Albert Manucy - "Artillery Through the Ages"

Dean S. Fansler - "Filipino Popular Tales"

British Museum - "The Babylonian Legends of the Creation"

Thomas Babington Macaulay - "The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 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.

Tancred

B >> Benjamin Disraeli >> Tancred




Notwithstanding their practised nonchalance, the Mesdemoiselles Laurella
were a little subdued when they entered the palace of Besso, still more
so when they were presented to its master, whose manner, void of all
art, yet invested with a natural dignity, asserted in an instant its
superiority. Eva, whom they saw for the first time, received them like
a queen, and in a dress which offered as complete a contrast to their
modish attire as the beauty of her sublime countenance presented to
their pretty and sparkling visages.

Madame Laurella, the mother of these young ladies, would in Europe have
been still styled young. She was a Smyrniote, and had been a celebrated
beauty. The rose had since then too richly expanded, but even now, with
her dark eyelash charged with yamusk, her cheek touched with rouge, and
her fingers tipped with henna, her still fine hair exaggerated by art
or screened by her jewelled turban, she would have been a striking
personage, even if it had not been for the blaze of jewels with
which she was suffused and environed. The existence of this lady was
concentred in her precious gems. An extreme susceptibility on this head
is very prevalent among the ladies of the Levant, and the quantity
of jewels that they accumulate far exceeds the general belief. Madame
Laurella was without a rival in this respect, and resolved to maintain
her throne; diamonds alone did not satisfy her; immense emeralds, rubies
as big as pigeons' eggs, prodigious ropes of pearls, were studded and
wound about every part of her rich robes. Every finger glittered,
and bracelets flashed beneath her hanging sleeves. She sat in silent
splendour on a divan, now and then proudly moving a fan of feathers,
lost in criticism of the jewels of her friends, and in contemplation of
her own.

A young man, tall and well-looking, dressed as an Oriental, but with an
affected, jerking air, more French than Syrian, moved jauntily about
the room, speaking to several persons for a short time, shrugging
his shoulders and uttering commonplaces as if they were poignant
originalities. This was Hillel Besso, the eldest son of the Besso of
Aleppo, and the intended husband of Eva. Hillel, too, had seen the
world, passed a season at Pera, where he had worn the Frank dress, and,
introduced into the circles by the lady of the Austrian Internuncio,
had found success and enjoyed himself. He had not, however, returned
to Syria with any of the disgust shared by the Mesdemoiselles Laurella.
Hillel was neither ashamed of his race nor his religion: on the
contrary, he was perfectly satisfied with this life, with the family
of Besso in general, and with himself particularly. Hillel was a little
philosophical, had read Voltaire, and, free from prejudices, conceived
himself capable of forming correct opinions. He listened smiling and in
silence to Eva asserting the splendour and superiority of their race,
and sighing for the restoration of their national glory, and then
would say, in a whisper to a friend, and with a glance of epigrammatic
airiness, 'For my part, I am not so sure that we were ever better off
than we are.'

He stopped and conversed with Therese Laurella, who at first was
unbending, but when she found that he was a Besso, and had listened to
one or two anecdotes which indicated personal acquaintance not only
with ambassadors but with ambassadors' ladies, she began to relax. In
general, however, the rest of the ladies did not speak, or made only
observations to each other in a hushed voice. Conversation is not the
accomplishment of these climes and circles. They seemed content to
show their jewels to their neighbours. There was a very fat lady, of
prodigious size, the wife of Signor Yacoub Picholoroni, who was also a
consul, but not a consul-general _in honorem_. She looked like a huge
Chinese idol; a perpetual smile played upon her immense good-natured
cheeks, and her little black eyes twinkled with continuous satisfaction.
There were the Mourad Farhis and the Nas-sim Farhis. There were Moses
Laurella and his wife, who shone with the reflected splendour of the
great Laurellas, but who were really very nice people; sensible and most
obliging, as all travellers must have found them. Moses Laurella was
vice-consul to his brother. The Farhis had no diplomatic lustre, but
they were great merchants, and worked with the House of Besso in all
their enterprises. They had married two sisters, who were also their
cousins. Madame Mourad Farhi was in the zenith of her renowned beauty;
in the gorgeous Smyrniote style, brilliant yet languid, like a panther
basking in the sunshine. Her sister also had a rich countenance, and
a figure like a palm tree, while her fine brow beamed alike with
intelligence and beauty. Madame, Nassim was highly cultured,
enthusiastic for her race, and proud of the friendship of Eva, of which
she was worthy.

There were also playing about the room three or four children of such
dazzling beauty and such ineffable grace that no pen can picture their
seraphic glances or gestures of airy frolic. Sometimes serious, from
exhaustion not from thought; sometimes wild with the witchery of infant
riot; a laughing girl with hair almost touching the ground, and large
grey eyes bedewed with lustrous mischief, tumbles over an urchin who
rises doubtful whether to scream or shout; sometimes they pull the
robe of Besso while he talks, who goes on, as if unconscious of the
interruption; sometimes they rush up to their mother or Eva for an
embrace; sometimes they run up to the fat lady, look with wondering
gravity in her face, and then, bursting into laughter, scud away. These
are the children of a sister of Hillel Besso, brought to Damascus for
change of air. Their mother is also here, sitting at the side of Eva: a
soft and pensive countenance, watching the children with her intelligent
blue eyes, or beckoning to them with a beautiful hand.

The men in general remained on their legs apart, conversing as if they
were on the Bourse.

Now entered, from halls beyond of less dimensions, but all decorated
with similar splendour, a train of servants, two of whom carried between
them a large broad basket of silver filigree, filled with branches of
the palm tree entwined with myrtle, while another bore a golden basket
of a different shape, and which was filled with citrons just gathered.
These they handed to the guests, and each guest took a branch with the
right hand and a citron with the left. The conversation of Besso with
Elias Laurella had been broken by their entrance, and a few minutes
afterwards, the master of the house, looking about, held up his branch,
shook it with a rustling sound, and immediately Eva was at his side.

The daughter of Besso wore a vest of white silk, fitting close to her
shape and descending to her knees; it was buttoned with large diamonds
and restrained by a girdle of pearls; anklets of brilliants peeped
also, every now and then, from beneath her large Mamlouk trousers of
rose-coloured silk that fell over her slippers, powdered with diamonds.
Over her vest she wore the Syrian jacket, made of cherry-coloured
velvet, its open arms and back richly embroidered, though these were
now much concealed by her outer pelisse, a brocade of India, massy with
gold, and yet relieved from heaviness by the brilliancy of its light
blue tint and the dazzling fantasy of its pattern. This was loosely
bound round her waist by a Moorish scarf of the colour of a blood-red
orange, and bordered with a broad fringe of precious stones. Her
head-dress was of the same fashion as when we first met her in the kiosk
of Bethany, except that, on this occasion, her Syrian cap on the back
of her head was covered only with diamonds, and only with diamonds was
braided her long dark hair.

'They will never come,' said Besso to his daughter. 'It was one of his
freaks. We will not wait.'

'I am sure, my father, they will come,' said Eva, earnestly. And indeed,
at this very moment, as she stood at his side, holding in one hand her
palm branch, which was reposing on her bosom, and in the other her fresh
citron, the servants appeared again, ushering in two guests who had just
arrived. One was quite a stranger, a young man dressed in the European
fashion; the other was recognised at once by all present as the Emir of
Canobia.




CHAPTER XLVII.

_The Feast of Tabernacles_

EVA had withdrawn from her father to her former remote position, the
moment that she had recognised the two friends, and was, therefore,
not in hearing when her father received them, and said, 'Welcome, noble
stranger! the noble Emir here, to whom a thousand welcomes, told me that
you would not be averse from joining a festival of my people.'

'I would seize any opportunity to pay my respects to you,' replied
Tancred; 'but this occasion is most agreeable to me.'

'And when, noble traveller, did you arrive at Esh Sham?'

'But this morning; we were last from Hasbeya.' Tancred then inquired
after Eva, and Besso led him to his daughter.

In the meantime the arrival of the new guests made a considerable
sensation in the chamber, especially with the Mesdemoiselles Laurella. A
young prince of the Lebanon, whatever his religion, was a distinguished
and agreeable accession to their circle, but in Tancred they recognised
a being at once civilised and fashionable, a Christian who could dance
the polka. Refreshing as springs in the desert to their long languishing
eyes were the sight of his white cravat and his boots of Parisian
polish.

'It is one of our great national festivals,' said Eva, slightly waving
her palm branch; 'the celebration of the Hebrew vintage, the Feast of
Tabernacles.'

The vineyards of Israel have ceased to exist, but the eternal law
enjoins the children of Israel still to celebrate the vintage. A race
that persist in celebrating their vintage, although they have no fruits
to gather, will regain their vineyards. What sublime inexorability in
the law! But what indomitable spirit in the people!

It is easy for the happier Sephardim, the Hebrews who have never quitted
the sunny regions that are laved by the Midland Ocean; it is easy for
them, though they have lost their heritage, to sympathise, in their
beautiful Asian cities or in their Moorish and Arabian gardens, with the
graceful rights that are, at least, an homage to a benignant nature.
But picture to yourself the child of Israel in the dingy suburb or the
squalid quarter of some bleak northern town, where there is never a sun
that can at any rate ripen grapes. Yet he must celebrate the vintage
of purple Palestine! The law has told him, though a denizen in an icy
clime, that he must dwell for seven days in a bower, and that he must
build it of the boughs of thick trees; and the Rabbins have told him
that these thick trees are the palm, the myrtle, and the weeping willow.
Even Sarmatia may furnish a weeping willow. The law has told him that
he must pluck the fruit of goodly trees, and the Rabbins have explained
that goodly fruit on this occasion is confined to the citron. Perhaps,
in his despair, he is obliged to fly to the candied delicacies of
the grocer. His mercantile connections will enable him, often at
considerable cost, to procure some palm leaves from Canaan, which he
may wave in his synagogue while he exclaims, as the crowd did when the
Divine descendant of David entered Jerusalem, 'Hosanna in the highest!'

There is something profoundly interesting in this devoted observance
of Oriental customs in the heart of our Saxon and Sclavonian cities; in
these descendants of the Bedouins, who conquered Canaan more than three
thousand years ago, still celebrating that success which secured their
forefathers, for the first time, grapes and wine.

Conceive a being born and bred in the Judenstrasse of Hamburg or
Frankfort, or rather in the purlieus of our Houndsditch or Minories,
born to hereditary insult, without any education, apparently without a
circumstance that can develop the slightest taste, or cherish the least
sentiment for the beautiful, living amid fogs and filth, never treated
with kindness, seldom with justice, occupied with the meanest, if
not the vilest, toil, bargaining for frippery, speculating in usury,
existing for ever under the concurrent influence of degrading causes
which would have worn out, long ago, any race that was not of the
unmixed blood of Caucasus, and did not adhere to the laws of Moses;
conceive such a being, an object to you of prejudice, dislike, disgust,
perhaps hatred. The season arrives, and the mind and heart of that being
are filled with images and passions that have been ranked in all ages
among the most beautiful and the most genial of human experience; filled
with a subject the most vivid, the most graceful, the most joyous, and
the most exuberant; a subject which has inspired poets, and which has
made gods; the harvest of the grape in the native regions of the Vine.

He rises in the morning, goes early to some White-chapel market,
purchases some willow boughs for which he has previously given
a commission, and which are brought, probably, from one of the
neighbouring rivers of Essex, hastens home, cleans out the yard of his
miserable tenement, builds his bower, decks it, even profusely, with the
finest flowers and fruits that he can procure, the myrtle and the citron
never forgotten, and hangs its roof with variegated lamps. After the
service of his synagogue, he sups late with his wife and his children in
the open air, as if he were in the pleasant villages of Galilee, beneath
its sweet and starry sky.

Perhaps, as he is giving the Keedush, the Hebrew blessing to the Hebrew
meal, breaking and distributing the bread, and sanctifying, with a
preliminary prayer, the goblet of wine he holds, the very ceremony which
the Divine Prince of Israel, nearly two thousand years ago, adopted
at the most memorable of all repasts, and eternally invested with
eucharistic grace; or, perhaps, as he is offering up the peculiar
thanksgiving of the Feast of Tabernacles, praising Jehovah for the
vintage which his children may no longer cull, but also for His promise
that they may some day again enjoy it, and his wife and his children are
joining in a pious Hosanna, that is, Save us! a party of Anglo-Saxons,
very respectable men, ten-pounders, a little elevated it may be, though
certainly not in honour of the vintage, pass the house, and words like
these are heard:

'I say, Buggins, what's that row?'

'Oh! it's those cursed Jews! we've a lot of 'em here. It is one of their
horrible feasts. The Lord Mayor ought to interfere. However, things are
not as bad as they used to be: they used always to crucify little boys
at these hullabaloos, but now they only eat sausages made of stinking
pork.'

'To be sure,' replies his companion, 'we all make progress.'

In the meantime, a burst of music sounds from the gardens of Besso of
Damascus. He advances, and invites Tancred and the Emir to follow
him, and, without any order or courtesy to the softer sex, who, on
the contrary, follow in the rear, the whole company step out of the
Saracenic windows into the gardens. The mansion of Besso, which was
of great extent, appeared to be built in their midst. No other roof or
building was in any direction visible, yet the house was truly in the
middle of the city, and the umbrageous plane trees alone produced that
illimitable air which is always so pleasing and effective. The house,
though lofty for an eastern mansion, was only one story in height, yet
its front was covered with an external and double staircase. This, after
a promenade in the garden, the guests approached and mounted. It led
to the roof or terrace of the house, which was of great size, an oblong
square, and which again was a garden. Myrtle trees of a considerable
height, and fragrant with many flowers, were arranged in close order
along the four sides of this roof, forming a barrier which no eye from
the city beneath or any neighbouring terrace could penetrate. This
verdant bulwark, however, opened at each corner of the roof, which was
occupied by a projecting pavilion of white marble, a light cupola of
chequered carving supported by wreathed columns. From these pavilions
the most charming views might be obtained of the city and the
surrounding country: Damascus, itself a varied mass of dark green
groves, white minarets, bright gardens, and hooded domes; to the south
and east, at the extremity of its rich plain, the glare of the desert;
to the west the ranges of the Lebanon; while the city was backed on the
north by other mountain regions which Tancred had not yet penetrated.

In the centre of the terrace was a temporary structure of a peculiar
character. It was nearly forty feet long, half as many broad, and
proportionately lofty. Twelve palm trees clustering with ripe fruit,
and each of which seemed to spring from a flowering hedge of myrtles,
supported a roof formed with much artifice of the braided boughs of
trees. These, however, only furnished an invisible framework, from
which were suspended the most beautiful and delicious fruits, citron and
pomegranate, orange, and fig, and banana, and melon, in such thickness
and profusion that they formed, as it were, a carved ceiling of rich
shades and glowing colours, like the Saracenic ceiling of the mansion,
while enormous bunches of grapes every now and then descended like
pendants from the main body of the roof. The spaces between the palm
trees were filled with a natural trellis-work of orange trees in fruit
and blossom, leaving at intervals arches of entrance, whose form was
indicated by bunches of the sweetest and rarest flowers.

Within was a banqueting-table covered with thick white damask silk,
with a border of gold about a foot in breadth, and before each guest was
placed a napkin of the same fashion. The table, however, lacked none
of the conveniences and luxuries and even ornaments of Europe. What
can withstand the united influence of taste, wealth, and commerce? The
choicest porcelain of France, golden goblets chiselled in Bond Street,
and the prototypes of which had perhaps been won at Goodwood or Ascot,
mingled with the rarest specimens of the glass of Bohemia, while the
triumphant blades of Sheffield flashed in that very Syrian city whose
skill in cutlery had once been a proverb. Around the table was a divan
of amber-coloured satin with many cushions, so arranged that the
guests might follow either the Oriental or the European mode of seating
themselves. Such was the bower or tabernacle of Besso of Damascus,
prepared to celebrate the seventh day of his vintage feast.




CHAPTER XLVIII.

_Eva's Affianced Bridegroom_

WE OUGHT to have met at Jerusalem,' said Tancred to Besso, on whose
right hand he was seated, 'but I am happy to thank you for all
your kindness, even at Damascus.' 'My daughter tells me you are not
uninterested in our people, which is the reason I ventured to ask you
here.'

'I cannot comprehend how a Christian can be uninterested in a people who
have handed down to him immortal truths.'

'All the world is not as sensible of the obligation as yourself, noble
traveller.'

'But who are the world? Do you mean the inhabitants of Europe, which is
a forest not yet cleared; or the inhabitants of Asia, which is a ruin
about to tumble?'

'The railroads will clear the forest,' said Besso. 'And what is to
become of the ruin?' asked Tancred.

'God will not forget His land.' 'That is the truth; the government of
this globe must be divine, and the impulse can only come from Asia.'

'If your government only understood the Eastern question!' said Mr.
Consul-General Laurella, pricking up his ears at some half phrase that
he had caught, and addressing Tancred across the table. 'It is more
simple than you imagine, and before you return to England to take
your seat in your Parliament, I should be very happy to have some
conversation with you.

I think I could tell you some things----' and he gave a glance of
diplomatic mystery. Tancred bowed.

'For my part,' said Hillel Besso, shrugging his shoulders, and speaking
in an airy tone, 'it seems to me that your Eastern question is a great
imbroglio that only exists in the cabinets of diplomatists. Why should
there be any Eastern question? All is very well as it is. At least we
might be worse: I think we might be worse.'

'I am so happy to find myself once more among you,' whispered Fakredeen
to his neighbour, Madame Mourad Farhi. 'This is my real home.'

'All here must be happy and honoured to see you, too, noble Emir.'

'And the good Signor Mourad: I am afraid I am not a favourite of his?'
pursued Fakredeen, meditating a loan.

'I never heard my husband speak of you, noble Emir, but with the
greatest consideration.'

'There is no man I respect so much,' said Fakredeen; 'no one in whom I
have such a thorough confidence. Excepting our dear host, who is really
my father, there is no one on whose judgment I would so implicitly rely.
Tell him all that, my dear Madame Mourad, for I wish him to respect me.'

'I admire his hair so much,' whispered Therese Laurella, in an audible
voice to her sister, across the broad form of the ever-smiling Madame
Picholoroni. 'Tis such a relief after our dreadful turbans.'

'And his costume, so becoming! I wonder how any civilised being can
wear the sort of things we see about us. 'Tis really altogether like a
wardrobe of the Comedie.'

'Well, Sophonisbe,' said the sensible Moses Laurella, 'I admire the
Franks very much; they have many qualities which I could wish our
Levantines shared; but I confess that I do not think that their strong
point is their costume.'

'Oh, my dear uncle!' said Therese; 'look at that beautiful white cravat.
What have we like it? So simple, so distinguished! Such good taste! And
then the boots. Think of our dreadful slippers! powdered with pearls
and all sorts of trash of that kind, by the side of that lovely French
polish.'

'He must be terribly _ennuye_ here,' said Therese to Sophonisbe, with a
look of the initiated.

'Indeed, I should think so: no balls, not an opera; I quite pity him.
What could have induced him to come here?'

'I should think he must be attached to some one,' said Therese: 'he
looks unhappy.'

'There is not a person near him with whom he can have an idea in
common.'

'Except Mr. Hillel Besso,' said Therese. 'He appears to be quite
enlightened. I spoke to him a little before dinner. He has been a winter
at Pera, and went to all the balls.'

'Lord Palmerston understood the Eastern question to a certain degree,'
said Mr. Consul-General Laurella; 'but, had I been in the service of
the Queen of England, I could have told him some things;' and he
mysteriously paused.

'I cannot endure this eternal chatter about Palmerston,' said the Emir,
rather pettishly. 'Are there no other statesmen in the world besides
Palmerston? And what should he know about the Eastern question, who
never was in the East?'

'Ah, noble Emir, these are questions of the high diplomacy. They cannot
be treated unless by the cabinets which have traditions.'

'I could settle the Eastern question in a month, if I were disposed,'
said Fakredeen.

Mr. Consul-General Laurella smiled superciliously, and then said, 'But
the question is, what is the Eastern question?'

'For my part,' said Hillel Besso, in a most epigrammatic manner, 'I do
not see the use of settling anything.'

'The Eastern question is, who shall govern the Mediterranean?' said the
Emir. 'There are only two powers who can do it: Egypt and Syria. As for
the English, the Russians, the Franks, your friends the Austrians, they
are strangers. They come, and they will go; but Syria and Egypt will
always remain.'

'Egypt has tried, and failed.'

'Then let Syria try, and succeed.'

'Do you visit Egypt before you return from the East, noble sir?' asked
Besso, of Tancred.

'I have not thought of my return; but I should not be sorry to visit
Egypt. It is a country that rather perplexes us in Europe. It has
undergone great changes.'

Besso shook his head, and slightly smiled.

'Egypt,' said he, 'never changes. 'Tis the same land as in the days of
the Pharaohs: governed on their principles of political economy, with a
Hebrew for prime minister.'

'A Hebrew for prime minister!'

'Even so: Artim Bey, the present prime minister of Egypt, formerly
the Pasha's envoy at Paris, and by far the best political head in the
Levant, is not only the successor but the descendant of Joseph.'

'He must be added then to your friend M. de Sidonia's list of living
Hebrew statesmen,' said Tancred.

'We have our share of the government of the world,' said Besso.

'It seems to me that you govern every land except your own.'

'That might have been done in '39,' said Besso musingly; 'but why speak
of a subject which can little interest you?'

'Can little interest me!' exclaimed Tancred. 'What other subject should
interest me? More than six centuries ago, the government of that land
interested my ancestor, and he came here to achieve it.'

Copyright (c) 2007. topboookz.com. All rights reserved.