Books: The Lioness

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What sundered the feudal serenity of the black-white relationship in Africa? Not an upper white caste, insists the baroness, but a lower white class: "We should have looked at the quality of those who settled in Africa rather than get as many whites settled as possible. We should have had an elite which could have educated the black lower class."

Furiously, gallantly and without illusions, the baroness has long been at work on a projected 2,000-page Arabian Nights fantasia of a novel to be called Albondocani: "I hope to finish it just before I die, but only just" Recalling the meaning of her name, Isak Dinesen feels she has had the gift of laughter, and something more, "the pure joy of living, a sort of triumph simply because one exists." For the rest, she is content to quote the poet Landor:

Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art; I warmed both hands before the Fire of Life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.