Albert Bushnell Hart - "Formation of the Union"

Everard Jack Appleton - "With the Colors"

Alexander F. Chamberlain - "The Child and Childhood in Folk Thought"

Nathaniel Hawthorne - "The Ancestral Footstep (fragment)"

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




Loving voices! domestic voices in happy families, what adversity, what
suffering is there which cannot be comforted by you!

Petrea felt their healing balsam. She wept tears of love and gratitude.
An hour afterwards, much calmer in mind, she stood at the window, and
noticed the scene without. Christmas was at hand, and every thing was in
lively motion, in order to celebrate the beautiful festival joyously.
The shops were ornamented, and people made purchases. A little bird came
and sate on the window, looked up to Petrea, twittered joyfully, and
flew away. A lively sentiment passed through Petrea's heart.

"Thou art happy, little bird," thought she; "so many beings are happy.
My mishap grieves no one, hurts no one. Wherefore, then, should it
depress me? The world is large, and its Creator rich and good. If this
path will not succeed for me, what then? I will find out another."

In the evening she was cheerful with her family. But when night came,
and she was alone; when the external world presented no longer its
changing pictures; when loving, sweet voices no more allured her out of
herself,--then anguish and disquiet returned to her breast. In no
condition to sleep, and urged by irresistible curiosity, she sate
herself down sighingly to go through her unlucky manuscripts. She found
many pencil-marks, notes of interrogation, and traces of the thumb on
the margin, which plainly proved that the reader had gone through the
manuscript with a censorious hand, and had had satisfaction in passing
his judgment of "good for nothing!"

Ah! Petrea had built so many plans for herself and her family upon this,
which was now good for nothing; had founded upon it so many hopes for
her ascent upwards. Was nothing now to come out of them all?

Petrea read; she acknowledged the justice of many marginal remarks, but
she found, more and more, that the greater part of them had reference
to single expressions, and other trifles. Petrea read and read, and was
involuntarily captivated by that which she read. Her heart swelled, her
eyes glowed, and suddenly animated by that feeling which (we say it
_sans comparaison_) gave courage to Correggio, and which comforted
Galileo, she raised herself, and struck her hand upon the manuscript
with the exclamation, "It is good for something after all!"

Animated to the depths of her heart, she ran to Gabriele, and laughing,
embraced her with the words, "You shall see that some fine day I'll
ascend upwards yet."




PART IV.

CHAPTER I.

PETREA TO IDA.


From my Hermitage in the Garret.

"'Illusions! Illusions!' you cry over all joys, all faith, all love in
life. I shout back with all my might over your own words, 'Illusions!
Illusions!' All depends upon what we fix our faith and our affections.
Must the beauty of love and worth of life be at an end to woman when her
first spring, her bloom of love, her moments of romance are past? No, do
not believe that, Ida. Nothing in this world is such an illusion as this
belief. Life is rich; its tree blossoms eternally, because it is
nourished by immortal fountains. It bears dissimilar fruits, varies in
colour and glory, but all beautiful; let us undervalue none of them, for
all of them are capable of producing plants of eternal life.

"Youthful love--the beaming passion-flower of earth! Who will belie its
captivating beauty, who will not thank the Creator that he gave it to
the children of earth? But ah! I will exclaim to all those who drink of
its nectar, and to those who must do without it--'There are flowers
which are as noble as this, and which are less in danger than it of
being paled by the frosts of the earth--flowers from whose chalices
also you may suck life from the life of the Eternal!'

"Ah! if we only understood how near to us Providence has placed the
fountains of our happiness--if we had only understood this from the days
of our childhood upwards, acted upon it, and profited by it, our lives
would then seldom lead through dry wildernesses! Happy are those
children whose eyes are early opened by parents and home to the rich
activity of life. They will then experience what sweetness and joy and
peace can flow out of family relationships, out of the heartfelt union
between brothers and sisters, between parents and children: and they
will experience how these relations, carefully cherished in youth, will
become blessings for our maturer years.

"You pray me to speak of my home and my family. But when I begin with
this subject, who can say, Ida, whether I shall know how to leave off!
This subject is so rich to me, so dear--and yet how weak will not my
description be, how lifeless in comparison with the reality!

"The dwelling-house--which may be said to have the same relation to home
as the body has to the soul--arisen, now out of its ashes, stands on the
same place on which, twelve years ago, it was burnt down. I wish you had
been with me yesterday in the library at breakfast. It was Leonore's
birthday, and the family had occasioned her a surprise by a little gift
which was exactly according to her taste--ornament combined with
convenience. It was an insignificant gift--wherefore then did it give us
all so much pleasure? wherefore were there sweet tears in her pious
eyes, and in ours also? We were all so still, and yet we felt that we
were very happy--happy because we mutually loved one another, and
mutually pleased one another so much. The sun shone at that time into
the room--and see, Ida! this sunbeam which shines day by day into the
house is the best image of its state; it is that which chases hence all
darkness, and turns all shadows into the glorification of its light!

"I will now, lively Ida, talk to you some little about the daughters of
the house, and in order that you may not find my picture too
sentimental, I will introduce first to you--'Honour to whom honour is
due!'--

'OUR ELDEST,'

well known for industry, morality, moral lecturing, cathedral airs, and
many good properties. She married eleven years ago upon a much smaller
than common capital of worldly wealth; but both she and her husband knew
how to turn their pound to account, and so, by degrees, their house,
under her careful hands, came to be what people call a well-to-do house.

"Eight wild Jacobis during this time sprung up in the house without
bringing about any revolution in it, so good were the morals which they
drew in with the mother's milk. I call them the 'Berserkers,' because
when I last saw them they were perfect little monsters of strength and
swiftness, and because we shall rely upon their prowess to overturn
certain planks--of which more anon; on which account I will inspire them
and their mother beforehand with a certain old-gothic ambition.

"So now! After the married couple had kept school eleven years--he
instructing the boys in history, Latin, and such like; and she washing,
combing, and moralising the same, and in fact, becoming a mother to many
a motherless boy, it pleased the mercy of the Almighty to call them--not
directly to heaven, but through his angel the Consistorium to the
pastoral care of the rural parish adjoining this town--the highest goal
of their wishes ever since they began to have wishes one with another.
Their approaching journey here has given rise to great pleasure--it is
hard to say in which of the two families the greatest. Thus, then,
Louise will become a pastor's wife--perhaps soon also an archdeacon's,
and then she arrives at the desired situation in which she can impart
moral lectures with power--of which sister Petrea might have the benefit
of a good part, and pay it back with interest.

"But the moral lectures of our eldest have a much milder spirit than
formerly, which is owing to the influence of Jacobi; for it has occurred
in their case, as in the case of many another happily-married couple,
they have ennobled one another; and it is a common saying in our family,
that she without him would not have become what she now is, neither
would he have been without her what he now is.

"The Rose of the Family, the daughter Eva, had once in her life a great
sorrow--a bitter conflict; but she came forth victorious. True it is
that an angel stood by her side and assisted her. Since then she has
lived for the joy of her family and her friends, beautiful, and amiable,
and happy, and has from time to time rejected lovers; but she may soon
be put out of the position to continue this course. I said that an angel
stood beside her in the bitter conflict. There was a time when this
angel was an ugly, uncomfortable girl, a trouble to herself, and
properly beloved by none. But there is no one in the family now who is
more beloved or more in favour than she is. Never, through the power of
God, did there take place a greater change than in her. Now it gives one
pleasure to look at her and to be near her. Her features, it is true,
have not improved themselves, nor has her complexion become particularly
red-and-white; but she has become lovely, lovely from the heartfelt
expression of affection and intelligence; beautiful from the quiet,
unpretending grace of her whole being. Her only pretension is that she
will serve all and help all; and thus has she attached every one, by
degrees, to her, and she is become the heart, the peace of the house;
and, for herself, she has struck deep root down into the family, and is
become happy through all these charms. She has attached herself, in the
closest manner, to her sister Eva, and these two could not live
separated from each other.

"You know the undertaking which these two sisters, while yet young,
commenced together. You know also how well it succeeded; how it obtained
confidence and stability, and how it won universal respect for its
conductors, and how also, after a course of ten years--independent of
this institution--they had realised a moderate income; so that they can,
if they are so disposed, retire from it, and it will still continue to
prosper under the direction of Annette P., who was taken as assistant
from the beginning, and who in respect of character and ability has
proved herself a person of rare worth. The name of the sisters Frank
stood estimably at the head of this useful establishment; but it is a
question whether it would have prospered to such an extent, whether it
would have developed itself so beautifully and well without the
assistance of a person who, however, has carefully concealed his
activity from the eye of the public, and whose name, for that reason,
was never praised. Without Assessor Munter's unwearied care and
assistance--so say the sisters--the undertaking could never have gone
forward. What a wonderful affectionate constancy lies in the soul of
this man! He has been, and is still, the benefactor of our family; but
if you would see and hear him exasperated, tell him so, and see how he
quarrels with all thanks to himself. The whole city is now deploring
that it is about to lose him. He is going to reside on his estate in the
country, for it is impossible that he could sustain much longer the way
in which he is at present overworked both night and day. His health has
for some time evidently declined, and we rejoice that he can now take
some rest, by which he may regain new strength. We all love him from our
hearts; but one of us has set on foot a plot to oblige another of us
to--ally herself with him, and therefore our good Assessor is now
exposed to a secret proceeding, which--but I forget that I was to write
about the daughters of the family.

"There is a peculiar little world in the house--a world into which
nothing bad can enter--where live flowers, birds, music, and Gabriele.
The morning would lose its sweetest charms, if during the same
Gabriele's birds and flowers did not play a part, and the evening
twilight would be duskier if it were not enlivened by Gabriele's guitar
and songs. Her flower-stand has extended itself by degrees into an
orangery--not large to be sure, but yet large enough to shelter a
beautiful vine, which is now covered with grapes, and many beautiful and
rare plants also, so as to present to the family a little Italy, where
they may enjoy all the charms of the south, in the midst of a northern
winter. A covered way leads from the dwelling-house down into the
orangery, and it is generally there that in winter they take their
afternoon coffee. The aviary is removed thither; and there upon a table
covered with a green cloth, lie works on botany, together with the
writings of the Swedish gardening society, which often contain such
interesting articles. There stand two comfortable armed chairs, on which
the most magnificent birds and flowers are worked, you can easily
imagine for whom. There my mother sits gladly, and reads or looks at her
'little lady' (she never grows out of this appellation) as she tends her
flowers in the sun, or plays with her tame birds. One may say, in fact,
that Gabriele strews the evening of her mother's days with flowers.

"A man dear to the Swedish heart has said, 'that the grand natural
feature of northern life is a conquered winter,' and this applies
equally to life individually, to family life, and to that of human
nature. It so readily freezes and grows stiff, snow so readily falls
upon the heart; and winter makes his power felt as much within as
without the house. In order to keep it warm within, in order that life
may flourish and bloom, it is needful to preserve the holy fire
everburning. Love must not turn to ashes and die out; if it do, then all
is labour and heaviness, and one may as well do nothing but--sleep. But
if fire be borrowed from heaven, this will not happen; then will house
and heart be warm, and life bloom incessantly, and a thousand causes
will become rich sources of joy to all. If it be so within the
house--then may it snow without--then winter thou mayst do thy worst!

"But I return to Gabriele, whose lively wit and joyous temper, united to
her affectionate and innocent heart, make her deservedly the favourite
of her parents, and the joy of every one. She asserts continually her
own good-for-nothingness, her uselessness, and incorrigible love to a
sweet '_far niente_;' but nobody is of her opinion in this respect, for
nobody can do without her, and one sees that when it is necessary, she
can be as decided and as able as any one need be. It is now some time
since Gabriele made any charades. I almost fancy that the cause of this
is a certain Baron L., who was suspected for a long time of having set
fire to a house, and who now is suspected of a design of setting fire to
a heart, and who, with certain words and glances, has put all sorts of
whims into her head--I will not say heart.

"And so then we have nothing bad to say of 'this Petrea,' as one of the
friends of the house still calls her, but no longer in anger. This
Petrea has had all kind of botherations in the world: in the first place
with her own nose, with which she could not get into conceit, and then
with various other things, as well within her as without her, and for a
long time it seemed as if her own world would never come forth out of
chaos.

"It has however. With eyes full of grateful tears I will dare to say
this, and some time I may perhaps more fully explain how this has been
done. And blessed be the home which has turned back her wandering steps,
has healed the wounds of her heart, and has offered her a peaceful
haven, an affectionate defence, where she has time to rest after the
storms, and to collect and to know herself. Without this home, without
this influence, Petrea certainly might have become a witch, and not, as
now, a tolerably reasonable person.

"You know my present activity, which, whilst it conducts me deeper into
life, discovers to me more beauty, more poetry, than I had ever
conceived of it in the dreams of my youth. Not merely from this cause,
although greatly owing to it, a spring has began to blossom for me on
the other side of my thirty years, which, were it ever to wither, would
be from my own fault. And if even still a painful tear may be shed over
past errors or present faults; if the longing after what is yet
unattainably better, purer, and brighter, may occasion many a pang--what
matters it? What matter if the eye-water burn, so that the eye only
become clear; if heaven humiliate, so that it only draw us upwards?

"One of Petrea's means of happiness is, to require very few of the
temporal things of earth. She regards such things as nearly related to
the family of illusions, and will, on that account, have as little as
possible to do with them. And thus has she also the means of obtaining
for herself many a hearty and enduring pleasure. I will not, however, be
answerable for her not very soon being taken by a frenzy of giving a
feast up in her garret, and thereby producing all kinds of illusions;
such, for example, as the eating little cakes, the favourite illusion of
my mother, and citron-souffle, the almost perfect earthly felicity of
'our eldest,' in which a reconciliation skal with the frenzy-feast might
be proposed to her beloved 'eldest.'

"Would you now make a _summa summarum_ of Petrea's state, it stands
thus: that which was a fountain of disquiet in her is now become a
fountain of quiet. She believes in the actuality of life, and in her own
part therein. She does not allow her peace to be disturbed by accidental
troubles, be they from within or from without; she calls them
mist-clouds, passing storms, after which the sun will come forth again.
And should her little garret tumble to pieces one of these days, she
would regard even that as a passing misfortune, and hold herself ready,
in all humility--to mount up yet a little higher.

"But enough of Petrea and her future ascension.

"Yet one daughter dwelt in the family, and her lovely image lives still
in the remembrance of all, but a mourning veil hangs over it; for she
left home, but not in peace. She was not happy, and for many years her
life is wrapped in darkness. People think that she is dead; her friends
have long believed so, and mourned her as such; but one among them
believes it not. _I_ do not believe that she is dead. I have a strong
presentiment that she will return; and it would gladden me to show her
how dear she is to me. I have built plans for her future with us, and I
expect her continually, or else a token where I may be able to find her;
and be it in Greenland or in Arabia Deserta whence her voice calls me, I
will find out a way to her.

"I would that I could now describe to you the aged pair, to whom all in
the house look up with love and reverence, who soon will have been a
wedded couple forty years, and who appear no longer able to live the one
without the other--but my pen is too weak for that. I will only venture
upon a slight outline sketch. My father is nearly seventy years old--but
do you think he indulges himself with rest? He would be extremely
displeased if he were to sleep longer in a morning than usual: he rises
every morning at six, it being deeply impressed upon him to lose as
little of life as possible. It is unpleasant to him that his declining
sight compels him now to less activity. He likes that we should read
aloud to him in an evening, and that--romances. My mother smilingly
takes credit to herself for having seduced him to that kind of reading;
and he confesses, with smiles, that it is really useful for old people,
because it contributes to preserve the heart young. For the rest, he is
in all respects equally, perhaps more, good, more noble-hearted than
ever; and from that cause he is to us equally respect-inspiring and
dear. Oh, Ida, it is a happy feeling to be able intrinsically to honour
and love those who have given us life!

"And now must I, with a bleeding heart, throw a mournful shadow over
the bright picture of the house, and that shadow comes at the same time
from a beautiful image--from my mother! I fear, I fear, that she is on
the way to leave us! Her strength has been declining for two years. She
has no decided malady, but she becomes visibly weaker and feebler, and
no remedy, as yet, has shown itself availing for her. They talk now of
the air of next spring--of Selzer-water, and a summer journey;--my
father would travel to the world's end with her--they hope with
certainty that she will recover; she hopes so herself, and says
smilingly yes, to the Selzer-water, and the journey, and all that we
propose; says she would gladly live with us, that she is happy with
us,--yet nevertheless there is a something about her, and even in her
smiles, that tells me that she herself does not cherish full faith in
the hope which she expresses. Ah! when I see daily her still paler
countenance; the unearthly expression in her gentle features--when I
perceive her ever slower gait, as she moves about, still arranging the
house and preparing little gratifications for her family; then comes the
thought to me that she perhaps will soon leave us, and it sometimes is
difficult to repress my tears.

"But why should I thus despair? Why not hope like all the rest? Ah, I
will hope, and particularly for the sake of him who, without her, could
no more be joyful on earth. For the present she is stronger and livelier
than she has been for a long time. The arrival of Louise and her family
have contributed to this, as also another day of joy which is
approaching, and which has properly reference to my father. She goes
about now with such joy of heart, with the almanack in her hand, and
prepares everything, and thinks of everything for the joyful festival.
My father has long wished to possess a particular piece of building land
which adjoins our little garden, in order to lay it out for a great and
general advantage; but he has sacrificed so much for his children, that
he has nothing remaining wherewith to carry out his favourite plan. His
children in the mean time have, during the last twelve years, laid by a
sum together, and now have latterly borrowed together what was wanting
for the purchase of the land. On the father's seventieth birthday
therefore, with the joint help of the 'Berserkers,' will the wooden
fence be pulled down, and the genius of the new place, represented by
the graceful figure of Gabriele, will deliver over to him the
purchase-deed, which is made out in his name. How happy he will be! Oh,
it makes us all happy to think of it! How he will clear away, and dig,
and plant! and how it will gladden and refresh his old age. May he live
so long that the trees which he plants may shake their leafy branches
over his head, and may their rustling foretel to him the blessing, which
his posterity to the third and fourth generation will pronounce upon his
beneficent activity.

"I would speak of the circle of friends which has ever enclosed our home
most cordially, of the new Governor Stejernhoek and his wife, whom we
like so much, and whose removal here was particularly welcome to my
father, who almost sees a son in him. I would speak also of the servants
of the house, who are yet more friends than servants--but I fear
extending my letter to too great a length.

"Perhaps you blame me secretly for painting my picture in colours too
uniformly bright, perhaps you will ask, 'Come there then not into this
house those little knocks, disturbances, rubs, overhastinesses,
stupidities, procrastinations, losses, and whatever those spiritual
mosquitoes may be called, which occasion by their stings irritation,
unquiet, and vexation, and whose visits the very happiest families
cannot avoid?'

"Yes, certainly. They come, but they vanish as quickly as they come, and
never leave a poisonous sting behind, because a universal remedy is
employed against them, which is called 'Forgive, forget, amend!' and
which the earlier applied the better, and which makes also the visits of
these ugly fiends of rarer occurrence; they come, indeed, in pure and
mild atmospheres never properly forth.

"Would you, dearest Ida, be convinced of the truth of the picture, come
here and see for yourself. We should all like it so much. Come, and let
our house provide for you the divertisement, perhaps also the rest which
is so needful to your heart. Come, and believe me, Ida, that when one
observes the world from somewhat of an elevation--as for instance, a
garret--one sees illusions like mist, passing over the earth, but above
it heaven vaulting itself in eternal brightness."




CHAPTER II.

A MORNING HOUR


"Good morning!" said Jeremias Munter, as with his pockets full of books
he entered Petrea's garret, which was distinguished from all other rooms
merely by its perfect simplicity and its lack of all ornament. A glass
containing beautiful fresh flowers was its only luxury.

"Oh, so heartily welcome!" exclaimed Petrea as she looked with beaming
eyes on her visitor and on his valuable appendages.

"Yes, to-day," said he, "I am of opinion that I am welcome! Here's a
treat for Miss Petrea. See here, and see here!"

So saying, the Assessor laid one book after another upon the table,
naming at the same time their contents. They belonged to that class of
books which open new worlds to the eye of reflecting minds. Petrea took
them up with a delight which can only be understood by such as have
sought and thirsted after the same fountains of joy, and who have found
them. The Assessor rejoiced quietly in her delight, as she looked
through the books and talked about them.

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