Ernest Arthur Gardner - "Religion and Art in Ancient Greece"

Various - "R. Caldecott's First Collection of Pictures and Songs"

H. C. Leeds - "The Laws of Euchre"

H. Rider Haggard - "Fair Margaret"

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 Far Horizon

L >> Lucas Malet >> The Far Horizon




"At present, yes, I am happy to say, thank you. But how long it will
continue," Miss Hart spoke impressively--"at this rate I am sure I
cannot tell."

"Indeed," George Lovegrove inquired anxiously. "You don't tell me so?
Nothing wrong, I trust."

"Well, as I always tell her, her sense of duty amounts almost to a
fault--so unselfish, so conscientious, it brings tears to my eyes
often at times. I hope it is appreciated in the right quarter--I do
hope that, Mr. Lovegrove."

Here Rhoda's bosom heaved with a generous sigh.

"There is much ingratitude in the world, Miss Hart, I fear," she said
pensively.

Her husband looked at her in an anguish of apology--whether for his
own sins or those of others he knew not exactly.

"So there is, Mrs. Lovegrove," Eliza responded warmly. "And nobody is
a more speaking example of that truth than Peachie Porcher. When I
think of all she went through during her married life, and yet so
unsuspicious, so trusting--it is enough to melt an iceberg, that it
is, Mrs. Lovegrove. Now, as I was saying to her only this morning,
'You must study yourself a little, get out in the air, take a peep at
the shops, and have some amusement.' But her reply is always the
same.--'No, Liz, dear,' she says, 'not at the present time, thank you.
I know the duties of my position as mistress of Cedar Lodge. When any
one of our gentlemen is ailing, my place is at home. I must remain in
the house in case of a sudden emergency. I should not have an easy
moment away from the place,' she says."

Miss Hart looked around upon her hearers demanding approbation and
sympathy.

"Very affecting, is it not?" she inquired.

After a moment's embarrassed silence, George Lovegrove murmured a
suitable, if timid, assent. His wife assumed a bolder attitude. Goaded
by provocations recently received, she went over--temporarily--to the
side of the enemy.

"I always have maintained Mrs. Porcher was full of heart," she
declared, throwing the assertion across the room, much as though it
was a stone, in the direction of the figure at the window.

Serena drew herself up with a rustle.

"I wonder exactly what Rhoda means by that?" she commented inwardly.
"I think it very odd. Of course, she must have some meaning, and I
wonder what it is. She seems to be changing her line. I am glad I
stayed. I am afraid Rhoda is rather deceitful. I excuse George of
deceit. I believe George to be true; but he is sadly influenced by
Rhoda. I am rather sorry for George."

"So she is, Mrs. Lovegrove," Eliza Hart resumed--"Peachie's too full
of heart, as I tell her. She is forever thinking of others and their
comforts. She grudges neither time nor money, does not Peachie. There
is nothing calculating or cheese-paring about her--not enough, I often
think. Fish, sweetbreads, game, poultry, and all of the very best--
where the profits are to come from with a bill of fare like that
passes my powers of arithmetic, and so I point out to her. I hope it
is appreciated--yes, I do hope that, Mr. Lovegrove"--there the speaker
became extremely coy and playful. "A little bird sometimes seems to
twitter to me that it is. And yet I am sure I don't know. The members
of your sex are very misleading, Mr. Lovegrove. Do not perjure
yourself now. You cannot take me in. And a certain gentleman is very
close, you know, and stand-offish. It is not easy to get at his real
sentiments, is it, now?"

Serena laid back her ears, so to speak. "I was quite right to stay,"
she reflected wrathfully.

"I think Mr. Iglesias is unusually considerate, Miss Hart," George
Lovegrove said tentatively. "He is quite sensible of Mrs. Porcher's
kind attentions. But naturally he is very tenacious of upsetting her
household arrangements and giving additional trouble."

"And then the position of a bachelor is delicate, Miss Hart, you must
admit," Mrs. Lovegrove chimed in. "That's what I always tell Georgie.
It may do all very well in their younger days to be unattached, but as
gentlemen get on in life they do need their own private
establishments. I am sure I am sorry for them in chambers, or even in
good rooms like those at Cedar Lodge. For it is not the same as a
home, Miss Hart, and never can be. There must be awkwardnesses on both
sides at times, especially when, it comes to illness."

Then the great Eliza gathered herself together, for it appeared to her
her forecast had been just and that she was indeed marching to
victory.

"Yes, there is no denying all that," she said, "and I am more than
glad you see it in that light, Mrs. Lovegrove. Between ourselves, I
have more and more ever since a certain gentleman gave up work in the
City. It would be premature to speak freely; but, just between friends
and under the rose, you being interested in one party and I in the
other, there can be no harm in dropping a hint and ascertaining how
the land lies. Of course if it came to pass, it would be to my own
disadvantage, for I do not know how I should ever bear to part with
Peachie Porcher. Still, I could put myself aside, if I felt it was for
her happiness."

"You do surprise me," George Lovegrove exclaimed. He was filled with
consternation, his hair nearly rising on his head. "I had no notion.
Dear me, you fairly take away my breath." He could almost have wept.
"To think of it!" he repeated. "Only to think of it! Miss Hart, you do
surprise me."

"Oh! you must not run away with the notion anything is really settled
yet," she replied. "And I could not say Mrs. Porcher really would,
when it came to the point, after the experiences she had in her first
marriage. She is very reserved, is Peachie. Still, she might. And very
fortunate a certain gentleman would be if she did--it does not take
more than half an eye to see that."

"Dr. Nevington, please, ma'am," announced the parlour-maid, and the
fine clerical voice and clerical presence filled all the room.
Thereupon Serena graciously joined the circle. She was unusually self-
possessed and definite. She embarked in a quite spirited conversation
with the newcomer. And when Eliza Hart, after a few pleasantries of a
parochial tendency with the said newcomer--in whose favour she had
vacated the place of honour upon the sofa--rose to depart, Serena
bowed to her in the most royally distant and superior manner. Her
amiability remained a constant quantity during the rest of the
evening; and when an opportunity occurred of speaking in private to
her cousin, she did so with the utmost cordiality.

"I do hope, George," she said, "you will not think any more of our
little unpleasantness. I can truly say I never bear malice. I own I
was annoyed, for I felt I had not been quite fairly treated by Rhoda.
But, of course, I may have been mistaken. I am quite willing to
believe so and to let bygones be bygones, and stay, as Rhoda pressed
me to do, until I go to my cousin, Lady Samuelson, in December. Of
course it would be more convenient to me in some ways. But I am not
thinking of that. I am thinking of you and Rhoda. I should not like to
disappoint her by leaving her when she wants me to help entertain your
friend, Mr. Iglesias. Of course, I cannot pretend I take easily to
strangers. Mamma was very particular whom we associated with, and so I
have always been unaccustomed to strangers, and I cannot pretend I am
partial to making new acquaintances. Still, I should be very sorry to
seem unaccommodating, or to hurt you and Rhoda by refusing to stay and
assist you."

"Thank you truly, Serena; I am sure you are very kind," the good man
answered. And the best, or the worst, of it was he actually believed
he was speaking the truth!




CHAPTER XVII


The easterly wind blew strong and shattering, bleak and dreary,
against the windows of the bedchamber at the back of the house. The
complaint of the cedar tree, as the branches sawed upon one another,
was long-drawn and loud. These sounds reached Iglesias in the sitting-
room, where he sat, alone and unoccupied, before the fire. For more
than a week now he had been confined to the house. He had set the door
of communication between the two rooms open, so as to gain a greater
sense of space and that he might take a little exercise by walking the
whole length of them. The cry of the wind and the moan of the sawing
branches was very comfortless, yet he made no effort to shut it out.
To begin with, he was so weak that it was too much trouble to move. To
go on with, the melancholy sounds were not ill-suited to his present
humour. For a great depression was upon him, a weariness of spirit
which might be felt. Out of doors London shivered, houses and sky and
the expanse of Trimmer's Green, with its leafless trees and iron
railings, livid, a greyness upon them as of fear. Dominic had no
quarrel with this either. Indeed it gave him a certain bitter
satisfaction, as offering a not inharmonious setting to his own
thought.

Though not robust he was tough and wiry, so that illness of such a
nature as to necessitate his remaining within doors was a new and
trying experience. Crossing Hammersmith Bridge on the 'bustop ten days
previously, the chill of the river had struck through him. Yet this,
in all reasonable probability, would merely have resulted in passing
physical discomfort, but for the moral and spiritual hurt immediately
preceding it. How far the mind has power to cure the body is still an
open question. But that the mind can actively predispose the body to
sickness is indubitable. To realise and analyse, in their several
bearings, the causes and consequences of that same moral hurt
Iglesias' pride and loyalty alike refused. In respect of them he set
his jaw and sternly averted his eyes. Yet, though the will may be
steady to resist and to abstain, the tides of feeling ebb and flow,
contemptuous of control as those of some unquiet sea. They defy
volition, notably in illness when vitality is low. Refuse as he might
to go behind the fact, it remained indisputable that the Lady of the
Windswept Dust had given him his dismissal. Out of his daily life a
joy had gone, a constant object of thought and interest. Out of his
heart a living presence had gone, leaving a void more harsh than
death. And all this had happened in a connection peculiarly painful
and distasteful to him; so that it was as though a foul miasma had
arisen, and, drifting across the face of his fair friendship,
distorted its proportions, rendering all his memories of it suspect.
Further, in this discrediting of friendship his hope of the discovery
of that language of the soul which can alone effect a true adjustment
between the exterior and interior life had suffered violent eclipse.
He had been thrown back into the prison-house of the obvious and the
material. The world had lost its poetry, had grown narrow, sordid,
dim, and gross. His own life had grown more than ever barren of
opportunity and inept. In short, Dominic Iglesias had lost sight of
the far horizon which is touched by the glory of the Uncreated Light;
and, so doing, dwelt in outer darkness once again, infinitely
desolate.

On the afternoon in question he had reached the nadir of disillusion
and distrust. He leaned back in the red-covered chair, his shapely
hands lying, palms downward, along the two arms of it, his vision of
the room and its familiar contents blurred by unshed tears. It was an
hour of supreme discouragement.

"Nothing is left," he said, half aloud, "nothing. The future is as
blank as the present. If this is to grow old, then indeed those whom
the gods love have need enough to die young."

For a space he listened to the shattering wind as it cried in the
window-sashes, to the branches of the cedar sawing upon one another
and moaning as in self-inflicted pain. Newsboys were calling early
specials. The coarse cockney voices, strangled by the easterly blast,
met and crossed one another, died away in a side street, to emerge
again and again encounter. Such words as were distinguishable seemed
of sinister import, agitating to the imagination. Then de Courcy
Smyth's shuffling footsteps crossed the floor of the room overhead.
The wire-wove mattress of his bed creaked as he sat on the edge of it,
kicking off his slippers and putting on walking boots, as might be
gathered from floppings followed by an equally nerveless but heavier
tread. A door opened, closed, and the footsteps descended the stairs.
On the landing without they paused for an appreciable time; but, to
Mr. Iglesias's great relief, deciding against attempt of entry,
continued their cheerless progress down to the hall below. Yet, just
now Iglesias could have found it in his heart to envy the man,
notwithstanding his unsavouriness of attitude and aspect. For in him
ambition still stirred. He had still definite work to do, and the hope
of eventual fame to support him during the doing of it; had the
triumph of the theatre, the applause of an audience in the white heat
of enthusiasm to dream of and strive after.

"But, for me, nothing," Iglesias repeated, "whether vital as of those
far-away southern battle-fields, or fictitious and close at hand as of
the stage. Not even the sting of poverty to whet appetite and give an
edge to bodily hunger. Nothing, either of fear or of hope. The measure
of my obscurity is the measure of my immunity from change of fortune,
bad or good. I am worthless even as food for powder. Danger herself
will have none of me, and passes me by."

With that he raised his hands and let them drop despairingly along the
arms of the chair again, while the unbidden tears overflowed. For a
minute or more he remained thus, weeping silently with bowed head.
Then, a movement of self-contempt taking him, he regained his calm,
sat upright, brushing away the tears.

And it was as though, in thus regaining a clearer physical vision, he
regained a clearer mental vision likewise. Purpose asserted itself as
against mere blind acquiescence. Iglesias looked up, demanding as of
right some measure of consolation, some object promising help. So
doing, his eyes sought a certain carven oak panel set in an ebony
frame. From his earliest childhood he remembered it, for it had hung
in his mother's bedchamber; and in those far-away years, while she
still had sufficient force to disregard opposition and make an open
practice of prayer, she had kneeled before it when engaged in her
devotions. Waking at night--when as a baby-child, during his father's
long absences, he slept in her room--Dominic had often seen the
delicate kneeling figure, wrapped in some loose-flowing garment, the
hands outstretched in supplication. Even then, in the first push of
conscious intelligence, the carven picture had spoken to him as
something masterful, for all its rigidity and sadness, and very strong
to help. It had given him a sense of protection and security, so that
his little soul was satisfied; and he could go to sleep again in
peace, sure that his mother was in safe keeping while--as he said--she
"talked to it." In the long interval which had elapsed since then he
had lost touch with the spirit of it, though preserving it as among
the most cherished of his family relics. His appreciation of it had
become aesthetic rather than religious. But now, as it hung on the
dimly white wall above his writing-table on the window side of the
fireplace, the dreary London afternoon light took the surface of it,
bringing all the details of the scene into prominence. Suddenly,
unexpectedly, the old power declared itself. The picture came alive as
to the intention and meaning of it. It spoke to him once again, and
that with no uncertain voice.

Three tall narrow crosses uplifted against a cloudless sky. Below, a
multitude of men, women, and horses, carved in varying degrees of
relief. Some starting into bold definiteness, some barely indicated
and as though imprisoned in the thickness of the wood; but all grave,
energetic, and, whether inspired by compassion or by mockery, fierce.
These grouped around a great web of linen--upheld by some of them at
the four corners, hammock-wise, high at the head, low at the foot--
wherein lay the corpse of a man in the very flower of his age, of
heroic proportions, spare yet muscular, long and finely angular of
limb, the articulations notably slender, the head borne proudly though
bent, the features severely beautiful, the whole virile, indomitable
even in the physical abjection of death.

In this Spanish presentment of the closing act of the Divine Tragedy
the sensuous pagan element, which mars too many otherwise admirable
works of religious art, was absent. Its appeal was to the intellect
rather than to the emotions, inculcating effort rather than inviting
any sentimental passion of pity. Its message was that of conquest, of
iron self-mastery and self-restraint. This was bracing and courage-
begetting even when viewed from the exclusively artistic standpoint.
But now not merely the presentment of the event held Iglesias'
attention, but the event presented, the thing in itself. His heart and
intelligence grasped the meaning of it, not only as a matter of
supreme historic interest in view of its astonishing influence upon
human development during the last two thousand years; but as an ever-
present reality, as an exposition of the Absolute, of that which
everlastingly has been, and everlastingly will be, and hence of
incalculable and immediate importance to himself. It spoke to him of
no vague and general truth; but of a truth intimate and individual,
coming to him as the call to enter upon a personal inheritance. Of
obedience to the dictates of natural religion, and faithful practice
of the pieties of it, Dominic Iglesias had, all his life, been a
remarkable if unconscious exponent. But this awakening of the spirit
to the actualities of supernatural religion, this crossing of that
dark immensity of space which appears to interpose between Almighty
God and the mind of man, was new to him. He had sought a language of
the soul which might effect an adjustment between the exterior and
interior life. Here, in the Word made Flesh, with reverent amazement
he found it. He had sought it through the instrumentality of the
things of time and sense; and they, though full with promise, had
proved illusory. He had fixed his hope on relation to the creature.
But here, all the while, close beside him, waiting till the scales
should fall from his eyes and he should see and understand, had stood
the Creator. Fair, very fair--while it lasted--was human friendship.
But here, had he but strength and daring to meet it, was a friendship
infinitely fairer, immutable, eternal--namely, the friendship of
Almighty God.

The easterly wind still cried in the window-sashes, harsh and
shattering. The branches of the exiled cedar tree sawed upon one
another, uttering their long-drawn complaint. The voices of the
newsboys, hoarse and raucous, shouting their sinister message, still
came and went. The livid light of the winter afternoon grew more
dreary as it sank into, and was absorbed by, the deepening dusk. But
to Dominic Iglesias these things had ceased to matter. Dazzled,
enchanted, confounded, alike by the magnitude and the simplicity of
his discovery, he remained gazing at the carven panel; gazing through
and beyond it to that of which it was the medium and symbol, gazing,
clear-eyed and fearlessly, away to the far horizon radiant with the
surpassing glory of the Uncreated Light.




CHAPTER XVIII


The Black Week had just ended; but the humiliation of it lay, as a
dead weight, upon the heart of London. Three crushing reverses in
eight days--Stormberg, Magersfontein, and finally Colenso! There was
no getting rid of the facts, or the meaning of them in respect of
incapacity, blundering, and reckless waste of personal valour. It was
a sorry tale, and one over which Europe at large chuckled. It has been
universally assumed that the English are a serious nation. This is an
error. They are not serious, but indifferent, a nation of
individualists, each mainly, not to say exclusively, occupied with his
own private affairs. With the vast majority unity of sentiment is
suspect, and patriotism a passive rather than an active virtue. But at
this juncture, under the stress of repeated disaster, unity of
sentiment and patriotism--that is, a sense of the national honour and
necessity for the vindication of it--became strongly evident. London
was profoundly and visibly moved. Not with excitement--that came
later, manifesting itself in hysterical outcries of relief--but with a
grim anger and sadness of astonishment that such things could indeed
be. Strangers, passing in the street, looked one another in the eyes
questioningly, a common anxiety forging unexpected bonds of kinship.
The town was curiously hushed, as though listening, always listening,
for those ugly messages rushed so perpetually by cable from overseas.
Men's faces were strained by the effort to hear, and, hearing, to
judge justly the extent and the bearings of both national and
individual damage. Already mourning struck a sensible note in women's
dress. If the Little Englander capered, he was careful to do so at
home, or in meeting-places frequented only by persons likeminded with
himself. It may be questioned whether he is not ever most courageous
when under covert thus; since shooting out of windows or from behind
hedges would appear to be his inherent, and not particularly gallant,
notion of sport. The newsboys alone openly and blatantly rejoiced,
dominating the situation--as on Derby Day or Boat-race Night--and
putting a gilded dome to the horror by yelling highly seasoned lies
when truth proved insufficiently evil to stimulate custom to the
extent of his desires. Depression, as of storm, permeated the social
atmosphere. Churches were full, places of amusement comparatively
empty. To laugh seemed an indiscretion trenching on indecency.

Amid surrounding bravery of imperial purple, cream-colour, and gold,
Poppy St. John sat at the extreme end of the first row of balcony
stalls in the newly opened Twentieth Century Theatre. This was a calm
and secluded spot, since the partition, dividing off the boxes,
flanked it on the right. Partly on this account Poppy had selected it.
Partly, also, because it afforded an excellent view of the left of the
stage; and it was on the left--looking from the body of the house--
that the principal action of the piece, as far as Dot Parris's part
was concerned, took place. Poppy was unattended. She wanted an
evening's rest, an evening free of conversation and effort; but she
wanted something to look at, too, something affording just sufficient
emotional stimulus to keep importunate thought at bay. This the
theatre supplied. It had ceased long ago to tire her. She knew the
ways of it from both sides of the footlights uncommonly well, and
loved them indifferently much. She was a shrewd and cynical critic.
Nevertheless, to go to the play was a sort of going home to her--a
home neither very socially nor morally exalted, perhaps, but one
offering the advantages of perfect familiarity.

Huddled in a black velvet fur-lined sacque, reaching to her feet and
abundantly trimmed with jet embroidery and black lace, she settled
herself in her place. The soft fur was cosey against her bare neck.
She felt chilly. Later she might peel, thereby exhibiting the values
of the rest of her costume. But it was not worth while to do so yet.
The first piece was over, but the house was still a poor one. It might
fill up. She hoped it would for Dot's sake; for few things are more
disheartening than to play to empty benches. But, at present, the
audience was altogether too sparse for it to be worth while to
sacrifice comfort to effect. In point of fact, Poppy was cold from
sheer fatigue. For the last month, to employ her own rather variegated
phraseology, she had racketed, had persistently and pertinaciously
been "going the pace." No doubt they do these things better in France;
yet, as she reflected, provided you are unhampered by prejudice, are
fairly in funds and know the ropes, even grimy fog-bound London is, in
this particular connection, by no means to be sneezed at. And truly
Poppy's autobiography during the said month would have made extremely
merry reading, amounting in some aspects to a positive classic--though
of the kind hardly suited as a basis of instruction for the pupils of
a young ladies' school. Setting aside adventures of a more
questionable character, a positively alarming good luck had pursued
her, everything she touched turning to gold. Even in this hour of
financial depression the market favoured her both in buying and
selling. If she put money on a horse, that horse was sure to win. If
she played cards--and she had played pretty constantly--she inevitably
plundered her opponents. This last alone, of all her doubtful doings,
really troubled her; for her opponents had frequently been youthful,
and it was contrary to Poppy's principles to pluck the but
half-fledged chick.

Barring this solitary deflection from her somewhat latitudinarian code
of ethics, she had, on the face of it, ample cause for self-
congratulation. Never had she been more gaily audacious in word or
deed. Never had she been better company, keeping her audience--an
almost exclusively masculine one--in a roar, all the louder perhaps
because of inward defiance of the news from over-seas, the humiliation
of which had now culminated in the disasters of the Black Week. Flame
only shows the brighter for a sombre background. And Poppy, during
this ill-starred period, had been as a flame to her admirers and
associates--a fitful, prankish flame, full of provocation and
bedevilment, the light of it inciting to all manner of wild doings
and, in the end, not infrequently scorching those pretty shrewdly who
were over-bold in warming themselves at the heat of it. For fires of
the sort lighted by Poppy are not precisely such as contribute to the
peace and security of the domestic hearth.

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