Читать книгу Thoughts on South Africa онлайн

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It is this "so much" for which the South African yearns when he leaves his native land. The lane, the pond, the cottage with roses climbing over the porch, the old woman going down the lane in her red cloak driving her cow, the parks with the boards of warning, the hill with the church and ruin beyond, oppress and suffocate us. Amid the arts of Florence and Venice, the civilizations of London and Paris, in crowded drawing-rooms, surrounded by all that wealth, culture and human fellowship can give, there comes back to us the remembrance of still Karoo nights, when we stood alone under the stars, and of wide breezy plains, where we rode; and we return. Europe cannot satisfy us.

The sharp business man who makes money at the "Fields" and goes to end his life in Europe, comes back at the end of two years. You ask him why he returned. He looks at you in a curious way, and, with his head aside, replies meditatively: "There's no room there, you know. It's so free here." Neither can you entrap him into further explanations; South Africa is like a great fascinating woman; those who see her for the first time wonder at the power she exercises, and those who come close to her fall under it and never leave her for anything smaller, because she liberates them.