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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner: Jessie Rose Innes MSC 26/2.6.1
ArchiveNational Library of South Africa, Special Collections, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date6 July 1909
Address FromDe Aar, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToJessie Rose Innes nee Dods Pringle
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the National Library of South Africa (NLSA), Cape Town, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections. A typed transcript only of this letter is available; the original cannot be traced.
1 De Aar
2 July 6th 1909
3
4 Dear Jessie
5
6 Thank you for your letter. I have written to Mr Cross about Meredith.
7I would have written to you long ago, but of late my heart has been so
8bad I've not been able to write even letters, & that seems to cut one
9off so from one's friends. I wish sometimes when I am in Cape Town you
10could be there too. That seems the only way in which we shall ever
11meet.
12
13 Did I tell you about Dots visit? She has grown such a splendid girl so
14developed & strong & beautiful in mind & character. I fancy it will be
15a little hard for her just at present to come & settle down at the
16Cape. But she will make a world & work for herself wherever she may be.
17 She is passionately devoted to her father & will throw her dear self
18into his life. I do hope she won't marry soon. I'm so glad Dorothy is
19going to have another little one. A woman's life must have beauty in
20it who has children. I find a great deal of happiness in loving the
21children of my friends.
22
23 Oh Jessie, I am so unhappy about South Africa. I can see such a dark
24future of continual regression & the oppression of the weaker races.
25And I am so broken I can't even try to do anything to help them!
26Sometimes for weeks together I can hardly dress myself or walk about;
27it is all such a battle.
28
29 Do you know anything of a Dr "Boyd" in Potchefstroom? They say he
30practises a wonderful system of curing or remedying heart disease by
31electric treatment of the nose! It seems most strange; but a friend of
32mine in England who was completely broken down, has been almost quite
33cured by it! She thought she would never do anything again, & all the
34doctors said there was no hope, & now she has written a whole novel,
35in eight months & is quite her old self again. But she is never
36allowed to get up before twelve o'clock, & does all her writing in bed.
37
38 How is the woman's movement getting on in Pretoria. We are doing
39splendidly in Cape Town Mrs Murray (Dr Murray of Kenilworth's wife) is
40now our president. Mrs F.S. Malan & Mrs Sauer are Vice-Presidents.
41
42 Good bye, dear. Write to me when the spirit moves you.
43
44 Olive
45
46 Where is Mrs Chap now? Has she any more children?
47
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49