Ferdinand Raimund - "Der Alpenkonig und der Menschenfeind"

Charles Asbury Stephens - "Left on Labrador"

T. Sturge Moore - "Albert Durer"

Lydia Howard Sigourney - "Man of Uz, and Other Poems"

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.

My New Curate

P >> P.A. Sheehan >> My New Curate




One shamefaced, dreary deputation came to me from the young girls who
had been employed in the factory. They expressed all kinds of regrets
for what they had done, promised amendment, guaranteed steady work for
the future, would only ask half pay, would work for some weeks for
nothing even until the debts were paid off. I referred them briefly to
Father Letheby.

"They couldn't face him. If he was mad with them and scolded them, they
could bear it and be glad of it; but they couldn't bear to see his white
face and his eyes. Would I go and see him for them, and bring back the
key to Kate Ginivan?"

I did, and came back with a laconic _No_! Then for the first time they
understood that they had knocked their foolish heads against adamant.

"There's nothing for us, then, but America, your reverence," they said.

"It would be a good thing for the country if some of you went,
whatever," I said.

* * * * *

The following Sunday a deputation appeared in the village,--the good
merchants from Kilkeel, who had subscribed the balance of two hundred
pounds for the boat. They called just as Father Letheby was at
breakfast, immediately after his last Mass. He received them
courteously, but waited for what they had to say.

"That was an unfortunate thing about the boat, your reverence," said the
spokesman.

"Very much so, indeed," said Father Letheby.

"A great misfortune, entirely," said another, looking steadily at the
floor.

"We come to know, your reverence, what's going to be done," said the
foreman.

"Well, the matter lies thus, gentlemen," said Father Letheby. "The Board
of Trade is making careful investigations with a view to legal
proceedings; and, I understand, are sanguine of success. They hope to
make that steamer responsible for the entire amount."

"The law is slow and uncertain," said the foreman.

"And we understand that the crew do not even know the name of the
steamer that ran them down," said another.

"You may be sure, gentlemen," said Father Letheby, "that the Board will
leave nothing undone to secure their own rights and those of the
proprietors. They have already intimated to me that I shall be called
upon to prosecute in case the Inspector of the Board of Trade finds that
there was malice prepense or culpable negligence on the part of the
master of the steamer, and I am fully prepared to meet their wishes.
This means a prosecution, out of which, I am sanguine, we shall emerge
victorious; and then there will be no delay in discharging our
obligations to you individually."

"Live, horse, and you'll get grass," said one of the deputation
insolently, presuming on the quiet tone Father Letheby had assumed.

"'T is hunting for a needle in a bundle of straw," said another.

Father Letheby flushed up, but said nothing. The foreman assumed a calm,
magisterial air.

"You will remember, Reverend sir," he said, "that this subscription to
what some considered a Uropean[7] idea was not, I may say, advanced on
our part. It was only at your repeated solicitations, Reverend sir, that
we consented to advance this sum out of our hard earnings--"

"Hard enough, begor," said a member; "'t isn't by booklarnin', but by
honest labor, we got it."

"If you would kindly allow me, Mr. ----," said the foreman, in a
commiserating tone, "perhaps I could explain to the Reverend gentleman
our views in a more--in a more--in a more--satisfactory manner."

"There's simply nothing to be explained," said Father Letheby. "The boat
is at the bottom of the sea; I am responsible to you for two hundred
pounds. That's all."

"Pardon me, sir," said the eloquent foreman, who was nettled at the idea
that his oratory was not acceptable--and he had once proposed a Member
for Parliament--"pardon me, that is not all. We--a--are accustomed to
repose in our clergymen the highest, and indeed, I may add, the deepest
confidence. When that good lady--I quite forget her name, it is so long
since I read my classics--perhaps, sir, you could help me--ahem!"

"I am quite at a loss to know to what excellent lady you refer," said
Father Letheby.

"I'm very sorry to hear such a statement from the lips of a clergyman,"
said the foreman, with much severity; "for the lady to whom I refer is
the representative, and, indeed, the personification of Justice--"

"Oh, you mean 'Astraea,'" said Father Letheby.

"Quite so, sir," said the merchant, pompously. "When Astery left the
earth she took refuge in the Church."

"Indeed!" said Father Letheby, "I was not aware of that interesting
fact."

"Well, sir," said the merchant, nettled at this sarcastic coolness, "at
least we, laymen, are accustomed to think so. We have been taught to
repose unbounded confidence in our clergy--"

"And how have I forfeited that confidence?" said Father Letheby, who
began to see a certain deliberate insult under all this silliness.

"Well, you see, sir," he continued, "we relied on your word of honor,
and did not demand the usual securities for the advance of our money.
And now we find ourselves in a curious predicament--our money gone, and
no redress."

"You doubt my word of honor now?" said Father Letheby, who, to his own
seeming, had been a miracle of patience.

"We have been deceived, sir," said the merchant, grandly.

"Pray, how?" said Father Letheby. "You may not be aware of the meaning
of your language, nor of the usual amenities of civilized society, but
you should at least know that your language approaches very closely to
insult."

"We _have_ been deceived, sir," said the other, severely.

"Might I repeat my question, and ask you how?" said Father Letheby.

"We got the most repeated assurance, sir," said the merchant, "that this
boat would be a mine of wealth. Instead of that, it is, if I may so
speak, a tornado of ruin and misfortune. It lies, if I may use the
expression, at the bottom of the briny sea."

"To cut a long story short," said another of the deputation, "that boat
was a swindle from beginning to end, and I know it--"

"Pardon me, gentlemen," said Father Letheby, rising, "but I must now cut
short the interview, and ask you to retire--"

"Ask us to retire with our money in your pocket!"

"Turn us out, and we--"

"Now, gentlemen, there is no use in prolonging this unpleasantness. Be
good enough to leave my house. Lizzie, show these gentlemen the door."
He had touched the bell.

"We retire, sir, but we shall come again. We retreat, but we return.
Like Marius,"--the foreman was now in the street, and there was a pretty
fair crowd around the door,--"like Marius, like Marius--"

"Who the d----l would marry the likes of you, you miserable omadhaun,"
said Jem Deady, who knew by instinct that this was a hostile expedition.
"Give us de word, your reverence, and we'll chuck the whole bloomin' lot
into the say. It was many a long day since they had a bat', if we're to
judge by dere dirty mugs."

This was the signal for a fierce demonstration. In a moment the village
was in arms, men rushed for stones, women, hastily leaving the
dinner-tables, gathered up every kind of village refuse; and amidst the
din of execration and abuse the shopkeepers of Kilkeel climbed on their
cars and fled; not, however, without taking with them specimens, more or
less decayed, of the _fauna_ and _flora_ of Kilronan, in the shape of
eggs redolent of sulphuretted hydrogen, a few dead cats, and such
potatoes and other vegetables as could be spared from the Sunday dinner.
The people of Kilronan had, of course, a perfect right to annoy and
worry their own priests, especially in the cause of Trades-Unionism; but
the idea of a lot of well-dressed malcontents coming over from Kilkeel
to insult their beloved curate was simply intolerable.

Nevertheless, that lonely walk by the sea-cliffs that Sunday afternoon
was about the most miserable experience in Father Letheby's life. He did
not know whither to turn. Every taunt and insult of these ignorant men
came back to sting him. What would it be if the whole thing came to
publicity in the courts, and he was made the butt of unjust
insinuations by some unscrupulous barrister, or the object of the lofty,
moral indignation of the bench! Yet he felt bound, by every law of
honor, to pay these men two hundred pounds. He might as well be asked to
clear off the national debt. Now and again he paused in his walk, and,
leaning on his umbrella, scrutinized the ground in anxious reverie; then
he lifted up his eyes to the far horizon, beneath whose thin and misty
line boat and captain were sleeping. Then he went on, trying in vain to
choke down his emotion. "Star of the Sea! Star of the Sea!" he muttered.
Then, half unconsciously: "Stella maris! Stella maris!! Porta manes, et
stella maris, succurre cadenti surgere qui curat populo!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 7: "Utopian," I suppose, the poor man meant.]




CHAPTER XXIX

STIGMATA?


I do not think it was personal humiliation, or the sense of personal
shame, or dread of further exposure, that really agitated Father Letheby
during these dreary days, so much as the ever-recurring thought that his
own ignominy would reflect discredit on the great body to which he
belonged. He knew how rampant and how unscrupulous was the spirit of
criticism in our days; and with what fatal facility the weaknesses and
misfortunes of one priest would be supposed, in the distorted mirrors of
popular beliefs, to be reflected upon and besmirch the entire sacred
profession. And it was an intolerable thought that, perhaps in far
distant years, his example would be quoted as evidence of folly or
something worse on the part of the Irish priesthood. "When Letheby
wasted hundreds of pounds belonging to the shopkeepers of Kilkeel," or,
"Don't you remember Letheby of Galway, and the boat that was sunk?"
"What was his bishop doing?" "Oh, he compelled him to leave the
diocese!" These were the phrases, coined from the brazen future, that
were flung by a too fervid or too anxious imagination at his devoted
head; and if the consolations of religion healed the wounds rapidly,
there were ugly cicatrices left behind, which showed themselves in
little patches of silver here and there in his hair, and the tiny
fretwork of wrinkles in his forehead and around his mouth. Then, whilst
speaking, he grew frequently abstracted, and would start and murmur: "I
beg pardon! I didn't quite catch what you were saying." Then I
understood that he had sleepless nights as well as troublous days; and
all the time I was powerless to help him, though I yearned to be able to
do so. What was most aggravating was the complete silence of Father Duff
and his contemporaries during these days of trial, and the contemptuous
and uncharitable criticisms that reached me, but did not reach Father
Letheby, from quondam admirers and friends.

"Sure, we knew well how it would all turn out! These Utopian schemes
generally do end in failure."

"If he had only followed the beaten track, there was every prospect of
success before him; for, mind you, he had a fair share of ability."

"I wonder what will the bishop do?"

"I dare say he'll withdraw faculties and ask him to seek a mission
abroad."

"Well, it is a warning to the other young fellows, who were tempted to
follow him."

I was hoping that the return of Bittra and Ormsby would wean him away
from his anxiety. But this, too, was pitiful and sad beyond words. I
ventured to go see her the morning after their arrival. Ormsby came into
the drawing-room first, and told me all particulars of their journey,
and prepared me to see a great change in his young wife. Nevertheless, I
was startled to see what a transformation a few days' agony had caused.
Bittra had a curious habit of holding her face upwards, like a child,
when she spoke; and this innocent, ingenuous habit, so typical of her
candor and openness of mind, was now accentuated by the look of blank
and utter despair that had crept over her. If she had wept freely, or
been hysterical, it would have been a relief; but no! she appeared
dazed, and as if stricken into stone by the magnitude of her sorrow; and
all the little accidents of home life,--the furniture, the gardens, her
father's room and his wardrobe, his few books, his fishing-rods and
fowling-pieces,--all were souvenirs of one whose place could not be
filled in her soul, and whose tragic end, unsupported by the
ministrations of religion, made the tender and reverent spirit of his
child think of possibilities which no one can contemplate without a
shudder. How different the Catholic from the non-Catholic soul! What an
intense realization of eternity and the future of its immortal spirits
in the one! How utterly callous and indifferent to that immortality is
the other! What an awful idea of God's justice in the one! What cool
contempt for God's dispensations in the other! And how the one realizes
the bursting of bonds and the setting free of the immortal spirit unto
the vast environments and accidents of life, whilst the other sees but
dead clay with some dim ideas of a shadowy and problematical eternity!
"His soul! his soul!" Here was the burden of Bittra's grief. Ormsby
could not understand it; he was frightened and bewildered. I tried every
word of solace, every principle of hope, that are our inheritance, only
to realize that--

"Not all the preaching since Adam
Can make Death other than Death!"

Then I took her out into the yard, and placed her where her father had
stood on the morning of her marriage, and where he heard "the Mass of
his sad life ringing coldly to its end." I repeated every word he
said,--his remorse, his faith, his determination for a future, his
regret that he was not with her on the morning of her nuptial Communion,
his promise to be at Communion the Sunday after they returned from the
Continent. "And here," I said, "he stood when the Angelus rang, and,
taking off his hat, reverentially said it; and I counted the silver in
his hair. And do you think, you little infidel, that our great Father
has not numbered the hairs of his head also--ay, and the deep yearnings
of his heart?"

She looked relieved.

"Come now," I said, "put on your hat and let us see Dolores. She knows
eternity better than you or I."

"May I ask Rex to come with us?"

"Certainly," as I thought what a merciful dispensation it was that a new
love had been implanted where an old love was rudely snatched away.

"And Dr. Armstrong? He journeyed down from Dublin with us."

"Of course. He intends, I believe, to see Alice professionally."

"Yes. He is to arrange for a consultation with our doctor."

"Very good. We shall all go together."

So we did. And I had the supreme consolation to see these two afflicted
ones mingling their tears in the chalice that was held to them to drink.

"One little word, Father Dan," said Alice, as I departed. "I don't mind
Mrs. Ormsby. There is to be no operation, you promised me."

"No, my dear child, don't think of that. You will be treated with the
greatest delicacy and tenderness."

The result of the investigation made next day was a curious one. It was
quite true that her poor body was one huge sore; even the palms of her
hands and the soles of her feet were not exempt. But Dr. Armstrong made
light of this.

"I cannot promise to make her as handsome as I am told she was," he
said; "but I can restore her health by powerful tonics and good food.
That's no trouble. I've seen worse cases at least partially cured. But
the poor girl is paralyzed from the hips down, and that is beyond human
skill."

Here was a revelation. I told Alice about it after the doctors had left.
She only said "Thank God!" But Dr. Armstrong's predictions were
verified. Slowly, very slowly, in a few weeks, the external symptoms of
the dread disease disappeared, until the face and forehead became
thoroughly healed, and only a red mark, which time would wear off,
remained. And her general strength came back, day by day, as fresh blood
drove out all that was tainted and unwholesome, and even her hair began
to grow, first in fluffy wisps, then in strong, glossy curls, whilst a
curious, spiritual beauty seemed to animate her features, until she
looked, to my eyes, like the little Alice I had worshipped as a child.
In a mysterious way, also, Alice and Bittra seemed to pass into each
other's souls; and as the thorns withered and fell away from each young
brow and heart, little roses of Divine love, reflected in human sympathy
and fellowship, seemed to sprout, and throw out their tender leaves,
until the Rose of Love took the place of the red Roses of Pain; and
Time, the Healer, threw farther back, day by day, the memories of trials
surmounted, and anguish subdued in its bitterness to the sweetness of
resignation. And when, one day in the late autumn, when all the leaves
were reddening beneath the frosts of night and the hushed, hidden grays
of sombre days, Alice was rolled to the door of her cottage, and saw the
old, familiar objects again; and the children clustered around her
bath-chair with all kinds of presents of lovely flowers and purple and
golden fruits; and as the poor, pale invalid stretched out her thin
hands to the sky, and drew in long draughts of pure, sweet air, she
trembled under the joy of her resurrection, and seemed to doubt whether,
after all, her close little room, and the weary bed, and her own dread
cross, and her crucifix, were not better. But now she understood that
this recovery of hers was also God's holy will, and she bowed her head
in thankfulness and wept tears of joy.

And so the cross was lifted from the shoulders of two of my children,
only to press more heavily on the third. As the dreary days went by, and
no relief came to Father Letheby, his suspense and agitation increased.
It was a matter of intense surprise that our good friends from Kilkeel
seemed to have forgotten their grievance; and a still greater surprise
that their foreman and self-constituted protagonist could deprive
himself of the intense pleasure of writing eloquent objurgations to the
priest. But not one word was heard from them; and when, in the
commencement of the autumn, Father Letheby received a letter from the
Board of Works, stating that the Inspector of the Board of Trade
despaired of making the owners of the steamer amenable, and stated,
moreover, that they might be able to indemnify eventually the local
subscribers out of the receipts accruing from the insurance on the boat,
no reply came to this communication which he had immediately forwarded
to Kilkeel. He had one other letter from the solicitor of the Loughboro'
Factory Company, stating that law proceedings were about being
instituted in Dublin, at the Superior Courts. He could only reply by
regretting his inability to meet the demand, and offering, as an
instalment, to auction all his furniture and books, and forward the
proceeds. And so things went on, despair deepening into despair, until
one morning he came to me, his face white as a sheet, and held out to
me, with tremulous hands, a tiny sheet, pointing with his finger to one
particular notice. It was not much, apparently, but it was the verdict,
final and irrevocable, of insolvency and bankruptcy. It was a list of
judgments, marked in the Superior Courts, against those who are unable
to meet their demands; and this particular item ran thus:--

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
County.|Defendants. |Plaintiff. |Court.|Date of |Amount. | Costs.
| | | |Judgment. | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Galway.|Letheby, Rev. |Loughboro' |Q. B. |Oct. 12, 187--|L126.0.0.| L8.12.6.
|Edward, |Factory | | | |
|R.C. Clergyman.|Co., L't'd.| | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

"This is the end," said he, mournfully. "I have written the bishop,
demanding my _exeat_."

"It is bad, very bad," I replied.

"I suppose the Kilkeel gentlemen will come next," he said, "and then the
bailiffs."

"The whole thing is melancholy," I replied; "it is one of those cases
which a man requires all his fortitude and grace to meet."

"Well, I made a complete sacrifice of myself this morning at Mass," he
said, gulping down his emotion; "but I didn't anticipate this blow from
on high. Nevertheless, I don't for a moment regret or withdraw. What is
that you quote about suffering:--

'... aspera, sed nutrix hominum bona'?

I'll make arrangements now to sell off everything, and then for

'Larger constellations burning, mellow moons, and happy skies,
Breadths of tropic shade, and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.'

But the name I leave behind me--Letheby!--Letheby! It will go down from
generation to generation--a word of warning against shame and defeat.
Dear me! how different the world looked twelve months ago! Who would
have foreseen this? And I was growing so fond of my work, and my little
home, and my books, and my choir, and--and--the children!"

"Alice and Bittra have been pulled out of the fire unscathed," I said
feebly. "Why may not you?"

"Ay, but they had physical and domestic troubles," he said; "but how can
you get over disgrace?"

"That, too, may be overcome," I replied. "Is there not something about
'opprobrium hominum et abjectio plebis,' in Scripture?"

"True," he said, "there it is. I am forever grasping at two remedies, or
rather supports--work, work, work, and the Example you have quoted; and
sometimes they swing me up over the precipices and then let me down into
the abysses. It is a regular see-saw of exultation and despair!"

"Let me know, when you have heard from the bishop," I said; "somehow I
believe that all will come right yet."

"No, no, Father Dan," he said, "it is only your good nature which you
mistake for a happy presentiment. Look out for a new curate."

* * * * *

The events of the afternoon, indeed, did not promise favorably for my
forecast. About three o'clock, whilst Father Letheby was absent, a
side-car drove into the village, from which two men alighted; and having
made inquiries, proceeded to Father Letheby's house, and told the
bewildered and frightened Lizzie that they had come to take possession.
Lizzie, like a good Irish girl, stormed and raged, and went for the
police, and threatened the vengeance of the Superior Courts, at which
they laughed and proceeded to settle themselves comfortably in the
kitchen. Great fear fell, then, upon the village, and great wrath
smouldered in many breasts; and, as surely as if they had lighted
beacon-fires, or sent mounted couriers far and wide, the evil news was
flashed into the remotest mountain nooks and down to the hermitages of
the fishermen. And there was wrath, feeble and impotent, for here was
the law, and behind the law was the omnipotence of England.

What Father Letheby endured that evening can only be conjectured; but I
sent word to Lizzie that he was to come up to my house absolutely and
remain there until the hateful visitors had departed. This was sooner
than we anticipated. Meanwhile, a few rather touching and characteristic
scenes occurred. When the exact nature of Father Letheby's trouble
became known, the popular indignation against the rebellious factory
girls became so accentuated that they had to fly from the parish, and
they finally made their way, as they had promised, to America. Their
chief opponents now were the very persons that had hooted their
substitutes through the village, and helped to close the factory
finally. And two days after the bailiffs had appeared, an old woman,
who had been bed-ridden for years with rheumatism, managed to come down
into the village, having got a "lift" from a neighbor, and she crept
from the cart to my door. Father Letheby was absent; he hid himself in
the mountains or in the sea-caves these dread days, never appearing in
the village but to celebrate his morning Mass, snatch a hasty breakfast,
and return late at night, when the shadows had fallen. Well, Ellen
Cassidy made her way with some difficulty into my little parlor, where,
after I had recovered from my fright at the apparition, I ventured to
address her:--

"Why, Nell, you don't mean to say that this is yourself?"

"Faith it is, your reverence, my own poor ould bones. I just kem down
from my cabin at Maelrone."

"Well, Nell, wonders will never cease. I thought you would never leave
that cabin until you left it feet foremost."

"Wisha, thin, your reverence, naither did I; but God give me the strinth
to come down on this sorrowful journey."

"And what is it all about, Nell? Sure, you ought to be glad that the
Lord gave you the use of your limbs again."

"Wisha, thin, your reverence, sure, 't is I'm wishing that I was in my
sroud[8] in the cowld clay, before I saw this sorrowful day. Me poor
gintleman! me poor gintleman! To think of all his throuble, and no wan
to help him!"

"You mean Father Letheby's trouble, Nell?"

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