulty of finding path of duty,' Peter Halket' & lay aside ambition" Read the full letter
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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box4/Fold2/1909/1
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSunday 10 January 1909
Address FromHotel Milner, Matjesfontein, Western Cape
Address ToSandown Road, Rondebosch, Cape Town, Western Cape
Who ToLucy Molteno nee Mitchell
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 date of this letter is provided by the postmark on an attached envelope, which also provides the address it was sent to. The letter is on printed headed notepaper.
1 Hotel Milner
2 Matjesfontein,
3 Cape Colony
4
5 Sunday
6
7 Dear Mrs Molteno
8
9 I thank you so much for your letter. It is so valued by me. I have had
10several letters, two especially from public men, which have surprised
11me by the sympathy they express with a broad human view of the native
12question. But all express the same kind of almost hopeless sadness -
13"I only I am left" – "they that are against us are more than those
14that are for us" – kind of feeling. And yet may it not be there is
15still among us a strong minority who might combine & stand together
16doing great work. We are always too much inclined to count heads,
17forgetting there are times when one man is ten or one hundred: that a
18majority may sometimes consist of one - & something else.
19
20 I hear that many women want Mrs Brown to stand for President for the W
21E League, & I hear, I don’t know if its true that Mrs Macfayden says
22that if any one else is proposed she will fight, but if Mrs Brown is
23proposed will not, so I hope you all will vote for Mrs Brown. Her
24large loving nature will do much to smooth away all difficulties &
25?touch & unite every one. Don’t you think so?
26
27 I hear there is to be a short session of Parliament next month? Is
28this true? If there is I should like to come down just to be with my
29husband; but I am not sure I shall be able to.
30
31 Thank you so much for your letter. It was a great joy to me to get it
32
33 Olive Schreiner
34
35
36
Notation
Schreiner's comments regarding 'the native question' concrn response to her article 'Views on closer union', a lengthy article published in the Transvaal Leader on 21 December 1908 and the Cape Times on 22 December 1908 (p.9); it appeared as a short book in 1909.