Sophie May - "Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's"

Edward Sell - "The Faith of Islam"

Viktor Rydberg - "De vandrande djaeknarne"

Scott Nearing - "The Debs Decision"

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




From that moment power passed from the House of Lords to another assembly.
But if the peers have ceased to be magnificoes, may it not also happen
that the Sovereign may cease to be a Doge? It is not impossible that the
political movements of our time, which seem on the surface to have a
tendency to democracy, may have in reality a monarchical bias.

In less than a fortnight's time the House of Lords, like James II., having
abdicated their functions by absence, the Reform Bill passed; the ardent
monarch, who a few months before had expressed his readiness to go down to
Parliament, in a hackney coach if necessary, to assist its progress, now
declining personally to give his assent to its provisions.

In the protracted discussions to which this celebrated measure gave rise,
nothing is more remarkable than the perplexities into which the speakers
of both sides are thrown, when they touch upon the nature of the
representative principle. On one hand it was maintained, that, under the
old system, the people were virtually represented; while on the other, it
was triumphantly urged, that if the principle be conceded, the people
should not be virtually, but actually, represented. But who are the
people? And where are you to draw a line? And why should there be any? It
was urged that a contribution to the taxes was the constitutional
qualification for the suffrage. But we have established a system of
taxation in this country of so remarkable a nature, that the beggar who
chews his quid as he sweeps a crossing, is contributing to the imposts! Is
he to have a vote? He is one of the people, and he yields his quota to the
public burthens.

Amid these conflicting statements, and these confounding conclusions, it
is singular that no member of either House should have recurred to the
original character of these popular assemblies, which have always
prevailed among the northern nations. We still retain in the antique
phraseology of our statutes the term which might have beneficially guided
a modern Reformer in his reconstructive labours.

When the crowned Northman consulted on the welfare of his kingdom, he
assembled the ESTATES of his realm. Now an estate is a class of the nation
invested with political rights. There appeared the estate of the clergy,
of the barons, of other classes. In the Scandinavian kingdoms to this day,
the estate of the peasants sends its representatives to the Diet. In
England, under the Normans, the Church and the Baronage were convoked,
together with the estate of the Community, a term which then probably
described the inferior holders of land, whose tenure was not immediate of
the Crown. This Third Estate was so numerous, that convenience suggested
its appearance by representation; while the others, more limited,
appeared, and still appear, personally. The Third Estate was reconstructed
as circumstances developed themselves. It was a Reform of Parliament when
the towns were summoned.

In treating the House of the Third Estate as the House of the People, and
not as the House of a privileged class, the Ministry and Parliament of
1831 virtually conceded the principle of Universal Suffrage. In this point
of view the ten-pound franchise was an arbitrary, irrational, and
impolitic qualification. It had, indeed, the merit of simplicity, and so
had the constitutions of Abbe Sieyes. But its immediate and inevitable
result was Chartism.

But if the Ministry and Parliament of 1831 had announced that the time had
arrived when the Third Estate should be enlarged and reconstructed, they
would have occupied an intelligible position; and if, instead of
simplicity of elements in its reconstruction, they had sought, on the
contrary, various and varying materials which would have neutralised the
painful predominance of any particular interest in the new scheme, and
prevented those banded jealousies which have been its consequences, the
nation would have found itself in a secure condition. Another class not
less numerous than the existing one, and invested with privileges not less
important, would have been added to the public estates of the realm; and
the bewildering phrase 'the People' would have remained, what it really
is, a term of natural philosophy, and not of political science.

During this eventful week of May, 1832, when an important revolution was
effected in the most considerable of modern kingdoms, in a manner so
tranquil, that the victims themselves were scarcely conscious at the time
of the catastrophe, Coningsby passed his hours in unaccustomed pleasures,
and in novel excitement. Although he heard daily from the lips of Mr.
Rigby and his friends that England was for ever lost, the assembled guests
still contrived to do justice to his grandfather's excellent dinners; nor
did the impending ruin that awaited them prevent the Princess Colonna from
going to the Opera, whither she very good-naturedly took Coningsby. Madame
Colonna, indeed, gave such gratifying accounts of her dear young friend,
that Coningsby became daily a greater favourite with Lord Monmouth, who
cherished the idea that his grandson had inherited not merely the colour
of his eyes, but something of his shrewd and fearless spirit.

With Lucretia, Coningsby did not much advance. She remained silent and
sullen. She was not beautiful; pallid, with a lowering brow, and an eye
that avoided meeting another's. Madame Colonna, though good-natured, felt
for her something of the affection for which step-mothers are celebrated.
Lucretia, indeed, did not encourage her kindness, which irritated her
step-mother, who seemed seldom to address her but to rate and chide;
Lucretia never replied, but looked dogged. Her father, the Prince, did not
compensate for this treatment. The memory of her mother, whom he had
greatly disliked, did not soften his heart. He was a man still young;
slender, not tall; very handsome, but worn; a haggard Antinous; his
beautiful hair daily thinning; his dress rich and effeminate; many jewels,
much lace. He seldom spoke, but was polished, though moody.

At the end of the week, Coningsby returned to Eton. On the eve of his
departure, Lord Monmouth desired his grandson to meet him in his
apartments on the morrow, before quitting his roof. This farewell visit
was as kind and gracious as the first one had been repulsive. Lord
Monmouth gave Coningsby his blessing and ten pounds; desired that he would
order a dress, anything he liked, for the approaching Montem, which Lord
Monmouth meant to attend; and informed his grandson that he should order
that in future a proper supply of game and venison should be forwarded to
Eton for the use of himself and his friends.




CHAPTER VIII.


After eight o'clock school, the day following the return of Coningsby,
according to custom, he repaired to Buckhurst's room, where Henry Sydney,
Lord Vere, and our hero held with him their breakfast mess. They were all
in the fifth form, and habitual companions, on the river or on the Fives'
Wall, at cricket or at foot-ball. The return of Coningsby, their leader
alike in sport and study, inspired them to-day with unusual spirits,
which, to say the truth, were never particularly depressed. Where he had
been, what he had seen, what he had done, what sort of fellow his
grandfather was, whether the visit had been a success; here were materials
for almost endless inquiry. And, indeed, to do them justice, the last
question was not the least exciting to them; for the deep and cordial
interest which all felt in Coningsby's welfare far outweighed the
curiosity which, under ordinary circumstances, they would have experienced
on the return of one of their companions from an unusual visit to London.
The report of their friend imparted to them unbounded satisfaction, when
they learned that his relative was a splendid fellow; that he had been
loaded with kindness and favours; that Monmouth House, the wonders of
which he rapidly sketched, was hereafter to be his home; that Lord
Monmouth was coming down to Montem; that Coningsby was to order any dress
he liked, build a new boat if he chose; and, finally, had been pouched in
a manner worthy of a Marquess and a grandfather.

'By the bye,' said Buckhurst, when the hubbub had a little subsided, 'I am
afraid you will not half like it, Coningsby; but, old fellow, I had no
idea you would be back this morning; I have asked Millbank to breakfast
here.'

A cloud stole over the clear brow of Coningsby.

'It was my fault,' said the amiable Henry Sydney; 'but I really wanted to
be civil to Millbank, and as you were not here, I put Buckhurst up to ask
him.'

'Well,' said Coningsby, as if sullenly resigned, 'never mind; but why
should you ask an infernal manufacturer?'

'Why, the Duke always wished me to pay him some attention,' said Lord
Henry, mildly. 'His family were so civil to us when we were at
Manchester.'

'Manchester, indeed!' said Coningsby; 'if you knew what I do about
Manchester! A pretty state we have been in in London this week past with
your Manchesters and Birminghams!'

'Come, come, Coningsby,' said Lord Vere, the son of a Whig minister; 'I am
all for Manchester and Birmingham.'

'It is all up with the country, I can tell you,' said Coningsby, with the
air of one who was in the secret.

'My father says it will all go right now,' rejoined Lord Vere. 'I had a
letter from my sister yesterday.'

'They say we shall all lose our estates, though,' said Buckhurst; 'I know
I shall not give up mine without a fight. Shirley was besieged, you know,
in the civil wars; and the rebels got infernally licked.'

'I think that all the people about Beaumanoir would stand by the Duke,'
said Lord Henry, pensively.

'Well, you may depend upon it you will have it very soon,' said Coningsby.
'I know it from the best authority.'

'It depends on whether my father remains in,' said Lord Vere. 'He is the
only man who can govern the country now. All say that.'

At this moment Millbank entered. He was a good looking boy, somewhat shy,
and yet with a sincere expression in his countenance. He was evidently not
extremely intimate with those who were now his companions. Buckhurst, and
Henry Sydney, and Vere, welcomed him cordially. He looked at Coningsby
with some constraint, and then said:

'You have been in London, Coningsby?'

'Yes, I have been there during all the row.'

'You must have had a rare lark.'

'Yes, if having your windows broken by a mob be a rare lark. They could
not break my grandfather's, though. Monmouth House is in a court-yard. All
noblemen's houses should be in court-yards.'

'I was glad to see it all ended very well,' said Millbank.

'It has not begun yet,' said Coningsby.

'What?' said Millbank.

'Why, the revolution.'

'The Reform Bill will prevent a revolution, my father says,' said
Millbank.

'By Jove! here's the goose,' said Buckhurst.

At this moment there entered the room a little boy, the scion of a noble
house, bearing a roasted goose, which he had carried from the kitchen of
the opposite inn, the Christopher. The lower boy or fag, depositing his
burthen, asked his master whether he had further need of him; and
Buckhurst, after looking round the table, and ascertaining that he had
not, gave him permission to retire; but he had scarcely disappeared, when
his master singing out, 'Lower boy, St. John!' he immediately re-entered,
and demanded his master's pleasure, which was, that he should pour some
water in the teapot. This being accomplished, St. John really made his
escape, and retired to a pupil-room, where the bullying of a tutor,
because he had no derivations, exceeded in all probability the bullying of
his master, had he contrived in his passage from the Christopher to have
upset the goose or dropped the sausages.

In their merry meal, the Reform Bill was forgotten. Their thoughts were
soon concentrated in their little world, though it must be owned that
visions of palaces and beautiful ladies did occasionally flit over the
brain of one of the company. But for him especially there was much of
interest and novelty. So much had happened in his absence! There was a
week's arrears for him of Eton annals. They were recounted in so fresh a
spirit, and in such vivid colours, that Coningsby lost nothing by his
London visit. All the bold feats that had been done, and all the bright
things that had been said; all the triumphs, and all the failures, and all
the scrapes; how popular one master had made himself, and how ridiculous
another; all was detailed with a liveliness, a candour, and a picturesque
ingenuousness, which would have made the fortune of a Herodotus or a
Froissart.

'I'll tell you what,' said Buckhurst, 'I move that after twelve we five go
up to Maidenhead.'

'Agreed; agreed!'




CHAPTER IX.


Millbank was the son of one of the wealthiest manufacturers in Lancashire.
His father, whose opinions were of a very democratic bent, sent his son to
Eton, though he disapproved of the system of education pursued there, to
show that he had as much right to do so as any duke in the land. He had,
however, brought up his only boy with a due prejudice against every
sentiment or institution of an aristocratic character, and had especially
impressed upon him in his school career, to avoid the slightest semblance
of courting the affections or society of any member of the falsely-held
superior class.

The character of the son as much as the influence of the father, tended to
the fulfilment of these injunctions. Oswald Millbank was of a proud and
independent nature; reserved, a little stern. The early and constantly-
reiterated dogma of his father, that he belonged to a class debarred from
its just position in the social system, had aggravated the grave and
somewhat discontented humour of his blood. His talents were considerable,
though invested with no dazzling quality. He had not that quick and
brilliant apprehension, which, combined with a memory of rare
retentiveness, had already advanced Coningsby far beyond his age, and made
him already looked to as the future hero of the school. But Millbank
possessed one of those strong, industrious volitions whose perseverance
amounts almost to genius, and nearly attains its results. Though Coningsby
was by a year his junior, they were rivals. This circumstance had no
tendency to remove the prejudice which Coningsby entertained against him,
but its bias on the part of Millbank had a contrary effect.

The influence of the individual is nowhere so sensible as at school. There
the personal qualities strike without any intervening and counteracting
causes. A gracious presence, noble sentiments, or a happy talent, make
their way there at once, without preliminary inquiries as to what set they
are in, or what family they are of, how much they have a-year, or where
they live. Now, on no spirit had the influence of Coningsby, already the
favourite, and soon probably to become the idol, of the school, fallen
more effectually than on that of Millbank, though it was an influence that
no one could suspect except its votary or its victim.

At school, friendship is a passion. It entrances the being; it tears the
soul. All loves of after-life can never bring its rapture, or its
wretchedness; no bliss so absorbing, no pangs of jealousy or despair so
crushing and so keen! What tenderness and what devotion; what illimitable
confidence; infinite revelations of inmost thoughts; what ecstatic present
and romantic future; what bitter estrangements and what melting
reconciliations; what scenes of wild recrimination, agitating
explanations, passionate correspondence; what insane sensitiveness, and
what frantic sensibility; what earthquakes of the heart and whirlwinds of
the soul are confined in that simple phrase, a schoolboy's friendship!
Tis some indefinite recollection of these mystic passages of their young
emotion that makes grey-haired men mourn over the memory of their
schoolboy days. It is a spell that can soften the acerbity of political
warfare, and with its witchery can call forth a sigh even amid the callous
bustle of fashionable saloons.

The secret of Millbank's life was a passionate admiration and affection
for Coningsby. Pride, his natural reserve, and his father's injunctions,
had, however, hitherto successfully combined to restrain the slightest
demonstration of these sentiments. Indeed, Coningsby and himself were
never companions, except in school, or in some public game. The demeanour
of Coningsby gave no encouragement to intimacy to one, who, under any
circumstances, would have required considerable invitation to open
himself. So Millbank fed in silence on a cherished idea. It was his
happiness to be in the same form, to join in the same sport, with
Coningsby; occasionally to be thrown in unusual contact with him, to
exchange slight and not unkind words. In their division they were rivals;
Millbank sometimes triumphed, but to be vanquished by Coningsby was for
him not without a degree of mild satisfaction. Not a gesture, not a phrase
from Coningsby, that he did not watch and ponder over and treasure up.
Coningsby was his model, alike in studies, in manners, or in pastimes; the
aptest scholar, the gayest wit, the most graceful associate, the most
accomplished playmate: his standard of excellent. Yet Millbank was the
very last boy in the school who would have had credit given him by his
companions for profound and ardent feeling. He was not indeed unpopular.
The favourite of the school like Coningsby, he could, under no
circumstances, ever have become; nor was he qualified to obtain that
general graciousness among the multitude, which the sweet disposition of
Henry Sydney, or the gay profusion of Buckhurst, acquired without any
effort. Millbank was not blessed with the charm of manner. He seemed close
and cold; but he was courageous, just, and inflexible; never bullied, and
to his utmost would prevent tyranny. The little boys looked up to him as a
stern protector; and his word, too, throughout the school was a proverb:
and truth ranks a great quality among boys. In a word, Millbank was
respected by those among whom he lived; and school-boys scan character
more nicely than men suppose.

A brother of Henry Sydney, quartered in Lancashire, had been wounded
recently in a riot, and had received great kindness from the Millbank
family, in whose immediate neighbourhood the disturbance had occurred. The
kind Duke had impressed on Henry Sydney to acknowledge with cordiality to
the younger Millbank at Eton, the sense which his family entertained of
these benefits; but though Henry lost neither time nor opportunity in
obeying an injunction, which was grateful to his own heart, he failed in
cherishing, or indeed creating, any intimacy with the object of his
solicitude. A companionship with one who was Coningsby's relative and most
familiar friend, would at the first glance have appeared, independently of
all other considerations, a most desirable result for Millbank to
accomplish. But, perhaps, this very circumstance afforded additional
reasons for the absence of all encouragement with which he received the
overtures of Lord Henry. Millbank suspected that Coningsby was not
affected in his favour, and his pride recoiled from gaining, by any
indirect means, an intimacy which to have obtained in a plain and express
manner would have deeply gratified him. However, the urgent invitation of
Buckhurst and Henry Sydney, and the fear that a persistence in refusal
might be misinterpreted into churlishness, had at length brought Millbank
to their breakfast-mess, though, when he accepted their invitation, he did
not apprehend that Coningsby would have been present.

It was about an hour before sunset, the day of this very breakfast, and a
good number of boys, in lounging groups, were collected in the Long Walk.
The sports and matches of the day were over. Criticism had succeeded to
action in sculling and in cricket. They talked over the exploits of the
morning; canvassed the merits of the competitors, marked the fellow whose
play or whose stroke was improving; glanced at another, whose promise had
not been fulfilled; discussed the pretensions, and adjudged the palm. Thus
public opinion is formed. Some, too, might be seen with their books and
exercises, intent on the inevitable and impending tasks. Among these, some
unhappy wight in the remove, wandering about with his hat, after parochial
fashion, seeking relief in the shape of a verse. A hard lot this, to know
that you must be delivered of fourteen verses at least in the twenty-four
hours, and to be conscious that you are pregnant of none. The lesser boys,
urchins of tender years, clustered like flies round the baskets of certain
vendors of sugary delicacies that rested on the Long Walk wall. The pallid
countenance, the lacklustre eye, the hoarse voice clogged with accumulated
phlegm, indicated too surely the irreclaimable and hopeless votary of
lollypop, the opium-eater of schoolboys.

'It is settled, the match to-morrow shall be between Aquatics and
Drybobs,' said a senior boy; who was arranging a future match at cricket.

'But what is to be done about Fielding major?' inquired another. 'He has
not paid his boating money, and I say he has no right to play among the
Aquatics before he has paid his money.'

'Oh! but we must have Fielding major, he is such a devil of a swipe.'

'I declare he shall not play among the Aquatics if he does not pay his
boating money. It is an infernal shame.'

'Let us ask Buckhurst. Where is Buckhurst?'

'Have you got any toffy?' inquired a dull looking little boy, in a hoarse
voice, of one of the vendors of scholastic confectionery.

'Tom Trot, sir.'

'No; I want toffy.'

'Very nice Tom Trot, sir.'

'No, I want toffy; I have been eating Tom Trot all day.'

'Where is Buckhurst? We must settle about the Aquatics.'

'Well, I for one will not play if Fielding major plays amongst the
Aquatics. That is settled.'

'Oh! nonsense; he will pay his money if you ask him.'

'I shall not ask him again. The captain duns us every day. It is an
infernal shame.'

'I say, Burnham, where can one get some toffy? This fellow never has any.'

'I will tell you; at Barnes' on the bridge. The best toffy in the world.'

'I will go at once. I must have some toffy.'

'Just help me with this verse, Collins,' said one boy to another, in an
imploring tone, 'that's a good fellow.'

'Well, give it us: first syllable in _fabri_ is short; three false
quantities in the two first lines! You're a pretty one. There, I have done
it for you.'

'That's a good fellow.'

'Any fellow seen Buckhurst?'

'Gone up the river with Coningsby and Henry Sydney.'

'But he must be back by this time. I want him to make the list for the
match to-morrow. Where the deuce can Buckhurst be?'

And now, as rumours rise in society we know not how, so there was suddenly
a flying report in this multitude, the origin of which no one in his alarm
stopped to ascertain, that a boy was drowned.

Every heart was agitated.

What boy? When, where, how? Who was absent? Who had been on the river to-
day? Buckhurst. The report ran that Buckhurst was drowned. Great were the
trouble and consternation. Buckhurst was ever much liked; and now no one
remembered anything but his good qualities.

'Who heard it was Buckhurst?' said Sedgwick, captain of the school, coming
forward.

'I heard Bradford tell Palmer it was Buckhurst,' said a little boy.

'Where is Bradford?'

'Here.'

'What do you know about Buckhurst?'

'Wentworth told me that he was afraid Buckhurst was drowned. He heard it
at the Brocas; a bargeman told him about a quarter of an hour ago.'

'Here is Wentworth! Here is Wentworth!' a hundred voices exclaimed, and
they formed a circle round him.

'Well, what did you hear, Wentworth?' asked Sedgwick.

'I was at the Brocas, and a bargee told me that an Eton fellow had been
drowned above Surley, and the only Eton boat above Surley to-day, as I can
learn, is Buckhurst's four-oar. That is all.'

There was a murmur of hope.

'Oh! come, come,' said Sedgwick, 'there is come chance. Who is with
Buckhurst; who knows?'

'I saw him walk down to the Brocas with Vere,' said a boy.

'I hope it is not Vere,' said a little boy, with a tearful eye; 'he never
lets any fellow bully me.'

'Here is Maltravers,' halloed out a boy; 'he knows something.'

'Well, what do you know, Maltravers?'

'I heard Boots at the Christopher say that an Eton fellow was drowned, and
that he had seen a person who was there.'

'Bring Boots here,' said Sedgwick.

Instantly a band of boys rushed over the way, and in a moment the witness
was produced.

'What have you heard, Sam, about this accident?' said Sedgwick.

'Well, sir, I heard a young gentleman was drowned above Monkey Island,'
said Boots.

'And no name mentioned?'

'Well, sir, I believe it was Mr. Coningsby.'

A general groan of horror.

'Coningsby, Coningsby! By Heavens I hope not,' said Sedgwick.

'I very much fear so,' said Boots; 'as how the bargeman who told me saw
Mr. Coningsby in the Lock House laid out in flannels.'

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