Friedrich Hebbel - "Agnes Bernauer"

Alfred Lord Tennyson - "Becket and other plays"

Various - "Legend Land, Vol. 1"

Various - "Legend Land, Volume 2"

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







CHAPTER VI.


In the meantime, after dinner, Tadpole and Taper, who were among the
guests of Mr. Ormsby, withdrew to a distant sofa, out of earshot, and
indulged in confidential talk.

'Such a strength in debate was never before found on a Treasury bench,'
said Mr. Tadpole; 'the other side will be dumbfounded.'

'And what do you put our numbers at now?' inquired Mr. Taper.

'Would you take fifty-five for our majority?' rejoined Mr. Tadpole.

'It is not so much the tail they have, as the excuse their junction will
be for the moderate, sensible men to come over,' said Taper. 'Our friend
Sir Everard for example, it would settle him.'

'He is a solemn impostor,' rejoined Mr. Tadpole; 'but he is a baronet and
a county member, and very much looked up to by the Wesleyans. The other
men, I know, have refused him a peerage.'

'And we might hold out judicious hopes,' said Taper.

'No one can do that better than you,' said Tadpole. 'I am apt to say too
much about those things.'

'I make it a rule never to open my mouth on such subjects,' said Taper. 'A
nod or a wink will speak volumes. An affectionate pressure of the hand
will sometimes do a great deal; and I have promised many a peerage without
committing myself, by an ingenious habit of deference which cannot be
mistaken by the future noble.'

'I wonder what they will do with Rigby,' said Tadpole.

'He wants a good deal,' said Taper.

'I tell you what, Mr. Taper, the time is gone by when a Marquess of
Monmouth was Letter A, No. 1.'

'Very true, Mr. Tadpole. A wise man would do well now to look to the great
middle class, as I said the other day to the electors of Shabbyton.'

'I had sooner be supported by the Wesleyans,' said Mr. Tadpole, 'than by
all the marquesses in the peerage.'

'At the same time,' said Mr. Taper, 'Rigby is a considerable man. If we
want a slashing article--'

'Pooh!' said Mr. Tadpole. 'He is quite gone by. He takes three months for
his slashing articles. Give me the man who can write a leader. Rigby can't
write a leader.'

'Very few can,' said Mr. Taper. 'However, I don't think much of the press.
Its power is gone by. They overdid it.'

'There is Tom Chudleigh,' said Tadpole. 'What is he to have?'

'Nothing, I hope,' said Taper. 'I hate him. A coxcomb! Cracking his jokes
and laughing at us.'

'He has done a good deal for the party, though,' said Tadpole. 'That, to
be sure, is only an additional reason for throwing him over, as he is too
far committed to venture to oppose us. But I am afraid from something that
dropped to-day, that Sir Robert thinks he has claims.'

'We must stop them,' said Taper, growing pale. 'Fellows like Chudleigh,
when they once get in, are always in one's way. I have no objection to
young noblemen being put forward, for they are preferred so rapidly, and
then their fathers die, that in the long run they do not practically
interfere with us.'

'Well, his name was mentioned,' said Tadpole. 'There is no concealing
that.'

'I will speak to Earwig,' said Taper. 'He shall just drop into Sir
Robert's ear by chance, that Chudleigh used to quiz him in the smoking-
room. Those little bits of information do a great deal of good.'

'Well, I leave him to you,' said Tadpole. 'I am heartily with you in
keeping out all fellows like Chudleigh. They are very well for opposition;
but in office we don't want wits.'

'And when shall we have the answer from Knowsley?' inquired Taper. 'You
anticipate no possible difficulty?'

'I tell you it is "carte blanche,"' replied Tadpole. 'Four places in the
cabinet. Two secretaryships at the least. Do you happen to know any
gentleman of your acquaintance, Mr. Taper, who refuses Secretaryships of
State so easily, that you can for an instant doubt of the present
arrangement?'

'I know none indeed,' said Mr. Taper, with a grim smile.

'The thing is done,' said Mr. Tadpole.

'And now for our cry,' said Mr. Taper.

'It is not a Cabinet for a good cry,' said Tadpole; 'but then, on the
other hand, it is a Cabinet that will sow dissension in the opposite
ranks, and prevent them having a good cry.'

'Ancient institutions and modern improvements, I suppose, Mr. Tadpole?'

'Ameliorations is the better word, ameliorations. Nobody knows exactly
what it means.'

'We go strong on the Church?' said Mr. Taper.

'And no repeal of the Malt Tax; you were right, Taper. It can't be
listened to for a moment.'

'Something might be done with prerogative,' said Mr. Taper; 'the King's
constitutional choice.'

'Not too much,' replied Mr. Tadpole. 'It is a raw time yet for
prerogative.'

'Ah! Tadpole,' said Mr. Taper, getting a little maudlin; 'I often think,
if the time should ever come, when you and I should be joint Secretaries
of the Treasury!'

'We shall see, we shall see. All we have to do is to get into Parliament,
work well together, and keep other men down.'

'We will do our best,' said Taper. 'A dissolution you hold inevitable?'

'How are you and I to get into Parliament if there be not one? We must
make it inevitable. I tell you what, Taper, the lists must prove a
dissolution inevitable. You understand me? If the present Parliament goes
on, where shall we be? We shall have new men cropping up every session.'

'True, terribly true,' said Mr. Taper. 'That we should ever live to see a
Tory government again! We have reason to be very thankful.'

'Hush!' said Mr. Tadpole. 'The time has gone by for Tory governments; what
the country requires is a sound Conservative government.'

'A sound Conservative government,' said Taper, musingly. 'I understand:
Tory men and Whig measures.'




CHAPTER VII.


Amid the contentions of party, the fierce struggles of ambition, and the
intricacies of political intrigue, let us not forget our Eton friends.
During the period which elapsed from the failure of the Duke of Wellington
to form a government in 1832, to the failure of Sir Robert Peel to carry
on a government in 1835, the boys had entered, and advanced in youth. The
ties of friendship which then united several of them had only been
confirmed by continued companionship. Coningsby and Henry Sydney, and
Buckhurst and Vere, were still bound together by entire sympathy, and by
the affection of which sympathy is the only sure spring. But their
intimacies had been increased by another familiar friend. There had risen
up between Coningsby and Millbank mutual sentiments of deep, and even
ardent, regard. Acquaintance had developed the superior qualities of
Millbank. His thoughtful and inquiring mind, his inflexible integrity, his
stern independence, and yet the engaging union of extreme tenderness of
heart with all this strength of character, had won the goodwill, and often
excited the admiration, of Coningsby. Our hero, too, was gratified by the
affectionate deference that was often shown to him by one who condescended
to no other individual; he was proud of having saved the life of a member
of their community whom masters and boys alike considered; and he ended by
loving the being on whom he had conferred a great obligation.

The friends of Coningsby, the sweet-tempered and intelligent Henry Sydney,
the fiery and generous Buckhurst, and the calm and sagacious Vere, had
ever been favourably inclined to Millbank, and had they not been, the
example of Coningsby would soon have influenced them. He had obtained over
his intimates the ascendant power, which is the destiny of genius. Nor was
this submission of such spirits to be held cheap. Although they were
willing to take the colour of their minds from him, they were in intellect
and attainments, in personal accomplishments and general character, the
leaders of the school; an authority not to be won from five hundred high-
spirited boys without the possession of great virtues and great talents.

As for the dominion of Coningsby himself, it was not limited to the
immediate circle of his friends. He had become the hero of Eton; the being
of whose existence everybody was proud, and in whose career every boy took
an interest. They talked of him, they quoted him, they imitated him. Fame
and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is
gained by very few; and that too at the expense of social pleasure,
health, conscience, life. Yet what power of manhood in passionate
intenseness, appealing at the same time to the subject and the votary, can
rival that which is exercised by the idolised chieftain of a great public
school? What fame of after days equals the rapture of celebrity that
thrills the youthful poet, as in tones of rare emotion he recites his
triumphant verses amid the devoted plaudits of the flower of England?
That's fame, that's power; real, unquestioned, undoubted, catholic. Alas!
the schoolboy, when he becomes a man, finds that power, even fame, like
everything else, is an affair of party.

Coningsby liked very much to talk politics with Millbank. He heard things
from Millbank which were new to him. Himself, as he supposed, a high Tory,
which he was according to the revelation of the Rigbys, he was also
sufficiently familiar with the hereditary tenets of his Whig friend, Lord
Vere. Politics had as yet appeared to him a struggle whether the country
was to be governed by Whig nobles or Tory nobles; and he thought it very
unfortunate that he should probably have to enter life with his friends
out of power, and his family boroughs destroyed. But in conversing with
Millbank, he heard for the first time of influential classes in the
country who were not noble, and were yet determined to acquire power. And
although Millbank's views, which were of course merely caught up from his
father, without the intervention of his own intelligence, were doubtless
crude enough, and were often very acutely canvassed and satisfactorily
demolished by the clever prejudices of another school, which Coningsby had
at command, still they were, unconsciously to the recipient, materials for
thought, and insensibly provoked in his mind a spirit of inquiry into
political questions, for which he had a predisposition.

It may be said, indeed, that generally among the upper boys there might be
observed at this time, at Eton, a reigning inclination for political
discussion. The school truly had at all times been proud of its statesmen
and its parliamentary heroes, but this was merely a superficial feeling in
comparison with the sentiment which now first became prevalent. The great
public questions that were the consequence of the Reform of the House of
Commons, had also agitated their young hearts. And especially the
controversies that were now rife respecting the nature and character of
ecclesiastical establishments, wonderfully addressed themselves to their
excited intelligence. They read their newspapers with a keen relish,
canvassed debates, and criticised speeches; and although in their debating
society, which had been instituted more than a quarter of a century,
discussion on topics of the day was prohibited, still by fixing on periods
of our history when affairs were analogous to the present, many a youthful
orator contrived very effectively to reply to Lord John, or to refute the
fallacies of his rival.

As the political opinions predominant in the school were what in ordinary
parlance are styled Tory, and indeed were far better entitled to that
glorious epithet than the flimsy shifts which their fathers were
professing in Parliament and the country; the formation and the fall of
Sir Robert Peel's government had been watched by Etonians with great
interest, and even excitement. The memorable efforts which the Minister
himself made, supported only by the silent votes of his numerous
adherents, and contending alone against the multiplied assaults of his
able and determined foes, with a spirit equal to the great occasion, and
with resources of parliamentary contest which seemed to increase with
every exigency; these great and unsupported struggles alone were
calculated to gain the sympathy of youthful and generous spirits. The
assault on the revenues of the Church; the subsequent crusade against the
House of Lords; the display of intellect and courage exhibited by Lord
Lyndhurst in that assembly, when all seemed cowed and faint-hearted; all
these were incidents or personal traits apt to stir the passions, and
create in breasts not yet schooled to repress emotion, a sentiment even of
enthusiasm. It is the personal that interests mankind, that fires their
imagination, and wins their hearts. A cause is a great abstraction, and
fit only for students; embodied in a party, it stirs men to action; but
place at the head of that party a leader who can inspire enthusiasm, lie
commands the world. Divine faculty! Rare and incomparable privilege! A
parliamentary leader who possesses it, doubles his majority; and he who
has it not, may shroud himself in artificial reserve, and study with
undignified arrogance an awkward haughtiness, but he will nevertheless be
as far from controlling the spirit as from captivating the hearts of his
sullen followers.

However, notwithstanding this general feeling at Eton, in 1835, in favour
of 'Conservative principles,' which was, in fact, nothing more than a
confused and mingled sympathy with some great political truths, which were
at the bottom of every boy's heart, but nowhere else; and with the
personal achievements and distinction of the chieftains of the party; when
all this hubbub had subsided, and retrospection, in the course of a year,
had exercised its moralising influence over the more thoughtful part of
the nation, inquiries, at first faint and unpretending, and confined
indeed for a long period to limited, though inquisitive, circles, began
gently to circulate, what Conservative principles were.

These inquiries, urged indeed with a sort of hesitating scepticism, early
reached Eton. They came, no doubt, from the Universities. They were of a
character, however, far too subtile and refined to exercise any immediate
influence over the minds of youth. To pursue them required previous
knowledge and habitual thought. They were not yet publicly prosecuted by
any school of politicians, or any section of the public press. They had
not a local habitation or a name. They were whispered in conversation by a
few. A tutor would speak of them in an esoteric vein to a favourite pupil,
in whose abilities he had confidence, and whose future position in life
would afford him the opportunity of influencing opinion. Among others,
they fell upon the ear of Coningsby. They were addressed to a mind which
was prepared for such researches.

There is a Library at Eton formed by the boys and governed by the boys;
one of those free institutions which are the just pride of that noble
school, which shows the capacity of the boys for self-government, and
which has sprung from the large freedom that has been wisely conceded
them, the prudence of which confidence has been proved by their rarely
abusing it. This Library has been formed by subscriptions of the present
and still more by the gifts of old Etonians. Among the honoured names of
these donors may be remarked those of the Grenvilles and Lord Wellesley;
nor should we forget George IV., who enriched the collection with a
magnificent copy of the Delphin Classics. The Institution is governed by
six directors, the three first Collegers and the three first Oppidans for
the time being; and the subscribers are limited to the one hundred senior
members of the school.

It is only to be regretted that the collection is not so extensive at it
is interesting and choice. Perhaps its existence is not so generally known
as it deserves to be. One would think that every Eton man would be as
proud of his name being registered as a donor in the Catalogue of this
Library, as a Venetian of his name being inscribed in the Golden Book.
Indeed an old Etonian, who still remembers with tenderness the sacred
scene of youth, could scarcely do better than build a Gothic apartment for
the reception of the collection. It cannot be doubted that the Provost and
fellows would be gratified in granting a piece of ground for the purpose.

Great were the obligations of Coningsby to this Eton Library. It
introduced him to that historic lore, that accumulation of facts and
incidents illustrative of political conduct, for which he had imbibed an
early relish. His study was especially directed to the annals of his own
country, in which youth, and not youth alone, is frequently so deficient.
This collection could afford him Clarendon and Burnet, and the authentic
volumes of Coxe: these were rich materials for one anxious to be versed in
the great parliamentary story of his country. During the last year of his
stay at Eton, when he had completed his eighteenth year, Coningsby led a
more retired life than previously; he read much, and pondered with all the
pride of acquisition over his increasing knowledge.

And now the hour has come when this youth is to be launched into a world
more vast than that in which he has hitherto sojourned, yet for which this
microcosm has been no ill preparation. He will become more wise; will he
remain as generous? His ambition may be as great; will it be as noble?
What, indeed, is to be the future of this existence that is now to be sent
forth into the great aggregate of entities? Is it an ordinary organisation
that will jostle among the crowd, and be jostled? Is it a finer
temperament, susceptible of receiving the impressions and imbibing the
inspirations of superior yet sympathising spirits? Or is it a primordial
and creative mind; one that will say to his fellows, 'Behold, God has
given me thought; I have discovered truth, and you shall believe?'

The night before Coningsby left Eton, alone in his room, before he retired
to rest, he opened the lattice and looked for the last time upon the
landscape before him; the stately keep of Windsor, the bowery meads of
Eton, soft in the summer moon and still in the summer night. He gazed upon
them; his countenance had none of the exultation, that under such
circumstances might have distinguished a more careless glance, eager for
fancied emancipation and passionate for a novel existence. Its expression
was serious, even sad; and he covered his brow with his hand.

END OF BOOK II.




BOOK III.


CHAPTER I.


There are few things more full of delight and splendour, than to travel
during the heat of a refulgent summer in the green district of some
ancient forest.

In one of our midland counties there is a region of this character, to
which, during a season of peculiar lustre, we would introduce the reader.

It was a fragment of one of those vast sylvan tracts wherein Norman kings
once hunted, and Saxon outlaws plundered; and although the plough had for
centuries successfully invaded brake and bower, the relics retained all
their original character of wildness and seclusion. Sometimes the green
earth was thickly studded with groves of huge and vigorous oaks,
intersected with those smooth and sunny glades, that seem as if they must
be cut for dames and knights to saunter on. Then again the undulating
ground spread on all sides, far as the eye could range, covered with copse
and fern of immense growth. Anon you found yourself in a turfy wilderness,
girt in apparently by dark woods. And when you had wound your way a little
through this gloomy belt, the landscape still strictly sylvan, would
beautifully expand with every combination and variety of woodland; while
in its centre, the wildfowl covered the waters of a lake, and the deer
basked on the knolls that abounded on its banks.

It was in the month of August, some six or seven years ago, that a
traveller on foot, touched, as he emerged from the dark wood, by the
beauty of this scene, threw himself under the shade of a spreading tree,
and stretched his limbs on the turf for enjoyment rather than repose. The
sky was deep-coloured and without a cloud, save here and there a minute,
sultry, burnished vapour, almost as glossy as the heavens. Everything was
still as it was bright; all seemed brooding and basking; the bee upon its
wing was the only stirring sight, and its song the only sound.

The traveller fell into a reverie. He was young, and therefore his musings
were of the future. He had felt the pride of learning, so ennobling to
youth; he was not a stranger to the stirring impulses of a high ambition,
though the world to him was as yet only a world of books, and all that he
knew of the schemes of statesmen and the passions of the people, were to
be found in their annals. Often had his fitful fancy dwelt with
fascination on visions of personal distinction, of future celebrity,
perhaps even of enduring fame. But his dreams were of another colour now.
The surrounding scene, so fair, so still, and sweet; so abstracted from
all the tumult of the world, its strife, its passions, and its cares: had
fallen on his heart with its soft and subduing spirit; had fallen on a
heart still pure and innocent, the heart of one who, notwithstanding all
his high resolves and daring thoughts, was blessed with that tenderness of
soul which is sometimes linked with an ardent imagination and a strong
will. The traveller was an orphan, more than that, a solitary orphan. The
sweet sedulousness of a mother's love, a sister's mystical affection, had
not cultivated his early susceptibility. No soft pathos of expression had
appealed to his childish ear. He was alone, among strangers calmly and
coldly kind. It must indeed have been a truly gentle disposition that
could have withstood such hard neglect. All that he knew of the power of
the softer passions might be found in the fanciful and romantic annals of
schoolboy friendship.

And those friends too, so fond, so sympathising, so devoted, where were
they now? Already they were dispersed; the first great separation of life
had been experienced; the former schoolboy had planted his foot on the
threshold of manhood. True, many of them might meet again; many of them
the University must again unite, but never with the same feelings. The
space of time, passed in the world before they again met, would be an age
of sensation, passion, experience to all of them. They would meet again
with altered mien, with different manners, different voices. Their eyes
would not shine with the same light; they would not speak the same words.
The favourite phrases of their intimacy, the mystic sounds that spoke only
to their initiated ear, they would be ashamed to use them. Yes, they might
meet again, but the gushing and secret tenderness was gone for ever.

Nor could our pensive youth conceal it from himself that it was affection,
and mainly affection, that had bound him to these dear companions. They
could not be to him what he had been to them. His had been the inspiring
mind that had guided their opinions, formed their tastes, directed the
bent and tenor of their lives and thoughts. Often, indeed, had he needed,
sometimes he had even sighed for, the companionship of an equal or
superior mind; one who, by the comprehension of his thought, and the
richness of his knowledge, and the advantage of his experience, might
strengthen and illuminate and guide his obscure or hesitating or
unpractised intelligence. He had scarcely been fortunate in this respect,
and he deeply regretted it; for he was one of those who was not content
with excelling in his own circle, if he thought there was one superior to
it. Absolute, not relative distinction, was his noble aim.

Alone, in a lonely scene, he doubly felt the solitude of his life and
mind. His heart and his intellect seemed both to need a companion. Books,
and action, and deep thought, might in time supply the want of that
intellectual guide; but for the heart, where was he to find solace?

Ah! if she would but come forth from that shining lake like a beautiful
Ondine! Ah, if she would but step out from the green shade of that secret
grove like a Dryad of sylvan Greece! O mystery of mysteries, when youth
dreams his first dream over some imaginary heroine!

Suddenly the brooding wildfowl rose from the bosom of the lake, soared in
the air, and, uttering mournful shrieks, whirled in agitated tumult. The
deer started from their knolls, no longer sunny, stared around, and rushed
into the woods. Coningsby raised his eyes from the turf on which they had
been long fixed in abstraction, and he observed that the azure sky had
vanished, a thin white film had suddenly spread itself over the heavens,
and the wind moaned with a sad and fitful gust.

He had some reason to believe that on the other side of the opposite wood
the forest was intersected by a public road, and that there were some
habitations. Immediately rising, he descended at a rapid pace into the
valley, passed the lake, and then struck into the ascending wood on the
bank opposite to that on which he had mused away some precious time.

The wind howled, the branches of the forest stirred, and sent forth sounds
like an incantation. Soon might be distinguished the various voices of the
mighty trees, as they expressed their terror or their agony. The oak
roared, the beech shrieked, the elm sent forth its deep and long-drawn
groan; while ever and anon, amid a momentary pause, the passion of the ash
was heard in moans of thrilling anguish.

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