Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5. LETTER FROM MISS MINA MURRAY TO MISS LUCY WESTENRA

9 May.

My dearest Lucy,

Forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmed with work. The life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimes trying. I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air. I have been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan's studies, and I have been practicing shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for him on the typewriter, at which also I am practicing very hard.

He and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is keeping a stenographic journal of his travels abroad. When I am with you I shall keep a diary in the same way. I don't mean one of those two-pages-to-the-week-with-Sunday-squeezed-in-a-corner diaries, but a sort of journal which I can write in whenever I feel inclined.

I do not suppose there will be much of interest to other people, but it is not intended for them. I may show it to Jonathan some day if there is in it anything worth sharing, but it is really an exercise book. I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do, interviewing and writing descriptions and trying to remember conversations. I am told that, with a little practice, one can remember all that goes on or that one hears said during a day.

However, we shall see. I will tell you of my little plans when we meet. I have just had a few hurried lines from Jonathan from Transylvania. He is well, and will be returning in about a week. I am longing to hear all his news. It must be nice to see strange countries. I wonder if we, I mean Jonathan and I, shall ever see them together. There is the ten o'clock bell ringing. Goodbye.

Your loving

Mina

Tell me all the news when you write. You have not told me anything for a long time. I hear rumours, and especially of a tall, handsome, curly-haired man.???

Comments

[David40]

For the mail travelled fast in 1893!! Harker arrived in Transylvania on May 5 and Mina already has a letter on May 9--that is faster than snail mail in modern times :) . PS--is it really possible to remember all that happens in the course of a day? I've never been able to achieve that, myself.

[David40]

Actually the letter could have been posted on May 3 or May 4 from Bistrita which is in Transylvania.

[Andrew Connell]

Still, I agree it seems pretty fast from Romania to England before 1900 - I wonder if it really was that good.

[Merowig]

Cluj/Klausenburg is as well in Transilvania.
May 2nd is therefore also possible.

Regarding traveltimes of mail:

http://www.phonebookoftheworld.com/thurnandtaxis.htm
"by the end of the I8th century it took about 40 hours to travel from Bruxelles
at the same time the Thurn and Taxis managed to transport mail from Bruxelles to Vienna (4 times the distance) within 5 days only

The family used a horse relay system
horses riding a reasonable distance from
one Thurn and Taxis station to another
and once tired from the trip
the mail was passed over to another horse waiting"

As stated 18th Century: Mail Bruxelles - Vienna 5 days.
I see it therefor perfectly feasable to have 100 years later having mail from Bistrit or Cluj to London travellig within the timeframe indicated in the book - especially as you had in the 19th century trains and steamers ;)