Frederick Jackson Turner - "The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin"

Anonymous - "The Frog Prince and Other Stories"

Louis Joseph Vance - "The Black Bag"

Benjamin Franklin - "Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin"

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




Sidonia had exhausted all the sources of human knowledge; he was master of
the learning of every nation, of all tongues dead or living, of every
literature, Western and Oriental. He had pursued the speculations of
science to their last term, and had himself illustrated them by
observation and experiment. He had lived in all orders of society, had
viewed every combination of Nature and of Art, and had observed man under
every phasis of civilisation. He had even studied him in the wilderness.
The influence of creeds and laws, manners, customs, traditions, in all
their diversities, had been subjected to his personal scrutiny.

He brought to the study of this vast aggregate of knowledge a penetrative
intellect that, matured by long meditation, and assisted by that absolute
freedom from prejudice, which, was the compensatory possession of a man
without a country, permitted Sidonia to fathom, as it were by intuition,
the depth of questions apparently the most difficult and profound. He
possessed the rare faculty of communicating with precision ideas the most
abstruse, and in general a power of expression which arrests and satisfies
attention.

With all this knowledge, which no one knew more to prize, with boundless
wealth, and with an athletic frame, which sickness had never tried, and
which had avoided excess, Sidonia nevertheless looked upon life with a
glance rather of curiosity than content. His religion walled him out from
the pursuits of a citizen; his riches deprived him of the stimulating
anxieties of a man. He perceived himself a lone being, alike without cares
and without duties.

To a man in his position there might yet seem one unfailing source of
felicity and joy; independent of creed, independent of country,
independent even of character. He might have discovered that perpetual
spring of happiness in the sensibility of the heart. But this was a sealed
fountain to Sidonia. In his organisation there was a peculiarity, perhaps
a great deficiency. He was a man without affections. It would be harsh to
say he had no heart, for he was susceptible of deep emotions, but not for
individuals. He was capable of rebuilding a town that was burned down; of
restoring a colony that had been destroyed by some awful visitation of
Nature; of redeeming to liberty a horde of captives; and of doing these
great acts in secret; for, void of all self-love, public approbation was
worthless to him; but the individual never touched him. Woman was to him a
toy, man a machine.

The lot the most precious to man, and which a beneficent Providence has
made not the least common; to find in another heart a perfect and profound
sympathy; to unite his existence with one who could share all his joys,
soften all his sorrows, aid him in all his projects, respond to all his
fancies, counsel him in his cares, and support him in his perils; make
life charming by her charms, interesting by her intelligence, and sweet by
the vigilant variety of her tenderness; to find your life blessed by such
an influence, and to feel that your influence can bless such a life: this
lot, the most divine of divine gifts, that power and even fame can never
rival in its delights, all this Nature had denied to Sidonia.

With an imagination as fiery as his native Desert, and an intellect as
luminous as his native sky, he wanted, like that land, those softening
dews without which the soil is barren, and the sunbeam as often a
messenger of pestilence as an angel of regenerative grace.

Such a temperament, though rare, is peculiar to the East. It inspired the
founders of the great monarchies of antiquity, the prophets that the
Desert has sent forth, the Tartar chiefs who have overrun the world; it
might be observed in the great Corsican, who, like most of the inhabitants
of the Mediterranean isles, had probably Arab blood in his veins. It is a
temperament that befits conquerors and legislators, but, in ordinary times
and ordinary situations, entails on its possessor only eccentric
aberrations or profound melancholy.

The only human quality that interested Sidonia was Intellect. He cared not
whence it came; where it was to be found: creed, country, class,
character, in this respect, were alike indifferent to him. The author, the
artist, the man of science, never appealed to him in vain. Often he
anticipated their wants and wishes. He encouraged their society; was as
frank in his conversation as he was generous in his contributions; but the
instant they ceased to be authors, artists, or philosophers, and their
communications arose from anything but the intellectual quality which had
originally interested him, the moment they were rash enough to approach
intimacy and appealed to the sympathising man instead of the congenial
intelligence, he saw them no more. It was not however intellect merely in
these unquestionable shapes that commanded his notice. There was not an
adventurer in Europe with whom he was not familiar. No Minister of State
had such communication with secret agents and political spies as Sidonia.
He held relations with all the clever outcasts of the world. The catalogue
of his acquaintance in the shape of Greeks, Armenians, Moors, secret Jews,
Tartars, Gipsies, wandering Poles and Carbonari, would throw a curious
light on those subterranean agencies of which the world in general knows
so little, but which exercise so great an influence on public events. His
extensive travels, his knowledge of languages, his daring and adventurous
disposition, and his unlimited means, had given him opportunities of
becoming acquainted with these characters, in general so difficult to
trace, and of gaining their devotion. To these sources he owed that
knowledge of strange and hidden things which often startled those who
listened to him. Nor was it easy, scarcely possible, to deceive him.
Information reached him from so many, and such contrary quarters, that
with his discrimination and experience, he could almost instantly
distinguish the truth. The secret history of the world was his pastime.
His great pleasure was to contrast the hidden motive, with the public
pretext, of transactions.

One source of interest Sidonia found in his descent and in the fortunes of
his race. As firm in his adherence to the code of the great Legislator as
if the trumpet still sounded on Sinai, he might have received in the
conviction of divine favour an adequate compensation for human
persecution. But there were other and more terrestrial considerations that
made Sidonia proud of his origin, and confident in the future of his kind.
Sidonia was a great philosopher, who took comprehensive views of human
affairs, and surveyed every fact in its relative position to other facts,
the only mode of obtaining truth.

Sidonia was well aware that in the five great varieties into which
Physiology has divided the human species; to wit, the Caucasian, the
Mongolian, the Malayan, the American, the Ethiopian; the Arabian tribes
rank in the first and superior class, together, among others, with the
Saxon and the Greek. This fact alone is a source of great pride and
satisfaction to the animal Man. But Sidonia and his brethren could claim a
distinction which the Saxon and the Greek, and the rest of the Caucasian
nations, have forfeited. The Hebrew is an unmixed race. Doubtless, among
the tribes who inhabit the bosom of the Desert, progenitors alike of the
Mosaic and the Mohammedan Arabs, blood may be found as pure as that of the
descendants of the Scheik Abraham. But the Mosaic Arabs are the most
ancient, if not the only, unmixed blood that dwells in cities.

An unmixed race of a firstrate organisation are the aristocracy of Nature.
Such excellence is a positive fact; not an imagination, a ceremony, coined
by poets, blazoned by cozening heralds, but perceptible in its physical
advantages, and in the vigour of its unsullied idiosyncrasy.

In his comprehensive travels, Sidonia had visited and examined the Hebrew
communities of the world. He had found, in general, the lower orders
debased; the superior immersed in sordid pursuits; but he perceived that
the intellectual development was not impaired. This gave him hope. He was
persuaded that organisation would outlive persecution. When he reflected
on what they had endured, it was only marvellous that the race had not
disappeared. They had defied exile, massacre, spoliation, the degrading
influence of the constant pursuit of gain; they had defied Time. For
nearly three thousand years, according to Archbishop Usher, they have been
dispersed over the globe. To the unpolluted current of their Caucasian
structure, and to the segregating genius of their great Law-giver, Sidonia
ascribed the fact that they had not been long ago absorbed among those
mixed races, who presume to persecute them, but who periodically wear away
and disappear, while their victims still flourish in all the primeval
vigour of the pure Asian breed.

Shortly after his arrival in England, Sidonia repaired to the principal
Courts of Europe, that he might become personally acquainted with the
monarchs and ministers of whom he had heard so much. His position insured
him a distinguished reception; his personal qualities immediately made him
cherished. He could please; he could do more, he could astonish. He could
throw out a careless observation which would make the oldest diplomatist
start; a winged word that gained him the consideration, sometimes the
confidence, of Sovereigns. When he had fathomed the intelligence which
governs Europe, and which can only be done by personal acquaintance, he
returned to this country.

The somewhat hard and literal character of English life suited one who
shrank from sensibility, and often took refuge in sarcasm. Its masculine
vigour and active intelligence occupied and interested his mind. Sidonia,
indeed, was exactly the character who would be welcomed in our circles.
His immense wealth, his unrivalled social knowledge, his clear vigorous
intellect, the severe simplicity of his manners, frank, but neither
claiming nor brooking familiarity, and his devotion to field sports, which
was the safety-valve of his energy, were all circumstances and qualities
which the English appreciate and admire; and it may be fairly said of
Sidonia that few men were more popular, and none less understood.




CHAPTER XI.


At dinner, Coningsby was seated on the same side as Sidonia, and distant
from him. There had been, therefore, no mutual recognition. Another guest
had also arrived, Mr. Ormsby. He came straight from London, full of
rumours, had seen Tadpole, who, hearing he was on the wing for Coningsby
Castle, had taken him into a dark corner of a club, and shown him his
book, a safe piece of confidence, as Mr. Ormsby was very near-sighted. It
was, however, to be received as an undoubted fact, that all was right, and
somehow or other, before very long, there would be national demonstration
of the same. This arrival of Mr. Ormsby, and the news that he bore, gave a
political turn to the conversation after the ladies had left the room.

'Tadpole wants me to stand for Birmingham,' said Mr. Ormsby, gravely.

'You!' exclaimed Lord Monmouth, and throwing himself back in his chair, he
broke into a real, hearty laugh.

'Yes; the Conservatives mean to start two candidates; a manufacturer they
have got, and they have written up to Tadpole for a "West-end man."'

'A what?'

'A West-end man, who will make the ladies patronise their fancy articles.'

'The result of the Reform Bill, then,' said Lucian Gay, 'will be to give
Manchester a bishop, and Birmingham a dandy.'

'I begin to believe the result will be very different from what we
expected,' said Lord Monmouth.

Mr. Rigby shook his head and was going to prophesy, when Lord Eskdale, who
liked talk to be short, and was of opinion that Rigby should keep his
amplifications for his slashing articles, put in a brief careless
observation, which balked his inspiration.

'Certainly,' said Mr. Ormsby, 'when the guns were firing over Vyvyan's
last speech and confession, I never expected to be asked to stand for
Birmingham.'

'Perhaps you may be called up to the other house by the title,' said
Lucian Gay. 'Who knows?'

'I agree with Tadpole,' said Mr. Ormsby, 'that if we only stick to the
Registration the country is saved.'

'Fortunate country!' said Sidonia, 'that can be saved by a good
registration!'

'I believe, after all, that with property and pluck,' said Lord Monmouth,
'Parliamentary Reform is not such a very bad thing.'

Here several gentlemen began talking at the same time, all agreeing with
their host, and proving in their different ways, the irresistible
influence of property and pluck; property in Lord Monmouth's mind meaning
vassals, and pluck a total disregard for public opinion. Mr. Guy Flouncey,
who wanted to get into parliament, but why nobody knew, who had neither
political abilities nor political opinions, but had some floating idea
that it would get himself and his wife to some more balls and dinners, and
who was duly ticketed for 'a good thing' in the candidate list of the
Tadpoles and the Tapers, was of opinion that an immense deal might be done
by properly patronising borough races. That was his specific how to
prevent revolution.

Taking advantage of a pause, Lord Monmouth said, 'I should like to know
what you think of this question, Sidonia?'

'I am scarcely a competent judge,' he said, as if wishing to disclaim any
interference in the conversation, and then added, 'but I have been ever of
opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.'

'Exactly my views,' said Mr. Rigby, eagerly; 'I say it now, I have said it
a thousand times, you may doctor the registration as you like, but you can
never get rid of Schedule A.'

'Is there a person in this room who can now tell us the names of the
boroughs in Schedule A?' said Sidonia.

'I am sure I cannot, 'said Lord Monmouth, 'though six of them belong to
myself.'

'But the principle,' said Mr. Rigby; 'they represented a principle.'

'Nothing else, certainly,' said Lucian Gay.

'And what principle?' inquired Sidonia.

'The principle of nomination.'

'That is a practice, not a principle,' said Sidonia. 'Is it a practice
that no longer exists?'

'You think then,' said Lord Eskdale, cutting in before Rigby, 'that the
Reform Bill has done us no harm?'

'It is not the Reform Bill that has shaken the aristocracy of this
country, but the means by which that Bill was carried,' replied Sidonia.

'Physical force?' said Lord Eskdale.

'Or social power?' said Sidonia.

Upon this, Mr. Rigby, impatient at any one giving the tone in a political
discussion but himself, and chafing under the vigilance of Lord Eskdale,
which to him ever appeared only fortuitous, violently assaulted the
argument, and astonished several country gentlemen present by its
volubility. They at length listened to real eloquence. At the end of a
long appeal to Sidonia, that gentleman only bowed his head and said,
'Perhaps;' and then, turning to his neighbour, inquired whether birds were
plentiful in Lancashire this season; so that Mr. Rigby was reduced to the
necessity of forming the political opinions of Mr. Guy Flouncey.

As the gentlemen left the dining-room, Coningsby, though at some distance,
was observed by Sidonia, who stopped instantly, then advanced to
Coningsby, and extending his hand said, 'I said we should meet again,
though I hardly expected so quickly.'

'And I hope we shall not separate so soon,' said Coningsby; 'I was much
struck with what you said just now about the Reform Bill. Do you know that
the more I think the more I am perplexed by what is meant by
Representation?'

'It is a principle of which a limited definition is only current in this
country,' said Sidonia, quitting the room with him. 'People may be
represented without periodical elections of neighbours who are incapable
to maintain their interests, and strangers who are unwilling.'

The entrance of the gentlemen produced the same effect on the saloon as
sunrise on the world; universal animation, a general though gentle stir.
The Grand-duke, bowing to every one, devoted himself to the daughter of
Lady St. Julians, who herself pinned Lord Beaumanoir before he could reach
Mrs. Guy Flouncey. Coningsby instead talked nonsense to that lady.
Brilliant cavaliers, including Mr. Melton, addressed a band of beautiful
damsels grouped on a large ottoman. Everywhere sounded a delicious murmur,
broken occasionally by a silver-sounding laugh not too loud. Sidonia and
Lord Eskdale did not join the ladies. They stood for a few moments in
conversation, and then threw themselves on a sofa.

'Who is that?' asked Sidonia of his companion rather earnestly, as
Coningsby quitted them.

''Tis the grandson of Monmouth; young Coningsby.'

'Ah! The new generation then promises. I met him once before, by chance;
he interests me.'

'They tell me he is a lively lad. He is a prodigious favourite here, and I
should not be surprised if Monmouth made him his heir.'

'I hope he does not dream of inheritance,' said Sidonia. ''Tis the most
enervating of visions.'

'Do you admire Lady Augustina St. Julians?' said Mrs. Guy Flouncey to
Coningsby.

'I admire no one except yourself.'

'Oh! how very gallant, Mr. Coningsby!'

'When should men be gallant, if not to the brilliant and the beautiful!'
said Coningsby.

'Ah! you are laughing at me.'

'No, I am not. I am quite grave.'

'Your eyes laugh. Now tell me, Mr. Coningsby, Lord Henry Sydney is a very
great friend of yours?'

'Very.'

'He is very amiable.'

'Very.'

'He does a great deal for the poor at Beaumanoir. A very fine place, is it
not?'

'Very.'

'As fine as Coningsby?'

'At present, with Mrs. Guy Flouncey at Coningsby, Beaumanoir would have no
chance.'

'Ah! you laugh at me again! Now tell me, Mr. Coningsby, what do you think
we shall do to-night? I look upon you, you know, as the real arbiter of
our destinies.'

'You shall decide,' said Coningsby.

'Mon cher Harry,' said Madame Colonna, coming up, 'they wish Lucretia to
sing and she will not. You must ask her, she cannot refuse you.'

'I assure you she can,' said Coningsby.

'Mon cher Harry, your grandpapa did desire me to beg you to ask her to
sing.'

So Coningsby unwillingly approached Lucretia, who was talking with the
Russian Ambassador.

'I am sent upon a fruitless mission,' said Coningsby, looking at her, and
catching her glance.

'What and why?' she replied.

'The mission is to entreat you to do us all a great favour; and the cause
of its failure will be that I am the envoy.'

'If the favour be one to yourself, it is granted; and if you be the envoy,
you need never fear failure with me.'

'I must presume then to lead you away,' said Coningsby, bending to the
Ambassador.

'Remember,' said Lucretia, as they approached the instrument, 'that I am
singing to you.'

'It is impossible ever to forget it,' said Coningsby, leading her to the
piano with great politeness, but only with great politeness.

'Where is Mademoiselle Flora?' she inquired.

Coningsby found La Petite crouching as it were behind some furniture, and
apparently looking over some music. She looked up as he approached, and a
smile stole over her countenance. 'I am come to ask a favour,' he said,
and he named his request.

'I will sing,' she replied; 'but only tell me what you like.'

Coningsby felt the difference between the courtesy of the head and of the
heart, as he contrasted the manner of Lucretia and Flora. Nothing could be
more exquisitely gracious than the daughter of Colonna was to-night;
Flora, on the contrary, was rather agitated and embarrassed; and did not
express her readiness with half the facility and the grace of Lucretia;
but Flora's arm trembled as Coningsby led her to the piano.

Meantime Lord Eskdale and Sidonia are in deep converse.

'Hah! that is a fine note!' said Sidonia, and he looked round. 'Who is
that singing? Some new _protegee_ of Lord Monmouth?'

''Tis the daughter of the Colonnas,' said Lord Eskdale, 'the Princess
Lucretia.'

'Why, she was not at dinner to-day.'

'No, she was not there.'

'My favourite voice; and of all, the rarest to be found. When I was a boy,
it made me almost in love even with Pisaroni.'

'Well, the Princess is scarcely more lovely. 'Tis a pity the plumage is
not as beautiful as the note. She is plain.'

'No; not plain with that brow.'

'Well, I rather admire her myself,' said Lord Eskdale. 'She has fine
points.'

'Let us approach,' said Sidonia.

The song ceased, Lord Eskdale advanced, made his compliments, and then
said, 'You were not at dinner to-day.'

'Why should I be?' said the Princess.

'For our sakes, for mine, if not for your own,' said Lord Eskdale,
smiling. 'Your absence has been remarked, and felt, I assure you, by
others as well as myself. There is my friend Sidonia so enraptured with
your thrilling tones, that he has abruptly closed a conversation which I
have been long counting on. Do you know him? May I present him to you?'

And having obtained a consent, not often conceded, Lord Eskdale looked
round, and calling Sidonia, he presented his friend to the Princess.

'You are fond of music, Lord Eskdale tells me?' said Lucretia.

'When it is excellent,' said Sidonia.

'But that is so rare,' said the Princess.

'And precious as Paradise,' said Sidonia. 'As for indifferent music, 'tis
Purgatory; but when it is bad, for my part I feel myself--'

'Where?' said Lord Eskdale.

'In the last circle of the Inferno,' said Sidonia.

Lord Eskdale turned to Flora.

'And in what circle do you place us who are here?' the Princess inquired
of Sidonia.

'One too polished for his verse,' replied her companion.

'You mean too insipid,' said the Princess. 'I wish that life were a little
more Dantesque.'

'There is not less treasure in the world,' said Sidonia, 'because we use
paper currency; and there is not less passion than of old, though it is
_bon ton_ to be tranquil.'

'Do you think so?' said the Princess, inquiringly, and then looking round
the apartment. 'Have these automata, indeed, souls?'

'Some of them,' said Sidonia. 'As many as would have had souls in the
fourteenth century.'

'I thought they were wound up every day,' said the Princess.

'Some are self-impelling,' said Sidonia.

'And you can tell at a glance?' inquired the Princess. 'You are one of
those who can read human nature?'

''Tis a book open to all.'

'But if they cannot read?'

'Those must be your automata.'

'Lord Monmouth tells me you are a great traveller?'

'I have not discovered a new world.'

'But you have visited it?'

'It is getting old.'

'I would sooner recall the old than discover the new,' said the Princess.

'We have both of us cause,' said Sidonia. 'Our names are the names of the
Past.'

'I do not love a world of Utility,' said the Princess.

'You prefer to be celebrated to being comfortable,' said Sidonia.

'It seems to me that the world is withering under routine.'

''Tis the inevitable lot of humanity,' said Sidonia. 'Man must ever be the
slave of routine: but in old days it was a routine of great thoughts, and
now it is a routine of little ones.'

The evening glided on; the dance succeeded the song; the ladies were fast
vanishing; Coningsby himself was meditating a movement, when Lord
Beaumanoir, as he passed him, said, 'Come to Lucian Gay's room; we are
going to smoke a cigar.'

This was a favourite haunt, towards midnight, of several of the younger
members of the party at the Castle, who loved to find relaxation from the
decorous gravities of polished life in the fumes of tobacco, the
inspiration of whiskey toddy, and the infinite amusement of Lucian Gay's
conversation and company. This was the genial hour when the good story
gladdened, the pun flashed, and the song sparkled with jolly mirth or
saucy mimicry. To-night, being Coningsby's initiation, there was a special
general meeting of the Grumpy Club, in which everybody was to say the
gayest things with the gravest face, and every laugh carried a forfeit.
Lucian was the inimitable president. He told a tale for which he was
famous, of 'the very respectable county family who had been established in
the shire for several generations, but who, it was a fact, had been ever
distinguished by the strange and humiliating peculiarity of being born
with sheep's tails.' The remarkable circumstances under which Lucian Gay
had become acquainted with this fact; the traditionary mysteries by which
the family in question had succeeded for generations in keeping it secret;
the decided measures to which the chief of the family had recourse to stop
for ever the rumour when it first became prevalent; and finally the origin
and result of the legend; were details which Lucian Gay, with the most
rueful countenance, loved to expend upon the attentive and expanding
intelligence of a new member of the Grumpy Club. Familiar as all present
were with the story whose stimulus of agonising risibility they had all in
turn experienced, it was with extreme difficulty that any of them could
resist the fatal explosion which was to be attended with the dreaded
penalty. Lord Beaumanoir looked on the table with desperate seriousness,
an ominous pucker quivering round his lip; Mr. Melton crammed his
handkerchief into his mouth with one hand, while he lighted the wrong end
of a cigar with the other; one youth hung over the back of his chair
pinching himself like a faquir, while another hid his countenance on the
table.

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