George Adolphus Storey - "The Theory and Practice of Perspective"

Louisa de la Rame) - "A Dog of Flanders"

John Philip Newman - "'America for Americans!'"

Colonel Charles Jean Jacques Joseph Ardant du Picq - "Battle Studies"

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.

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F >> Fredrika Bremer >> The Home




"How good, how cordially good of you," said Petrea, "to think about me.
But you must see that I also have expected you to-day;" and with eyes
that beamed with the most heartfelt satisfaction she took out of a
cupboard two fine china-plates, on one of which lay cakes of light
wheaten bread, and on the other, piled up, the most magnificent grapes
reposing amid a garland of their own leaves, which were tastefully
arranged in various shades against the golden border of the plate. These
Petrea placed upon a little table in the window, so that the sun shone
upon them.

The Assessor regarded them with the eye of a Dutch fruit painter, and
appeared to rejoice himself over a beautiful picture after his own
manner.

"You must not only look at your breakfast, but you must eat it," said
the lively Petrea; "the bread is home-baked, and--Eva has arranged the
grapes on the plate and brought them up here."

"Eva!" said he, "now, she could not know that I was coming here to-day?"

"And precisely because she thought so as well as I, would she provide
your breakfast." With these words Petrea looked archly at the Assessor,
who did not conceal a pleasurable sensation--broke off a little grape,
seated himself, and--said nothing.

Petrea turned herself to her books: "Oh," said she, "why is life so
short, when there is such an infinite deal to learn? Yet this is not
right, and it evidences ignorance to imagine the time of learning
limited; besides, this remark about the shortness of time and the length
of art proceeds from the heathen writer Hippocrates. But let us praise
God for the hope, for the certainty, that we may be scholars to all
eternity. Ah, Uncle Munter, I rejoice myself heartily over the
industrial spirit of our age! It will make it easy for the masses to
clothe and feed themselves, and then will they begin also to live for
mind. For true is that sentiment, which is about two thousand years old,
'When common needs are satisfied, man turns himself to that which is
more universal and exalted.' Thus when the great week of the world is
past, the Sabbath will commence, in which a people of quiet worshippers
will spread themselves over the earth, no more striving after decaying
treasures, but seeking after those which are eternal; a people whose
life will be to observe, to comprehend, and to adore, revering their
Creator in spirit and in truth. Then comes the day of which the angels
sung 'Peace on earth!'"

"Peace on earth!" repeated Jeremias in a slow and melancholy voice,
"when comes it? It must first enter into the human heart; and there,
there live so many demons, so much disquiet and painful longing--but
what--what is amiss now?"

"Ah, my God!" exclaimed Petrea wildly, "she lives! she lives!"

"What her? who lives? No, really Petrea all is not right with you," said
the Assessor, rising.

"See! see!" cried Petrea, trembling with emotion, and showing to the
Assessor a torn piece of paper, "see, this lay in the book!"

"Well, what then? It is indeed torn from a sepia picture--a hand
strewing roses on a grave, I believe. Have I not seen this somewhere
already?"

"Yes, certainly; yes, certainly! It is the girl by the rose-bush which
I, as a child, gave to Sara! Sara lives! see, here has she written!"

The back of the picture seemed to have been scrawled over by a child's
hand; but in one vacant spot stood these words, in Sara's own remarkably
beautiful handwriting:

No rose on Sara's grave!
Oh Petrea! if thou knew'st----

The sentence was unfinished, whilst several drops seemed to prove that
it had been closed by tears.

"Extraordinary!" said the Assessor: "these books which I purchased
yesterday were bought in U. Could she be there? But----"

"Certainly! certainly she is there," exclaimed Petrea, "look at the book
in which the picture lay--see, on the first page is the name, Sara
Schwartz--although it has been erased. Oh! certainly she is in U., or
there we can obtain intelligence of her! Oh, Sara, my poor Sara! She
lives, but perhaps in want, in sorrow! I will be with her to-day if she
be in U.!"

"That Miss Petrea will hardly manage," said the Assessor, "unless she
can fly. It is one hundred and two (English) miles from here to U."

"Alas, that my father should at this time be absent, should have the
carriage with him; otherwise he would have gone with me! But he has an
old chaise, I will take it----"

"Very pretty, indeed," returned he, "for a lady to be travelling alone
in an old chaise, especially when the roads are spoiled with rain;--and
see what masses of clouds are coming up with the south wind--you'll have
soaking rain the whole day through in the chaise."

"And if it rain pokers," interrupted Petrea, warmly, "I must go. Oh,
heavens! she was indeed my sister, she is so yet, and she shall not call
on me in vain! I will run down to my mother in this moment and----"
Petrea took her bonnet and cloak in her hand.

"Calm yourself a little, Miss Petrea," he said; "I tell you, you could
not travel in this way. The chaise would not hold together. Alas, I have
tried it myself--you could not go in it!"

"Now then," exclaimed Petrea determinately, "I will go; and if I cannot
go I'll creep--but go I will!"

"Is that then your firm determination?"

"My firm and my last."

"Well, then, I must creep with you!" said the Assessor, smiling, "if it
be only to see how it goes with you. I'll go home now, but will be back
in an hour's time. Promise me only to have patience for so long, and not
without me to set off--creep off, I should say!"

The Assessor vanished, and Petrea hastened down to her mother and
sisters.

But before her communications and consultations were at an end, a light
travelling carriage drew up at the door. The Assessor alighted from it,
came in, and offered Petrea his arm. Soon again was he seated in the
carriage, Petrea by his side, and was protesting vehemently against the
bag of provisions, and the bottle of wine, which Leonore thrust in,
spite of his protestations, and so away they went.




CHAPTER III.

ADVENTURES.


It was now the second time in their life that the Assessor and Petrea
were out together in such a manner, and now as before it seemed as if no
favourable star would light their journey, for scarcely had they set out
when it began to rain, and clouds as heavy and dark as lead gathered
together above their heads. It is rather depressing when in answer to
the inquiring glances which one casts upwards at the commencement of an
important journey, to be met by a heaven like this. Other omens also
little less fortunate added themselves; the horses pranced about as if
they were unwilling to go farther, and an owl took upon itself to attend
the carriage, set itself on the tree-branches and points of the palings
by the wayside, and then on the coming up of the carriage flew a little
farther, there to await its coming up at a little distance.

As the travellers entered a wood, where on account of the deep road they
were compelled to travel slowly, they saw on the right hand a little
black-grey old woman step forth, as ugly, witch, and Kobold like in
appearance as an old woman ever can be. She stared at the travellers for
a moment, and then vanished among the trunks of the trees.

The Assessor shuddered involuntarily at the sight of her, and remarked,
"What a difference is there between woman and woman--the loveliest upon
earth and the most horrible is yet--woman!"

After he had seen the old witch he became almost gloomy. In the meantime
the owl vanished with her; perhaps, because "birds of a feather flock
together."

Yet it may be that I am calumniating all this time the little old mother
in the most sinful manner; she may be the most good-tempered woman in
the world. It is well that our Lord understands us better than we do
ourselves.

All this time Petrea sate silent, for however enlightened and
unprejudiced people may be, they never can perfectly free themselves
from the impression of certain circumstances, such as presentiments,
omens, apparitions, and forebodings, which, like owls on noiseless
wings, have flown through the world ever since the time of Adam, when
they first shouted their ominous "Too-who! too-whit!" People know that
Hobbes, who denied the resurrection in the warmest manner, never could
sleep in the neighbourhood of a room in which there had been a corpse.
Petrea, who had not the least resemblance in the world to Hobbes, was
not inclined to gainsay anything within the range of probability. Her
temperament naturally inclined her to superstition; and like most people
who sit still a great deal, she felt always at the commencement of a
journey a degree of disquiet as to how it would go on. But on this day,
under the leaden heaven, and the influence of discomforting forebodings,
this unquiet amounted to actual presentiment of evil; whether this had
reference to Sara or to herself she knew not; but she was disposed to
imagine the latter, and asked herself, as she often had done, whether
she were prepared for any occasion which might separate her for ever
from all those whom she loved on earth. By this means Petrea most
livingly discovered--discovered almost with horror, how strongly she
was fettered to her earthly existence, how dear life had become to her.

All human souls have their heights, but then they have also their
morasses, their thickets, their pits (I will not speak of abysses,
because many souls are too shallow to have these). A frequent mounting
upwards, or a more constant abode upon these heights, is the stipulated
condition of man's proximity to heaven. Petrea's soul was an uneven
ground, as is the case with most people; but there existed in her
nature, as we have before seen, a most determined desire to ascend
upwards; and at this time, in which she found her affections too much
bound to earthly things, she strove earnestly to ascend up to one of
those heights where every limited attraction vanishes before more
extended views, and where every fettered affection will become free, and
will revive in what is loftier. The attempt succeeded--succeeded by
making her feel that whatever was most valuable in this life was
intimately connected with that life which only first begins when this
ends. Her lively imagination called forth, one after another, a great
variety of scenes of misfortune and death; and she felt that in the
moment before she resigned life, her heart would be able to raise itself
with the words, "God be praised in all eternity."

With this feeling, and convinced by it that her present undertaking was
good and necessary, whatever its consequences might be, Petrea's heart
became light and free. She turned herself with lively words and looks to
her travelling companion, and drew him by degrees into a conversation
which was so interesting to them both, that they forgot weather and
ways, forebodings, evil omens, and preparations for death. The journey
prospered as well as any autumn journey could prosper. Not a trace of
danger met them by the way. The wind slumbered in the woods; and in the
public-houses they only heard one and another sleepy peasant open his
mouth with a "devil take me!"

In the forenoon of the following day our travellers arrived happily at
U. Petrea scarcely allowed herself time to take any refreshments before
she commenced her inquiries. The result of all her and the Assessor's
labours we give shortly thus:

It soon became beyond a doubt to them that Sara, together with a little
daughter, had been in the city, and had resided in the very inn in which
Petrea and the Assessor now were, although they travelled under a
foreign name. She was described as being in the highest degree weak and
sickly; and, as might be expected in her circumstances, it appeared that
she had besought the host to sell some books for her, which he had done.
One of these books it was which, with its forgotten mark, had fallen
into the hands of Petrea. Sara, on account of her debility, had been
compelled to remain several days in that place, but she had been gone
thence probably a week; and they saw by the Day-book[21] that it had been
her intention to proceed thence to an inn which lay on the road to
Petrea's native place; not, however, on the road by which they had
travelled to U., but upon one which was shorter, although much worse.

Sara then also was on her way home--yes, perhaps might be there already!
This thought was an indescribable consolation for Petrea's heart, which
from the account she had received of Sara's condition, was anxious in
the highest degree. But when she thought on the long time which had
passed since Sara's journey from the city, she was filled with anxiety,
and feared that Sara might be ill upon the road.

Willingly would Petrea have turned back again on the same evening to
seek out traces of Sara; but care for her old friend prevented her from
doing more than speaking of it. The Assessor, indeed, found himself
unwell, and required rest. The cold and wet weather had operated
prejudicially upon him, both mind and body. It was adopted as
unquestionable that they could not continue the journey till the
following morning.

The Assessor had told Petrea that this was his birthday, and perhaps it
was this thought which caused him to be uncommonly melancholy the whole
day. Petrea, who was infinitely desirous of cheering him, hastened,
whilst he was gone out to seek an acquaintance, to prepare a little
festival for his return.

With flowers and foliage which Petrea obtained, heaven knows how!--but
when people are resolutely bent on anything they find out the means to
do it--with these, then, with lights, a good fire, with a table covered
with his favourite dishes and such like, although in a somewhat
disagreeably public-house room, such a picture of comfort and
pleasantness was presented as the Assessor much loved.

Fathers and mothers, and all the members of happy families, are
accustomed to birthday festivals, flower-garlands, and well-covered
tables; but nobody had celebrated the birthday of the Assessor during
his solitary wandering; he had not been indulged with those little
flower-surprises of life--if one may so call them; hence it happened
that he entered from the dark, wet street into this festal room with an
exclamation of astonishment and heartfelt pleasure.

Petrea, on her part, was inexpressibly cordial, and was quite happy when
she saw the pains which she had taken to entertain her old friend
succeed so well. The two spent a pleasant evening together. They made
each other mutually acquainted with the evil omens and the impressions
which they had occasioned, and bantered one another a little thereon;
but decided positively that such fore-tokenings for the most
part--betoken nothing at all.

As they separated for the night the Assessor pressed Petrea's hand with
the assurance that very rarely had a day given him such a joyous
evening. Grateful for these words, and grateful for the hope of soon
finding again the lost and wept friend of her youth, Petrea went to
rest, but the Assessor remained up late--midnight saw him still writing.

Man and woman! There is a deal, especially in novels, said about man and
woman, as of separate beings. However that may be, human beings are they
both--and as human beings, as morally sentient and thinking creatures,
they influence one another for life. Their ways and means are different;
and it is this very difference which, by mutual benefits, and mutual
endeavours to sweeten life to one another, produces what is so beautiful
and so perfect.

The clearest sun brightened the following morning; but the eyes of the
Assessor were troubled, as if he had enjoyed but little repose. Whilst
he and Petrea were breakfasting, he was called out to inspect something
relative to the carriage.

Was it now the hereditary sin of mother Eve, or was it any other cause
which induced Petrea at this moment to approach the table on which the
Assessor's money lay, together with papers ready to be put into a
travelling writing-case. Enough! she did it--she did certainly what no
upright reader will pardon her for doing, quickly ran her eyes over one
of the papers which seemed just lately to have received from the pen
impressions of thought, and she took it. Shortly afterwards the Assessor
entered, and as it was somewhat late, he hastily put together his
papers, and they set off on their journey.

The weather was glorious, and Petrea rejoiced like--nay, even more than
a child, over the objects which met her eyes, and which, after the rain,
stood in the bright sunshine, as if in the glory of a festive-day. The
world was to her now more than ever a magic ring; not the perplexing,
half-heathenish, but the purely Christian, in which everything, every
moment has its signification, even as every dewdrop receives its beaming
point of light from the splendour of the sun. Autumn was, above all,
Petrea's favourite season, and its abundance now made her soul overflow
with joyful thoughts. It is the time in which the earth gives a feast to
all her children, and joyous and changing scenes were represented by the
waysides. Here the corn-field raised to heaven its golden sheaves, and
the harvesters sang; there, around the purple berries of the
service-tree, circled beautiful flocks of the twittering silktails;
round the solitary huts, the flowering potato-fields told that the fruit
was ripe, and merry little barefooted children sprang into the wood to
gather bilberries. Petrea thanked heaven in her heart for all the
innocent joys of earth. She thought of her home, of her parents, of her
sisters, of Sara, who would soon again be one of their circle, and of
how she (Petrea) would cherish her, and care for her, and reconcile her
to life and to happiness. In the blessed, beautiful morning hour, all
thoughts clothed themselves in light. Petrea felt quite happy, and the
joke which she thought of playing on her friend the Assessor with the
stolen piece of paper, contributed not a little to screw up her life's
spirit to greater liveliness. "From the fulness of the heart the mouth
speaketh," and Petrea involuntarily influenced her travelling companion
so far that they both amused themselves with bombarding little children
on the waysides with apples and pears, whereby they were not at all
terrified.

They had now taken the same road upon which Sara had travelled, and in
the first inn at which they stopped, their hopes were strengthened; for
Sara had been there, and had taken thence a horse to the next
public-house. All was on the way towards home. So continued it also at
the three following stations; but at the fifth, they suddenly lost all
traces of her. No one there had seen a traveller answering to her
description, nor was her name to be found in the Travellers' Day-book.
No! a great uneasiness for Petrea. After some deliberation, she and the
Assessor determined to return to the public-house whence they were just
come, in order to discover clearly in what direction Sara had gone
thence.

In the mean time the evening had come on, and the sun was descending as
our friends were passing through one of the gloomiest woods in Sweden,
and one in such ill-report that not long ago a writer speaking of it,
said, "The forest shrouds memories as awful as itself, and monuments of
murder stand by the wayside. Probably the mantle of the mountains falls
not now in such thick folds as formerly, but yet there still are valleys
where the stroke of the axe has never yet been heard, and rocky ranges
which have never yet been smitten by the rays of the sun."

"Here two men murdered the one the other," said the postilion with the
gayest air in the world, whilst the carriage stopped to give the horses
breath, on account of the heaviness of the road, and as he spoke he
pointed with his whip to a heap of twigs and pieces of wood which lay to
the left of the road, directly before the travellers, and which
presented a repulsive aspect. It is customary for every passer-by to
throw a stone or a piece of wood upon such a blood-stained spot, and
thus the monument of murder grows under the continued curse of society.
Thus it now stands there, hateful and repulsive amid the beautiful
fir-trees, and it seemed as if the earth had given forth the ugliest of
its mis-shaped boughs, and the most distorted of its twisted roots,
wherewith to build up the heap. From the very midst of this abomination,
however, a wild-rose had sprung forth and shot upwards its living twigs
from among the dry boughs, whilst, like fresh blood-drops above the
pile, shone its berries illuminated by the sun, which now in its descent
threw a path of light over the broad road.

"When this wild-rose is full of flowers," said Jeremias, as he regarded
it with his expressive glance, "it must awaken the thought, that that
which the state condemns with justice, a Higher Power can cover with the
roses of his love."

The sun withdrew his beams. The carriage set itself again in motion, but
at the very moment when the horses passed the heap, they shyed so
violently that the carriage was backed into a ditch and overturned.

"Farewell life!" cried Petrea, internally; but before she herself knew
how, she was out of the carriage, and found herself standing not at all
the worse upon the soft heather. With the Assessor, however, it did not
fare so well; a severe blow on the right leg made it impossible for him
to support himself upon it without great suffering. His old servant,
who had acted as coachman on the journey, lay in a fainting fit at
a few paces from him, bleeding profusely from a wound in the head,
whilst the little post-boy stood by his horses and cried. Time and
situation were not the most agreeable. But Petrea felt herself after
the fright of the first moment perfectly calm and collected. By the
help of the rain-water, which was there in abundance, she brought the
fainting man back to consciousness, and bound up his head with her
pocket-handkerchief. She then helped him to sit up--to stand he was not
able from dizziness. Soon sate master and man by each other, with their
backs by a strong fir-tree, and looked sadly troubled; for although the
Assessor was far more concerned on account of his servant than himself,
and asserted that his own accident was a mere trifle, still he was quite
pale from the pain which it occasioned him. What was to be done? Could
the carriage have been raised out of the ditch and the two wounded men
put into it, Petrea would have placed herself on the coach-box and have
driven them as well as anybody; nothing could be easier, she thought;
but the accomplishing of the two first conditions was the difficulty,
and in the present circumstances an impossibility, for our poor Petrea's
arms and hands were not able to second her good-will and courage. The
post-boy said that at about three-quarters of a mile (English) there lay
a peasant's hut in the wood by the road side; but it was impossible to
induce him to run there, or under any condition to leave his horses.

"Let us wait," said the Assessor, patiently and calmly, "probably
somebody will soon come by from whom we can beg assistance." They
waited, but nobody came, and every moment the shades became darker; it
seemed as if people avoided this horrible wood at this hour.

Petrea, full of anxiety for her old friend, if he must remain much
longer on the damp ground, and in the increasing coolness of evening,
determined with herself what she would do. She wrapped up the Assessor
and his old servant in every article of clothing of which she could gain
possession, amongst which was her own cloak, rejoicing that this was
unobserved by her friend, and then said to him decidedly, "Now I go
myself to obtain help! I shall soon be back again!" And without
regarding the prohibitions, prayers, and threats, with which he
endeavoured to recal her, she ran quickly away in the direction of the
hut, as the post-boy had described it. She hastened forward with quick
steps, endeavouring to remove all thoughts of personal danger, and only
to strengthen herself by the hope of procuring speedy help for her
friend.

The haste with which she went compelled her after some time to stand
still to recover breath. The quick motion which set her blood in rapid
circulation, the freshness of the air, the beautiful and magnificent
repose of the wood, diffused through her, almost in opposition to her
own will and heart, an irresistible feeling of satisfaction and
pleasure, which however quickly left her as she heard a something
crackling in the wood. The wind it could not be? perhaps it was an
animal! Petrea held her panting breath. It crackled; it
whispered;--there were people in the wood! However bold, or more
properly speaking, rash, Petrea might be at certain moments, her heart
now drew itself together, when she thought on her solitary, defenceless
situation, and on the scenes of horror for which this wood was so
fearfully renowned. Beyond this, she was now no longer in those years
when one stands in life on a flying foot, careless and presumptuous:
she had planted herself firmly in life; had her own quiet room; her
peaceful sphere of activity, which she now loved more than the most
brilliant adventures in the world! It was not therefore to be wondered
at, that she recoiled tremblingly from the unlovely and hateful which is
at home by the road sides.

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