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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner: Mary Sauer MSC 26/2.11.125
ArchiveNational Library of South Africa, Special Collections, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter DateSaturday June 1900
Address From
Address To
Who ToMary Sauer nee Cloete
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. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand as 2 July; however, content suggests it is related to Schreiner's attendance at the Cape Town women's peace congress in June 1902, and thus its dating.
1 Saturday
2
3 Dear Mary
4
5 I will come down on the train that leaves Beaufort on Tuesday
6^Wednesday^ afternoon if I possibly can, am feeling as well as at
7present. Please try to get me a warm sunny room in the White House
8with fire place if possible. I shall leave again on Saturday I must be
9in town, can't go to the suburbs. If you can't get me a room in the
10White House try to get me a warm room somewhere else in town. I don't
11want to come & then not be able to go to the meeting. If I can't come
12I'll send a letter. I'd like to come because it's necessary to get all
13the English women we can. We must make Miss Greene speak. You didn't
14tell me anything I didn't know in my ^your^ letter. I know that Hofmeyr
15has been in correspondence with Sievewright for a long time! I am not
16going to trouble myself further about these unhappy politicians who
17sit quaking & pulling wires; the people & especially the women must
18act. It was ten years from the time the Bostonians threw the tea into
19the sea till England recognized the Independence of America; that was
20not long!
21
22 I will write from Beaufort. ?I Cron will be glad to hear the Ministry
23is out. He is always writing that it is the inaction of the ministry
24in this country which ties their hands in England If we stupid women
25had been running the country for the last nine months we couldn't have
26made a greater mess of things than the men have done.
27
28 You will get a wire from me on Monday.
29
30 Olive
31
Notation
Schreiner sent written addresses to some of the Volkskongresses and peace congresses and she spoke at others, as follows: Graaff-Reinet Volkskongres, April 1900 (spoke); Cape Town women's meeting, June 1900 (spoke); Somerset East peace congress, October 1900 (a letter of address); Paarl, November 1900 peace congress (a letter of address); Worcester Volkskongres, December 1900 (spoke).