Anonymous - "The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II"

Hippolyte A. Taine - "The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2"

John Ruskin - "Val d'Arno"

Alexis de Tocqueville et al - "American Institutions and Their Influence"

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.

Eventide

E >> Effie Afton >> Eventide




At length the president arose, and said the hour for adjournment had
arrived. She complimented the ladies on their prompt attendance and
enthusiastic devotion to the good cause. "Who can tell the results that
may follow from this little gathering of Christian sisters on this dark,
rainy evening?" she exclaimed. "What mind can conceive the mighty
influence these seemingly insignificant articles your ready tact and
skill have put together, may exert on the heathen world? Even this
scarlet pin-cushion may save some soul from death 'mid the spicy groves
of Ceylon's isle." [Tremendous sensation, as the lady president waved
the pin-ball to and fro.] "But language would fail me to enumerate the
benefits this holy organization of Christians is destined to bestow on
benighted Pagandom. We will now listen to a hymn from the sisters
Gaddies, and adjourn to Wednesday next, at 2 o'clock, P.M., at the house
of Mrs. Huldah Fleetfoot."

The hymn was sung, and the "Ladies' Literary Benevolent Combination for
Foreign Aid" duly adjourned to the time and place aforementioned.

We have seen that Miss Jerusha Sharpwell and Mrs. Dorothy Sykes had
agreed to call on Mrs. Orville, and condole with her on her daughter's
disgrace; but those benevolently-disposed ladies deemed it expedient to
call first at sundry places in the village and repeat the lamentable
tale, probably to increase the stock of sympathy; so Mrs. Orville heard
the sad story of her daughter's shame from several different sources,
ere these good ladies, their hearts overflowing with the "milk of human
kindness," came to sympathize in her affliction.

She received them with her accustomed urbanity and politeness, while
they cast wondering glances toward each other; probably that they had
not found Mrs. Orville in hysterical tears. But Miss Sharpwell, nothing
daunted, and determined to sympathize, readily expressed her admiration
of Mrs. Orville's fortitude of mind, that she could support herself with
so much calmness, under so great an affliction.

"I do not know as I quite understand you, Miss Sharpwell," remarked Mrs.
Orville, in a calm tone, and fixing her clear eyes steadily on her
visitor's face. "I have experienced no severe affliction of late. I have
lost no sheep, as I had none to lose."

"La! then that was all a flyin' story about Dutton's stealing your
lamb," broke in Mrs. Sykes. "Well, I'm glad to find it so; but I wonder
where the poor critter _did_ get it?"

"I can enlighten you on that point," said Mrs. Orville; "Mrs. Milder
presented him with it for a Christmas dinner."

"_She_ did?" exclaimed Miss Sharpwell. "Why couldn't she have said
so at the sewing society, the other day, then, when we were talking
about it, and thus settled the matter in all our minds? I hate this sly,
underhanded work. But we must not forget our errand, sister Sykes."

"By no means," observed the latter. "Dear Mrs. Orville, we are come to
sympathize with you in a far greater affliction than the loss of a sheep
would prove--the loss of a daughter's fair fame."

"You grow more and more enigmatical," said Mrs. Orville, smiling; "my
daughter has lost neither her health nor fair fame, as you express it. I
received a letter from her last week. She was well, and purposes to
return home the coming summer."

"Why, goodness, is it so?" exclaimed Sykes; "we heard as how you had
awful news of Alice, and were well-nigh distracted about her."

"I heard a report to that effect," said Mrs. Orville; "but whence it
originated I cannot say. It has no foundation in truth."

"Well, what an awful wicked place this is getting to be! I declare it
makes my blood run cold to think of it," said Miss Jerusha, with a pious
horror depicted on her countenance.

"And religious prayer-meetings kept up, and a Christian sewing circle in
the place too," added Mrs. Sykes. "I declare wickedness is increasing to
a fearful extent. We must be going, sister Jerusha. I declare I can
hardly sit still, I feel so for the sinners of this village."

"Mrs. Orville, I am glad the stories reported concerning your daughter
are false, for _your_ sake," said Miss Sharpwell, as the sympathetic
ladies rose to depart; but she added, in her most emphatic tone, "I
tremble for the sakes of those who put those stories in circulation.
Good-day, my friend."




CHAPTER VI.

"I tell you I love him dearly,
And he loves me well I know;
It seems as if I could nearly
Eat him up, I love him so."


"Well, sis, how do you like New Orleans?" asked Wayland Morris of his
sister Winnie, as he entered her quiet little study-chamber one evening
after the toil of the day was over.

"O, I like it well enough, Wayland," she answered; "that is, I like my
boarding-place here with Mrs. Pulsifer, I like my dear, kind teacher,
Aunt Debby, and I like my playmates."

"And is there anything you do not like, my sister?" asked Wayland,
observing she hesitated.

"Yes, two things."

"What are they?"

"First, I don't like to have you work so hard to support me in
idleness."

"In idleness, Winnie?"

"Yes, or what is just the same thing, I mean earning nothing to support
myself. I could learn some trade, and thus obtain money sufficient for
all my wants, and give you some, too, if you would but let me do it."

"My brave little sis," said Wayland, drawing her to his bosom, "have I
not told you that when you have acquired an education, you can become a
teacher, which will surely prove an occupation more congenial to your
taste, and by it you can gain an ample competence for all immediate
necessities?"

"But it will take a great deal of money to procure an education," said
Winnie, looking doubtfully in her brother's face.

"Not a very great deal, my prudent little sis," laughed Wayland, "and I
can easily furnish you with the sum needful."

"And, when I'm a teacher, will you let me repay all you have expended on
me?"

"Yes, yes, if that will put your mind at rest."

"Ah, but I fear it will be beyond my power to repay _all_ you are
expending on your foolish little sis! You are growing thin and pale,
brother, and you have none of the joyous spring and laughter with which
you used to chase my pretty fawns away up there on the green shores of
Tennessee."

"I am older and graver now, Winnie; besides, I often think of our dear
mother, sleeping there in death's embrace, and of our being orphans in
the wide world."

"O, it is very sad, brother!" said the young girl, bursting into tears.

"Do not weep so bitterly," said Wayland, endeavoring to soothe her
grief; "you said there were two things you did not like. I have
dispensed with one; now tell me the other."

"O, never mind that now!" said Winnie, quickly; "assist me in my Algebra
lesson, there's a good brother."

"Yes, after you have told me what I have asked."

"Well, it is a foolish thing, you will say. You know Jack Camford?"

"Yes; do you?" inquired Wayland in surprise.

"He comes to our school this term," said Winnie, demurely.

"And he is the other thing you do not like, is he?"

"Why, no, brother; he is not a thing, is he?"

"Well, perhaps not; but what is it you do not like?"

"Why, I don't like to have the girls tease me, and say he comes to our
school just to see me," said Winnie, averting her face.

Wayland's brow darkened at these words, and he was some time silent.

"Are you angry, brother?" asked Winnie at length.

"No, Winnie, not angry, but pained. My sister, this young Camford is not
a fit person for you to associate with."

"Why not?" exclaimed Winnie.

Wayland gazed in her face, and felt it was time to speak. "Winnie, would
you have for a friend the son of a man who robbed your father of his
fortune and hurried him into the grave?"

She was silent. "Adieu now, sister," continued Wayland, "I will call and
see you to-morrow evening," and with a tender kiss on the soft cheek, he
left her in her first young, girlish love-sorrow. Bitterly she charged
him with cold, unfeeling cruelty; for she intuitively perceived the
drift of those few words. "But was her poor Jack to suffer for his
father's errors? No; thrice no! and she longed to lay her head on his
bosom and tell him all her sorrows, for he was not stern and cruel, like
brother Wayland. No, he loved her dearly, as she loved him."

* * *

"Thunder and Mars! what's to pay now, I wonder?" exclaimed Esq. Camford,
rushing pell-mell into the dining room, where his family were assembled
at breakfast, and throwing his delicate wife into hysterics.

"O, Thisbe! run for the nerve-reviver," shrieked Mrs. Camford. "O,
Adolphus! why will you not regard my tremulous nerves, and not affright
me thus? What desperate thing has happened? O, Adolphus! you'll be the
death of me."

"I'll be the death of that cursed young vagabond, John Camford," blurted
forth the squire, in a tone of terrible rage.

"O, my son, my brilliant among my jewels! how has he incurred your
displeasure?" faintly articulated Mrs. Camford.

"Why, I saw the graceless scamp tugging a girl through the French market
this morning, filling her hands with bouquets and all sorts of
fol-de-rols. There is where the money goes he wheedles out of me every
week; but I'll fix the young rapscallion. Next thing, we shall have some
creole girl, or mulatto wench introduced to the family as Mrs. Camford,
junior."

The squire fairly foamed at the mouth, with anger. His fair consort was
in frantic hysterics, beating the floor with her heels, and exclaiming,

"O, mercy, mercy! my son, my Daniel, Henry, Thomas, Lewis, John! my
brilliant, among my jewels! O, spare him for the love of Heaven, my
husband, my adored Adolphus!"

Thisbe was following her mistress and bobbing the nerve-reviver to her
nose, but it failed to produce the usual effect. All the servants in
attendance stood with their mouths agape, while the three jewel
daughters proceeded quietly with their breakfast, and Alice sat among
them, a silent spectator of the scene. And now, as if to cap the climax,
in walked the culprit, Mr. Jack Camford, in _propria persona_, looking
as unconcerned and innocent as if nothing had occurred to displace him
in his father's good graces. At sight of her brilliant son, Mrs. Camford
shrieked and fell prostrate on the floor, and Thisbe, in the moment of
excitement, seized the senseless form and carried it from the room with
as much ease as she would have borne a cotton-bale. No sooner had the
door closed on his delicate spouse, than Esq. Camford bellowed forth,
"Daniel Henry Thomas Lewis John Camford, you rascal, come and stand
before your father!" The son instantly did as commanded. Doffing his
"Kossuth," and passing one hand through the long locks of curling black
hair, he swept it away from his clear, smooth brow, and stood
confronting his wrathful parent with a calm, unembarrassed aspect. He
was certainly a handsome young fellow, and Winnie Morris was quite
excusable for loving him a little in her girlish heart. The father's
anger softened as he gazed on his fair-looking boy, and when he spoke,
his voice had lost all its former harshness.

"Jack, my lad," he said, "why do you stand gazing about you thus? Come,
and sit down to your breakfast."

"You bade me stand before you, father, therefore I did so," said the
son, now approaching the table and assuming a seat beside his cousin
Alice.

There were a few moments of silence, during which all were occupied with
their meal. At length Esq. Camford inquired, casually enough, "Jack,
what young lady was that I saw you with in the French market this
morning?"

Jack, at the moment helping Alice to a snipe, answered carelessly,
"Young lady? O, Miss Winnie Morris, sister of Wayland Morris, editor of
our Literary Gazette."

Alice suddenly dropped her bird on the cloth, and Esq. Camford sprang
from the table, and, seizing his hat, bolted from the apartment,
overturning two servants in his way, and exclaiming at the top of his
voice, "Thunder and Mars! Thunder and Mars!"

Jack burst into a hearty laugh as his father cleared the door, and said,
"Was there ever a theatre could equal our house for enacting scenes?
Why, Alice, where are you going?" he continued, observing her rise from
the table; "stay a moment; will you be disengaged when I come in to
dinner? I want a few moments' private conversation with you."

"I shall be at your service, cousin," she answered, closing the door
behind her.

"What have you to say to Alice?" inquired Miss Celestina, the "belle and
beauty," in a querulous tone; picking at a bunch of flowers that laid
beside Josephine's plate.

"O, please don't spoil my flowers, sister!" said Miss Pheny; "they were
sent to me this morning by a particular friend."

"Faugh! what particular friend have _you_ got, I wonder?" sneered the
beauty; "some foolish love affair afoot here, to rival Jack's, I
suppose. Ha, ha! what silly things children are! But come, bubby, tell
me what you want with Alice?"

"That's my business," returned the youth proudly.

"To talk about your sweetheart, no doubt, and solicit her sympathy in
your love troubles. You'll find father won't have you toting about with
this beggar girl, I can tell you!" said the fair Celestina, spitefully.

"She is not a beggar," retorted Jack with flashing eyes, "but a far more
beautiful and accomplished lady than many who have had the best
advantages of fashionable society."

"O, of course, she is all perfection in your eyes at present," returned
the beauty in an aggravating tone, as she rose to retire; "but this day
six months I wonder how she will appear to your fickle, capricious
gaze?"

"If you were worth a retort, I'd make one," said Jack, with a glance of
angry contempt on his sister, as he took his cap and left the apartment.




CHAPTER VII.

"Thy haunting influence, how it mocks
My efforts to forget!
The stamp love only seals but once
Upon my heart is set."


Winnie Morris was laying her pretty head on her kind teacher's shoulder,
and pleading, O, so eloquently, with her sweet lips and eyes!

"Indeed, I want to go very much, dear Aunt Debby, and Jack will be so
disappointed if you say no. He sent me to plead, because he said nobody
could resist me. Will you not let me go this once, if I'll promise never
to ask again?"

"The theatre is not a fit place for young girls," said the teacher, with
a serious mien; "by going there they obtain false ideas of life."

"But I won't, Aunt Debby, I'm sure I won't, by going just once."

The good-natured teacher patted the soft cheek of her winsome pleader,
and the gentle act seemed to convince the child that she was gaining her
point.

"O, Debby, Debby!" she exclaimed, throwing her white arms round the good
woman's neck; "you will let me go with Jack to-night, I know."

"For which do you most wish to go: to see the play, or to be with him?"
asked Debby, still delaying the wished-for permission.

"O, to be with him!" answered Winnie; "and I could not be with him
unless I went out somewhere, for brother Wayland is cross at Jack; only
think of it--cross at my Jack! And he asks Mrs. Pulsifer whenever Jack
comes to see me, and then scolds; or not exactly that,--but says I ought
not to associate with a person he does not approve, and that Jack is
wild and unsteady, and won't love me long; but he doesn't know him as
well as I do, or he wouldn't say so, I'm sure;" and Winnie grew
eloquent, and her cheeks flushed vermilion red, while she spoke of her
girlish love. But Miss Deborah's face had assumed a less yielding
expression during her fair pupil's recital.

"So it appears your brother is not pleased with young Mr. Camford," she
remarked, as Winnie ceased; "under the circumstances, you must apply to
him for permission to accompany Master Jack to the theatre."

"O, dear! I wish I had not said a word," sobbed Winnie. "'Tis no use to
go to Wayland, for I know he would refuse my request; so I may as well
make up my mind to pass the evening alone in my room. I'm more sorry for
Jack, after all, than myself, he will be so sadly disappointed.
Good-night, Aunt Debby," and with dejected aspect the young girl put on
her little straw hat and left the school-room.

The evening stole on, and Jack Camford was beside his cousin Alice, in
her quiet apartment.

"I don't see why Wayland Morris should hate me so inveterately, as to
forbid his sister to receive any calls from me," remarked the youth,
bitterly.

"How do you know he does so?" inquired Alice, without raising her eyes
from the German worsted pattern on which she was occupied.

"Because Winnie told me so, to-night. I had invited her to attend the
theatre, but it appears she dared not ask her brother's permission, for
fear of a refusal," said Jack, in a troubled tone. "You are acquainted
with Mr. Morris, Alice?"

"No," returned she, quickly.

"Why, he calls on you."

"He did call at the house once or twice, soon after my arrival here, I
believe."

"Once or twice!" exclaimed Jack, in surprise; "why, he was here almost
every day for several months, and we all thought you were declared
lovers."

"Hush, Jack! how you are running on!" said Alice, with a flushed
countenance.

"Well, don't tell me you are not acquainted with young Morris, then,"
returned Jack.

"I have not seen him, as you are aware, for the last six months,"
remarked Alice.

"But you _could_ see him very easily."

"So could you."

"Ah, Alice! I thought you would do me so small a favor."

"As what?"

"See Mr. Morris, and ascertain why he opposes my addresses to his
sister."

"Is he the only one who opposes you?"

"You allude to my family; but not one of them should control me, in this
matter, if I could win her from her brother."

"You are very young, Jack; wait a few years, and your feelings will
change."

The boy looked on his cousin as she uttered these words with so much
apparent indifference, and exclaimed:

"O, Alice! you have never loved, or you could not talk thus to me," and
hurriedly left the apartment.

Alice heard him rush down the hall stairs and into the street. "Poor
Jack!" she sighed; "but what could I do for him? To place myself before
Wayland Morris, and plead my cousin's suit with his sister, when
probably the very cause of his objection to their acquaintance is that
the lover is a relation of mine; and it appears that by some
misapprehension I have as unwittingly as unfortunately incurred his
displeasure. What other reason can there be for the cessation of his
visits, but that he does not desire to see me?"

Ay, what other indeed, Alice? If you would have Wayland's love, there
could not be a stronger proof that 'tis yours, than this apparent
neglect and forgetfulness. Love joys in mystery,

"Shows most like hate e'en when 'tis most in love,
And when you think 'tis countless miles away,
Is lurking close at hand."

So, be not too sad, Ally, dear, when the brave steamboat bears you up
the majestic Mississippi, and far onward over the beautiful Ohio, amid
her wild, enchanting scenery, and the dashing railroad cars at length
set you down on a quiet summer evening at your mother's rural threshold.
Try hard to say, "I have forgotten Wayland Morris;" but your heart will
rebel; and try harder to say, "I shall never behold his face again;"
still "hope will tell a flattering tale;" and try hardest of all to
exclaim, "I'll fly his presence forever." But yet, away down low in your
beating bosom, a little voice will love to tantalize and whisper--"Will
you, though?"




CHAPTER VIII.

"Come, clear the stage and give us something new,
For we are tired to death with these old scenes."


Night after night, high up in the sky, the stars shone wildly bright,
but the heaven refused its grateful showers and the earth lay parched to
a cinder beneath the blazing sunbeams. The mighty Mississippi shrunk
within its banks to the size of a mere wayside rivulet, and the long
lines of boats lay lazily along the levees. No exchange of produce or
merchandise could be effected between the upper and lower regions of the
great Mississippi valley, and the consequence was universal depression
in trade and heavy failures. Esquire Camford went among the first in the
general crash, and his fair consort's nerves went also. The
nerve-reviver failed to produce the least soothing effect in this
dreadful emergency, and she sank into a bed-ridden ghost of hysteria,
with Thisbe for her constant attendant, to minister to her numerous
wants, and feed her with lobsters' claws and Graham crackers, which
constituted her sole food and nourishment.

As for the "belle and beauty," she, on a day, married Mr. Gilbert, in
pearl-colored satin, and that gentleman chancing to overturn a
sherry-cobbler on the fair bride's robe, the delicate creature went into
a nervous paroxysm, which so alarmed and terrified the happy bridegroom,
that, when he recovered his senses, he found himself on the far, blue
ocean, with the adorable Celestina's marriage-portion, consisting of the
snug sum of fifty thousand dollars, wrapped up in a blue netting-purse
in his coat pocket. How the great bank-bills grinned at him, as if to
charge him with the wanton robbery and desertion! He gazed around in a
bewildered manner, and the first face that met his eye was that of his
brother-in-law, Jack Camford, who advanced with a woeful smile
distorting his fine features, and exclaimed,

"Upon my word, you're a lucky dog, Gilbert!"

"How so?" demanded the latter.

"To have married my sister the day before father failed, and thus
secured a pretty fair sum of money; and now to have escaped a tedious
wife and got safely off with it in your pocket," said Jack, with a
theatrical flourish of manner.

"But what does all this mean? Why are you here, and where is this ship
bound?"

"Well, I'm here--hum--I don't know why, save that life was intolerable
at home after the smash-up, and Winnie Morris heard I was getting wild,
and turned a cold shoulder on me, I fancied. As to this craft, that
reels and tumbles about like a reef of drunkards, she is bound for
Australia; so I suppose, in due time, you and I will be landed on the
shores of the golden Ophir, if we don't get turned into Davy Jones'
locker by some mishap."

"Australia!" exclaimed Gilbert, "what the deuce am I going there for;
and how came I in this place?"

"All I know is, I found you here asleep when I came aboard, and here you
have been asleep for the last three days, wearing off the effects of
your wedding-feast, I suppose. I thought best not to disturb you, as at
sea one may as well be sleeping as waking."

"But, Jack Camford! I cannot go to Australia," said Gilbert, still half
confounded.

"How are you going to avoid it?" asked Jack, laughing.

"True! but what will my bride say? Here I hold her fortune in my hand."

"Exactly! Divide it with me, if you please, and we'll increase it
four-fold e'er a year in the golden land."

"But I don't like the idea of going to Australia!" pursued Gilbert.

"Neither do I, very well," answered Jack; "but when folks can't do as
they will, they must do as they can, I've heard say."

Thus we leave our Australian adventurers and return to the land from
which they are so rapidly receding. We didn't know what else to do here
in the eighth chapter, reader, unless we capped the climax, cleared the
stage, and scattered the characters; for we were quite as tired of them
as you were, and wanted to get them off our hands in some way.

A few people think "Effie Afton" can tell stories tolerably well. But
she can't, reader! We speak candidly, for we know "a heap" more about
her than you do. There may be those in the wide world who hug themselves
in the belief that she can tell _little_ fibs and _large_ fibs pretty
flippantly. Well, let them continue thus to believe, if they choose! We
shall not pause to say ay, yes, or nay; and we also entertain a private
opinion, now publicly expressed, that there are people within the
limited circle of our acquaintance who can not only give utterance to
_little_ and _large_ fibs, but make their whole lives and actions play
the lie to their thoughts and feelings. But as to "Effie's" telling long
magazine tales,--pshaw! she is the most unsystematic creature in the
world. She just humps down in a big rocking-chair, with one sort of
_foolscap_ in her _hand_, and another sort on her _head_, with an old
music-book to lay the sheets on, a lead-pencil for a pen, and thus
equipped, writes chapter one, and dashes _in medias res_ at once,
without an idea as to how, where, or when the story thus commenced is to
find its terminus or end. This is the way she does, reader; for we have
seen her time and again. Well, she scratches on "like mad" till her old
lead-pencil is "used up." Then she sharpens the point, and rushes on
wilder than before. She don't eat much, and if any one calls her to
dinner, never heeds them; but when she conceives herself arrived at a
suitable stopping-place, drops her paper, runs to the pantry, snatches a
piece of gingerbread, and back to her scribbling again, munching it as
she writes.

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