Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof - "Dua Libro de l' Lingvo Internacia"

Edward Gibbon - "The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. II"

John Burroughs - "Birds and Poets"

Richard F. Burton - "The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7"

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




Mrs. Dr. Simcoe figured not so largely among the sisterhood of reformers
as she would have done had she not been encumbered by "Simcoe's
children," who were two of the most ill-natured, uncompromising
offshoots of barbarism that ever tormented a meek, unoffending woman.

Mrs. Lawson thought some reformer should arise to fill the place so
nearly vacated by the persecuted lady, and fixed upon Mrs. Edson as her
successor.

So, on a day, Mrs. Lawson, in green damask bloomers, black overcoat, and
deer-skin gloves, appeared on the steps of Mrs. Edson's mansion, and
gave a herculean pull at the door-bell which brought the master of the
house instanter, with staring eyes, to answer the pealing summons. "I
believe Mrs. Edson resides here," said the lady-reformist, looking
loftily upon the man, who was evidently very much struck with his
visitor's personal equipments.

"She does," answered he, at length.

"I have come to hold a conversation with her," said Mrs. Lawson,
stamping the snow from her boots, and proceeding toward the open door of
the sitting-room.

Louise rose as she entered, glanced at the strange figure, then at her
husband, and then back to the figure again, with an amusing expression
of wonder on her beautiful features.

"I do not know this--this person's name," said he, at length.

"Lawson--Mrs. Portentia Lawson!" said the lady-reformist, laying her
walking-stick on the piano, and unbuttoning her over-coat. "I am
actively engaged in the benevolent enterprises of the day, and have come
to obtain your aid and cooeperation, madam." Here she made a low
inclination toward Louise.

"My wife does not meddle in such matters," said Mr. Edson, simply. "I
pay a stated sum yearly toward the support of the gospel, and give as
much as people in general to the missionary and Bible societies."

"It is nothing to me," said Mrs. Lawson, turning sharply upon the
speaker, "what you give to support the gospel, or to endow Bible
societies. I have nothing to do with such milk-sop organizations, or the
donkeys that draggle at their heels. Other and loftier objects engage my
attention and claim my powers. My business is not with you, sir! It is
with the woman who condescends to acknowledge you as her husband!"
Having delivered herself of the preceding harangue, Mrs. Lawson turned
her attention to Louise, and vouchsafed no further notice of Mr. Edson,
who soon slunk out of the room and returned to his counter.

"I suppose you are not wholly ignorant of the reform the more talented
of your sex are making efforts to effect in the social condition of
Wimbledon," remarked the nimble-tongued Mrs. Lawson to her fair auditor,
who was sitting in a low rocking-chair before the glowing grate, with
her tiny, slippered-feet poised on the fender.

"Yes!" answered she, purposely ignorant. "I am confined at home by my
duties as a wife, and know very little of what is passing around me."

Mrs. Lawson proceeded to give a detailed account of the labors of a
small band of enfranchised females for the liberation of their enslaved
and suffering sisters, whose weakness and timidity had hitherto
prevented their rising and throwing off the yoke of the oppressor, man.
So eloquently did she rehearse her tale, so still and patient was her
listener, that she felt confident of gaining a new coaedjutor in the
ranks of female reform. As she finished her recital, she directed a
sharp, piercing glance toward Mrs. Edson, whose calm, clear eyes and
placid face evinced no disturbing emotions.

"Will you join our ranks?" demanded Mrs. Lawson, "and aid us in rending
the fetters forged on woman's wrists by the tyrant man?"

"No!" said Louise, in a quiet but determined tone.

"Then you do not believe in Woman's Rights!" said Mrs. Lawson, half her
enthusiasm falling off and leaving her coarse features blank and bare.

"O, yes!" answered Louise, her face brightening as she spoke, "I believe
in Woman's Rights with all my heart and soul. Yet not in crowds, and
camps, and forums, where swarming multitudes are jostling to and fro;
and brawls, and shouts, and loud harangues make tumult in the air, do I
believe she finds her proper sphere. Not in halls of legislation, or
among empannelled juries, or yet within the sacred desk, would I behold
the form of woman. No, no! what sight so revolting to a refined
soul--whether it dwell in male or female bosom--as unsexed womanhood,
booted and spurred, parading over rostrums, brawling in debates, and
spouting sophistical sentiments on subjects of whose true signification
they are as ignorant as an idiot of the laughter and derision his babble
excites? O, 'tis woman's thrice-beautiful right to relieve and succor
the care-worn and distressed, wherever on this goodly earth they fall
within the circle of her sphere and influence! To give sweet,
unobtrusive charities to the children of want! By gentle words of
sympathy and hope, to raise and cheer the drooping souls of her erring
sisters; and in dim-lighted rooms, where restless disease tosses on
couches of pain and agony, 'tis hers to move with noiseless tread, to
smooth the pillow, bathe the brow, and give the healing potion! Say not
her sphere is limited, her influence small, her mission low, or her
rights unacknowledged."

Louise rose as she proceeded, her face glowing with the sentiments she
uttered. Mrs. Lawson stood before her, moving backwards gradually, till
she finally receded through the open door, took to the street, and was
seen no more in the home of Louise Edson.




CHAPTER XXII.

"Babies are very well when they don't cry,
But when they do, I choose not to be nigh;
For of all awful sounds that can appal,
The most terrific is a baby's squall;
I'd rather hear a panther's hungry howl,
Or e'en a tiger's deep, ferocious growl,
Than sit in chimney-corner 'neath my hat,
And list the screechings of an irate brat."


We thought we would go to Mrs. Stanhope's this cold, starry, winter
evening, but on passing the parlor windows of Dea. Allen's cottage, the
curtains being yet undrawn, we distinguished, by the blazing firelight
within, the form of that good lady, and also that of her maiden sister,
Miss Martha Pinkerton, both sitting at the family table, drinking tea
with the good deacon and his amiable spouse. Amy Seaton and Charlie were
there, too, but we missed the laughing face of Jenny Andrews, and Mrs.
Allen said she was gone on a sleighing excursion, which a number of the
young people of Wimbledon were enjoying, this fine, bright evening.

"I want to know," asked Miss Pinkerton, sipping her bohea, "if you
believe there's any truth in the report of Florence Howard's engagement
with Rufus Malcome, Mrs. Allen?"

"Well, I never thought much about the matter," returned that
mild-visaged lady. "The young people's affairs don't interest me
particularly. The two families are quite intimate. We have the Malcomes
at our next door, and can't well avoid seeing a large number of their
visitors, as they come and go."

"Col. Malcome is a very gentlemanly man," remarked Mrs. Stanhope, as
they were rising from the table.

"Yes," said the good deacon, wiping his face with a yellow silk
handkerchief; "but sometimes I fear he is not the Christian he should
be. He never goes to church, and every Sunday that wicked-looking woman
of Major Howard's is there the whole day, racketing about with Rufus and
the servants. I don't think a peaceable, pious man would counsel such
doings, for my part."

"That Hannah Doliver at Col. Malcome's every Sabbath?" said Miss
Pinkerton, opening wide her large, light eyes; "I don't see what she
does there; really, the impudence of some people is astonishing. 'Tis
likely she wants to see all she can and gossip about the colonel's
affairs."

Nobody replied to this pert speech of Miss Martha's, and Mrs. Stanhope
resumed the conversation by giving a brief account of Mrs. Lawson's
discomfiting attempt to convert Mrs. Louise Edson into a reformer; she
having received an amusing description of the scene from Louise's own
lips. This was exciting considerable merriment among the group, when
there came a rap on the door, and Mrs. Salsify Mumbles entered with her
daughter, Mary Madeline; the latter carrying a bundle in her arms.
Before the salutations were fairly over, said bundle began to squeal,
and on removing several yellow flannel blankets, a baby was discovered
of nearly the same hue as the shawls which had enveloped it.

And the baby became the toast on all sides; as what baby does not, when
making its debut among strangers? Mrs. Allen said it was the image of
its grandma, whereupon Mrs. Salsify laughed and looked supremely silly.
The deacon patted its back and said, "Poor little innocent! what a world
of sin and misery it has come into!"

Mrs. Stanhope said it appeared very strong of its age, and Miss
Pinkerton gave it a hasty, expressive glance, which spoke _her_ opinion
more eloquently than words could have done.

Amy and Charlie approached in their turn, and, gazing on it, exclaimed,
innocently,

"What a _funny thing_!"

Verily, there was more truth than fiction in these words. It certainly
_was_ a funny thing. On the crown of its long, bare, peaked head, stuck
one of the little, furbelowed caps we once saw Mrs. Salsify engaged in
making, which was tied down over its flapping ears with orange-colored
ribbon. A receding forehead, little specs of eyes, a turned-up nose, and
great blubber lips, adown whose corners flowed eternally two miniature
cataracts. O, what a face! Surely, nobody but a grandmother would be
pleased to have it said to resemble theirs. 'Twas such a scowling,
uncomfortable-looking baby, and had such a shrill, piercing squeal for a
cry; for all the world like a miniature porker. Mary Madeline tossed it
up and down in her arms, trotted it on her knee, but still it squealed,
and Mrs. Salsify said it was squealing for its father; it always did so
when it was carried away from him, and they should have to take it home.
So they bundled off, and then Miss Martha spoke. "It was strange people
would carry their squalling brats into their neighbors' houses to annoy
them."

"Children are usually more trouble among strangers than at home," Mrs.
Allen remarked.

Then Charlie Seaton said, "Willie Danforth told him it was always
squealing when he passed Mr. Salsify's, which was several times a day,
on his way to and from the seminary; and he thought they kept a pig in
their parlor, till one day he saw the baby's face at the window, and
discovered the sounds proceeded from its noisy throat."

"How happens it that Willie Danforth goes to school at the seminary,
when his mother is so poor?" asked Miss Pinkerton.

"Willie says his mother found a paper on her door-sill one morning,"
answered Charlie, "and on opening it several bank-notes fell out. On the
paper was written, 'Use these for William's tuition at the seminary.' So
he is going to school till the money is spent."

"Well, I declare," said Miss Martha, "that was a strange incident. Does
Mrs. Danforth know who left the money?"

"She thinks it was the same one who leaves little bundles of sticks at
her door, every now and then," answered Charlie.

"Well, who is that?" inquired Miss P.

"O, she don't know," returned the lad.

"I am glad some kind soul remembers the poor widow," said Mrs. Allen;
"for I have often feared many of us were too neglectful of the lone
woman."

"You know, wife," said the deacon, "what sad reports we heard of her
hypocrisy; how she assumed an appearance of extreme poverty to create
sympathy and wheedle people into deeds of false benevolence. I do not
think such sinfulness should be countenanced."

"I know such reports were spread abroad concerning her," remarked Mrs.
Stanhope; "but I never could trace them to any other source than that
ranting, blustering Mrs. Pimble."

"What! that brawling, fanatical, crazy-pated, man-woman?" exclaimed the
deacon, vehemently; "pray, don't mention her. The wrath of God will fall
upon her and all the guilty brood who have desecrated His sanctuary, by
tearing down its curtains and converting them into garments to serve
Satan in." The excitable deacon was waxing warm, when his wife gave him
a conjugal nudge, and he held his peace.




CHAPTER XXIII.

"From the hour by him enchanted,
From the moment when we met;
Henceforth by one image haunted,
Life may never more forget.
All my nature changed--his being
Seemed the only source of mine.
Fond heart, hadst thou no foreseeing
Thy sad future to divine?"


Florence Howard sat in a deep-cushioned fauteuil, beside a marble table
which graced the centre of the elegant apartment she called her own. A
loose robe, of India cashmere, in superb colors, with a lining of the
softest, rose-colored velvet, was folded carelessly about her graceful
form. One white hand toyed with the luxuriant chestnut curls, that hung
in beautiful profusion over her shoulders; the other rested lightly on
the cushioned arm of the chair. A quantity of rich writing materials
were spread out on the table before her; but she glanced towards them
listlessly, and at length bowed her queenly head between her hands, and
sat a long time still and silent, as if absorbed in reverie. Ever and
anon her little foot tapped impatiently the soft carpet beneath it, as
though some harassing, unpleasant vision disturbed her brain. The clear,
ringing chimes of the college clock finally aroused her to
consciousness.

Rising, she drew aside the heavy folds of the damask curtain, and gazed
for a moment forth on the sleeping earth. The stars were bright, and a
slender crescent rim hung just above the dark cedar forest that swept
and swayed to the northward. Florence dropped the curtain, and,
returning to the table, opened a large morocco-bound volume, which
revealed a virgin page. Twirling the silver top from a carved, mosaic
inkstand, she dipped the golden tips of a pearl-handled pen in its ebon
contents, and holding it between her small, taper fingers, rested her
arm a few moments on the stand, as if waiting for her thoughts to form
and arrange themselves ere she gave them expression. Suddenly the pen
dashed off, and line after line of graceful characters grew on the pure,
white page till it was completely filled.

"I have looked out on the midnight," she wrote, "with all its countless
diamonds blazing on its brow; and far on the verge of the northern
horizon hung the pale disc of the young crescent moon hurrying to
obscure itself behind the dark, gloomy forest,--like as my hopes fail
when I turn my eyes toward those cedar-tops. O, earth, how soon thy
children learn the lesson of sorrow and distrust! But where is my old
pen taking me this evening? This journal grows a sad, ghostly thing,
o'ersplashed with tears, and wo-fraught to the edges.

"To turn the subject: What have I done to-day? Moped dismally till
evening, and then muffled myself in furs; sat down among cushions and
buffalo robes in the omnibus-sleigh, beside ----, shall I write it? yes!
beside Rufus Malcome, and dashed away over the snow-clad earth to the
music of merry bells and merrier voices around me.

"How finely Jenny Andrews and Richard Giblet enjoyed themselves! I
understood their happiness well. Mrs. Edson was not quite so buoyant
with spirits as usual; but she conversed with Rufus in her charming
style. I was quite indignant to hear so much eloquence and refinement
wasted on a churl like him, and just malicious enough to think the fair
speaker would have preferred to say her pretty things in the ear of one
who could have better appreciated their worth and beauty, namely, Col.
Malcome. He is really a splendid man, though I hardly relish the power
he seems to exercise over father, who is so infatuated with him I
believe he would scarcely be able to refuse any request he might choose
to make. I wonder so talented a father should own a dolt like Rufus for
a son. Silly-pated fellow! he has made love to me several times. I say
_made_ it, and truthfully; for no such simpleton as he could ever
actually _feel_ it in their bosoms. But then, no doubt, he thinks he is
in love,--desperately so. I have no pity for him; nothing but contempt,
and yet, should he propose for me to my father, I fear the result would
be his acceptance. He has wealth and position, and I know father has a
suspicion that I have yet a lingering recollection of the hermit's boy,
as he calls Edgar. O, name of all others! Have I dared write it in full
on these pages? I must draw an obscuring line over it. There! Now,

'One last, long sigh to hope and love,
Then back to busy life again.'"

While Florence was occupied with her journal in the room above, Col.
Malcome sat with her father in the parlor below, and that which she had
feared might some time come to pass had actually occurred; and when she
nestled down on her soft pillow and sank to sleep, if her slumbers were
not tranquil and dreamless, they were sweeter than any she might know
for many a weary night to come; for she slept in blissful ignorance that
she was the affianced bride of Rufus Malcome. Early on the following
morning her father imparted to her the dismal intelligence.

"I have accepted him," said Major Howard, "on the conditions that the
engagement shall remain a secret between the families, and the union not
be consummated for at least one year, as you are both young. Col.
Malcome will give his son fifty thousand dollars on his marriage, and
also a splendid situation wherever he chooses to reside."

He ceased, and Florence remained silent and abstracted.

"This will be a match suitable for my daughter," said the fond father,
approaching and laying his hand affectionately on her bowed head. "Does
she not agree with me?"

Florence lifted her face; the light seemed suddenly to have gone out of
her eyes and left them in utter darkness. No tinge of color glowed on
her features, which worked with painful and scarcely suppressed emotion.
The father started back on beholding her. "My child!" he exclaimed,
"what is the matter?"

"Leave me alone, father, I entreat of you!" she said.

"Not till you tell me what is distressing you so," said he, chafing her
cold hands in his. "Is this engagement so repulsive, so averse to your
feelings, as to cause this appearance of agony and distress?"

But she only said, "Leave me, dear father, I entreat you, for a while! I
have a sudden illness. By and by I will speak to you."

Awed by her tone and manner, the fond father obeyed. An hour passed by,
during which the grief-stricken girl never moved, when the door opened,
and Hannah Doliver entered. She glowered on Florence with an expression
of hate and gratified revenge, which changed to one of fawning fondness
when the pale, tear-stained face was turned toward her. "Pray, don't sit
here in the cold all day!" said she. "Your mother desires you to come to
her."

Florence wrapped her rich dressing-gown around her, stole down the
stairs and entered the apartment of the invalid, who reached her wasted
arm from the bed as she approached, and clasped it round the slender,
graceful waist. The young girl bowed her head on the pillow, and burst
into tears.




CHAPTER XXIV.

"He held a letter in his withered hand
Which brought good tidings of the absent one.
O, what soul-cheering things are letters, when
They come fresh from the hand of one we love,
All brimming o'er with kindly-uttered words!"


The wailing winds swept onward with low and piteous sound, while the
"Hermit of the Cedars" sat beneath his humble roof, beside a rough
table, and, by the light of a tallow candle, pored over a
closely-written page. In the recess of the small window, a bright-haired
boy was sitting, very like the dreamy Edgar who sat there in summers and
seasons passed by, and watched the stars gleaming, like showers of
diamonds, through the interlacing forest-boughs. But it was not Edgar,
for he was far away, storing his mind from the mines of ancient lore.

It was our little friend, Willie Danforth, the washerwoman's boy, for
whom the hermit had taken a large fancy since Edgar left him, and often
coaxed him from his mother to pass a few nights at the hut in the
forest. Willie, as we see him now, in the place where we were wont to
behold Edgar, is certainly wonderfully like him; and so thought Florence
Howard, when she saw the tall, graceful youth, in the same morocco cap
and blue frock coat Edgar used to wear, wending his way past her
father's mansion to the seminary on the hill. She sought to learn his
name; and some person, not very well informed, said 'twas William
Greyson, another foundling of that strange hermit's.

But we wander from the lonely man, who still pores over the sheet he
holds in his attenuated fingers. It is a letter from Edgar Lindenwood.

"Dear, dear uncle," it runs, "gladly I turn from musty tomes of olden
time lore, to give to you the star-lit midnight hour. Fancy, on airy
pinions, flits away over mountain-top and valley, and rests upon that
long arm of the tall linden, that stretches close to your lowly window,
and gazes through the narrow panes on your dear form, bending over some
treasured volume, or sitting, with bowed head, before a blazing fire,
lost in reveries of thought and contemplation. You express a fear that I
may have deemed you arbitrary and severe in the control sometimes
exercised over my humors and inclinations. Your fear is groundless,
uncle. Though some of your commands may have cost me a struggle ere I
could unmurmuringly obey, I have too high an estimate of your judgment
and discrimination to rebel against an authority I feel is grounded in
reason, and only exercised for my benefit and welfare in future life.

"I remember a tale, my mother oft breathed in my infantine ears, of a
bright star that once skirted the literary horizon, and ere long darkly
disappeared; of a lofty, sensitive nature, that met a staggering blow,
and reeled to earth, no more to soar aloft. And, though I have never
known the details of that early disappointment, I regard, with
overflowing reverence, sympathy, and devotional affection, the suffering,
uncomplaining heart that struggles silently on, with its wreck of
youthful hopes and aspirations.

"Shall I tell you, uncle, my university life promises to be a brief one?
You will think it augurs badly for the erudition of the faculty of this
institution, when I inform you that they have placed me among the senior
class, which will graduate in the coming spring. Then I propose to take a
brief tour of travel, and amuse myself by sketching from the beautiful
scenery of this country. I find the passion for art increases with my
years. Once I wished to be a poet, but now the painter's pencil yields me
most delight.

"Ere long I hope to return to that home among the Cedars, and sit down to
quiet evenings by my dear uncle's side, with no sound in our ears save
the eternal roar of the mighty forest winds.

"Far from experiencing a jealous pang, I rejoice to learn you have found
an object of interest in the youth you have taken under your care. May he
prove a grateful companion to your solitude, is the sincere wish of,
Yours, most truly, EDGAR."

Such were the contents of the letter which the hermit perused several
times ere he folded it, and turned his attention to the boy, who was
still sitting by the small window, gazing forth into the windy night.

"William," said he--and the lad approached.

Something seemed trembling on the thin lips of the recluse which he
hesitated to reveal. At length, as if suddenly changing his purpose, he
said: "Do you think your mother is comfortable, to-night, my boy?"

"O, yes, sir!" answered Willie, "the large bundle of sticks you left at
her door yesterday evening will keep her warm for several days."

"I hope they may," returned the hermit; "'tis a sad thing to be poor,
Willie, but 'tis a sadder thing to be wicked."

"You do not think my mother is wicked, do you?" asked the boy, turning
his blue eyes quickly on the hermit's countenance.

"Why do you ask?" said he, returning Willie's startled glance with a
grave smile.

"Because I knew Mr. Pimble's folks said harsh things of her, and I
didn't know but you believed them, as you never chose to enter our
humble abode."

"My gloomy disposition is averse to intercourse with the generality of
my species," returned the hermit, in a solemn tone; "nor do I ever heed
or hear the tales and gossipings of idle lips. In the last ten years I
have held no converse with any human beings, save you and your ---- and
my nephew, Edgar Lindenwood."

Willie gazed on the strange man before him in silent awe. "Has your
mother ever expressed a wish to see me?" inquired the hermit, after a
pause.

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