Elspeth Huxley, in her story...
Illustration
Elspeth Huxley, in her story in The Mottled Lizard, describes her reaction to going out into the African brush.
To depart on a safari is not only a physical act, it is also a gesture. You leave behind the worries, the strains, the irritations of life among people under pressure, and enter the world of creatures who are pressed into no molds, but have only to be themselves; bonds loosen, anxiety fades, the mind closes against the world you left behind like a folding sea anemone. Enjoyment of the moment, the true delight of living, in life as it is and not as others in the past have made it, all this returns. Each breath you draw gives you pleasure, you wake with a new sense of wonder at the pure light shining on golden grasses and web on the thorn, and at the cooing of the dove. And the reason for praising the Lord all the days of your life, a reason certainly withheld from men in cities, comes to you; or at least, you understand that this is not a matter of reason, which destroys all need for praise, but a buried instinct that you are one with all creation and that creation is positive, delightful and good. Only when the chains of civilization were loosened, when you escaped for an instant from the mold, could you understand the meaning of spontaneous happiness. To live this life forever seemed the only desirable form of existence, and Alan, an initiate, at once the most fortunate, the wisest, and in a sense, the most sacred of men.
To depart on a safari is not only a physical act, it is also a gesture. You leave behind the worries, the strains, the irritations of life among people under pressure, and enter the world of creatures who are pressed into no molds, but have only to be themselves; bonds loosen, anxiety fades, the mind closes against the world you left behind like a folding sea anemone. Enjoyment of the moment, the true delight of living, in life as it is and not as others in the past have made it, all this returns. Each breath you draw gives you pleasure, you wake with a new sense of wonder at the pure light shining on golden grasses and web on the thorn, and at the cooing of the dove. And the reason for praising the Lord all the days of your life, a reason certainly withheld from men in cities, comes to you; or at least, you understand that this is not a matter of reason, which destroys all need for praise, but a buried instinct that you are one with all creation and that creation is positive, delightful and good. Only when the chains of civilization were loosened, when you escaped for an instant from the mold, could you understand the meaning of spontaneous happiness. To live this life forever seemed the only desirable form of existence, and Alan, an initiate, at once the most fortunate, the wisest, and in a sense, the most sacred of men.
