THE STORY OF AN AFRICAN FARM
by (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
Preface.
I have to thank cordially the public and my critics for the reception
they have given this little book.
Dealing with a subject that is far removed from the round of English
daily life, it of necessity lacks the charm that hangs about the ideal
representation of familiar things, and its reception has therefore been
the more kindly.
A word of explanation is necessary. Two strangers appear on the scene,
and some have fancied that in the second they have again the first, who
returns in a new guise. Why this should be we cannot tell; unless there
is a feeling that a man should not appear upon the scene, and then
disappear, leaving behind him no more substantial trace than a mere
book; that he should return later on as husband or lover, to fill some
more important part than that of the mere stimulator of thought.
Human life may be painted according to two methods. There is the stage
method. According to that each character is duly marshalled at first,
and ticketed; we know with an immutable certainty that at the right
crises each one will reappear and act his part, and, when the curtain
falls, all will stand before it bowing. There is a sense of satisfaction
in this, and of completeness. But there is another method--the method of
the life we all lead. Here nothing can be prophesied. There is a strange
coming and going of feet. Men appear, act and re-act upon each other,
and pass away. When the crisis comes the man who would fit it does not
return. When the curtain falls no one is ready. When the footlights are
brightest they are blown out; and what the name of the play is no one
knows. If there sits a spectator who knows, he sits so high that the
players in the gaslight cannot hear his breathing. Life may be painted
according to either method; but the methods are different. The canons of
criticism that bear upon the one cut cruelly upon the other.
It has been suggested by a kind critic that he would better have liked
the little book if it had been a history of wild adventure; of cattle
driven into inaccessible kranzes by Bushmen; “of encounters with
ravening lions, and hair-breadth escapes.” This could not be. Such works
are best written in Piccadilly or in the Strand: there the gifts of the
creative imagination, untrammelled by contact with any fact, may spread
their wings.
But, should one sit down to paint the scenes among which he has grown,
he will find that the facts creep in upon him. Those brilliant phases
and shapes which the imagination sees in far-off lands are not for him
to portray. Sadly he must squeeze the colour from his brush, and dip it
into the gray pigments around him. He must paint what lies before him.
R. Iron.
“We must see the first images which the external world casts
upon the dark mirror of his mind; or must hear the first
words which awaken the sleeping powers of thought, and stand
by his earliest efforts, if we would understand the
prejudices, the habits, and the passions that will rule his
life. The entire man is, so to speak, to be found in the
cradle of the child.”
Alexis de Tocqueville.
Glossary.
Several Dutch and Colonial words occurring in this work, the subjoined
Glossary is given, explaining the principal.
Alle wereld!--Gosh!
Aasvogels--Vultures.
Benauwdheid--Indigestion.
Brakje--A little cur of low degree.
Bultong--Dried meat.
Coop--Hide and Seek.
Inspan--To harness.
Kapje--A sun-bonnet.
Karoo--The wide sandy plains in some parts of South Africa.
Karoo-bushes--The bushes that take the place of grass on these plains.
Kartel--The wooden-bed fastened in an ox-wagon.
Kloof--A ravine.
Kopje--A small hillock, or “little head.”
Kraal--The space surrounded by a stone wall or hedged with thorn branches,
into which sheep or cattle are driven at night.
Mealies--Indian corn.
Meerkat--A small weazel-like animal.
Meiboss--Preserved and dried apricots.
Nachtmaal--The Lord’s Supper.
Oom--Uncle.
Outspan--To unharness, or a place in the field where one unharnesses.
Pap--Porridge.
Predikant--Parson.
Riem--Leather rope.
Sarsarties--Food.
Sleg--Bad.
Sloot--A dry watercourse.
Spook--To haunt, a ghost.
Stamp-block--A wooden block, hollowed out, in which mealies are placed to
be pounded before being cooked.
Stoep--Porch.
Tant or Tante--Aunt.
Upsitting--In Boer courtship the man and girl are supposed to sit up
together the whole night.
Veld--Open country.
Velschoen--Shoes of undressed leather.
Vrijer--Available man.
Contents.
Part I.