Emma Goldman - "Marriage and Love"

Mrs. Humphry Ward - "Marriage a la mode"

Catherine Parr Traill - "Canadian Crusoes"

Cyrus Townsend Brady - "The Eagle of the Empire"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Coningsby

B >> Benjamin Disraeli >> Coningsby




There are few conjunctures in life of a more startling interest, than to
meet the pretty little girl that we have gambolled with in our boyhood,
and to find her changed in the lapse of a very few years, which in some
instances may not have brought a corresponding alteration in our own
appearance, into a beautiful woman. Something of this flitted over
Coningsby's mind, as he bowed, a little agitated from his surprise, to
Lady Theresa Sydney. All that he remembered had prepared him for beauty;
but not for the degree or character of beauty that he met. It was a rich,
sweet face, with blue eyes and dark lashes, and a nose that we have no
epithet in English to describe, but which charmed in Roxalana. Her brown
hair fell over her white and well turned shoulders in long and luxuriant
tresses. One has met something as brilliant and dainty in a medallion of
old Sevres, or amid the terraces and gardens of Watteau.

Perhaps Lady Theresa, too, might have welcomed him with more freedom had
his appearance also more accorded with the image which he had left behind.
Coningsby was a boy then, as we described him in our first chapter. Though
only nineteen now, he had attained his full stature, which was above the
middle height, and time had fulfilled that promise of symmetry in his
figure, and grace in his mien, then so largely intimated. Time, too, which
had not yet robbed his countenance of any of its physical beauty, had
strongly developed the intellectual charm by which it had ever been
distinguished. As he bowed lowly before the Duchess and her daughter, it
would have been difficult to imagine a youth of a mien more prepossessing
and a manner more finished.

A manner that was spontaneous; nature's pure gift, the reflex of his
feeling. No artifice prompted that profound and polished homage. Not one
of those influences, the aggregate of whose sway produces, as they tell
us, the finished gentleman, had ever exercised its beneficent power on our
orphan, and not rarely forlorn, Coningsby. No clever and refined woman,
with her quick perception, and nice criticism that never offends our self-
love, had ever given him that education that is more precious than
Universities. The mild suggestions of a sister, the gentle raillery of
some laughing cousin, are also advantages not always appreciated at the
time, but which boys, when they have become men, often think over with
gratitude, and a little remorse at the ungracious spirit in which they
were received. Not even the dancing-master had afforded his mechanical aid
to Coningsby, who, like all Eton boys of his generation, viewed that
professor of accomplishments with frank repugnance. But even in the
boisterous life of school, Coningsby, though his style was free and
flowing, was always well-bred. His spirit recoiled from that gross
familiarity that is the characteristic of modern manners, and which would
destroy all forms and ceremonies merely because they curb and control
their own coarse convenience and ill-disguised selfishness. To women,
however, Coningsby instinctively bowed, as to beings set apart for
reverence and delicate treatment. Little as his experience was of them,
his spirit had been fed with chivalrous fancies, and he entertained for
them all the ideal devotion of a Surrey or a Sydney. Instructed, if not
learned, as books and thought had already made him in men, he could not
conceive that there were any other women in the world than fair Geraldines
and Countesses of Pembroke.

There was not a country-house in England that had so completely the air of
habitual residence as Beaumanoir. It is a charming trait, and very rare.
In many great mansions everything is as stiff, formal, and tedious, as if
your host were a Spanish grandee in the days of the Inquisition. No ease,
no resources; the passing life seems a solemn spectacle in which you play
a part. How delightful was the morning room at Beaumanoir; from which
gentlemen were not excluded with that assumed suspicion that they can
never enter it but for felonious purposes. Such a profusion of flowers!
Such a multitude of books! Such a various prodigality of writing
materials! So many easy chairs too, of so many shapes; each in itself a
comfortable home; yet nothing crowded. Woman alone can organise a drawing-
room; man succeeds sometimes in a library. And the ladies' work! How
graceful they look bending over their embroidery frames, consulting over
the arrangement of a group, or the colour of a flower. The panniers and
fanciful baskets, overflowing with variegated worsted, are gay and full of
pleasure to the eye, and give an air of elegant business that is
vivifying. Even the sight of employment interests.

Then the morning costume of English women is itself a beautiful work of
art. At this period of the day they can find no rivals in other climes.
The brilliant complexions of the daughters of the north dazzle in
daylight; the illumined saloon levels all distinctions. One should see
them in their well-fashioned muslin dresses. What matrons, and what
maidens! Full of graceful dignity, fresher than the morn! And the married
beauty in her little lace cap. Ah, she is a coquette! A charming character
at all times; in a country-house an invaluable one.

A coquette is a being who wishes to please. Amiable being! If you do not
like her, you will have no difficulty in finding a female companion of a
different mood. Alas! coquettes are but too rare. 'Tis a career that
requires great abilities, infinite pains, a gay and airy spirit. 'Tis the
coquette that provides all amusement; suggests the riding party, plans the
picnic, gives and guesses charades, acts them. She is the stirring element
amid the heavy congeries of social atoms; the soul of the house, the salt
of the banquet. Let any one pass a very agreeable week, or it may be ten
days, under any roof, and analyse the cause of his satisfaction, and one
might safely make a gentle wager that his solution would present him with
the frolic phantom of a coquette.

'It is impossible that Mr. Coningsby can remember me!' said a clear voice;
and he looked round, and was greeted by a pair of sparkling eyes and the
gayest smile in the world.

It was Lady Everingham, the Duke's married daughter.




CHAPTER III.


'And you walked here!' said Lady Everingham to Coningsby, when the stir of
arranging themselves at dinner had subsided. 'Only think, papa, Mr.
Coningsby walked here! I also am a great walker.'

'I had heard much of the forest,' said Coningsby.

'Which I am sure did not disappoint you,' said the Duke.

'But forests without adventures!' said Lady Everingham, a little shrugging
her pretty shoulders.

'But I had an adventure,' said Coningsby.

'Oh! tell it us by all means!' said the Lady, with great animation.
'Adventures are my weakness. I have had more adventures than any one. Have
I not had, Augustus?' she added, addressing her husband.

'But you make everything out to be an adventure, Isabel,' said Lord
Everingham. I dare say that Mr. Coningsby's was more substantial.' And
looking at our young friend, he invited him to inform them.

'I met a most extraordinary man,' said Coningsby.

'It should have been a heroine,' exclaimed Lady Everingham.

'Do you know anybody in this neighbourhood who rides the finest Arab in
the world?' asked Coningsby. 'She is called "the Daughter of the Star,"
and was given to her rider by the Pacha of Egypt.'

'This is really an adventure,' said Lady Everingham, interested.

'The Daughter of the Star!' said Lady Theresa. 'What a pretty name! Percy
has a horse called "Sunbeam."'

'A fine Arab, the finest in the world!' said the Duke, who was fond of
horse. 'Who can it be?'

'Can you throw any light on this, Mr. Lyle?' asked the Duchess of a young
man who sat next her.

He was a neighbour who had joined their dinner-party, Eustace Lyle, a
Roman Catholic, and the richest commoner in the county; for he had
succeeded to a great estate early in his minority, which had only this
year terminated.

'I certainly do not know the horse,' said Mr. Lyle; 'but if Mr. Coningsby
would describe the rider, perhaps--'

'He is a man something under thirty,' said Coningsby, 'pale, with dark
hair. We met in a sort of forest-inn during a storm. A most singular man!
Indeed, I never met any one who seemed to me so clever, or to say such
remarkable things.'

'He must have been the spirit of the storm,' said Lady Everingham.

'Charles Verney has a great deal of dark hair,' said Lady Theresa. 'But
then he is anything but pale, and his eyes are blue.'

'And certainly he keeps his wonderful things for your ear, Theresa,' said
her sister.

'I wish that Mr. Coningsby would tell us some of the wonderful things he
said,' said the Duchess, smiling.

'Take a glass of wine first with my mother, Coningsby,' said Henry Sydney,
who had just finished helping them all to fish.

Coningsby had too much tact to be entrapped into a long story. He already
regretted that he had been betrayed into any allusion to the stranger. He
had a wild, fanciful notion, that their meeting ought to have been
preserved as a sacred secret. But he had been impelled to refer to it in
the first instance by the chance observation of Lady Everingham; and he
had pursued his remark from the hope that the conversation might have led
to the discovery of the unknown. When he found that his inquiry in this
respect was unsuccessful, he was willing to turn the conversation. In
reply to the Duchess, then, he generally described the talk of the
stranger as full of lively anecdote and epigrammatic views of life; and
gave them, for example, a saying of an illustrious foreign Prince, which
was quite new and pointed, and which Coningsby told well. This led to a
new train of discourse. The Duke also knew this illustrious foreign
Prince, and told another story of him; and Lord Everingham had played
whist with this illustrious foreign Prince often at the Travellers', and
this led to a third story; none of them too long. Then Lady Everingham
came in again, and sparkled agreeably. She, indeed, sustained throughout
dinner the principal weight of the conversation; but, as she asked
questions of everybody, all seemed to contribute. Even the voice of Mr.
Lyle, who was rather bashful, was occasionally heard in reply. Coningsby,
who had at first unintentionally taken a more leading part than he aspired
to, would have retired into the background for the rest of the dinner, but
Lady Everingham continually signalled him out for her questions, and as
she sat opposite to him, he seemed the person to whom they were
principally addressed.

At length the ladies rose to retire. A very great personage in a foreign,
but not remote country, once mentioned to the writer of these pages, that
he ascribed the superiority of the English in political life, in their
conduct of public business and practical views of affairs, in a great
measure to 'that little half-hour' that separates, after dinner, the dark
from the fair sex. The writer humbly submitted, that if the period of
disjunction were strictly limited to a 'little half-hour,' its salutary
consequences for both sexes need not be disputed, but that in England the
'little half-hour' was too apt to swell into a term of far more awful
character and duration. Lady Everingham was a disciple of the 'very little
half-hour' school; for, as she gaily followed her mother, she said to
Coningsby, whose gracious lot it was to usher them from the apartment:

'Pray do not be too long at the Board of Guardians to-day.'

These were prophetic words; for no sooner were they all again seated, than
the Duke, filling his glass and pushing the claret to Coningsby, observed,

'I suppose Lord Monmouth does not trouble himself much about the New Poor
Law?'

'Hardly,' said Coningsby. 'My grandfather's frequent absence from England,
which his health, I believe, renders quite necessary, deprives him of the
advantage of personal observation on a subject, than which I can myself
conceive none more deeply interesting.'

'I am glad to hear you say so,' said the Duke, 'and it does you great
credit, and Henry too, whose attention, I observe, is directed very much
to these subjects. In my time, the young men did not think so much of such
things, and we suffer consequently. By the bye, Everingham, you, who are a
Chairman of a Board of Guardians, can give me some information. Supposing
a case of out-door relief--'

'I could not suppose anything so absurd,' said the son-in-law.

'Well,' rejoined the Duke, 'I know your views on that subject, and it
certainly is a question on which there is a good deal to be said. But
would you under any circumstances give relief out of the Union, even if
the parish were to save a considerable sum?'

'I wish I knew the Union where such a system was followed,' said Lord
Everingham; and his Grace seemed to tremble under his son-in-law's glance.

The Duke had a good heart, and not a bad head. If he had not made in his
youth so many Latin and English verses, he might have acquired
considerable information, for he had a natural love of letters, though his
pack were the pride of England, his barrel seldom missed, and his fortune
on the turf, where he never betted, was a proverb. He was good, and he
wished to do good; but his views were confused from want of knowledge, and
his conduct often inconsistent because a sense of duty made him
immediately active; and he often acquired in the consequent experience a
conviction exactly contrary to that which had prompted his activity.

His Grace had been a great patron and a zealous administrator of the New
Poor Law. He had been persuaded that it would elevate the condition of the
labouring class. His son-in-law, Lord Everingham, who was a Whig, and a
clearheaded, cold-blooded man, looked upon the New Poor Law as another
Magna Charta. Lord Everingham was completely master of the subject. He was
himself the Chairman of one of the most considerable Unions of the
kingdom. The Duke, if he ever had a misgiving, had no chance in argument
with his son-in-law. Lord Everingham overwhelmed him with quotations from
Commissioners' rules and Sub-commissioners' reports, statistical tables,
and references to dietaries. Sometimes with a strong case, the Duke
struggled to make a fight; but Lord Everingham, when he was at fault for a
reply, which was very rare, upbraided his father-in-law with the abuses of
the old system, and frightened him with visions of rates exceeding
rentals.

Of late, however, a considerable change had taken place in the Duke's
feelings on this great question. His son Henry entertained strong opinions
upon it, and had combated his father with all the fervour of a young
votary. A victory over his Grace, indeed, was not very difficult. His
natural impulse would have enlisted him on the side, if not of opposition
to the new system, at least of critical suspicion of its spirit and
provisions. It was only the statistics and sharp acuteness of his son-in-
law that had, indeed, ever kept him to his colours. Lord Henry would not
listen to statistics, dietary tables, Commissioners' rides, Sub-
commissioners' reports. He went far higher than his father; far deeper
than his brother-in-law. He represented to the Duke that the order of the
peasantry was as ancient, legal, and recognised an order as the order of
the nobility; that it had distinct rights and privileges, though for
centuries they had been invaded and violated, and permitted to fall into
desuetude. He impressed upon the Duke that the parochial constitution of
this country was more important than its political constitution; that it
was more ancient, more universal in its influence; and that this parochial
constitution had already been shaken to its centre by the New Poor Law. He
assured his father that it would never be well for England until this
order of the peasantry was restored to its pristine condition; not merely
in physical comfort, for that must vary according to the economical
circumstances of the time, like that of every class; but to its condition
in all those moral attributes which make a recognised rank in a nation;
and which, in a great degree, are independent of economics, manners,
customs, ceremonies, rights, and privileges.

'Henry thinks,' said Lord Everingham, 'that the people are to be fed by
dancing round a May-pole.'

'But will the people be more fed because they do not dance round a May-
pole?' urged Lord Henry.

'Obsolete customs!' said Lord Everingham.

'And why should dancing round a May-pole be more obsolete than holding a
Chapter of the Garter?' asked Lord Henry.

The Duke, who was a blue ribbon, felt this a home thrust. 'I must say,'
said his Grace, 'that I for one deeply regret that our popular customs
have been permitted to fall so into desuetude.'

'The Spirit of the Age is against such things,' said Lord Everingham.

'And what is the Spirit of the Age?' asked Coningsby.

'The Spirit of Utility,' said Lord Everingham.

'And you think then that ceremony is not useful?' urged Coningsby, mildly.

'It depends upon circumstances,' said Lord Everingham. 'There are some
ceremonies, no doubt, that are very proper, and of course very useful. But
the best thing we can do for the labouring classes is to provide them with
work.'

'But what do you mean by the labouring classes, Everingham?' asked Lord
Henry. 'Lawyers are a labouring class, for instance, and by the bye
sufficiently provided with work. But would you approve of Westminster Hall
being denuded of all its ceremonies?'

'And the long vacation being abolished?' added Coningsby.

'Theresa brings me terrible accounts of the sufferings of the poor about
us,' said the Duke, shaking his head.

'Women think everything to be suffering!' said Lord Everingham.

'How do you find them about you, Mr. Lyle?' continued the Duke.

'I have revived the monastic customs at St. Genevieve,' said the young
man, blushing. 'There is an almsgiving twice a-week.'

'I am sure I wish I could see the labouring classes happy,' said the Duke.

'Oh! pray do not use, my dear father, that phrase, the labouring classes!'
said Lord Henry. 'What do you think, Coningsby, the other day we had a
meeting in this neighbourhood to vote an agricultural petition that was to
comprise all classes. I went with my father, and I was made chairman of
the committee to draw up the petition. Of course, I described it as the
petition of the nobility, clergy, gentry, yeomanry, and peasantry of the
county of ----; and, could you believe it, they struck out _peasantry_ as
a word no longer used, and inserted _labourers_.'

'What can it signify,' said Lord Everingham, 'whether a man be called a
labourer or a peasant?'

'And what can it signify,' said his brother-in-law, 'whether a man be
called Mr. Howard or Lord Everingham?'

They were the most affectionate family under this roof of Beaumanoir, and
of all members of it, Lord Henry the sweetest tempered, and yet it was
astonishing what sharp skirmishes every day arose between him and his
brother-in-law, during that 'little half-hour' that forms so happily the
political character of the nation. The Duke, who from experience felt that
a guerilla movement was impending, asked his guests whether they would
take any more claret; and on their signifying their dissent, moved an
adjournment to the ladies.

They joined the ladies in the music-room. Coningsby, not experienced in
feminine society, and who found a little difficulty from want of practice
in maintaining conversation, though he was desirous of succeeding, was
delighted with Lady Everingham, who, instead of requiring to be amused,
amused him; and suggested so many subjects, and glanced at so many topics,
that there never was that cold, awkward pause, so common with sullen
spirits and barren brains. Lady Everingham thoroughly understood the art
of conversation, which, indeed, consists of the exercise of two fine
qualities. You must originate, and you must sympathise; you must possess
at the same time the habit of communicating and the habit of listening.
The union is rather rare, but irresistible.

Lady Everingham was not a celebrated beauty, but she was something
infinitely more delightful, a captivating woman. There were combined, in
her, qualities not commonly met together, great vivacity of mind with
great grace of manner. Her words sparkled and her movements charmed. There
was, indeed, in all she said and did, that congruity that indicates a
complete and harmonious organisation. It was the same just proportion
which characterised her form: a shape slight and undulating with grace;
the most beautifully shaped ear; a small, soft hand; a foot that would
have fitted the glass slipper; and which, by the bye, she lost no
opportunity of displaying; and she was right, for it was a model.

Then there was music. Lady Theresa sang like a seraph: a rich voice, a
grand style. And her sister could support her with grace and sweetness.
And they did not sing too much. The Duke took up a review, and looked at
Rigby's last slashing article. The country seemed ruined, but it appeared
that the Whigs were still worse off than the Tories. The assassins had
committed suicide. This poetical justice is pleasing. Lord Everingham,
lounging in an easy chair, perused with great satisfaction his _Morning
Chronicle_, which contained a cutting reply to Mr. Rigby's article, not
quite so 'slashing' as the Right Honourable scribe's manifesto, but with
some searching mockery, that became the subject and the subject-monger.

Mr. Lyle seated himself by the Duchess, and encouraged by her amenity, and
speaking in whispers, became animated and agreeable, occasionally patting
the lap-dog. Coningsby stood by the singers, or talked with them when the
music had ceased: and Henry Sydney looked over a volume of Strutt's
_Sports and Pastimes_, occasionally, without taking his eyes off the
volume, calling the attention of his friends to his discoveries.

Mr. Lyle rose to depart, for he had some miles to return; he came forward
with some hesitation, to hope that Coningsby would visit his bloodhounds,
which Lord Henry had told him Coningsby had expressed a wish to do. Lady
Everingham remarked that she had not been at St. Genevieve since she was a
girl, and it appeared Lady Theresa had never visited it. Lady Everingham
proposed that they should all ride over on the morrow, and she appealed to
her husband for his approbation, instantly given, for though she loved
admiration, and he apparently was an iceberg, they were really devoted to
each other. Then there was a consultation as to their arrangements. The
Duchess would drive over in her pony chair with Theresa. The Duke, as
usual, had affairs that would occupy him. The rest were to ride. It was a
happy suggestion, all anticipated pleasure; and the evening terminated
with the prospect of what Lady Everingham called an adventure.

The ladies themselves soon withdrew; the gentlemen lingered for a while;
the Duke took up his candle, and bid his guests good night; Lord
Everingham drank a glass of Seltzer water, nodded, and vanished. Lord
Henry and his friend sat up talking over the past. They were too young to
call them old times; and yet what a life seemed to have elapsed since they
had quitted Eton, dear old Eton! Their boyish feelings, and still latent
boyish character, developed with their reminiscences.

'Do you remember Bucknall? Which Bucknall? The eldest: I saw him the other
day at Nottingham; he is in the Rifles. Do you remember that day at Sirly
Hall, that Paulet had that row with Dickinson? Did you like Dickinson?
Hum! Paulet was a good fellow. I tell you who was a good fellow, Paulet's
little cousin. What! Augustus Le Grange? Oh! I liked Augustus Le Grange. I
wonder where Buckhurst is? I had a letter from him the other day. He has
gone with his uncle to Paris. We shall find him at Cambridge in October. I
suppose you know Millbank has gone to Oriel. Has he, though! I wonder who
will have our room at Cookesley's? Cookesley was a good fellow! Oh,
capital! How well he behaved when there was that row about our going out
with the hounds? Do you remember Vere's face? It makes me laugh now when I
think of it. I tell you who was a good fellow, Kangaroo Gray; I liked him.
I don't know any fellow who sang a better song!'

'By the bye,' said Coningsby, 'what sort of fellow is Eustace Lyle? I
rather liked his look.'

'Oh! I will tell you all about him,' said Lord Henry. 'He is a great ally
of mine, and I think you will like him very much. It is a Roman Catholic
family, about the oldest we have in the county, and the wealthiest. You
see, Lyle's father was the most violent ultra Whig, and so were all
Eustace's guardians; but the moment he came of age, he announced that he
should not mix himself up with either of the parties in the county, and
that his tenantry might act exactly as they thought fit. My father thinks,
of course, that Lyle is a Conservative, and that he only waits the
occasion to come forward; but he is quite wrong. I know Lyle well, and he
speaks to me without disguise. You see 'tis an old Cavalier family, and
Lyle has all the opinions and feelings of his race. He will not ally
himself with anti-monarchists, and democrats, and infidels, and
sectarians; at the same time, why should he support a party who pretend to
oppose these, but who never lose an opportunity of insulting his religion,
and would deprive him, if possible, of the advantages of the very
institutions which his family assisted in establishing?'

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