G. Whitfield Ray - "Through Five Republics on Horseback"

William Pittenger - "Daring and Suffering:"

John Morley - "Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3)"

L. T. Meade - "Sue, A Little Heroine"

Editorial
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.

Cecilia vol. 3

F >> Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d\'Arblay) >> Cecilia vol. 3




Cecilia now wished much to ask some explanation of his affairs, but was
doubtful whether he would gratify her before Mrs Harrel and Mr Arnott,
and hurt to keep him standing, though he leant upon a stick; she told
him, therefore, she would at present detain him no longer, but
endeavour again to see him before she quitted her friends.

Mr Arnott then interfered, and desired his sister would entreat Miss
Beverley to invite whom she pleased to his house.

Cecilia thanked him, and instantly asked Belfield to call upon her in
the afternoon.

"No, madam, no," cried he, "I have done with visits and society! I will
not so soon break through a system with much difficulty formed, when
all my future tranquility depends upon adhering to it. The
worthlessness of mankind has disgusted me with the world, and my
resolution in quitting it shall be immoveable as its baseness."

"I must not venture then," said Cecilia, "to enquire--"

"Enquire, madam," interrupted he, with quickness, "what you please:
there is nothing I will not answer to you,--to this lady, to this
gentleman, to any and to every body. What can I wish to conceal, where
I have nothing to gain or to lose? When first, indeed, I saw you, I
involuntarily shrunk; a weak shame for a moment seized me, I felt
fallen and debased, and I wished to avoid you: but a little
recollection brought me back to my senses, And where, cried I, is the
disgrace of exercising for my subsistence the strength with which I am
endued? and why should I blush to lead the life which uncorrupted
Nature first prescribed to man?"

"Well, then," said Cecilia, more and more interested to hear him, "if
you will not visit us, will you at least permit us to return with you
to some place where you can be seated?"

"I will with pleasure," cried he, "go to any place where you may be
seated yourselves; but for me, I have ceased to regard accommodation or
inconvenience."

They then all went back to the cottage, which was now empty, the woman
being out at work.

"Will you then, Sir," said Cecilia, "give me leave to enquire whether
Lord Vannelt is acquainted with your retirement, and if it will not
much surprize and disappoint him?"

"Lord Vannelt," cried he, haughtily, "has no right to be surprised. I
would have quitted _his_ house, if no other, not even this cottage, had
a roof to afford me shelter!"

"I am sorry, indeed, to hear it," said Cecilia; "I had hoped he would
have known your value, and merited your regard."

"Ill-usage," answered he, "is as hard to relate as to be endured. There
is commonly something pitiful in a complaint; and though oppression in
a general sense provokes the wrath of mankind, the investigation of its
minuter circumstances excites nothing but derision. Those who give the
offence, by the worthy few may be hated; but those who receive it, by
the world at large will be despised. Conscious of this, I disdained
making any appeal; myself the only sufferer, I had a right to be the
only judge, and, shaking off the base trammels of interest and
subjection, I quitted the house in silent indignation, not chusing to
remonstrate, where I desired not to be reconciled."

"And was there no mode of life," said Cecilia, "to adopt, but living
with Lord Vannelt, or giving up the whole world?"

"I weighed every thing maturely," answered he, "before I made my
determination, and I found it so much, the most eligible, that I am
certain I can never repent it. I had friends who would with pleasure
have presented me to some other nobleman; but my whole heart revolted
against leading that kind of life, and I would not, therefore, idly
rove from one great man to another, adding ill-will to disgrace, and
pursuing hope in defiance of common sense; no; when I quitted Lord
Vannelt, I resolved to give up patronage for ever.

"I retired to private lodgings to deliberate what next could be done. I
had lived in many ways, I had been unfortunate or imprudent in all. The
law I had tried, but its rudiments were tedious and disgusting; the
army, too, but there found my mind more fatigued with indolence, than
my body with action; general dissipation had then its turn, but the
expence to which it led was ruinous, and self-reproach baffled pleasure
while I pursued it; I have even--yes, there are few things I have left
untried,--I have even,--for why now disguise it?--"

He stopt and coloured, but in a quicker voice presently proceeded.

"Trade, also, has had its share in my experiments; for that, in truth,
I was originally destined,--but my education had ill suited me to such
a destination, and the trader's first maxim I reversed, in lavishing
when I ought to have accumulated.

"What, then, remained for me? to run over again the same irksome round
I had not patience, and to attempt any thing new I was unqualified:
money I had none; my friends I could bear to burthen no longer; a
fortnight I lingered in wretched irresolution,--a simple accident at
the end of it happily settled me; I was walking, one morning, in Hyde
Park, forming a thousand plans for my future life, but quarrelling with
them all; when a gentleman met me on horseback, from whom, at my Lord
Vannelt's, I had received particular civilities; I looked another way
not to be seen by him, and the change in my dress since I left his
Lordship's made me easily pass unnoticed. He had rode on, however, but
a few yards, before, by some accident or mismanagement, he had a fall
from his horse. Forgetting all my caution, I flew instantly to his
assistance; he was bruised, but not otherwise hurt; I helpt him up, and
he leant 'pon my arm; in my haste of enquiring how he had fared, I
called him by his name. He knew me, but looked surprised at my
appearance; he was speaking to me, however, with kindness, when seeing
some gentlemen of his acquaintance gallopping up to him, he hastily
disengaged himself from me, and instantly beginning to recount to them
what had happened, he sedulously looked another way, and joining his
new companions, walked off without taking further notice of me. For a
moment I was almost tempted to trouble him to come back; but a little
recollection told me how ill he deserved my resentment, and bid me
transfer it for the future from the pitiful individual to the worthless
community.

"Here finished my deliberation; the disgust to the world which I had
already conceived, this little incident confirmed; I saw it was only
made for the great and the rich;--poor, therefore, and low, what had I
to do in it? I determined to quit it for ever, and to end every
disappointment, by crushing every hope.

"I wrote to Lord Vannelt to send my trunks to my mother; I wrote to my
mother that I was well, and would soon let her hear more: I then paid
off my lodgings, and 'shaking the dust from my feet,' bid a long adieu
to London; and, committing my route to chance, strole on into the
country, without knowing or caring which way.

"My first thought was simply to seek retirement, and to depend for my
future repose upon nothing but a total seclusion from society: but my
slow method of travelling gave me time for reflection, and reflection
soon showed me the error of this notion.

"Guilt, cried I, may, indeed, be avoided by solitude; but will misery?
will regret? will deep dejection of mind? no, they will follow more
assiduously than ever; for what is there to oppose them, where neither
business occupies the time, nor hope the imagination? where the past
has left nothing but resentment, and the future opens only to a dismal,
uninteresting void? No stranger to life, I knew human nature could not
exist on such terms; still less a stranger to books, I respected the
voice of wisdom and experience in the first of moralists, and most
enlightened of men, [Footnote: Dr Johnson.] and reading the letter of
Cowley, I saw the vanity and absurdity of _panting after solitude_.
[Footnote: Life of Cowley, p.34.]

"I sought not, therefore, a cell; but, since I purposed to live for
myself, I determined for myself also to think. Servility of imitation
has ever been as much my scorn as servility of dependence; I resolved,
therefore, to strike out something new, and no more to retire as every
other man had retired, than to linger in the world as every other man
had lingered.

"The result of all you now see. I found out this cottage, and took up
my abode in it. I am here out of the way of all society, yet avoid the
great evil of retreat, _having nothing to do_. I am constantly, not
capriciously employed, and the exercise which benefits my health,
imperceptibly raises my spirits in despight of adversity. I am removed
from all temptation, I have scarce even the power to do wrong; I have
no object for ambition, for repining I have no time:--I have, found
out, I repeat, the true secret of happiness, Labour with Independence."

He stopt; and Cecilia, who had listened to this narrative with a
mixture of compassion, admiration and censure, was too much struck with
its singularity to be readily able to answer it. Her curiosity to hear
him had sprung wholly from her desire to assist him, and she had
expected from his story to gather some hint upon which her services
might be offered. But none had occurred; he professed himself fully
satisfied with his situation; and though reason and probability
contradicted the profession, she could not venture to dispute it with
any delicacy or prudence.

She thanked him, therefore, for his relation, with many apologies for
the trouble she had given him, and added, "I must not express my
concern for misfortunes which you seem to regard as conducive to your
contentment, nor remonstrate at the step you have taken, since you have
been led to it by choice, not necessity: but yet, you must pardon me if
I cannot help hoping I shall some time see you happier, according to
the common, however vulgar ideas of the rest of the world."

"No, never, never! I am sick of mankind, not from theory, but
experience; and the precautions I have taken against mental fatigue,
will secure me from repentance, or any desire of change; for it is not
the active, but the indolent who weary; it is not the temperate, but
the pampered who are capricious."

"Is your sister, Sir, acquainted with this change in your fortune and
opinions?"

"Poor girl, no! She and her unhappy mother have borne but too long with
my enterprizes and misfortunes. Even yet they would sacrifice whatever
they possess to enable me to play once more the game so often lost; but
I will not abuse their affection, nor suffer them again to be slaves to
my caprices, nor dupes to their own delusive expectations. I have sent
them word I am happy; I have not yet told them how or where. I fear
much the affliction of their disappointment, and, for a while, shall
conceal from them my situation, which they would fancy was disgraceful,
and grieve at as cruel."

"And is it not cruel?" said Cecilia, "is labour indeed so sweet? and
can you seriously derive happiness from what all others consider as
misery?"

"Not sweet," answered he, "in itself; but sweet, most sweet and
salutary in its effects. When I work, I forget all the world; my
projects for the future, my disappointments from the past. Mental
fatigue is overpowered by personal; I toil till I require rest, and
that rest which nature, not luxury demands, leads not to idle
meditation, but to sound, heavy, necessary sleep. I awake the next
morning to the same thought-exiling business, work again till my powers
are exhausted, and am relieved again at night by the same health-
recruiting insensibility."

"And if this," cried Cecilia, "is the life of happiness, why have we so
many complaints of the sufferings of the poor, and why so eternally do
we hear of their hardships and distress?"

"They have known no other life. They are strangers, therefore, to the
felicity of their lot. Had they mingled in the world, fed high their
fancy with hope, and looked forward with expectation of enjoyment; had
they been courted by the great, and offered with profusion adulation
for their abilities, yet, even when starving, been offered nothing
else!--had they seen an attentive circle wait all its entertainment
from their powers, yet found themselves forgotten as soon as out of
sight, and perceived themselves avoided when no longer buffoons!--Oh
had they known and felt provocations such as these, how gladly would
their resentful spirits turn from the whole unfeeling race, and how
would they respect that noble and manly labour, which at once
disentangles them from such subjugating snares, and enables them to fly
the ingratitude they abhor! Without the contrast of vice, virtue
unloved may be lovely; without the experience of misery, happiness is
simply a dull privation of evil."

"And are you so content," cried Cecilia, "with your present situation,
as even to think it offers you reparation for your past sufferings?"

"Content!" repeated he with energy, "O more than content, I am proud of
my present situation! I glory in chewing to the world, glory still more
in shewing to myself, that those whom I cannot but despise I will not
scruple to defy, and that where I have been treated unworthily, I will
scorn to be obliged."

"But will you pardon me," said Cecilia, "should I ask again, why in
quitting Lord Vannelt, you concluded no one else worthy a trial?"

"Because it was less my Lord Vannelt, madam, than my own situation,
that disgusted me: for though I liked not his behaviour, I found him a
man too generally esteemed to flatter myself better usage would await
me in merely changing my abode, while my station was the same. I
believe, indeed, he never meant to offend me; but I was offended the
more that he should think me an object to receive indignity without
knowing it. To have had this pointed out to him, would have been at
once mortifying and vain; for delicacy, like taste, can only partially
be taught, and will always be superficial and erring where it is not
innate. Those wrongs, which though too trifling to resent, are too
humiliating to be borne, speech can convey no idea of; the soul must
feel, or the understanding can never comprehend them."

"But surely," said Cecilia, "though people of refinement are rare, they
yet exist; why, then, remove yourself from the possibility of meeting
with them?"

"Must I run about the nation," cried he, "proclaiming my distress, and
describing my temper? telling the world that though dependent I demand
respect as well as assistance; and publishing to mankind, that though
poor I will accept no gifts if offered with contumely? Who will listen
to such an account? who will care for my misfortunes, but as they may
humble me to his service? Who will hear my mortifications, but to say I
deserve them? what has the world to do with my feelings and
peculiarities? I know it too well to think calamity will soften it; I
need no new lessons to instruct me that to conquer affliction is more
wise than to relate it."

"Unfortunate as you have been," said Cecilia, "I cannot wonder at your
asperity; but yet, it is surely no more than justice to acknowledge,
that hard-heartedness to distress is by no means the fault of the
present times: on the contrary, it is scarce sooner made known, than
every one is ready to contribute to its relief."

"And how contribute?" cried he, "by a paltry donation of money? Yes,
the man whose only want is a few guineas, may, indeed, obtain them; but
he who asks kindness and protection, whose oppressed spirit calls for
consolation even more than his ruined fortune for repair, how is his
struggling soul, if superior to his fate, to brook the ostentation of
patronage, and the insolence of condescension? Yes, yes, the world will
save the poor beggar who is starving; but the fallen wretch, who will
not cringe for his support, may consume in his own wretchedness without
pity and without help!"

Cecilia now saw that the wound his sensibility had received was too
painful for argument, and too recent immediately to be healed. She
forbore, therefore, to detain him any longer, but expressing her best
wishes, without venturing to hint at her services, she arose, and they
all took their leave;--Belfield hastening, as they went, to return to
the garden, where, looking over the hedge as they passed, they saw him
employed again in weeding, with the eagerness of a man who pursues his
favourite occupation.

Cecilia half forgot her own anxieties and sadness, in the concern which
she felt for this unfortunate and extraordinary young man. She wished
much to devise some means for drawing him from a life of such hardship
and obscurity; but what to a man thus "jealous in honour," thus
scrupulous in delicacy, could she propose, without more risk of
offence, than probability of obliging? His account had, indeed,
convinced her how much he stood in need of assistance, but it had shewn
her no less how fastidious he would be in receiving it.

Nor was she wholly without fear that an earnest solicitude to serve
him, his youth, talents, and striking manners considered, might
occasion even in himself a misconstruction of her motives, such as she
already had given birth to in his forward and partial mother.

The present, therefore, all circumstances weighed, seemed no season for
her liberality, which she yet resolved to exert the first moment it was
unopposed by propriety.



CHAPTER vi.

A CONTEST.

The rest of the day was passed in discussing this adventure; but in the
evening, Cecilia's interest in it was all sunk, by the reception of the
following letter from Mrs Delvile.

_To Miss Beverley_.

I grieve to interrupt the tranquillity of a retirement so judiciously
chosen, and I lament the necessity of again calling to trial the virtue
of which the exertion, though so captivating, is so painful; but alas,
my excellent young friend, we came not hither to enjoy, but to suffer;
and happy only are those whose sufferings have neither by folly been
sought, nor by guilt been merited, but arising merely from the
imperfection of humanity, have been resisted with fortitude, or endured
with patience.

I am informed of your virtuous steadiness, which corresponds with my
expectations, while it excites my respect. All further conflict I had
hoped to have saved you; and to the triumph of your goodness I had
trusted for the recovery of your peace: but Mortimer has disappointed
me, and our work is still unfinished.

He avers that he is solemnly engaged to you, and in pleading to me his
honour, he silences both expostulation and authority. From your own
words alone will he acknowledge his dismission; and notwithstanding my
reluctance to impose upon you this task, I cannot silence or quiet him
without making the request.

For a purpose such as this, can you, then, admit us? Can you bear with
your own lips to confirm the irrevocable decision? You will feel, I am
sure, for the unfortunate Mortimer, and it was earnestly my desire to
spare you the sight of his affliction; yet such is my confidence in
your prudence, that since I find him bent upon seeing you, I am not
without hope, that from witnessing the greatness of your mind, the
interview may rather calm than inflame him.

This proposal you will take into consideration, and if you are able,
upon such terms, to again meet my son, we will wait upon you together,
where and when you will appoint; but if the gentleness of your nature
will make the effort too severe for you, scruple not to decline it, for
Mortimer, when he knows your pleasure, will submit to it as he ought.

Adieu, most amiable and but too lovely Cecilia; whatever you determine,
be sure of my concurrence, for nobly have you earned, and ever must you
retain, the esteem, the affection, and the gratitude of AUGUSTA
DELVILE.

"Alas," cried Cecilia, "when shall I be at rest? when cease to be
persecuted by new conflicts! Oh why must I so often, so cruelly, though
so reluctantly, reject and reprove the man who of all men I wish to
accept and to please!"

But yet, though repining at this hard necessity, she hesitated not a
moment in complying with Mrs Delvile's request, and immediately sent an
answer that she would meet her the next morning at Mrs Charlton's.

She then returned to the parlour, and apologized to Mrs Harrel and Mr
Arnott for the abruptness of her visit, and the suddenness of her
departure. Mr Arnott heard her in silent dejection; and Mrs Harrel used
all the persuasion in her power to prevail with her to stay, her
presence being some relief to her solitude: but finding it ineffectual,
she earnestly pressed her to hasten her entrance into her own house,
that their absence might be shortened, and their meeting more
sprightly.

Cecilia passed the night in planning her behaviour for the next day;
she found how much was expected from her by Mrs Delvile, who had even
exhorted her to decline the interview if doubtful of her own strength.
Delvile's firmness in insisting the refusal should come directly from
herself, surprised, gratified and perplexed her in turn; she had
imagined, that from the moment of the discovery, he would implicitly
have submitted to the award of a parent at once so reverenced and so
beloved, and how he had summoned courage to contend with her she could
not conjecture: yet that courage and that contention astonished not
more than they soothed her, since, from her knowledge of his filial
tenderness, she considered them as the most indubitable proofs she had
yet received of the fervour and constancy of his regard for her. But
would he, when she had ratified the decision of his mother, forbear all
further struggle, and for ever yield up all pretensions to her? this
was the point upon which her uncertainty turned, and the ruling subject
of her thoughts and meditation.

To be steady, however, herself, be his conduct what it might, was
invariably her intention, and was all her ambition: yet earnestly she
wished the meeting over, for she dreaded to see the sorrow of Delvile,
and she dreaded still more the susceptibility of her own heart.

The next morning, to her great concern, Mr Arnott was waiting in the
hall when she came down stairs, and so much grieved at her departure,
that he handed her to the chaise without being able to speak to her,
and hardly heard her thanks and compliments but by recollection after
she was gone.

She arrived at Mrs Charlton's very early, and found her old friend in
the same state she had left her. She communicated to her the purpose of
her return, and begged she would keep her granddaughters up stairs,
that the conference in the parlour might be uninterrupted and unheard.

She then made a forced and hasty breakfast, and went down to be ready
to receive them. They came not till eleven o'clock, and the time of her
waiting was passed in agonies of expectation.

At length they were announced, and at length they entered the room.

Cecilia, with her utmost efforts for courage, could hardly stand to
receive them. They came in together, but Mrs Delvile, advancing before
her son, and endeavouring so to stand as to intercept his view of her,
with the hope that in a few instants her emotion would be less visible,
said, in the most soothing accents, "What honour Miss Beverley does us
by permitting this visit! I should have been sorry to have left Suffolk
without the satisfaction of again seeing you; and my son, sensible of
the high respect he owes you, was most unwilling to be gone, before he
had paid you his devoirs."

Cecilia courtsied; but depressed by the cruel task which awaited her,
had no power to speak; and Mrs Delvile, finding she still trembled,
made her sit down, and drew a chair next to her.

Mean while Delvile, with an emotion far more violent, because wholly
unrestrained, waited impatiently till the ceremonial of the reception
was over, and then, approaching Cecilia, in a voice of perturbation and
resentment, said, "In this presence, at least, I hope I may be heard;
though my letters have been unanswered, my visits refused, though
inexorably you have flown me--"

"Mortimer," interrupted Mrs Delvile, "forget not that what I have told
you is irrevocable; you now meet Miss Beverley for no other purpose
than to give and to receive a mutual release of all to or engagement
with each other."

"Pardon me, madam," cried he, "this is a condition to which I have
never assented. I come not to release, but to claim her! I am hers, and
hers wholly! I protest it in the face of the world! The time,
therefore, is now past for the sacrifice which you demand, since scarce
are you more my mother, than I consider her as my wife."

Cecilia, amazed at this dauntless declaration, now almost lost her fear
in her surprise; while Mrs Delvile, with an air calm though displeased,
answered, "This is not a point to be at present discussed, and I had
hoped you knew better what was due to your auditors. I only consented
to this interview as a mark of your respect for Miss Beverley, to whom
in propriety it belongs to break off this unfortunate connexion."

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