Burton Egbert Stevenson - "The Home Book of Verse, Volume 1"

Nathaniel Bright Emerson - "Unwritten Literature of Hawaii"

William Wordsworth - "Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2"

Laura E. Richards - "Hildegarde's Neighbors"

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




The night wind roared solemnly without, the fire burned low on the rude
hearth, and the little apartment, but illy protected from the searching
blasts, grew chilly. Still the hermit sat silent, his bowed head resting
between his small, attenuated hands. Edgar rose, brought the long
overcoat and spread it over his shoulders, as a protection from the
increasing cold. Then wrapping a blanket around his own light form, he
stole softly to the window, and turned his gaze upward to the
star-lighted heaven. He dearly loved to sit thus through the hushed
midnight hours, and listen to the deep, heavy roaring of the mighty
winds, as they swept through the surrounding forest, while his soul
seemed borne away on their rushing currents, up and upward till her
pinions brushed the starry palaces of angels and beatified spirits; and
on, and on, with new splendors ever bursting on her ravished vision, till
the elysium of light in the high heaven of heavens poured its bewildering
glories upon her, and her weary wings fluttered to rest at last upon the
bosom of the All-Holy.

Edgar was possessed of a temperament of the most imaginative order,
deeply imbued with lofty, poetic sentiment, and a tendency to reserve and
melancholy. His father had been an artist, and the sunny skies of Italy
cast their bright glory over his tender years, warming to impassioned
ardor the springs and fountains of his youthful bosom. Very few boys of
his age and acquirements could have endured the seclusion in which he had
dwelt for the last six months; but nothing could have been more consonant
with the reserved, romantic disposition of Edgar; and the prospect of
leaving the wild hut in the forest to go forth among the wide world's
jostling crowds, caused him heart-throbbing pangs.

After a long silence the hermit roused himself. The room was cold and
dark.

"Edgar?" said he, in a low, broken voice.

"I am here," answered the youth, rising, and feeling his way through the
darkness to his uncle's side, "Won't you lie down now? The room is so
cold, and there is no wood within to replenish the fire."

"Yes, my boy, I will lie down," said the hermit, "but not to sleep; the
ghosts of past joys are with me to-night."

"Drive them away, uncle!" said the lad soothingly. "I am not disposed to
sleep either. Let us lie down and cover us warm, and then you tell me of
your plans and projects for my future, as you had commenced to do a few
hours ago."

"No, Edgar, not to-night," answered the recluse. "Your young eyes will
wax heavy with these midnight vigils. You must sleep, my boy, and
to-morrow I will communicate my plans concerning you."

"As you say, uncle," returned Edgar, preparing to lie down.

Young, and happily ignorant of the cares and sorrows that distract the
bosoms of maturer years, he was soon asleep.

The hermit moved to the window, and, after gazing forth some time in
silence, murmured, "Wild, wild is the night! Heaven send she does not
suffer. I left two bundles on her lonely sill, though my fingers grew
stiff with cold ere I had gathered them. Thus do I feebly endeavor to
atone for past misconduct. How the wind roars through the pines! O, what
memories of long ago rush o'er my soul! I think of Mary as the time
approaches when she will be near me. Shall I see her face again? God
forbid!" exclaimed he, stamping his foot violently upon the stone floor.
After a while he resumed his low soliloquy. "I fear for Edgar," he said,
"lest the cold world chill his heart and undo his usefulness, as it has
mine. He has my temperament, reserved, sensitive, and with the same
accursed capacity for strong, undying attachment. What a fair prospect of
fame had I! What honors were ready to crown me when that monster came and
blasted them all! Such do I fear will be Edgar's fate. But he must go
forth into the world; such was the wish of his parents. I can keep him
near me a few months longer by sending him to the Wimbledon seminary, ere
he must depart for some distant university or school of art. Then the
great world will have opened before him, and I shall see him no more."
The hermit suddenly ceased. Tears choked his utterance.

"Uncle!" said Edgar, starting quickly from his slumbers, "will you not
come and lie down?"

"Yes, my boy," answered the sorrowing man, approaching the rude couch.

The wintry winds wailed on with piteous, mournful voices; but the
_Hermit of the Cedars_ slept at last,

"A troubled, dreamy sleep."




CHAPTER XII.

"Lawyers and doctors at your service.
We are better off
Without them.
True, you are,--but still
You follow on their heels, and fawn,
And flatter in their faces. If you
Would leave your brawls and fights which
Call for physic, very soon you'd be
Beyond their greedy clutches."

OLD PLAY.


Reader, do you wonder where's the doctor whose saddle-bags may be
supposed to contain the divers specifics for the "ills" which the "flesh"
of Wimbledon is liable to become heir to? He doth exist, and, when
occasion calls, we'll trot him forth.

And do you say this same Wimbledon has never a lawyer within its
precincts,--and whoever heard of a village of several hundred inhabitants
without at least half-a-dozen of these learned disciples of Blackstone to
settle its wrongs and right its abuses?

Permit us to inform you, friend, that we consider lawyers dangerous
animals; and the less men and women have to do with them, the better!

Nevertheless, there is one o' the craft in Wimbledon; and, if you had not
been blind as a bat, you would have discovered, ere this, the sign of
"Peter Paul Pimble, Esq., Attorney-at-Law," hung over the door of a
small, black building in Mudget square. True, Mr. Pimble don't practise
his profession much, for a very good reason; nobody is in want of his
services; and that's the case with two thirds of the lawyers in
Christendom.

Mrs. Pimble has converted her husband's office into a committee-room, and
receptacle for hoards of pamphlets and papers, containing the proceedings
of divers conventions held for the advancement of the cause of "Woman's
Rights, and promulgation of Universal Freedom and Philanthropy."

Mrs. Pimble, the ardent reformist, is at present detained from her labors
by the illness of her eldest son, Garrison. She has sent for the young
female physician, Dr. Sarah Simcoe; but the word is, "pressing business
detains that medical functionary at home,"--so, in direct violation of
her established principles, she has been compelled to send for old Dr.
Potipher, who considers himself, par excellence, the Esculapius of
Wimbledon.

But Peggy Nonce comes blowing back from her hasty errand, and says the
doctor is down to Mr. Moses Simcoe's. Mrs. Pimble wonders what should
take a vile male practitioner to the house of an accomplished
lady-physician. Peggy looks wise, as much as to say she could explain the
mystery if she chose. But no one asks her to speak, so she goes into the
kitchen, where Mr. Pimble sits in his dressing-gown and sheepskin
slippers, shivering over an expiring fire. He lifts his head, as the
bustling housekeeper begins to rattle the covers of the stove for the
purpose of putting in some more wood, and asks feebly if "Dr. Potipher
has arrived."

"No," answers Peggy. "He is down to Mr. Simcoe's."

"Who is sick there?" inquires Mr. Pimble.

"His wife."

"Why, she is a doctor herself! Can't she cure her own ailments?" says Mr.
Pimble.

"Not always, I reckon," is Peggy's reply, while she is evidently vastly
amused by something she does not choose to communicate at present.

Beside the bed of her sick boy stood Mrs. Pimble. She laid her hand on
his forehead. It burned with fever, and his pulse was quick and hard. She
was not much skilled in the "art medical," but she resolved to do
_something_ for her child, and forthwith proceeded to the kitchen and
compounded a dish of catnip leaves and ginger. It exhaled a savory
smell, and she felt quite confident it would cool off Garrison's fever.
Placing a large bowl of the liquid by his bed-side, she bade him drink
freely of it through the evening, while she was gone to the Reform Club,
and when she came home she would call at Sister Simcoe's and obtain a
prescription for him. The sick lad promised to do as she requested. His
fever inclined him to drink incessantly, and ere his mother was ten
yards from the house, he had guzzled the whole brimming bowlful. And
still he called for drink, drink; which his insensate father carried to
him in copious quantities as often as he desired it.

Mrs. Pimble proceeded on her way to the club room. For some reason there
was but a thin attendance. None of the prominent members were present,
and the little company decided to adjourn. Mrs. Pimble hurried round to
Mrs. Simcoe's, to learn the cause of her absence and get the prescription
for Garrison. The lady-doctor had been lecturing for several months in
different towns of the county, and was but recently returned.

Mrs. Pimble entered without knocking, as was her wont, and walked into
the young doctor's office, where she beheld, not the fair, feminine face
of the rightful proprietor, but the ugly, rhubarb-colored visage of the
village apothecary, Dr. Potipher, ensconced in the high-backed cushioned
chair, fast asleep.

She turned back and opened the sitting-room door, and there stood Mr.
Simcoe before a bed, holding a tea-tray, containing several vials and
glasses. Mrs. Pimble started on seeing the night-capped head of Mrs.
Simcoe raised feebly from the pillow, and darting forward, exclaimed,
"Mercy, Sister Simcoe! what has befallen you?"

A smothered wail from beneath the bed-clothes now met her ear, and,
turning down the blankets, she discovered two red-faced, bald-headed
babies, wrapped in swaddling-clothes. She started back aghast.

"What are those things--what are those things?" she demanded,
hysterically, pointing to the infant strangers.

"Simcoe's children!" groaned the pale lady-doctor, turning uneasily away
from the little things that lay squirming and making such grimaces, as
only very young babies _can_ make, in the face of Mrs. Pimble. The
alleged father stood there, chuckling over the smartness of his progeny.
Mrs. Pimble darted one withering glance upon him, and walked away
without another word. She roused old Dr. Potipher, and took him home
with her. Well she did so, for Garrison was much worse than when she
left him, and the doctor pronounced it a case of brain fever, which
would require the nicest care and nursing.

Thus a wet blanket was most audaciously thrown upon the Woman's Rights'
Reform, which was fain to arrest its progress in Wimbledon for a while.
We shall see how long.




CHAPTER XIII.

"Thy hands are filled with early flowers,
Thy step is on the wind;
The innocent and keen delight
Of youth is on thy mind;
That glad fresh feeling that bestows
Itself the gladness which it knows,
The pure, the undefined;
And thou art in that happy hour
Of feeling's uncurbed, early power."


The spring dawned bright and beautiful over Wimbledon, and when the first
blue-birds sang on the budding boughs, and the grass was springing green
in streets and by-ways, the tenants of "Summer Home" returned; and a
bright young girl, with dark abundant hair hanging in a rich profusion of
shiny ringlets over her white, uncovered shoulders, was seen skipping
lightly through the gardens and grounds, pruning shrubs, transplanting
flowers, and training truant vines over arbors and alcoves.

It was Florence Howard, resplendent in the light of her girlish beauty,
and buoyant overflow of health and happiness. Often, in her morning
strolls, she noticed a tall, graceful boy, in a blue frock-coat, with a
shining morocco cap placed over a head of light curly hair, passing
along, satchel in hand, to the seminary on the hill, and every night she
saw him disappear within the forest that lay to the northward of her
father's residence.

She wondered what became of him, for the woods were wide and deep, and it
must be a long way to the other side. There surely could be no habitation
within their precincts, and Florence's curiosity was strongly excited to
fathom the mystery, which in her eyes surrounded the fair-haired youth.

"Father," said she one evening, as she sat beside him on the western
terrace, "I don't like being confined herewith these stupid tutors. I
wish you would let me go to school at the seminary."

"Your advantages at home are far superior, my daughter," answered her
father.

"O, but I should like the air and exercise, and the company of children
of my own age so much," pursued she, poking her little fingers through
her father's silvered locks, and leaning up against his side in a very
coaxing attitude. "I shall become the saddest mope in the world if I am
cooped up here."

"I apprehend small danger of that," returned her father, laughing, "for
you have appeared to me, since our last return, a wilder romp than ever
before."

"O, that's only because I'm so glad to get to this delightful place
again, and to know we are to go away no more!" said she. "It will wear
off after a while, and I shall become silent and solemn as a nun. Won't
you let me go to the seminary just one term? I can still take my music
lessons of Mrs. Sayles here at home, and I know my French and Italian
masters would like a respite from their duties." She stood looking
earnestly in her father's face.

"You smooth the way very well, my little daughter," said he, patting her
rosy cheek; "but I incline to think you had better continue your studies
in the old way."

Florence looked disappointed, and turned slowly from his side. Her
dejected appearance touched his affectionate heart, and he called her
back. She came bounding toward him, with new hope dancing in her dark
liquid eyes.

"If you can obtain your mother's consent," said he, "I will not object to
your attending school at the seminary one term, as you seem so much to
desire it."

"O, thank you, thank you, dear father!" exclaimed the glad girl, putting
her arms round his neck, and giving him a grateful kiss on either cheek,
"and may I commence to-morrow? that is, if mamma consents to my going?"

"To-morrow?" said he, "had you not better wait, as this term is so far
advanced, and commence with a new one?"

"O, no!" returned she, "I should rather begin at once."

"Well, go in, little Miss Rattle, and see what your sage mamma says on
the subject," said her father, smiling at her earnest countenance.

Away went Florence, with the lightness of a bird up the hall stairs, and,
giving a light tap at a closed door, stood dancing softly on tip-toe, as
she waited a summons to enter. "Who's there?" asked a low, trembling
voice at length.

"Me, mamma," answered Florence; "may I come in? I've something to ask
you."

The door was opened by a short, thin woman, of dark complexion, small
peering black eyes, and slick, shining hair of the same hue, which was
arranged with an air of nicety and precision.

Florence entered and glanced with an expression of alarm toward the drawn
curtains of a mahogany bedstead. "Is mother worse?" she asked in a voice
but a breath above a whisper.

"She has had one of her bleeding spells," answered the small, dark woman.
"Where is your father?"

"On the lower terrace; shall I call him?"

"No, I will go to him," returned the woman, "if you will remain by your
mother a while."

"O, yes, I shall be delighted to stay!" said Florence, approaching the
couch.

"You must not talk to her," remarked the woman; "she needs to be very
quiet."

"I won't speak a word unless she asks me to," answered the young girl,
sitting down by the bed-side, as the dark woman disappeared, closing the
door softly behind her.

After a few moments' silence the sick woman stirred and parted the
curtains slightly with her wan hand. Florence rose. "Do you want
anything, mother?" she asked.

"No, my dear, I have been asleep. Where is Hannah?"

"Gone below. I think to send father for Dr. Potipher."

"I hope not," said the invalid; "it is not necessary. This is only one of
my common attacks. I shall be as well as usual in a few days."

"Do you think so, mother?" asked Florence, brightening. "I feared you
were very ill. I had something particular to say, but I was not going to
say it, for fear of hurting you."

"What is it, dear?" inquired the mother.

"Something papa and I have been talking about down on the piazza
to-night."

"Well," said the sick woman, looking affectionately on the earnest
expression and downcast lids of Florence's large hazel eyes.

"I asked him to let me go to the seminary this term, and he said if you
had no objection I might do so," said the hesitating girl, at length,
with a long-drawn breath, as though she had relieved her bosom of a heavy
burden.

The pale lady was silent a few moments, as if revolving the matter in her
mind. Then she spoke suddenly. "You said your father had no objection?"

"Yes," answered Florence.

"Then, of course, I have none," said the woman, turning over on her
pillow and settling herself as if to sleep again.

Florence was about to pour forth her gratitude for the favor shown her
request, when the dark-browed woman entered, shook her finger at her, and
bade her go below. Florence's eyes flashed back her answer.

"I'll go at my mother's request, not otherwise," said she.

A dark frown gathered on the woman's features, and the invalid said
tremblingly, "I would like to sleep; perhaps you had better go and stay
with your father a while, my dear."

Florence kissed the pale brow, and then moved toward the door with
noiseless tread. The dark woman cast a glance of angry triumph upon her,
which was returned by one of fearless defiance.

Since Florence's earliest recollection her mother had been an invalid,
shunning society and subject to long fits of depression, and, upon the
slightest excitement, to severe attacks of palpitation and bleeding from
the chest, which frequently prostrated her on a bed of suffering for
weeks. Hannah Doliver had always been her attendant, though Florence, in
the simplicity of her young heart, often wondered that her parents should
retain her in their service; for she was a bold, impudent,
violent-tempered woman, who set up her will for law in the household, and
seemed to exercise an almost tyrannic sway over the weak invalid, who
appeared to stand in awe of her slightest nod. She showed a marked
dislike for Florence, and delighted in tantalizing her, when she was a
little child, and thwarting her wishes. As the fair girl grew older, she
resolved the arbitrary woman should not govern or intimidate her, and met
all her attempts at petty tyranny with a bold, undaunted spirit, which
seemed to increase the woman's hatred. Florence once asked her father why
he did not send Hannah Doliver away.

"Your mother could not do without her, my child," said he.

"I think she could do better without her than with her," returned
Florence, "for she is cross to mamma, and makes her do everything just as
she says."

"O, no, I guess not," said her father.

"But she does," persisted Florence, "and I would not have her in the
house." Major Howard patted his little daughter's cheek and said, "When
you are older, Florence, you will understand a great many things that
seem dark and mysterious to you now."

Florence was not satisfied, but she turned away, and never mentioned the
subject to her father again.

Early the next morning the glad-hearted girl was astir, getting in
readiness for school. She gathered her books together and placed them in
a satchel of crimson broadcloth, which she had just embroidered, with
bright German wools, in wreaths of spotted daisies and wild columbines.
Then donning a blue muslin frock, dotted over with small silver stars,
and tying on a black silk apron with open velvet pockets, from one of
which peeped a snowy lace-edged handkerchief, she took satchel, gloves
and gypsy hat, and descended to the parlor, ensconcing herself in a nook
of the north window, where she stood gazing over the hill-tops toward the
distant forest with eager eyes to behold the fair-haired boy emerge from
its recesses.

At length he appeared, and she watched him till he was descending the
hill which sloped past her father's mansion. Then, hastily tying on her
hat and seizing her satchel, she was hurrying through the hall to gain
the street, when she encountered Hannah Doliver.

"Where are you going?" demanded she in a sharp tone.

"To school," answered Florence, rushing past her.

"By whose leave, I wonder?" said the woman, running after her, to drag
her back. But the nimble-footed girl was too swift for her, and she
returned to the house muttering angrily to herself. Meantime, Florence
bounded over the gravelled walks, and was emerging from the gateway just
as the lad, in the morocco cap, was passing by. He arrested his steps on
beholding her, and bowed gracefully. She returned his salute, and said,
blushingly, "I am going to school up to the seminary. May I walk with
you?"

"Certainly, Miss Howard," answered he; "I shall be grateful for your
company."

"You know my name," said she, advancing to his side; "I am ignorant of
yours."

"Edgar Lindenwood," returned he, and the two walked on together.




CHAPTER XIV.

----"She has dark violet eyes,
A voice as soft as moonlight. On her cheek
The blushing blood miraculous doth range
From sea-shell pink to sunset. When she speaks
Her soul is shining through her earnest face
As shines a moon through its up-swathing cloud.
My tongue's a very beggar in her praise,
It cannot gild her gold with all its words."

ALEXANDER SMITH.


There was a neat, little vine-covered cottage standing a few doors
removed from the elegant mansion of Leroy Edson, and in it dwelt Mrs.
Stanhope, a widow lady and her maiden sister, Miss Martha Pinkerton,
a female of uncertain age, as authors say, and possessed of the
peculiarities common to persons of her class. They were not poor, nor
were they rich, but made a good living, as the world goes, by taking in
needlework. Young Mrs. Edson frequently dropped in to pass an hour in
social converse with Mrs. Stanhope, who was a pleasant, agreeable woman.
Miss Martha, too, always wore a smile on her sharp-featured face when
the lovely young wife appeared at the cottage. As they were simple,
unostentatious people, living in a retired and quiet way, she laid aside
all form and ceremony, and was accustomed to run in at any hour, in
whatever garb she chanced to be.

On a bright May morning, as the ladies had made all things tidy, and were
seating themselves to their daily avocation of the needle, they heard
the garden gate swing, and beheld Mrs. Edson approaching in her little
white sun-bonnet and spotted muslin dressing-gown, open from the waist
downwards, revealing a fine cambric skirt, wrought in several rows of
vines and deep scolloped edges. Mrs. Stanhope met her visitor on the
porch.

"Good-morning," said she, extending her hand; "I am happy to see
you:--how beautiful and eloquent you are looking!"

"O, this glorious, sweet-breathed morning, with its birds and flowers,
is enough to brighten the most torpid thing into animation!" exclaimed
Louise, grasping her friend's hand warmly. "You don't know how I love
everything and everybody to-day, Mrs. Stanhope," she continued, in a
tone of earnest enthusiasm, as she entered the little parlor, still
holding the good woman by one hand, while she extended the other to
Miss Pinkerton, who rose from her work to receive her, and drew an
old-fashioned, straight-backed rocking-chair, cushioned and lined with
gay copperplate, up before the window for her comfort. "I must not sit
long," said Louise, assuming the proffered seat, "for I have left my
house quite alone; the servants having gone out on errands for
themselves. I tried one thing and another to divert myself, but the
birds sang so sweetly, the sun was so bright, and everything seemed to
say, up and away. So I donned my sun-bonnet and ran over here as the
nicest, quietest little nook I could fly to; and where I should be as
welcome in my morning-gown as in full dress of ruffles and satins."

"And even more so, if possible," answered Mrs. Stanhope; "simple people
like us are always a good deal put out and embarrassed by grandeur and
display. It has something awful and unapproachable in our eyes."

"It has something servile and contemptible in mine," said Louise; "I
always shrink from a woman flaunted out in rustling silks, great,
glaring rings on her fingers, and alarming jewels swinging like
ponderous pendulums from her ears. I think what a poor, little, pinched,
narrow-contracted, poverty-stricken soul is there, that seeks to atone
for the lack within, by rigging her poor body out like a veritable queen
of harlots."

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