Frederick Orin Bartlett - "The Triflers"

William Hayley - "Ballads"

William Orpen - "An Onlooker in France 1917 to 1919"

Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson - "Three Comedies"

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 Home

F >> Fredrika Bremer >> The Home




"I awoke from a sense of happiness that was too great to be borne
on earth; I awoke, and ah! the roses were vanished, the lovely
girl was vanished, and I was once again the hard, unsightly, and
joyless rock. But do you see, young maiden, the idea will not
leave me, that those roses which I saw in my dream are hidden in
me; that they may yet bloom, yet rejoice and make happy. The idea
will remain with me that this reserved, melancholy heart might yet
expand itself by an affectionate touch; that there are precious
stones within it, which would beam brightly for those who called
them forth into light.

"Good young maiden, will you not venture on the attempt? Will you
not lay your warm hand on the rock? Will you not breathe softly
upon it? Oh, certainly, certainly under your touch it would
soften--it would bring forth roses for you--it would exalt itself
into a temple for you, a temple full of hymns of thanksgiving,
full of love!

"I know that I am old, old before my time; that I am ugly and
disagreeable, unpleasant, and perhaps ridiculous; but I do not
think that nature intended me to be so. I have gone through life
in such infinite solitude; neither father nor mother, brother nor
sister, have followed my path; no sunshine fell upon my childhood
or my youth; I have wandered solitarily through life, combating
with difficulties. Once I bound myself to a friend--he deserted
me, and thence grew the rock about my heart; thence became my
demeanour severe, unattractive, and rough. Is it to remain so
always? Will my life never bloom upon earth? Will no breath of
heaven call forth my roses?

"Do you fear my melancholy temperament? Oh, you have not seen how
a glance, a word of yours chases every cloud from my brow; not
because you are beautiful, but because you are good and pure. Will
you teach me to be good? I will learn willingly from you! From you
I would learn to love mankind, and to find more good in the world
than I have hitherto done. I will live for you, if not for the
world. By my wish the world should know nothing of me till the
cross upon my grave told 'here rests----'

"Oh, it is beautiful to live nameless under the poisoned glance of
the world; poisoned, whether it praise or blame; beautiful, not to
be polluted by its observation, but more beautiful to be
intimately known to one--to possess one gentle and honest friend,
and that one a wife! Beautiful to be able to look into her pure
soul as in a mirror, and to be aware there of every blot on one's
own soul, and to be able thus to purify it against the day of the
great trial.

"But I speak only of myself and my own happiness. Ah, the
egotist--the cursed egotist! Can I make you happy also, Eva? Is it
not audacity in me to desire--ah, Eva, I love you inexpressibly!

"I leave the egotist in your hand: do with him what you will, he
will still remain

"Yours."

This letter made Eva very anxious and uneasy. She would so willingly
have said yes, and made so good a man happy, but then so many voices
within her said no!

She spoke with her parents, with her brother and sisters. "He is so
good, so excellent!" said she. "Ah, if I could but properly love him!
But I cannot--and then he is so old; and I have no desire to marry; I am
so happy in my own home."

"And do not leave it!" was the unanimous chorus of all the family. The
father, indeed, was actually desperate with all this courtship; and the
mother thought it quite absurd that her blooming Eva and Jeremias Munter
should go together. No one voice spoke for the Assessor but the little
Petrea's, and a silent sigh in Eva's own bosom. The result of all this
consideration was, that Eva wrote with tearful eyes the following answer
to her lover:

"My best, my truly good Friend!

"Ah! do not be angry with me that I cannot become for you that
which you wish. I shall certainly not marry. I am too happy in my
own home for that. Ah! this to be sure is egotistical, but I
cannot do otherwise. Forgive me! I am so very much, so heartily
attached to you; and I should never be happy again if you love not
hitherto as formerly

"Your little "Eva."

In the evening Eva received a beautiful and costly work-box, with the
following lines:

"Yes, yes, I can very well believe that the rough rock would be
appalling. You will not venture to lay your delicate white hand
upon it, little Miss Eva; will not trouble yourself to breathe
warmth upon my poor roses! Let them then remain in their grave!

"I shall now make a journey, nor see you again for a year and a
day. But, good heavens! as you have given me a basket,[13] you
shall receive in return a little box. I bought it for my--bride,
Eva! Yet now, after all, Eva shall have it; shall keep it for my
sake. She may return it when I cease to be

"Her true and devoted Friend."

"Do you think she is sorry for what she has done?" asked the Judge
anxiously from his wife, as he saw Eva's hot tears falling on the
work-box;--"but it cannot be helped. She marry! and that too with
Munter! She is indeed nothing but a child! But that is just the way;
when one has educated one's daughters, and taught them something of good
manners, just when one has begun to have real pleasure in them, that one
must lose them--must let them go to China if the lover chance to be a
Chinese! It is intolerable! It is abominable! I would not wish my worst
enemy the pain of having grown-up daughters. Is not Schwartz already
beginning to draw a circle about Sara? Good gracious! if we should yet
have the plague of another lover!"

FOOTNOTES:

[13] To say that "a gentleman has received a basket," is the same as
saying he is a rejected lover.--M. H.




CHAPTER XII.

MORE COURTSHIP STILL.


Judge Frank had, unknown to himself, spoken a striking word. It was true
that Schwartz had drawn ever narrower and darker circles around Sara,
and at the very time when she would appear free from his influence her
temper became more uncertain and suspicious. The mother, uneasy about
this connexion, no longer allowed her to be alone with him during the
music lesson, and this watchfulness excited Sara's pride, as well as the
grave yet gentle remonstrances which were made on account of her
behaviour were received with much impatience and disregard. The Judge
was the only person before whom Sara did not exhibit the dark side of
her character. His glance, his presence, seemed to exercise a certain
power over her; besides which, she was, perhaps, more beloved by him
than by all the other members of the family, with the exception of
Petrea.

One evening, Sara sate silent by one of the windows in the library,
supporting her beautiful head on her hand. Petrea sate at her feet on a
low stool; she also was silent, but every now and then looked up to Sara
with a tender troubled expression, whilst Sara sometimes looked down
towards her thoughtfully, and almost gloomily.

"Petrea," said she, quickly, "what would you say if I should leave you
suddenly to go into the wide world, and should never return?"

"What should I say?" answered Petrea, with a violent gush of tears: "ah,
I should say nothing at all, but should lie down and die of grief!"

"Do you really love me then so, Petrea?" asked she.

"Do I love you!" returned Petrea; "ah, Sara, if you go away, take me
with you as maid, as servant--I will do everything for you!"

"Good Petrea!" whispered Sara, laying her arm round her neck, and
kissing her weeping eyes, "continue to love Sara, but do not follow
her!"

"It seems terribly sultry to me this evening!" said Henrik, wearily: "we
cannot manage any family assembling to-night; not a bit of music; not a
bit of entertainment. The air seems as if an earthquake were at hand. I
fancy that Africa sends us something of a tempest. Petrea is weeping
like the cataract of Trollhaetten; and there go the people in
twos-and-twos and weep, and set themselves in corners and whisper and
mutter, and kiss one another, from my God-fearing parents down to my
silly little sisters! The King and Queen, they go and seat themselves
just has it happens, on living or dead things; they had nearly seated
themselves on me as I sate unoffensively on the sofa; but I made a turn
about _tout d'un coup_.--Betrothed! horribly wearisome folks! Are they
not, Gabriele? They cannot see, they cannot hear; they could not speak,
I fancy, but with one another!"

A light was burning in Sara's chamber far into the night. She was busied
for a long time with her journal; she wrote with a flying but unsteady
hand.

"So, to-morrow; to-morrow all will be said, and I----shall be bound.

"I know that is but of little importance, and yet I have such a horror
of it! Oh, the power of custom and of form.

"I know very well whom I could love; there is a purity in his glance, a
powerful purity which penetrates me. But how would he look on me if he
saw----

"I must go! I have no choice left! S. has me in his net--the money which
I have borrowed from him binds me so fast!--for I cannot bear that they
should know it, and despise me. I know that they would impoverish
themselves in order to release me, but I will not so humiliate myself.

"And why do I speak of release? I go hence to a life of freedom and
honour. I bow myself under the yoke but for a moment, only in order to
exalt myself the more proudly. Now there is no more time to tremble and
to waver--away with these tears! And thou, Volney, proud, strong
thinker, stand by me! Teach me, when all others turn away, how I may
rely on my own strength!"

Sara now exchanged the pen for the book, and the hour of midnight struck
before she closed it, and arose tranquil and cold in order to seek the
quiet of sleep.

* * * * *

The earthquake of which Henrik had spoken came the next day, the signal
of which was a letter from Schwartz to the Judge, in which he solicited
the hand of Sara. His only wealth was his profession; but with this
alone he was convinced that his wife would want nothing: he was just
about to undertake a journey through Europe, and wished to be
accompanied by Sara, of whose consent and acquiescence he was quite
sure.

A certain degree of self-appreciation in a man was not at any time
displeasing to Judge Frank, but this letter breathed a supercilious
assurance, a professional arrogance, which were extremely repugnant to
him. Besides this, he was wounded by the tone of pretension in which
Schwartz spoke of one who was as dear to him as his own daughter; and
the thought of her being united to a man of Schwartz's character was
intolerable to him. He was almost persuaded that Sara did not love him,
and burned with impatience to repel his pretensions, and to remove him
at the same time from his house.

Elise agreed perfectly in the opinion of her husband, but was less
confident than he regarding Sara's state of feeling with respect to the
affair. She was summoned to their presence. The Judge handed to her
Schwartz's letter, and awaited impatiently her remarks upon it. Her
colour paled before the grave and searching glance which was riveted
upon her, but she declared herself quite willing to accept Schwartz's
proposal.

Astonishment and vexation painted themselves on the countenance of her
adopted father.

"Ah, Sara," said the mother, after a short silence, "have you well
considered this? Do you think that Schwartz is a man who can make a wife
happy?"

"He can make me happy," returned Sara; "happy according to my own mind."

"You can never, never," said the mother, "enjoy domestic happiness with
him!"

"He loves me," returned Sara, "and he can give me a happiness which I
never enjoyed here. I lost early both father and mother, and in the home
into which I was received out of charity, all became colder and colder
towards me!"

"Ah, do not think so, Sara!" said the mother. "But even if this were
the case, may not some little of it be your own fault? Do you really do
anything to make yourself beloved? Do you strive against that which
makes you less amiable?"

"I can renounce such love," said Sara, "as will not love me with my
faults. Nature gave me strong feelings and inclinations, and I cannot
bring them into subjection."

"You will not, Sara," was the reply.

"I cannot! and it may be that I will not," said she, "submit myself to
the subjugation and taming which has been allotted as the share of the
woman. Why should I? I feel strength in myself to break up a new path
for myself. I will lead a fresh and an independent life! I will live a
bright artiste-life, free from the trammels and the Lilliputian
considerations of domestic life. I will be free! I will not, as now, be
watched and suspected, and be under a state of espionage! I will be free
from the displeasure and blame which now dog my footsteps! This
treatment it is, mother, which has determined my resolution."

"If," answered the mother, in a tremulous voice, and deeply affected by
Sara's words and tone, "I have erred towards you--and I may have done
so--I know well that it has not been from temper, or out of want of
tenderness towards you. I have spoken to and warned you from the best
conviction; I have sincerely endeavoured and desired that which is best
for you, and this you will some time or other come to see even better
than now.[14] You will perhaps come to see that it would have been good
for you if you had lent a more willing ear to my maternal counsellings;
will perhaps come to deplore that you rewarded the love I cherished for
you with reproaches and bitterness!"

"Then let me go!" said Sara, with gentler voice; "we do not accord well
together. I embitter your life, and you make--perhaps you cannot make
mine happy. Let me go with him who will love me with all my faults, who
can and will open a freer scope to my powers and talents than I have
hitherto had."

"Ah, Sara," returned Elise, "will you obtain in this freer field a
better happiness than can be afforded you by a domestic circle, by the
tenderness of true friends, and a happy domestic life?"

"Are you then so happy, my mother?" interrupted Sara with an ironical
smile, and a searching glance; "are you then so happy in this circle,
and this domestic life, which you praise so highly, that you thus repeat
what has been said on the subject from the beginning of the world. Those
perpetual cares in which you have passed your days, those trifling cares
and thoughts for every-day necessities, which are so opposite to your
own nature, are they then so pleasant, so captivating? Have you not
renounced many of your beautiful gifts--your pleasure in literature and
music--nay, in short, what is the most lovely part of life, in order to
bury yourself in concealment and oblivion, and there, like the silkworm,
to spin your own sepulchre of the threads which another will wind off?
You bow your own will continually before that of another; your innocent
pleasures you sacrifice daily either to him or to others: are you so
very happy amid all these renunciations?"

The Judge rose up passionately; went several times up and down the room,
and placed himself at last directly opposite to Sara, leaning his back
to the stove, and listening attentively for the answer of his wife.

"Yes, Sara, I am happy!" answered she, with an energy very unusual in
her; "yes, I am happy! Whenever I make any sacrifice, I receive a rich
return. And if there be moments when I feel painfully any renunciation
which I have made, there are others, and far more of them, in which I
congratulate myself on all that I have won. I am become improved through
the husband whom God has given to me; through my children, through my
duties, through the desires and the wants which I have overcome at his
side--yes, Sara, above all things, through him, his affection, his
excellence, am I improved, and feel myself happier every day. Love,
Sara, love changes sacrifice into pleasure, and makes renunciation
sweet! I thank God for my lot, and only wish that I were worthier of
it!"

"It may be!" said Sara, proudly; "every one has his own sphere. But the
tame happiness of the dove suits not the eagle!"

"Sara!" exclaimed the Judge, in a tone of severe displeasure.

The mother, unable longer to repress the outbreak of excited feeling,
left the room with her handkerchief to her eyes.

"For shame, Sara," said the Judge with severe gravity, and standing
before her with a reproving glance, "for shame! this arrogance goes too
far!"

She trembled now before his eye as she had done once before; a
remembrance from the days of her childhood awoke within her; her eyelids
sunk, and a burning crimson covered her face.

"You have forgotten yourself," continued he, calmly, but severely, "and
in your childish haughtiness have only shown how far you are below that
worth and excellence which you cannot understand, and which, in your
present state of mind, you never can emulate. Your own calm judgment
will make the sharpest reproaches on this last scene, and will, nay,
must lead you to throw yourself at the feet of your mother. All,
however, that I now ask from you is, that you think over your intentions
rationally. How is it possible, Sara, that you overlook your own
inconsistency? You argue zealously against domestic life--against the
duties of marriage, and yet, at the same time, wilfully determine to tie
those bonds with a man who will make them actual fetters for you."

"He will not fetter me," returned she; "he has promised it--he has sworn
it! I shall not subject myself to him as a wife, but I shall stand at
his side as an equal, as an artiste, and step with him into a world
beautiful and rich in honours, which he will open to me."

"Ah, mere talk!" exclaimed the Judge. "Folly, folly! How can you be so
foolish, and believe in such false show? The state gives your husband a
power over you which he will not fail to abuse--that I can promise you
from what I know of his character, and from what I now discover of
yours. No woman can withdraw from a connexion of this kind unpunished,
more especially under the circumstances in which you are placed. Sara,
you do not love the man to whom you are about to unite yourself, and it
is impossible that you can love him. No true esteem, no pure regard
binds you to him."

"He loves me," answered Sara, with trembling lips; "I admire his power
and artistical genius;--he will conduct me to independence and honour!
It is no fault of mine that the lot of woman is so contracted and
miserable--that she must bind herself in order to become free!"

"Only as a means?" asked he; "the holiest tie on earth only as a means,
and for what? For a pitiable and ephemeral chase after happiness, which
you call honour and freedom. Poor, deceived Sara! Are you so misled, so
turned aside from the right? Is it possible that the miserable book of a
writer, as full of pretension as weak and superficial, has been able
thus to misguide you?" and with these words he took Volney's Ruins out
of his pocket, and threw it upon the table.

Sara started and reddened. "Ah," said she, "this is only another
instance of espionage over me."

"Not so," replied the Judge, calmly. "I was this day in your room; you
had left the book lying on the table, and I took it, in order that I
might speak with you about it, and prevent Petrea's young steps from
treading this path of error without a guide."

"People may think what they please," said Sara, "of the influence of the
book, but I conceive that author deserves least of all the epithet
weak."

"When you have followed his counsel," returned he, "and resemble the
wreck which the waves have thrown up here, then you may judge of the
strength and skill of the steersman! My child, do not follow him. A more
mature, a more logical power of mind, will teach you how little he knows
of the ocean of life, of its breakers and its depths--how little he
understands the true compass."

"Ah!" said Sara, "these storms, these dangers, nay, even shipwreck
itself, appear to me preferable to the still, windless water which the
so-much-be-praised haven of domestic life represents. You speak, my
father, of chimeras; but tell me, is not the so-lauded happiness of
domestic life more a chimera than any other? When the saloon is set in
order, one does not see the broom and the dusting-brush that have been
at work in it, and the million grains of dust which have filled the air;
one forgets that they have ever been there. So it is with domestic and
family life; one persists wilfully in only seeing its beautiful moments,
and in passing over, in not noticing at all, what are less beautiful, or
indeed are 'repulsive.'"

"All depends upon which are the predominant," replied he, half smiling
at Sara's simile. "Thus, then, if it be more frequently disorderly than
orderly, if the air be more frequently filled with dust than it is pure
and fresh, then the devil may dwell there, but not I! I know very well
that there are homes enough on earth where there are dust-filled rooms,
but that must be the fault of the inhabitants. On them alone depends the
condition of the house; from those which may not unjustly be called
ante-rooms of hell, to those again which, spite of their earthly
imperfections, spite of many a visitation of duster and dusting-brush,
yet may deserve the names of courts of heaven. And where, Sara, where in
this world will you find an existence free from earthly dust? And is
that of which you complain so bitterly anything else than the earthly
husk which encloses every mortal existence of man as well as of
woman?--it is the soil in which the plant must grow; it is the chrysalis
in which the larva becomes ripe for its change of life! Can you actually
be blind to that higher and nobler life which never developes itself
more beautifully than in a peaceful home? Can you deny that it is in the
sphere of family and friendship where man lives most perfectly and best,
as citizen of an earthly and of a heavenly kingdom? Can you deny how
great and noble is the efficacy of woman in private life, be she married
or single, if she only endeavour----"

"Ah," said Sara, interrupting him, "the sphere of private life is too
narrow for me. I require a larger one, in order to breathe freely and
freshly."

"In pure affection," replied the Judge, "in friendship, and in the
exercise of kindness, there is large and fresh breathing space; the air
of eternity plays through it. In intellectual development--and the very
highest may be arrived at in private life--the whole world opens itself
to the eye of man, and infinite treasures are offered to his soul, more,
far more, than he can ever appropriate to himself!"

"But the artist," argued Sara--"the artist cannot form himself at
home--he must try himself on the great theatre of the world. Is his bent
only a chimera, my father? And are those distinguished persons who
present the highest pleasures to the world through their talents; to
whom the many look up with admiration and homage; around whom the great,
and the beautiful, and the agreeable collect themselves, are they
fools?--are they blind hunters after happiness? Ah, what lot can well be
more glorious than theirs! Oh, my father, I am young; I feel a power in
myself which is not a common one--my heart throbs for a freer and more
beautiful life! Desire not that I should constrain my own nature: desire
not that I should compress my beautiful talents into a sphere which has
no charms for me!"

"I do not depreciate, certainly, the profession of the artist," replied
the Judge, "nor the value of his agency: in its best meaning, his is as
noble as any; but is it this pure bent, this noble view of it, which
impels you, which animates you? Sara, examine your own heart; it is
vanity and selfish ambition which impel you. It is the arrogance of your
eighteen years, and some degree of talent, which make you overlook all
that is good in your present lot, which make you disdain to mature
yourself nobly and independently in the domestic circle. It is a deep
mistake, which will now lead you to an act blamable in the eyes of God
and man, and which blinds you to the dark side of the life which you
covet. Nevertheless, there is none darker, none in which the changes of
fortune are more dependent on miserable accidents. An accident may
deprive you of your beauty, or your voice, and with these you lose the
favour of the world in which you have placed your happiness. Besides
this, you will not always continue at eighteen, Sara: by the time you
are thirty all your glory will be past, and then--then what will you
have collected for the remaining half of life? You will have rioted for
a short time in order then to starve; since, so surely as I stand here,
with this haughty and vain disposition, and with the husband whom you
will have chosen, you will come to want; and, too late, you will look
back in your misery, full of remorse, to the virtue and to the true life
which you have renounced."

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