"Out of Africa"

[fiefoe]

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• The people of the farm did not have it in them to remain silent where a cow and calf were being discussed... The old men seized one another by the arm and shook out their last asthmatic breath in praise or condemnation of the cow.
• It was and is becoming, I thought, that Emmanuelson should have sought refuge with the Masai, and that they should have received him. The true aristocracy and the true proletariat of the world are both in understanding with tragedy. To them it is the fundamental principle of God, and the key, - the minor key, - to existence. They differ in this way from the bourgeoisie of all classes, who deny tragedy.
• Farah's attitude to the Natives of the country was a picturesque thing. No more than the attire and countenance of the Masai warriors, had it been made yesterday, or the day before; it was the product of many centuries. The forces which had built it up had constructed great buildings in stone as well, but they had crumbled into dust a long time ago.
• It was a curious thing to see how, as (the Somali girl) grew up, the maidens took her in hand, and scrupulously formed her into a young virgin comme il faut.
• (On maidenly prudery:) Behind the eternal principle of refutation, there was much generosity; behind the pedantry what risibility, and contempt of death. These daughters of a fighting race went through their ceremonial of primness as through a great graceful war-dance; butter would not melt in their mouth, neither would they rest till they had drunk the heart's blood of their adversary. ... Not otherwise did the Scandinavian women of the days of my Mothers, and Grandmothers, — the civilized slaves of good-natured barbarians.
• My young Somali women were gone from the face of it, not a bubble showing where they had sunk.
• When he was a tiny infant, swaddled like an acorn, with hardly any body to his dark round head, he sat up erect, and looked you straight in the face: it was like holding a small falcon on your hand

__ An open-air dance in the day suffers from lack of limitation. The stage is far too big for it, — where does it begin and where end?.. The fire made of the dancing place a stage of the first order, it collected all the colours and movements within it into a unity.
__ The ancient mango trees have a dark-green foliage and give benignant shade; they create a circular pool of black coolness underneath them. More than any other tree that I know of, they suggest a place to meet in, .. they are as sociable as the village-wells.. the ground round their trunks is covered with hen-coops, and piled up water-melons.

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