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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner: Mimmie Murray 2001.24/13
ArchiveNational English Literary Museum, Grahamstown
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date After Start: April 1913 ; Before End: September 1913
Address FromDe Aar, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToMinnie or Mimmie Murray nee Parkes
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the National English Literary Museum (NELM) for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Manuscript Collections. This letter has been dated by reference to content. Schreiner was resident in De Aar from April to late November 1913 and left South Africa for Europe in early December that year.
1 De Aar
2
3 My dear Friend
4
5 Thank you for your dear letter. I would gladly accept the offer of
6going to your house if you were still using it. But I'm sure if I were
7not coming you would let it at once, & you would lose all you would
8get for it.
9
10 I asked my niece Wynnie Hemming to come & stay with me for two months,
11& I thought she & I might come to Graaff Reinet together but she has
12just got a good post as teacher & cannot come. So I may not be able to
13come at all. It is just possible that my nephew Oliver & my niece
14Ursula Schreiner who arrive from England today may want to come & see
15& instead of our staying here for the week or ten days we might come
16to Graaff-Reinet. They could go to some Hotel & I to a room. But their
17coming is doubtful - they may not plan to come till October before
18they leave for England. It is so sweet of you to want me to have your
19house dear friend. If I were coming at once I would accept your loving
20offer gladly, but I can't let you keep the house empty for me.
21
22 I slept four hours last night without waking & feel greatly refreshed
23by it, though I da had to sleep sitting up.
24
25 My love to you all.
26
27 I don't know if I told you my friend wants me to come to England in
28December to see if the doctors there can do anything. But I doubt
29whether I shall be strong enough to sail. I would like to come to
30Graaff Reinet & see you all once more before I go, if I do go. If I
31get a little better I want so much to write a little letter explaining
32to the dear women of your union why I can't join with them great as is
33my sympathy with all women fighting to do away with any sex
34disabilities I feel so much that it is just the poorest & most
35helpless women we have to fight for: not only for ourselves. In this
36country native & coloured women suffer much more from the mere fact
37they are women than we do. We who are well educated, or are rich can
38do much better with out the legal recognition of our state.
39
40 I can't write more now but will try to write the letter.
41
42 Olive
43
44
45