1 De Aar
2 April 4th 1911
3
4 Dear Mrs Drew
5
6 I have just learnt from my niece Lyndall Schreiner that you were in
7South Africa. I should have written to welcome you had I known of your
8coming. I have read your article in the English Woman which I think
9very fine. I want some of our womens societies to read it at their
10meetings.
11
12 I do wish I were in Cape Town to come & see you. If you are passing de
13Aar do let me know & I'll come down to the station to see you for the
14few minutes the train stops, if I am at all able. The station is about
15a mile from my house, & I am not always able to walk so far; but I
16will come if I possibly can. If de Aar were a more interesting place I
17should beg you to stay a day over here. We have a first class hotel
18(as South African Hotels go!) but that is nearly our only advantage.
19If you could spend a day here it would be delightful. I have such a
20tiny house, & do my cooking &c myself, so I can't make anyone
21comfortable, but I'm sure you would be comfortable at the hotel; but
22there really is nothing to see here of interest, only a big railway
23camp.
24
25 I hope her time in South Africa has greatly benefited your daughter.
26
27 I wonder if you would be at all interested to meet a very charming
28little Jewish woman in Cape Town. Ruth Alexander? Her father was a
29professor of Hebrew at Cambridge for many years, but now head of a
30large Jewish college in New York.
31
32 She is married to a Jewish Barrister ?her Alexander, a progres
33Unionist member of parliament. She is the best speaker we have among
34our women in South Africa; she has a very quiet simple way of speaking,
35 almost childlike. But at the first meeting at which I got her to
36speak a thing happened which I have never see happen at any woman's
37meeting - men & women all seemed to have a cold in the head, & all
38wanted their handkerchiefs. You will not be much impressed by her at
39first. She has a shy awkward little manner, & a painfully nervous
40little laugh, but I find her very beautiful & interesting. Her husband
41is a clever Jew but not her equal of in refinement. If you did care to
42see her her address is
43 4 Hastings Rd
44 Tamboer's Kloof
45 Cape Town, & I know she would be delighted to come & see you. But
46perhaps you have only come here for rest; thats what people generally
47come here for, & the one thing it can give. I am afraid I am perhaps
48thinking more of the pleasure it would give her to meet you, than of
49the pleasure it would give you! When I first came out after my ten
50years in London, I felt for some months I didn't want to see anyone -
51just the veld & the mountains, & rest.
52
53 I hope your stay here will be a very happy one.
54
55 Yours very sincerely
56 Olive Schreiner
57
58 I've greatly admired your brother for standing out with regard to that
59case of the native & white woman. Women's attitude with regard to the
60natives in this country has been a deep sorrow to me.
61