How I found Livingstone : $b Travels, adventures, and discoveres in Central Africa, including an account of four months' residence with Dr. LivingstoneStanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
History
How I found Livingstone : $b Travels, adventures, and discoveres in Central Africa, including an account of four months' residence with Dr. Livingstone
Stanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Livingstone, David, 1813-1873
Another thing which specially attracted my attention was his wonderfully
retentive memory. If we remember the many years he has spent in Africa,
deprived of books, we may well think it an uncommon memory that can
recite whole poems from Byron, Burns, Tennyson, Longfellow, Whittier,
and Lowell. The reason of this may be found, perhaps, in the fact, that
he has lived all his life almost, we may say, within himself. Zimmerman,
a great student of human nature, says on this subject "The unencumbered
mind recalls all that it has read, all that pleased the eye,
and delighted the ear; and reflecting on every idea which either
observation, or experience, or discourse has produced, gains new
information by every reflection. The intellect contemplates all the
former scenes of life; views by anticipation those that are yet to come;
and blends all ideas of past and future in the actual enjoyment of the
present moment." He has lived in a world which revolved inwardly, out
of which he seldom awoke except to attend to the immediate practical
necessities of himself and people; then relapsed again into the same
happy inner world, which he must have peopled with his own friends,
relations, acquaintances, familiar readings, ideas, and associations; so
that wherever he might be, or by whatsoever he was surrounded, his own
world always possessed more attractions to his cultured mind than were
yielded by external circumstances.
The study of Dr. Livingstone would not be complete if we did not take
the religious side of his character into consideration. His religion
is not of the theoretical kind, but it is a constant, earnest, sincere
practice. It is neither demonstrative nor loud, but manifests itself
in a quiet, practical way, and is always at work. It is not aggressive,
which sometimes is troublesome, if not impertinent. In him, religion
exhibits its loveliest features; it governs his conduct not only towards
his servants, but towards the natives, the bigoted Mohammedans, and all
who come in contact with him. Without it, Livingstone, with his ardent
temperament, his enthusiasm, his high spirit and courage, must have
become uncompanionable, and a hard master. Religion has tamed him, and
made him a Christian gentleman: the crude and wilful have been refined
and subdued; religion has made him the most companionable of men and
indulgent of masters--a man whose society is pleasurable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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