Nathaniel Hawthorne - "The Ancestral Footstep (fragment)"

Various - "The Arena"

May Sinclair - "Life and Death of Harriett Frean"

Charles S. Brooks - "Journeys to Bagdad"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Bride of Dreams

F >> Frederik van Eeden >> The Bride of Dreams




But what is of greater importance - in the joy-sphere I can pray
without shame or embarrassment. Then I pour out my whole heart - I who
was never a good speaker - in lucid, fervent, flowing language,
thanking, asking, praising.

Auto-suggestion? Yes, surely! Yet of very peculiar kind. For there is
response. Response that has never wholly deceived me. When, in this
wonderful sphere, I pray in transcendent rapture - subtle, silent,
deeply significant signs take place in the wonderful landscape before
my eyes. A soft veil of clouds obscures the light, as a warning of
danger or calamity, - a great glowing brilliance rises behind me or at
my side as an encouraging greeting, - a light layer of clouds gradually
evaporates and a deep, dark, boundless, ravishing azure comes to view,
filling me with unknown comfort. Blue, an incomparably beautiful blue,
is the most characteristic color for this sphere. When I see blue I
know that all is well, that I am going right and safely, that divine
favor and support surround me. Blue is the cosmic color, the color of
sky and ocean, of the vaster universal life, just as green is the
telluric color, the color of the more limited earthly existence.

Very gradually, very slowly, by repeated observation one acquires a
thorough knowledge of all these spheres and impressions. I have tried
to describe this more minutely in other writings. The full meaning can
naturally not be computed solely from my observations. Years of
repeated investigation by following generations are still required. But
an unknown perspective of seeing and knowing opens itself, where before
we could only believe and trust.

If only for the purpose of rightly following the brief history of my
career in life, it will be necessary to know something of this
nocturnal life of observation, for it has greatly influenced my lot. I
record it, undisturbed by the fear that these pages may fall into the
hands of the herd of philistines. For they will look upon it as an idle
phantasy, as curious invention, in the style of some of the wonder
tales by Rudyard Kipling or H. G. Wells, conceived for their amusement.
You, dear reader, and ready sympathizer, will easily recognize the note
of truth. I am anything but phantastic, and am a faithful and devoted
follower of the sober naked truth; but I do not deny her because she
reveals herself by night instead of by day, and to me a revelation
remains a revelation, whether it does or does not come to me through
the senses.

That the dream-spheres adhere to a definite arrangement and situation
as well as the area perceived by day, I consider likely, because they
appear in a fixed order of succession. Once only I was in a most
profound sphere from which I could not voluntarily awaken and in which
I had some very joyous encounters, - creatures resembling men but
without mortal cares and a winged child which, in my dream, I already
compared to Goethe's Euphorion, the child of Faust and Helena. This
sphere lay still deeper - though one must understand the word deep
wholly as a metaphor - than the beautiful joy-sphere with its vast
landscapes.

The joy-sphere, however, is inevitably followed toward waking by the
sphere of the demons with their pranks and spook. This sphere is easily
recognizable. One sees the visionary objects sharply and clearly, but
they have an indescribable yet very distinct spectral character. A
single object, a brush, a horseshoe or anything of the kind may
suddenly come before my eyes and by the horror and ghastliness issuing
from it, I immediately recognize it as an invention of the demons.

A very common pleasantry of this demon pack is to let you awaken
apparently. You imagine it is morning, open your eyes, look around and
recognize your bedroom. When you want to rise, however, you see all at
once that there is something strange, something weird and spectral
about the room - a chair moves by itself, an empty garment stalks
about, the windows, the light - everything is different, unaccustomed,
and all at once you realize that you are not yet awake, that you are
still dreaming and have landed in a world of spectres. The first few
times this occurred to me, I was frightened and nervously made strong
efforts to wake. But after a few experiences of this false awakening it
no longer caused me the slightest alarm. The curious spectre sphere
with its sharp outlines and intense light interested me, and I woke
from it voluntarily as easily and as calmly as from other dream-domains.

This land of demons most dreamers frequent without knowing it, and even
to the present day, when my consciousness and memory are not very
clear, I easily let myself be deceived by it. Then come the mocking
dreams, the vile, offensive, bloody, immoral and obscene dreams.

But when I come from the joy-sphere and thus have clear consciousness
and presence of mind, I see the strange images themselves in action,
while traversing this spectral world. I cannot describe them better
than Teniers and Breughel have portrayed them. This, however, the
artists could not convey to us: that they were constantly changing in
shape and color. And they do this not only of their own accord but also
at my command, and sometimes I amuse myself by letting them grow larger
or smaller, black or blue, and by making them assume curious shapes.
Amid throngs numbering hundreds of them I have moved about, and though
my power over them varies, yet I never feel again the old nameless
dread and when they become too obtrusive I can keep them at a distance
by vigorous words of authority and also by a lash of the whip. This
perhaps sounds strange to you, dear reader, but you must in truth
understand that even in the senseless sphere, thought alone is not
efficacious without a certain plastic expression in shape of a visible,
audible or palpable form. If this spectral company becomes too much for
me I must loudly command them, even shout at them, "begone," and if
that does no good I must wish for a whip - which forthwith appears -
and give them a sound thrashing. And I assure you, and you will
yourself experience it if you test my statements by personal
observation, that one never awakens more refreshed, never does there
follow a happier, serener and freer morning than after such a
successful struggle with the demons. Yet, it was this sort of fighting
that, more than all my efforts by day, has helped me to overcome my low
and vile temptations. Thus, much from the old transmitted tales
regarding evil visitations and struggles with demons has appeared true
to me in the light of new experience.

Here I must warn you against a very strange and important peculiarity
of our dream-body and our dream-nature. In many respects it is superior
to our waking body - in sensitiveness of mood and feeling, in keenness
of vision, in the sense of peace, comfort and happiness, and also in
subtlety of thought. But in one respect it is weaker, namely - in the
control of passion. Once kindled to passion -in grief, in joy, in
rapture, in every soul-stirring emotion - it very speedily grows beyond
control. It then looses itself in countless extravagances, which the
contemplating judgment does not countenance, even deplores, but is
powerless to check or curb. From this I draw the conclusion that we
must learn to regulate and control our passions by day, for though the
senseless life is enriched by everything the day-life conveys to it, it
can only avail itself of well-mastered and disciplined passions.

Therefore abiding in the demon-sphere is never without danger. If, with
a little too much self-confidence, I let myself be induced to assume a
less haughty and reserved manner, if I associated a little more
familiarly with the bold tribe, I soon repented, for I was carried
along by their wantonness and folly, I could no longer subdue the
laughter and extravagances, nor could I, to my own disgrace and sorrow,
restrain myself in my wrath toward them.

And this most especially applies to licentiousness, of which they are
particularly ready to take advantage. They are past masters in
lascivious pranks and practised on my weakness with much success. I
soon noticed that they are sexless and can alternately appear as man or
woman. As long as I clearly realize this I have power over them. But
when the clearness of my consciousness and memory is dimmed they get
the better of me.

Thus you must understand me rightly, dear reader, as regards the
salutary effect resulting from this demon fight. Struggling with demons
is not struggling with passions. Demons are enemies and stand outside
our own individual domain. But passions are our friends, the useful
domestic animals belonging to our own household, to the economy of our
own personal nature. The passions and emotions should be tamed, never
combatted. And this taming is accomplished by day, for at night they
are more difficult to master, and the body invisible to the senses,
that which can remain after the fading and wasting away of our material
body, has no longer the power to tame. It only harvests what is sown by
day.

Yet this nocturnal life of struggle with the demon brood is extremely
stimulating to the soul, above all through the knowledge, the clearer
comprehension, the deeper insight with regard to our own obscure being
and its no less obscure besiegers.

In the better, the higher or deeper dream-spheres impure lust and base
lasciviousness do not occur. Love transports of unknown splendor do,
however. But it is an almost unfailing characteristic of everything
pertaining to the joy-sphere, that it passes over sexual matters with a
curious disregard, and never carries with it any suggestion of that
lust for which we feel shame and humiliation. Yet there are in it
unions and raptures very similar to the love-life of day, though more
beautiful and tranquil. But the peculiar quality that is vile and
leaves behind aversion and disgust, is eliminated with subtle
separation.

XIII

The things I related to you in the preceding chapter are necessary for
the comprehension of my subsequent life. But they are the issues of an
entire lifetime, and in the years previous to my marriage, when I lived
with my mother and her protégée, I was only at the beginning and knew
yet very little of all this. I did not speak of it either, and in all
my later life I mentioned it to only one person.

As my plan of entering the priesthood had come to naught, we were all
three glad to leave the sultry city of Rome. We went to Como, occupying
our villa at the lake. It was an old house with wainscotings of yellow
stucco and a sad air of ruined stateliness, of a splendor that even in
its prime had pretended to more than it really was. It was quite
different than my memory had pictured it. Much humbler, smaller - a
weak and feeble reflection of the solid marble splendor of antique and
renaissance which it affected to imitate. But this very decay now
spread over it an involuntary charm. For the garden with its cypresses,
mimosas, magnolias and roses had grown all the more beautiful in its
neglected wilderness, and we inhabited only a few rooms of the great
still house, making ourselves at home in the nooks and corners as
though we were caretakers instead of owners. And directly in front of
the garden was the lake, with its smooth extent of deep blue, with
satin or moiré sheen according as it was touched by the gentle breeze,
- and behind were the mountains with thousands of primulas, the purple
erica, and the pink and white Christmas rose. The brooklet was still
there - and the old pillared portico, where the stone showed from under
the crumbling stucco and the roses had pushed their way through the
stone paving and entwined the columns.

Into this abode I withdrew, gathering books about me, and by study and
a quiet, temperate life endeavored to attain by myself the consecration
which I could not find in Rome. Lucia with her maid continued to live
with us, and I saw her and my mother at the meals, but aside from that
not often.

They were rigorous, tranquil, secluded years, which may probably be
reckoned among the good years of my life. I quietly went my own way and
studied, following only the guidings of my inner thirst for knowledge.

But the women waited, waited, and I did not see it, or did not heed it.
Bernard Shaw, the Benjamin and the enfant terrible among my brethren,
tries his best to show the world that it is the woman who wins the man
and not the reverse - and surely there is more truth in this than the
common herd suspects. But if one were to believe him, one should
imagine that the woman thereby considers only selfish ends and
primarily cares for, desires and accepts the man, because she finds him
useful to the interest of her deep-seated instincts, of the desired
good and beautiful child. But after all this is not true, and the woman
in her quiet, unnoticed, luring and combining activities does not want
to take only, but to give as well, above all to give, and usually she
values the husband higher than the father.

Lucia was a very gentle woman, yet of firm character. She had the large
firm build and the regular, massive features of Titian's women, but her
eyes were softer, and showed less of that daringly exuberant spirit.

She was also characteristically Latin and un-Germanic in her feelings
and sentiments. Without criticism she subjected herself to the
spiritual teachings of the group to which she belonged. The
conventional was an unalterable mental reality to her, tradition
possessed for her all the power of the living and the sublime. Thus the
conception of "honor" with all its personal and social facets was to
her as fixed, clear, clean-cut and immutable as a diamond. That it
might be variable, that some ages had called honorable what was now
considered dishonorable, and vice versa, on that she never reflected
and she did not seek for the lasting kernel of the changing idea.
Through this she possessed a serenity and peace of mind which, in my
perplexities, often seemed very enviable to me. She had no tendencies
which she despised, but also no ideals which, as I, she must constantly
curtail at life's behest. That a young bachelor like myself sometimes
allowed himself dissipations, was a fact which she passed over with a
light French step. And she bore allusions to it so undisturbed that it
often impressed me painfully. She did not seem to feel the
Englishwoman's need of upholding the illusion of prematrimonial purity
in both husband and wife, and though I recognized that she had a
perfect right to this way of thinking, yet it annoyed me and I
preferred Emmy's ingenuous or assumed blindness.

But I also realized that Lucia's indulgence would be turned into an
equally rigid condemnation as soon as conventional bounds were
overstepped. What a young man did before his marriage had in Latin
countries never yet jeopardized his honor. But her honor as a wife, the
honor of the home, the honor of a family name - these were for her
circumscribed realities, which might be menaced by certain actions, and
which if need be she would sacrifice her life to defend.

She had been reared in luxury, and on reaching her majority had a large
fortune at her disposal. But she never seemed to give it a thought, and
lived in my mother's house with the utmost simplicity. That my mother
cared just as little about it I dare not say, and for me this was
another reason for maintaining my stubborn resistance. It impressed me
most disagreeably to hear my mother forever talking of the
miserableness and worthlessness of the earthly life, and of the
blessedness hereafter as the only thing deserving of our attention, and
at the same time observe how with unconscious motherly matchmaking and
secret strategy she sought to arrange a rich marriage for her son. I
therefore resisted her silent machinations as much as was possible
without endangering the household peace.

It profited me nothing, however. I was bound to lose this game because
I did not have my mind on it. The two women were determined to win it,
not with conscious deliberate intent, but as women want a thing with
all the obstinate strength of their mind, without ever saying a word
about it or admitting it to themselves. And I was absorbed in chemistry
and physics, in physiology and biology, my whole mind was engrossed in
the great endeavor to decipher something of the mysterious writ of the
phenomena of life and Nature, and in some degree to penetrate the dark
recesses of my own nature.

Thus the conflict was unequal - and though it lasted for years I
finally found myself conquered as by surprise. I felt that it was no
longer possible for me to draw back, and moreover that I was alone
responsible. There is no finer diplomacy than the unconscious diplomacy
of women. I had been conquered and withal wholly maintained in the
illusion that I myself was the acting, the attacking and the conquering
party. But all this, mark it well, with the most devoted and unselfish
love.

Actually in love, as with Emmy Tenders, I never was with Lucia del
Bono: and this, despite my amorous nature, her great charm and our many
years' companionship. I admired her for her beauty and for what
everyone must call her stainless character. But she lacked for me just
that certain mysterious, impenetrable something that in Emmy excited me
to so mad a passion. I loved Lucia for the same reason that everyone
must love her, because she really was a very lovable creature. But this
rational sentiment, that to many would seem a more solid basis for a
happy union than most paroxysms of love, never rose to the height of a
passion mightier than all reason. And I believed, as do many sensible
and staid people, and as my mother also believed, that I could make
this well-considered affection suffice for making her happy, and for
giving direction and balance to my own life. I lived in the very common
conceit that I had my own nature entirely in my power and thus, from
out the headquarters of my self-consciousness, could freely dispose of
it, always following the counsels of a reasonable deliberation.

That I should make Lucia happy by marrying her seemed beyond doubt.
That I should ever feel for another woman what I had felt for Emmy, I
could not believe. Then how could I do better than to devote my life to
an excellent woman, to whom I thus accorded what she seemed to desire
and who as my wife would surely never disappoint me? True, to save her
from humiliation, I should have to feign a love which I never expected
to feel. But I no longer faced mankind with the naive brotherly
uprightness, and I saw no wrong in acting such a part with such good
intention. I also considered myself perfectly capable of it, and again
swore to myself an oath - no less sincerely meant and also no less
fragile - that I would be a faithful and exemplary husband to her, and
would at all times make my own happiness subservient to hers.

Now every human person is, according to the primitive meaning of this
word, also a mask, and there is no person living, be he ever so simply
sincere, so wholly uncomplicated, but has wrought for himself such a
mask, has assumed such a rôle, according to his ideals of human worth,
of fitness and breeding. And if he means it honestly, he tries to live
himself into the part so that he can believe himself to be what he
pretends. Thus, following his own or others' form ideals, he moulds and
fashions himself into a personality which will be the more respected
the more pronounced, decided, and unchangeable it manifests itself. But
would he assume a mask, enact a part far removed from his own form
ideals and unattainable to the plasticity of his true nature, he fails
miserably, is called a scoundrel and a knave and is indeed a wretch.

Thus the part I played toward Lucia was not one entirely foreign to my
nature. I simply tried my best to efface the boundaries between, and
merge the emotional degrees of affection and love. This was not
difficult and I honestly hoped that my true nature would some time
really fill the assumed form: that thus I would become for Lucia the
true lover and devoted husband she expected to find in me. I also
related to her the history of my heart and my past, in so far as was
essential to a just estimation; and she accepted it all reverently, as
a pleasing and honoring mark of confidence, and saw no difficulty
whatsoever. She followed the suggestion of her own desire, that
everything would be as she wished it, with the same complacence with
which she had trusted in my mother's wisdom, and she continued to
hearken to the voice of the herd.

The wild, sultry sirocco had suddenly melted the snowy caps of the
mountains to about half their former extent, the mimosas bloomed
profusely, their luxuriant yellow masses standing out vividly against
the deep blue ether, and up on the mountains everywhere beamed the
hepatica with its myriad sweet flower-stare of faint and tender blue -
when Lucia and I were to wed in the white marble cathedral of Como. I
had acceded to her wish that all the ceremonies should be duly
observed. More and more I had learned to divide my life, as the only
means of keeping the peace with mankind and with myself. I realized
that what in brother Michael had seemed to me despicable hypocrisy was
nothing more than the brutal acceptance and shocking confirmation of a
sad necessity, to which every deeply thinking person must submit. Was
not Socrates far too wise a man to believe that if there really existed
a god of medicine, Asklepias by name, he would please this personage by
beheading and burning a cock? Yet he ordered this to be done in
acknowledgment of the speedy effect of the poison that killed him; this
at a moment when a sensible man does not usually jest or act. This poor
cock of Socrates has often come to my mind; also on the day when I left
my books and microscopes, my sprouting seeds and growing salamander
larvae to array myself for the wedding ceremony. Even the very wisest
man is obliged to offer to the gods of his time.

It was a lovely day and a brilliant scene. Lucia's distinguished family
had arrived in full force and glittering pageant. Not only the violet
but the crimson clergy were represented. The street populace of Como
were lined up from the landing place of our boats to the cathedral as
at the arrival of royalty. The street urchins ran before us, and there
was even cheering as though this event signified an additional joy on
earth. The church was fragrant with masses of roses and radiant with -
hundreds of candles, and returning our gondolas formed a long
multi-colored line on the lake, with draperies trailing through the
water, and songs and music, as though we were still in the good days of
the Borgias.

Lucia was serene and beaming with quiet happiness, like a blue hepatica
blossom, a little bashful, but responding archly and merrily, and her
fine clear eyes dimmed by only the slightest suspicion of a tear. She
saw nothing ahead of us but bliss, a welcome happiness, a regular
God-pleasing life. For me it was not hard to sustain my part in this
beautiful scene. It was not so much a rôle or a comedy that I enacted,
as perhaps a lovely dream.

When the sun sank I sat on the terrace meditating and contemplating the
colors of the darkly shimmering well-nigh blackish green foliage of the
magnolias, the snow of the mountains opposite, glittering golden in the
evening light, above it the luminous, pale greenish blue sky, and below
the purplish violet mountain slopes and the soft steel blue lake. The
colors merged and became one with the fragrance of the lemon blossoms
surrounding me, marking this as one of the unforgettable representative
moments, to which we look back repeatedly on our journey of life as the
skipper looks back to a buoy or lighthouse passed.

I thought of my dream-world and compared the sharp brilliant
impressions of the night with those of the day, asking myself when I
was most truly and really myself, and which of the two worlds was the
more real - and why?

XIV

Time is a sphere in the dream-world in which you, dear reader, have
surely been as well as I, but probably without distinguishing it as
such. Without doubt it has happened to you that you dreamt very vividly
of persons who have died. Then you may have observed two peculiarities,
first, that you usually do not remember in your dream that these
persons are dead, and moreover that if you see others with them, or
near them, or shortly after having met them these others are also dead
persons, whose passing away you had forgotten in your dream. Long
before the day of which I told you in the last chapter, I had already
observed the regularity in these visions, and had formed a presumption
from it, concerning the relation of their causes.

A presumption I say - not without value for all that. All that we call
proofs are presumptions of different degrees of certainty. Nietzsche
scornfully says that God is but a presumption. It is so. But it is not
nice of him to fool people for that reason, and to thrust the superman,
whom no one has ever seen and who is even slighter than a presumption,
into their hands as a waggishly contrived idol.

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