Oscar Wilde - "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

Jules Verne - "20000 Lieues sous les mers Parts 1&2"

Hugh Walpole - "Fortitude"

Robert Bloomfield - "The Farmer's Boy"

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.

The Magic City

E >> Edith Nesbit >> The Magic City




You see Philip felt that he ought to give Lucy the first chance of
escaping from the poor _Lightning Loose_. Yet he could not be at all
sure what it was that she would be escaping to. And if there was danger
overhead, of course he ought to be the one to go first to face it. And
the worthy Max felt the same about Brenda.

And Lucy felt just the same as they did. I don't know what Brenda felt.
She whined a little. Then for one moment Lucy and Philip stood on the
deck each grasping the handle of the bucket and looking at each other,
and the dogs looked at them, and the parrot looked at every one in turn.
An impatient jerk and shake of the rope from above reminded them that
there was no time to lose.

Lucy decided that it was more dangerous to go than to stay, just at the
same moment when Philip decided that it was more dangerous to stay than
to go, so when Lucy stepped into the bucket Philip helped her eagerly.
Max thought the same as Philip, and I am afraid Brenda agreed with them.
At any rate she leaped into Lucy's lap and curled her long length round
just as the rope tightened and the bucket began to go up. Brenda
screamed faintly, but her scream was stifled at once.

'I'll send the bucket down again the moment I get up,' Lucy called out;
and a moment later, 'it feels awfully jolly, like a swing.'

And so saying she was drawn up into the hole in the roof of the dome.
Then a sound of voices came down the shaft, a confused sound; the
anxious little party on the _Lightning Loose_ could not make out any
distinct words. They all stood staring up, expecting, waiting for the
bucket to come down again.

'I hate leaving the ship,' said Philip.

'You shall be the last to leave her,' said the parrot consolingly; 'that
is if we can manage about Max without your having to sit on him in the
bucket if he gets in first.'

'But how about you?' said Philip.

[Illustration: The bucket began to go up.]

A little arrogantly the parrot unfolded half a bright wing.

'Oh!' said Philip enlightened and reminded. 'Of course! And you might
have flown away at any time. And yet you stuck to us. I say, you know,
that was jolly decent of you.'

'Not at all,' said the parrot with conscious modesty.

'But it was,' Philip insisted. 'You might have---- hullo!' cried Philip.
The bucket came down again with a horrible rush. They held their breaths
and looked to see the form of Lucy hurtling through the air. But no, the
bucket swung loose a moment in mid-air, then it was hastily drawn up,
and a hollow metallic clang echoed through the cavern.

'Brenda!' the cry was wrung from the heart of the sober self-contained
Max.

'My wings and claws!' exclaimed the parrot.

'Oh, bother!' said Philip.

There was some excuse for these expressions of emotion. The white disk
overhead had suddenly disappeared. Some one up above had banged the lid
down. And all the manly hearts were below in the cave, and brave Lucy
and helpless Brenda were above in a strange place, whose dangers those
below could only imagine.

'I wish _I'd_ gone,' said Philip. 'Oh, I _wish_ I'd gone.'

'Yes, indeed,' said Max, with a deep sigh.

'I feel a little faint,' said the parrot; 'if some one would make a cup
of cocoa.'

Thus did the excellent bird seek to occupy their minds in that first
moment of disaster. And it was well that the captain and crew were thus
saved from despair. For before the kettle boiled, the lid of the shaft
opened about a foot and something largeish, roundish and lumpish fell
heavily and bounced upon the deck of the _Lightning Loose_.

It was a pine-apple, fresh, ripe and juicy. On its side was carved in
large letters of uncertain shape the one word 'WAIT.'

It was good advice and they took it. Really I do not see what else they
could have done in any case. And they ate the pine-apple. And presently
every one felt extremely sleepy.

'Waiting is one of those things that you can do as well asleep as awake,
or even better,' said the parrot. 'Forty winks will do us all the good
in the world.' He put his head under his wing where he sat on the
binnacle.

'May I turn in alongside you, sir?' Max asked. 'I shan't feel the
dreadful loneliness so much then.'

So Philip and Max curled up together on the deck, warmly covered with
the spare flags of all nations, and the forty winks lasted for the space
of a good night's rest--about ten hours, in fact. So ten hours' waiting
was got through quite easily. But there was more waiting to do after
they woke up, and that was not so easy.

. . . . . . .

When Lucy, sitting in the bucket with Brenda in her lap, felt the bucket
lifted from the deck and swung loose in the air, it was as much as she
could do to refrain from screaming. Brenda _did_ scream, as you know,
but Lucy stifled the sound in the folds of her frock.

Lucy bit her lips, made a great effort and called out that remark about
the bucket-swing, just as though she were quite comfortable. It was very
brave of her and helped her to go on being brave.

The bucket drew slowly up and up and up and passed from the silver dome
into the dark shaft above. Lucy looked up. Yes, it was daylight that
showed at the top of the shaft, and the rope was drawing her up towards
it. Suppose the rope broke? Brenda was quite quiet now. She said
afterwards that she must have fainted. And now the light was nearer and
nearer. Now Lucy was in it, for the bucket had been drawn right up, and
hands were reached out to draw it over the side of what seemed like a
well. At that moment Lucy saw in a flash what might happen if the owners
of the hands, in their surprise, let go the bucket and the windlass. She
caught Brenda in her hands and threw the dog out on to the dry ground,
and threw herself across the well parapet. Just in time, for a shout of
surprise went up and the bucket went down, clanging against the well
sides. The hands _had_ let go.

Lucy clambered over the well side slowly, and when her feet stood on
firm ground she saw that the hands were winding up the bucket again, and
that it came very easily.

'Oh, don't!' she said. 'Let it go right down! There are some more people
down there.'

'Sorry, but it's against the rules. The bucket only goes down this well
forty times a day. And that was the fortieth time.'

They pulled the bucket in and banged down the lid of the well. Some one
padlocked it and put the key in his pocket. And Lucy and he stood facing
each other. He was a little round-headed man in a curious stiff red
tunic, and there was something about the general shape of him and his
tunic which reminded Lucy of something, only she could not remember
what. Behind him stood two others, also red-tunicked and round-headed.

[Illustration: Lucy threw herself across the well parapet.]

Brenda crouched at Lucy's feet and whined softly, and Lucy waited for
the strangers to speak.

'You shouldn't do that,' said the red-tunicked man at last, 'it was a
great shock to us, your bobbing up as you did. It will keep us awake at
night, just remembering it.'

'I'm sorry,' said Lucy.

'You should always come into strange towns by the front gate,' said the
man; 'try to remember that, will you? Good-night.'

'But you're not going off like this,' said Lucy. 'Let me write a note
and drop it down to the others. Have you a bit of pencil, and paper?'

'No,' said the strange people, staring at her.

'Haven't you anything I can write on?' Lucy asked them.

'There's nothing here but pine-apples,' said one of them at last.

So she cut a pine-apple from among the hundreds that grew among the
rocks near by, and carved 'WAIT' on it with her penknife.

'Now,' she said, 'open that well lid.'

'It's as much as our lives are worth,' said the leader.

'No it isn't,' said Lucy; 'there's no law against dropping pine-apples
into the well. You know there isn't. It isn't like drawing water. And if
you don't I shall set my little dog at you. She is very fierce.'

Brenda was so flattered that she showed her teeth and growled.

'Oh, very well,' said the stranger; 'anything to avoid fuss.'

When the well lid was padlocked down again, Lucy said:

'What country is this?' though she was almost sure, because of the
pine-apples, that it was Somnolentia. And when they had said that word
she said:

'Now I'll tell you something. The Deliverer is coming up that well next
time you draw water. He is coming to deliver you from the bondage of the
Great Sloth.'

'It is true,' said the red round-headed leader, 'that we are in bondage.
And the Great Sloth wearies us with the singing of choric songs when we
long to be asleep. But none can deliver us. There is no hope. There is
nothing good but sleep. And of that we have never enough.'

'Oh, dear,' said Lucy despairingly, 'aren't there any women here? They
always have more sense than men.'

'What you say is rude as well as untrue,' said the red leader; 'but to
avoid fuss we will lead you and your fierce dog to the huts of the
women. And then perhaps you will allow us to go to sleep.'

The huts were poor and mean, little fenced-in corners in the ruins of
what had once been a great and beautiful city, with gardens and streams;
but now the streams were dry and nothing grew in the gardens but weeds
and pine-apples.

But the women--who all wore green tunics of the same stiff shape as the
men's--were not quite so sleepy as their husbands. They brought Lucy
fresh pine-apples to eat, and were dreamily interested in the cut of her
clothes and the begging accomplishments of Brenda. And from the women
she learned several things about the Somnolentians. They all wore the
same shaped tunics, only the colours differed. The women's were green,
the drawers of water wore red, the attendants of the Great Sloth wore
black, and the pine-apple gatherers wore yellow.

And as Lucy sat at the door of the hut and watched the people in these
four colours going lazily about among the ruins she suddenly knew what
they were, and she exclaimed:

'I know what you are; you're Halma men.'

Instantly every man within earshot made haste to get away, and the women
whispered, 'Hush! It is death to breathe that name.'

'But why?' Lucy asked.

'Halma was the great captain of our race,' said the woman, 'and the
Great Sloth fears that if we hear his name it will rouse us and we shall
break from bondage and become once more a free people.'

Lucy determined that they should hear that name pretty often; but before
she could speak it again the woman sighed, and remarking 'The Great
Sloth sleeps,' fell asleep then and there over the pine-apple she was
peeling. A vast silence settled on the city, and next moment Lucy also
slept. She slept for hours.

. . . . . . .

It took her some time to find the keeper of the padlock key, and when
she had found him he refused to use it. Nothing would move him, not even
the threat of the fierceness of Brenda.

At last, almost in despair, Lucy suddenly remembered a word of power.

'I command you to open the well and let down the bucket,' she said. 'I
command you by the great name of Halma.'

'It is death to speak that name,' said the keeper of the key, looking
over his shoulder anxiously.

'It is life to speak that name,' said Lucy. 'Halma! Halma! Halma! If you
don't open that well I'll carve the name on a pine-apple and send it in
on the golden tray with the Great Sloth's dinner.'

'It would have the lives of hundreds for that,' said the keeper in
horror.

'Open the well then,' said Lucy.

. . . . . . .

They all held a council as soon as Philip and Max had been safely drawn
up in the bucket, and Lucy told them all she knew.

'I think whatever we do we ought to be quick,' said Lucy; 'that Great
Sloth is dangerous. I'm sure it is. It's sent already to say I am to be
brought to its presence to sing songs to it while it goes to sleep. It
doesn't mind me because it knows I'm not the Deliverer. And if you'll
let me, I believe I can work everything all right. But if it knows
you're here, it'll be much harder.'

The degraded Halma men were watching them from a distance, in whispering
groups.

'I shall go and sing to the Great Sloth,' she said, 'and you must go
about and say the name of power to every one you meet, and tell them
you're the Deliverer. Then if my idea doesn't come off, we must
overpower the Great Sloth by numbers and . . . . You just go about saying
"Halma!"--see?'

'While you do the dangerous part? Likely!' said Philip.

'It's not dangerous. It never hurts the people who sing--never,' said
Lucy. 'Now I'm going.'

And she went before Philip could stop her.

'Let her go,' said the parrot; 'she is a wise child.'

The temple of the Great Sloth was built of solid gold. It had beautiful
pillars and doorways and windows and courts, one inside the other, each
paved with gold flagstones. And in the very middle of everything was a
large room which was entirely feather-bed. There the Great Sloth passed
its useless life in eating, sleeping and listening to music.

Outside the moorish arch that led to this inner room Lucy stopped and
began to sing. She had a clear little voice and she sang 'Jockey to the
Fair,' and 'Early one morning,' and then she stopped.

And a great sleepy slobbery voice came out from the room and said:

'Your songs are in very bad taste. Do you know no sleepy songs?'

'Your people sing you sleepy songs,' said Lucy. 'What a pity they can't
sing to you all the time.'

'You have a sympathetic nature,' said the Great Sloth, and it came out
and leaned on the pillar of its door and looked at her with sleepy
interest. It was enormous, as big as a young elephant, and it walked on
its hind legs like a gorilla. It was very black indeed.

'It _is_ a pity,' it said; 'but they say they cannot live without
drinking, so they waste their time in drawing water from the wells.'

'Wouldn't it be nice,' said Lucy, 'if you had a machine for drawing
water. Then they could sing to you all day--if they chose.'

'If _I_ chose,' said the Great Sloth, yawning like a hippopotamus. 'I am
sleepy. Go!'

'No,' said Lucy, and it was so long since the Great Sloth had heard that
word that the shock of the sound almost killed its sleepiness.

'_What_ did you say?' it asked, as if it could not believe its large
ears.

'I said "No,"' said Lucy. 'I mean that you are so great and grand you
have only to wish for anything and you get it.'

'Is that so?' said the Great Sloth dreamily and like an American.

'Yes,' said Lucy with firmness. 'You just say, "I wish I had a machine
to draw up water for eight hours a day." That's the proper length for a
working day. Father says so.'

'Say it all again, and slower,' said the creature. 'I didn't quite catch
what you said.'

Lucy repeated the words.

'If that's all. . . .' said the Great Sloth; 'now say it again, very
slowly indeed.'

Lucy did so and the Great Sloth repeated after her:

'I wish I had a machine to draw up water for eight hours a day.'

'Don't,' it said angrily, looking back over its shoulder into the
feather-bedded room, 'don't, I say. Where are you shoving to? Who are
you? What are you doing in my room? Come out of it.'

Something did come out of the room, pushing the Great Sloth away from
the door. And what came out was the vast feather-bed in enormous rolls
and swellings and bulges. It was being pushed out by something so big
and strong that it was stronger that the Great Sloth itself, and pushed
that mountain of lazy sloth-flesh half across its own inner courtyard.
Lucy retreated before its advancing bulk and its extreme rage.

'Push me out of my own feather-bedroom, would it?' said the Sloth, now
hardly sleepy at all. 'You wait till I get hold of it, whatever it is.'

The whole of the feather-bed was out in the courtyard now, and the Great
Sloth climbed slowly back over it into its room to find out who had
dared to outrage its Slothful Majesty.

Lucy waited, breathless with hope and fear, as the Great Sloth blundered
back into the inner room of its temple. It did not come out again.
There was a silence, and then a creaking sound and the voice of the
Great Sloth saying:

'No, no, no, I won't. Let go, I tell you.' Then more sounds of creaking
and the sound of metal on metal.

She crept to the arch and peeped round it.

The room that had been full of feather-bed was now full of wheels and
cogs and bands and screws and bars. It was full, in fact, of a large and
complicated machine. And the handle of that machine was being turned by
the Great Sloth itself.

'Let me go,' said the Great Sloth, gnashing its great teeth. 'I won't
work!'

'You must,' said a purring voice from the heart of the machinery. 'You
wished for me, and now you have to work me eight hours a day. It is the
law'; it was the machine itself which spoke.

'I'll break you,' said the Sloth.

'I am unbreakable,' said the machine with gentle pride.

'This is your doing,' said the Sloth, turning its furious eyes on Lucy
in the doorway. 'You wait till I catch you!' And all the while it had to
go on turning that handle.

'Thank you,' said Lucy politely; 'I think I will not wait. And I shall
have eight hours' start,' she added.

Even as she spoke a stream of clear water began to run from the pumping
machine. It slid down the gold steps and across the golden court. Lucy
ran out into the ruined square of the city shouting:

'Halma! Halma! Halma! To me, Halma's men!'

And the men, already excited by Philip, who had gone about saying that
name of power without a moment's pause all the time Lucy had been in the
golden temple, gathered round her in a crowd.

'Quick!' she said; 'the Great Sloth is pumping water up for you. He will
pump for eight hours a day. Quick! dig a channel for the water to run
in. The Deliverer,' she pointed to Philip, 'has given you back your
river.'

Some ran to look out old rusty half-forgotten spades and picks. But
others hesitated and said:

'The Great Sloth will work for eight hours, and then it will be free to
work vengeance on us.'

'I will go back,' said Lucy, 'and explain to it that if it does not
behave nicely you will all wish for machine guns, and it knows now
that if people wish for machinery they have to use it. It will be
awake now for eight hours and if you all work for eight hours a day
you'll soon have your city as fine as ever. And there's one new law.
Every time the clock strikes you must all say "Halma!" aloud, every one
of you, to remind yourselves of your great destiny, and that you are no
longer slaves of the Great Sloth.'

[Illustration: And all the while it had to go on turning that handle.]

She went back and explained machine guns very carefully to the now
hard-working Sloth. When she came back all the men were at work digging
a channel for the new river.

The women and children crowded round Lucy and Philip.

'Ah!' said the oldest woman of all, 'now we shall be able to wash in
water. I've heard my grandmother say water was very pleasant to wash in.
I never thought I should live to wash in water myself.'

'Why?' Lucy asked. 'What do you wash in?'

'Pine-apple juice,' said a dozen voices, 'when we _do_ wash!'

'But that must be very sticky,' said Lucy.

'It is,' said the oldest woman of all; 'very!'




CHAPTER XI

THE NIGHT ATTACK


The Halma men were not naturally lazy. They were, in the days before the
coming of the Great Sloth, a most energetic and industrious people. Now
that the Sloth was obliged to work eight hours a day, the weight of its
constant and catching sleepiness was taken away, and the people set to
work in good earnest. (I did explain, didn't I, that the Great Sloth's
sleepiness really was catching, like measles?)

So now the Halma men were as busy as ants. Some dug the channel for the
new stream, some set to work to restore the buildings, while others
weeded the overgrown gardens and ploughed the deserted fields. The head
Halma man painted in large letters on a column in the market-place these
words:

'This city is now called by its ancient name of Briskford. Any citizen
found calling it Somnolentia will not be allowed to wash in water for a
week.'

The head-man was full of schemes, the least of which was the lighting of
the town by electricity, the power to be supplied by the Great Sloth.

'He can't go on pumping eight hours a day,' said the head-man; 'I can
easily adjust the machine to all sorts of other uses.'

In the evening a banquet was (of course) given to the Deliverers. The
banquet was all pine-apple and water, because there had been no time to
make or get anything else. But the speeches were very flattering; and
Philip and Lucy were very pleased, more so than Brenda, who did not like
pine-apple and made but little effort to conceal her disappointment. Max
accepted bits of pine-apple, out of politeness, and hid them among the
feet of the guests so that nobody's feelings should be hurt.

'I don't know how we're to get back to the island,' said Philip next
day, 'now we've lost the _Lightning Loose_.'

'I think we'd better go back by way of Polistopolis,' said Lucy, 'and
find out who's been opening the books. If they go on they may let simply
anything out. And if the worst comes to the worst, perhaps we could get
some one to help us to open the _Teal_ book again and get the _Teal_
out to cross to the island in.'

'Lu,' said Philip with feeling, 'you're clever, really clever. No, I'm
not kidding. I mean it. And I'm sorry I ever said you were only a girl.
But how are we to get to Polistopolis?'

It was a difficult problem. The head-man could offer no suggestions. It
was Brenda who suggested asking the advice of the Great Sloth.

'He is such a fine figure of an animal,' she said admiringly; 'so
handsome and distinguished-looking. I am sure he must have a really
great mind. I always think good looks go with really great minds, don't
you, dear Lucy?'

'We might as well,' said Philip, 'if no one can think of anything else.'

No one could. So they decided to take Brenda's advice.

Now that the Sloth worked every day it was not nearly so disagreeable as
it had been when it slept so much.

The children approached it at the dinner hour and it listened patiently
if drowsily to their question. When it had quite done, it reflected--or
seemed to reflect; perhaps it had fallen asleep--until the town clock
struck one, the time for resuming work. Then it got up and slouched
towards its machine.

'Cucumbers,' it said, and began to turn the handle of its wheel. They
had to wait till tea-time to ask it what it meant, for in that town the
rule about not speaking to the man at the wheel was strictly enforced.

'Cucumbers,' the Sloth repeated, and added a careful explanation. 'You
sit on the end of any young cucumber which points in the desired
direction, and when it has grown to its full length--say sixteen
inches--why, then you are sixteen inches on your way.'

'But that's not much,' said Lucy.

'Every little helps,' said the Sloth; 'more haste less speed. Then you
wait till the cucumber seeds, and, when the new plants grow, you select
the earliest cucumber that points in the desired direction and take your
seat on it. By the end of the cucumber season you will be another
sixteen--or with luck seventeen--inches on your way. Thirty-two inches
in all, almost a yard. And thus you progress towards your goal, slowly
but surely, like in politics.'

'Thank you very much,' said Philip; 'we will think it over.'

But it did not need much thought.

'If we could get a motor car!' said Philip. 'If you can get machines by
wishing for them. . . .'

'The very thing,' said Lucy, 'let's find the head-man. _We_ mustn't wish
for a motor or we should have to go on using it. But perhaps there's
some one here who'd like to drive a motor--for his living, you know?'

There was. A Halma man, with an inborn taste for machinery, had long
pined to leave the gathering of pine-apples to others. He was induced to
wish for a motor and a B.S.A. sixty horse-power car snorted suddenly in
the place where a moment before no car was.

'Oh, the luxury! This is indeed like home,' sighed Brenda, curling up on
the air-cushions.

And the children certainly felt a gloriously restful sensation. Nothing
to be done; no need to think or bother. Just to sit quiet and be borne
swiftly on through wonderful cities, all of which Philip vaguely
remembered to have seen, small and near, and built by his own hands and
Helen's.

And so, at last, they came close to Polistopolis. Philip never could
tell how it was that he stopped the car outside the city. It must have
been some quite unaccountable instinct, because naturally, you know,
when you are not used to being driven in motors, you like to dash up to
the house you are going to, and enjoy your friends' enjoyment of the
grand way in which you have travelled. But Philip felt--in that quite
certain and quite unexplainable way in which you do feel things
sometimes--that it was best to stop the car among the suburban groves of
southernwood, and to creep into the town in the disguise afforded by
motor coats, motor veils and motor goggles. (For of course all these had
come with the motor car when it was wished for, because no motor car is
complete without them.)

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