For The African Fancy Is Not The
"Aerial Fancy Flying Free," Mentioned By Our Poets, But Merely The
Aerial Of The Theatre Suspended By A Wire Or Cord.
The wire that
supports the African's fancy may be a very thin, small fact indeed,
or in some cases merely his incapacity to distinguish between
animate and inanimate objects, which give rise to his idea that
everything is possessed of a soul.
Everything has a soul to him,
and to make confusion worse confounded, he usually believes in the
existence of matter apart from its soul. But there is little he
won't believe in, if it comes to that; and I have a feeling of
thankfulness that Buddhism, Theosophy, and above all Atheism, which
chases its tail and proves that nothing can be proved, have not yet
been given the African to believe in.
The African's want of making it clear in his language whether he is
referring to an animate or inanimate thing, has landed me in many a
dilemma, and his foolishness in not having a male and female gender
in his languages amounts to a nuisance. For example, I am a most
ladylike old person and yet get constantly called "Sir." The other
day, circumstances having got beyond my control during the
afternoon, I arrived in the evening in a saturated condition at a
white settlement, and wishing to get accommodation for myself and my
men, I made my way to the factory of a firm from whose
representatives I have always received great and most courteous
help.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 462 of 705
Words from 127646 to 127904
of 194943
