Читать книгу Thoughts on South Africa онлайн

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Both forms of knowledge are essential to the true understanding of a country. And if it may be said that no man understands a thing till he has coldly criticized it, it may also be said that no man knows a thing till he has loved it.

If the perfunctory views in the following pages have any claim to interest or attention, it rises not in any degree from any special aptitude in the writer for discussing the questions dealt with—for none such exists; but from the chance coincidence of fortunate circumstances, which give to a man born and growing up in a land which he loves, as a man loves one land once, and who returns to it after many years' absence in other lands, a somewhat two-fold position. Half he is outsider; half he is lover. It is only the thought that this position may possibly yield in itself a certain slight interest, which overcomes that natural diffidence which a man feels in dealing with subjects so vital, complex, and large that the opinion of any individual upon them must be of necessity tentative and limited in value, and stand in need of large correction.