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Letter ReferenceMacFarlane-Muirhead/21
ArchiveMacFarlane Collection
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date16 November 1908
Address FromDe Aar, Northern Cape
Address ToGreat George Street, Hillhead, Glasgow, Scotland
Who ToRobert Franklin ('Bob') Muirhead
Other Versions
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Legend
The Project is grateful to Mrs Hazel MacFarlane for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter to Bob Muirhead, which is part of the MacFarlane family collection of Muirhead Papers, Special Collections, University of Glasgow Library. The address this letter was sent to is provided by an attached envelope.
1Box 24
2De Aar
3Nov 16th 1908
4
5Dear Bob
6
7I am sending you two photos of my self, take one for yourself & Lenie
8& send the other to Ed Carpenter.
9
10I’m still at de Aar & the world goes the old pace. All my thoughts &
11interests are just now centred on the Dinuzulu Trial in Natal, in
12which my brother Will is defending Dinuzulu & my dear friend Miss
13Colenso
is straining ever nerve to see justice done. It will be a
14terrible mis-carriage of justice if he is not brought in innocent; for
15not only his own people but all the natives if South Africa know he
16was innocent, but that it was he & he alone who prevent a general a
17rising when the Natalians began their wicked little game, he simply
18would not let his people move. If he is brought in guilty every scrap
19of faith in English justice will die, & I don’t know what will happen.
20This closer Union movement here is really a plan on the part of the
21two white races to combine so as to wipe out the natives more easily,
22& take away the Franchise from them who have it. It’s rather terrible
23to live in such a country.
24
25Give my love to dear Lenie; that beautiful letter she wrote me made me
26love. I seem really to know her now.
27
28Good bye.
29“Alles ten beste”
30As the Boer’s say.
31Olive Schreiner
32
33I wish I could see your children. Waldo must be getting quite big.
34
35^I wonder if you would have recognized the photos as mine if you hadn’t
36been told. I have changed more than you, except that my hair is
37thicker & longer than ever, & hardly any grey ones.^
38
39But people pass me in the street who know me & don’t seem to recognize me
40