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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box7/Fold2/Aug-Dec1919/7
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date30 August 1919
Address From9 Porchester Place, Edgware Road, Westminster, London
Address ToTrevaldwyn, Llandrindod Wells, Wales
Who ToMay Murray Parker nee Murray
Other Versions
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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 postcard is provided by the postmark, and the name of the addressee and the address it was sent to are on its front. Schreiner was resident at Porchester Place from early April 1917 until August 1920, when she left Britain for South Africa.
1My darling May
2
3I never wrote to thank you for those lovely lettuces & potatoes you
4sent me! I’ve just not been able to write to any one. The pain in my
5chest is getting so bad it seems as if my something inside were
6swelling up & choaking me. I wish I were near Freddie. I know he
7couldn’t cure me, but I feel sure he would give me something to
8relieve the unbroken pain.
9
10I do hope he is keeping pretty well. When do you leave for South
11Africa? My sister-in-law & Dot & Ursie & her Husband & child leave in
12two weeks. I feel like a shipwrecked mariner who stands on the shore
13of a desert island & sees the sees the last of his fellows sailing
14away. But I am so thankful for Fan’s sake she is going. It will be
15so good for her to be among all her friends. She has felt Will’s
16death terribly. Tomorrow is his birthday.
17
18Betty is still away in Cornwall with Alice. I myself feel no hope. She
19had changed too awfully in a few weeks when last I saw her. But Betty
20seems hopeful. Of course it may be the doctors are wrong.
21
22Ursula is so happy with her little baby: it is sweet to see her.
23
24Good bye my darling May.
25
26Is the house full? Do tell me.
27
28^I hope you will have good news of your dear father.^
29