G. A. Henty - "With Buller in Natal"

Huguette Bertrand - "Espace perdu, poesie"

Aristotle - "Ethics"

Various - "Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920"

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




They say that all of us have one chance in this life, and so it was with
Rigby. After a struggle of many years, after a long series of the usual
alternatives of small successes and small failures, after a few cleverish
speeches and a good many cleverish pamphlets, with a considerable
reputation, indeed, for pasquinades, most of which he never wrote, and
articles in reviews to which it was whispered he had contributed, Rigby,
who had already intrigued himself into a subordinate office, met with Lord
Monmouth.

He was just the animal that Lord Monmouth wanted, for Lord Monmouth always
looked upon human nature with the callous eye of a jockey. He surveyed
Rigby; and he determined to buy him. He bought him; with his clear head,
his indefatigable industry, his audacious tongue, and his ready and
unscrupulous pen; with all his dates, all his lampoons; all his private
memoirs, and all his political intrigues. It was a good purchase. Rigby
became a great personage, and Lord Monmouth's man.

Mr. Rigby, who liked to be doing a great many things at the same time, and
to astonish the Tadpoles and Tapers with his energetic versatility,
determined to superintend the education of Coningsby. It was a relation
which identified him with the noble house of his pupil, or, properly
speaking, his charge: for Mr. Rigby affected rather the graceful dignity
of the governor than the duties of a tutor. The boy was recalled from his
homely, rural school, where he had been well grounded by a hard-working
curate, and affectionately tended by the curate's unsophisticated wife. He
was sent to a fashionable school preparatory to Eton, where he found about
two hundred youths of noble families and connections, lodged in a
magnificent villa, that had once been the retreat of a minister,
superintended by a sycophantic Doctor of Divinity, already well beneficed,
and not despairing of a bishopric by favouring the children of the great
nobles. The doctor's lady, clothed in cashmeres, sometimes inquired after
their health, and occasionally received a report as to their linen.

Mr. Rigby had a classical retreat, not distant from this establishment,
which he esteemed a Tusculum. There, surrounded by his busts and books, he
wrote his lampoons and articles; massacred a she liberal (it was thought
that no one could lash a woman like Rigby), cut up a rising genius whose
politics were different from his own, or scarified some unhappy wretch who
had brought his claims before parliament, proving, by garbled extracts
from official correspondence that no one could refer to, that the
malcontent instead of being a victim, was, on the contrary, a defaulter.
Tadpole and Taper would back Rigby for a 'slashing reply' against the
field. Here, too, at the end of a busy week, he found it occasionally
convenient to entertain a clever friend or two of equivocal reputation,
with whom he had become acquainted in former days of equal brotherhood. No
one was more faithful to his early friends than Mr. Rigby, particularly if
they could write a squib.

It was in this refined retirement that Mr. Rigby found time enough,
snatched from the toils of official life and parliamentary struggles, to
compose a letter on the study of History, addressed to Coningsby. The
style was as much like that of Lord Bolingbroke as if it had been written
by the authors of the 'Rejected Addresses,' and it began, 'My dear young
friend.' This polished composition, so full of good feeling and
comprehensive views, and all in the best taste, was not published. It was
only privately printed, and a few thousand copies were distributed among
select personages as an especial favour and mark of high consideration.
Each copy given away seemed to Rigby like a certificate of character; a
property which, like all men of dubious repute, he thoroughly appreciated.
Rigby intrigued very much that the headmaster of Eton should adopt his
discourse as a class-book. For this purpose he dined with the Doctor, told
him several anecdotes of the King, which intimated personal influence at
Windsor; but the headmaster was inflexible, and so Mr. Rigby was obliged
to be content with having his Letter on History canonized as a classic in
the Preparatory Seminary, where the individual to whom it was addressed
was a scholar.

This change in the life of Coningsby contributed to his happiness. The
various characters which a large school exhibited interested a young mind
whose active energies were beginning to stir. His previous acquirements
made his studies light; and he was fond of sports, in which he was
qualified to excel. He did not particularly like Mr. Rigby. There was
something jarring and grating in that gentleman's voice and modes, from
which the chords of the young heart shrank. He was not tender, though
perhaps he wished to be; scarcely kind: but he was good-natured, at least
to children. However, this connection was, on the whole, an agreeable one
for Coningsby. He seemed suddenly to have friends: he never passed his
holydays again at school. Mr. Rigby was so clever that he contrived always
to quarter Coningsby on the father of one of his school-fellows, for Mr.
Rigby knew all his school-fellows and all their fathers. Mr. Rigby also
called to see him, not unfrequently would give him a dinner at the Star
and Garter, or even have him up to town for a week to Whitehall. Compared
with his former forlorn existence, these were happy days, when he was
placed under the gallery as a member's son, or went to the play with the
butler!

When Coningsby had attained his twelfth year, an order was received from
Lord Monmouth, who was at Rome, that he should go at once to Eton. This
was the first great epoch of his life. There never was a youth who entered
into that wonderful little world with more eager zest than Coningsby. Nor
was it marvellous.

That delicious plain, studded with every creation of graceful culture;
hamlet and hall and grange; garden and grove and park; that castle-palace,
grey with glorious ages; those antique spires, hoar with faith and wisdom,
the chapel and the college; that river winding through the shady meads;
the sunny glade and the solemn avenue; the room in the Dame's house where
we first order our own breakfast and first feel we are free; the stirring
multitude, the energetic groups, the individual mind that leads, conquers,
controls; the emulation and the affection; the noble strife and the tender
sentiment; the daring exploit and the dashing scrape; the passion that
pervades our life, and breathes in everything, from the aspiring study to
the inspiring sport: oh! what hereafter can spur the brain and touch the
heart like this; can give us a world so deeply and variously interesting;
a life so full of quick and bright excitement, passed in a scene so fair?




CHAPTER III.


Lord Monmouth, who detested popular tumults as much as he despised public
opinion, had remained during the agitating year of 1831 in his luxurious
retirement in Italy, contenting himself with opposing the Reform Bill by
proxy. But when his correspondent, Mr. Rigby, had informed him, in the
early part of the spring of 1832, of the probability of a change in the
tactics of the Tory party, and that an opinion was becoming prevalent
among their friends, that the great scheme must be defeated in detail
rather than again withstood on principle, his Lordship, who was never
wanting in energy when his own interests were concerned, immediately
crossed the Alps, and travelled rapidly to England. He indulged a hope
that the weight of his presence and the influence of his strong character,
which was at once shrewd and courageous, might induce his friends to
relinquish their half measure, a course to which his nature was repugnant.
At all events, if they persisted in their intention, and the Bill went
into committee, his presence was indispensable, for in that stage of a
parliamentary proceeding proxies become ineffective.

The counsels of Lord Monmouth, though they coincided with those of the
Duke of Wellington, did not prevail with the Waverers. Several of these
high-minded personages had had their windows broken, and they were of
opinion that a man who lived at Naples was not a competent judge of the
state of public feeling in England. Besides, the days are gone by for
senates to have their beards plucked in the forum. We live in an age of
prudence. The leaders of the people, now, generally follow. The truth is,
the peers were in a fright. 'Twas a pity; there is scarcely a less
dignified entity than a patrician in a panic.

Among the most intimate companions of Coningsby at Eton, was Lord Henry
Sydney, his kinsman. Coningsby had frequently passed his holydays of late
at Beaumanoir, the seat of the Duke, Lord Henry's father. The Duke sat
next to Lord Monmouth during the debate on the enfranchising question, and
to while away the time, and from kindness of disposition, spoke, and spoke
with warmth and favour, of his grandson. The polished Lord Monmouth bowed
as if he were much gratified by this notice of one so dear to him. He had
too much tact to admit that he had never yet seen his grandchild; but he
asked some questions as to his progress and pursuits, his tastes and
habits, which intimated the interest of an affectionate relative.

Nothing, however, was ever lost upon Lord Monmouth. No one had a more
retentive memory, or a more observant mind. And the next day, when he
received Mr. Rigby at his morning levee, Lord Monmouth performed this
ceremony in the high style of the old court, and welcomed his visitors in
bed, he said with imperturbable calmness, and as if he had been talking of
trying a new horse, 'Rigby, I should like to see the boy at Eton.'

There might be some objection to grant leave to Coningsby at this moment;
but it was a rule with Mr. Rigby never to make difficulties, or at least
to persuade his patron that he, and he only, could remove them. He
immediately undertook that the boy should be forthcoming, and
notwithstanding the excitement of the moment, he went off next morning to
fetch him.

They arrived in town rather early; and Rigby, wishing to know how affairs
were going on, ordered the servant to drive immediately to the head-
quarters of the party; where a permanent committee watched every phasis of
the impending revolution; and where every member of the Opposition, of
note and trust, was instantly admitted to receive or to impart
intelligence.

It was certainly not without emotion that Coningsby contemplated his first
interview with his grandfather. All his experience of the ties of
relationship, however limited, was full of tenderness and rapture. His
memory often dwelt on his mother's sweet embrace; and ever and anon a
fitful phantom of some past passage of domestic love haunted his gushing
heart. The image of his father was less fresh in his mind; but still it
was associated with a vague sentiment of kindness and joy; and the
allusions to her husband in his mother's letters had cherished these
impressions. To notice lesser sources of influence in his estimate of the
domestic tie, he had witnessed under the roof of Beaumanoir the existence
of a family bound together by the most beautiful affections. He could not
forget how Henry Sydney was embraced by his sisters when he returned home;
what frank and fraternal love existed between his kinsman and his elder
brother; how affectionately the kind Duke had welcomed his son once more
to the house where they had both been born; and the dim eyes, and saddened
brows, and tones of tenderness, which rather looked than said farewell,
when they went back to Eton.

And these rapturous meetings and these mournful adieus were occasioned
only by a separation at the most of a few months, softened by constant
correspondence and the communication of mutual sympathy. But Coningsby was
to meet a relation, his near, almost his only, relation, for the first
time; the relation, too, to whom he owed maintenance, education; it might
be said, existence. It was a great incident for a great drama; something
tragical in the depth and stir of its emotions. Even the imagination of
the boy could not be insensible to its materials; and Coningsby was
picturing to himself a beneficent and venerable gentleman pressing to his
breast an agitated youth, when his reverie was broken by the carriage
stopping before the gates of Monmouth House.

The gates were opened by a gigantic Swiss, and the carriage rolled into a
huge court-yard. At its end Coningsby beheld a Palladian palace, with
wings and colonnades encircling the court.

A double flight of steps led into a circular and marble hall, adorned with
colossal busts of the Caesars; the staircase in fresco by Sir James
Thornhill, breathed with the loves and wars of gods and heroes. It led
into a vestibule, painted in arabesques, hung with Venetian girandoles,
and looking into gardens. Opening a door in this chamber, and proceeding
some little way down a corridor, Mr. Rigby and his companion arrived at
the base of a private staircase. Ascending a few steps, they reached a
landing-place hung with tapestry. Drawing this aside, Mr. Rigby opened a
door, and ushered Coningsby through an ante-chamber into a small saloon,
of beautiful proportions, and furnished in a brilliant and delicate taste.

'You will find more to amuse you here than where you were before,' said
Mr. Rigby, 'and I shall not be nearly so long absent.' So saying, he
entered into an inner apartment.

The walls of the saloon, which were covered with light blue satin, held,
in silver panels, portraits of beautiful women, painted by Boucher.
Couches and easy chairs of every shape invited in every quarter to
luxurious repose; while amusement was afforded by tables covered with
caricatures, French novels, and endless miniatures of foreign dancers,
princesses, and sovereigns.

But Coningsby was so impressed with the impending interview with his
grandfather, that he neither sought nor required diversion. Now that the
crisis was at hand, he felt agitated and nervous, and wished that he was
again at Eton. The suspense was sickening, yet he dreaded still more the
summons. He was not long alone; the door opened; he started, grew pale; he
thought it was his grandfather; it was not even Mr. Rigby. It was Lord
Monmouth's valet.

'Monsieur Konigby?'

'My name is Coningsby,' said the boy.

'Milor is ready to receive you,' said the valet.

Coningsby sprang forward with that desperation which the scaffold
requires. His face was pale; his hand was moist; his heart beat with
tumult. He had occasionally been summoned by Dr. Keate; that, too, was
awful work, but compared with the present, a morning visit. Music,
artillery, the roar of cannon, and the blare of trumpets, may urge a man
on to a forlorn hope; ambition, one's constituents, the hell of previous
failure, may prevail on us to do a more desperate thing; speak in the
House of Commons; but there are some situations in life, such, for
instance, as entering the room of a dentist, in which the prostration of
the nervous system is absolute.

The moment had at length arrived when the desolate was to find a
benefactor, the forlorn a friend, the orphan a parent; when the youth,
after a childhood of adversity, was to be formally received into the bosom
of the noble house from which he had been so long estranged, and at length
to assume that social position to which his lineage entitled him.
Manliness might support, affection might soothe, the happy anguish of such
a meeting; but it was undoubtedly one of those situations which stir up
the deep fountains of our nature, and before which the conventional
proprieties of our ordinary manners instantaneously vanish.

Coningsby with an uncertain step followed his guide through a bed-chamber,
the sumptuousness of which he could not notice, into the dressing-room of
Lord Monmouth. Mr. Rigby, facing Coningsby as he entered, was leaning over
the back of a large chair, from which as Coningsby was announced by the
valet, the Lord of the house slowly rose, for he was suffering slightly
from the gout, his left hand resting on an ivory stick. Lord Monmouth was
in height above the middle size, but somewhat portly and corpulent. His
countenance was strongly marked; sagacity on the brow, sensuality in the
mouth and jaw. His head was bald, but there were remains of the rich brown
locks on which he once prided himself. His large deep blue eye, madid and
yet piercing, showed that the secretions of his brain were apportioned,
half to voluptuousness, half to common sense. But his general mien was
truly grand; full of a natural nobility, of which no one was more sensible
than himself. Lord Monmouth was not in dishabille; on the contrary, his
costume was exact, and even careful. Rising as we have mentioned when his
grandson entered, and leaning with his left hand on his ivory cane, he
made Coningsby such a bow as Louis Quatorze might have bestowed on the
ambassador of the United Provinces. Then extending his right hand, which
the boy tremblingly touched, Lord Monmouth said:

'How do you like Eton?'

This contrast to the reception which he had imagined, hoped, feared,
paralysed the reviving energies of young Coningsby. He felt stupefied; he
looked almost aghast. In the chaotic tumult of his mind, his memory
suddenly seemed to receive some miraculous inspiration. Mysterious phrases
heard in his earliest boyhood, unnoticed then, long since forgotten, rose
to his ear. Who was this grandfather, seen not before, seen now for the
first time? Where was the intervening link of blood between him and this
superb and icy being? The boy sank into the chair which had been placed
for him, and leaning on the table burst into tears.

Here was a business! If there were one thing which would have made Lord
Monmouth travel from London to Naples at four-and-twenty hours' notice, it
was to avoid a scene. He hated scenes. He hated feelings. He saw instantly
the mistake he had made in sending for his grandchild. He was afraid that
Coningsby was tender-hearted like his father. Another tender-hearted
Coningsby! Unfortunate family! Degenerate race! He decided in his mind
that Coningsby must be provided for in the Church, and looked at Mr.
Rigby, whose principal business it always was to disembarrass his patron
from the disagreeable.

Mr. Rigby instantly came forward and adroitly led the boy into the
adjoining apartment, Lord Monmouth's bedchamber, closing the door of the
dressing-room behind him.

'My dear young friend,' said Mr. Rigby, 'what is all this?'

A sob the only answer.

'What can be the matter?' said Mr. Rigby.

'I was thinking,' said Coningsby, 'of poor mamma!'

'Hush!' said Mr. Rigby; 'Lord Monmouth never likes to hear of people who
are dead; so you must take care never to mention your mother or your
father.'

In the meantime Lord Monmouth had decided on the fate of Coningsby. The
Marquis thought he could read characters by a glance, and in general he
was successful, for his natural sagacity had been nurtured by great
experience. His grandson was not to his taste; amiable no doubt, but
spooney.

We are too apt to believe that the character of a boy is easily read. 'Tis
a mystery the most profound. Mark what blunders parents constantly make as
to the nature of their own offspring, bred, too, under their eyes, and
displaying every hour their characteristics. How often in the nursery does
the genius count as a dunce because he is pensive; while a rattling urchin
is invested with almost supernatural qualities because his animal spirits
make him impudent and flippant! The school-boy, above all others, is not
the simple being the world imagines. In that young bosom are often
stirring passions as strong as our own, desires not less violent, a
volition not less supreme. In that young bosom what burning love, what
intense ambition, what avarice, what lust of power; envy that fiends might
emulate, hate that man might fear!




CHAPTER IV.


'Come,' said Mr. Rigby, when Coningsby was somewhat composed, 'come with
me and we will see the house.'

So they descended once more the private staircase, and again entered the
vestibule.

'If you had seen these gardens when they were illuminated for a fete to
George IV.,' said Rigby, as crossing the chamber he ushered his charge
into the state apartments. The splendour and variety of the surrounding
objects soon distracted the attention of the boy, for the first time in
the palace of his fathers. He traversed saloon after saloon hung with rare
tapestry and the gorgeous products of foreign looms; filled with choice
pictures and creations of curious art; cabinets that sovereigns might
envy, and colossal vases of malachite presented by emperors. Coningsby
alternately gazed up to ceilings glowing with color and with gold, and
down upon carpets bright with the fancies and vivid with the tints of
Aubusson and of Axminster.

'This grandfather of mine is a great prince,' thought Coningsby, as musing
he stood before a portrait in which he recognised the features of the
being from whom he had so recently and so strangely parted. There he
stood, Philip Augustus, Marquess of Monmouth, in his robes of state, with
his new coronet on a table near him, a despatch lying at hand that
indicated the special mission of high ceremony of which he had been the
illustrious envoy, and the garter beneath his knee.

'You will have plenty of opportunities to look at the pictures,' said
Rigby, observing that the boy had now quite recovered himself. 'Some
luncheon will do you no harm after our drive;' and he opened the door of
another apartment.

It was a pretty room adorned with a fine picture of the chase; at a round
table in the centre sat two ladies interested in the meal to which Rigby
had alluded.

'Ah, Mr. Rigby!' said the eldest, yet young and beautiful, and speaking,
though with fluency, in a foreign accent, 'come and tell me some news.
Have you seen Milor?' and then she threw a scrutinizing glance from a dark
flashing eye at his companion.

'Let me present to your Highness,' said Rigby, with an air of some
ceremony, 'Mr. Coningsby.'

'My dear young friend,' said the lady, extending her white hand with an
air of joyous welcome, 'this is Lucretia, my daughter. We love you
already. Lord Monmouth will be so charmed to see you. What beautiful eyes
he has, Mr. Rigby. Quite like Milor.'

The young lady, who was really more youthful than Coningsby, but of a form
and stature so developed that she appeared almost a woman, bowed to the
guest with some ceremony, and a faint sullen smile, and then proceeded
with her Perigord pie.

'You must be so hungry after your drive,' said the elder lady, placing
Coningsby at her side, and herself filling his plate.

This was true enough; and while Mr. Rigby and the lady talked an infinite
deal about things which he did not understand, and persons of whom he had
never heard, our little hero made his first meal in his paternal house
with no ordinary zest; and renovated by the pasty and a glass of sherry,
felt altogether a different being from what he was, when he had undergone
the terrible interview in which he began to reflect he had considerably
exposed himself. His courage revived, his senses rallied, he replied to
the interrogations of the lady with calmness, but with promptness and
propriety. It was evident that he had made a favourable impression on her
Highness, for ever and anon she put a truffle or some delicacy in his
plate, and insisted upon his taking some particular confectionery, because
it was a favourite of her own. When she rose, she said,--

'In ten minutes the carriage will be at the door; and if you like, my dear
young friend, you shall be our beau.'

'There is nothing I should like so much,' said Coningsby.

'Ah!' said the lady, with the sweetest smile, 'he is frank.'

The ladies bowed and retired; Mr. Rigby returned to the Marquess, and the
groom of the chambers led Coningsby to his room.

This lady, so courteous to Coningsby, was the Princess Colonna, a Roman
dame, the second wife of Prince Paul Colonna. The prince had first married
when a boy, and into a family not inferior to his own. Of this union, in
every respect unhappy, the Princess Lucretia was the sole offspring. He
was a man dissolute and devoted to play; and cared for nothing much but
his pleasures and billiards, in which latter he was esteemed unrivalled.
According to some, in a freak of passion, according to others, to cancel a
gambling debt, he had united himself to his present wife, whose origin was
obscure; but with whom he contrived to live on terms of apparent
cordiality, for she was much admired, and made the society of her husband
sought by those who contributed to his enjoyment. Among these especially
figured the Marquess of Monmouth, between whom and Prince Colonna the
world recognised as existing the most intimate and entire friendship, so
that his Highness and his family were frequent guests under the roof of
the English nobleman, and now accompanied him on a visit to England.

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