Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton — Read

Jarvis thought he would go to the house again. It was foolish to go through the kitchen, past the stain on the floor, up the stairs that led to the bedroom. But that was the way he went. He went not to the bedroom but to the study that was so full of books. And he went round the books again, past the case full of Abraham Lincoln, and the case full of South Africa, and the case full of Afrikaners, and the case full of religion and sociology and crime and criminals, and the case full of poetry and novels and Shakespeare. He looked at the pictures of the Christ crucified, and Abraham Lincoln, and Vergelegen, and the willows in the winter. He sat down at the table, where lay the invitations to do this and that, and the invitations to come to this and that, and the paper on what was permissible and what was not permissible in South Africa.

He opened the drawers of his son's table, and here were accounts, and here were papers and envelopes, and here were pens and pencils, and here were old cheques stamped and returned by the bank. And here in a deep drawer were typewritten articles, each neatly pinned together, and placed one on top of the other. Here was an article on "The Need for Social Centres," and one on "Birds of a Parkwold Garden," and another on "India and South Africa. " And here was one called "Private Essay on the Evolution of a South African," and this he took out to read: