[The Story of an African Farm by (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner]@TWC D-Link book
The Story of an African Farm

CHAPTER 2
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Above are the organs divided by delicate tissues; below are the intestines artistically curved in a spiral form, and each tier covered by a delicate network of blood-vessels standing out red against the faint blue background.

Each branch of the blood-vessels is comprised of a trunk, bifurcating and rebifurcating into the most delicate, hair-like threads, symmetrically arranged.

We are struck with its singular beauty.

And, moreover--and here we drop from our kneeling into a sitting posture--this also we remark: of that same exact shape and outline is our thorn-tree seen against the sky in mid-winter: of that shape also is delicate metallic tracery between our rocks; in that exact path does our water flow when without a furrow we lead it from the dam; so shaped are the antlers of the horned beetle.
How are these things related that such deep union should exist between them all?
Is it chance?
Or, are they not all the fine branches of one trunk, whose sap flows through us all?
That would explain it.

We nod over the gander's inside.
This thing we call existence; is it not a something which has its roots far down below in the dark, and its branches stretching out into the immensity above, which we among the branches cannot see?
Not a chance jungle; a living thing, a One.


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