Africa is less a wilderness than a repository of primary and fundamental values, and less a barbaric land than an unfamiliar voice
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that Africa holds deep values and insights that may be overlooked or misunderstood.
Beryl Markham suggests that Africa should not merely be viewed as a wild or untamed land, but rather as a rich source of essential principles and ideas that are fundamental to humanity. She critiques the common perception that associates Africa with barbarism, instead highlighting its unique perspectives that may be unfamiliar but are worthy of respect and consideration.
In practice
In an educational seminar about cultural diversity, this quote can prompt discussions on the values of different societies.
To an eagle or to an owl or to a rabbit, man must seem a masterful and yet a forlorn animal; he has but two friends. In his almost universal unpopularity he points out, with pride, that these two are the dog and the horse. He believes, with an innocence peculiar to himself, that they are equally proud of this alleged confraternity. He says, 'Look at my two noble friends -- they are dumb, but they are loyal.' I have for years suspected that they are only tolerant.
Harmony comes gradually to a pilot and his plane. The wing does not want so much to fly true as to tug at the hands that guide it; the ship would rather hunt the wind than lay her nose to the horizon far ahead. She has a derelict quality in her character; she toys with freedom and hints at liberation, but yields her own desires gently.
What a child does not know and does not want to know of race and color and class, he learns soon enough as he grows to see each man flipped inexorably into some predestined groove like a penny or a sovereign in a banker's rack.
Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer's paradise, a hunter's Valhalla, an escapist's Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just 'home'. It is all these things but one thing - it is never dull.
For all professional pilots there exists a kind of guild, without charter and without by-laws. it demands no requirements for inclusion save an understanding of the wind, the compass, the rudder, and fair fellowship.
Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. The cloud clears as you enter it. I have learned this, but like everyone, I learned it late.
Spirit is never without matter, matter is never without spirit.
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, She lives whom we call dead.
It usually takes a hundred years to make a law, and then, after it has done its work; it usually takes a hundred years to get rid of it.
All men were made by the Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers.
Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories, knowing as their own dusk falls that they will only be remembered for remembering someone else.
Come, Friend, you too must die. Why moan about it so? Even Patroclus died, a far, far better man than you. And look, you see how handsome and powerful I am? The son of a great man, the mother who gave me life-- A deathless goddess. But even for me, I tell you, Death and the strong force of fate are waiting. There will come a dawn or sunset or high noon When a man will take my life in battle too-- flinging a spear perhaps Or whipping a deadly arrow off his bow.
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