George Eliot - "How Lisa Loved the King"

Richard Henry Dana - "Two Years Before the Mast"

Ruth Edna Kelley - "The Book of Hallowe'en"

S. Weir Mitchell - "Mr. Kris Kringle"

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 Defenders of Democracy

U >> Unknown >> The Defenders of Democracy




"Yes, mademoiselle, gracious yes," stammered the groom nervously,
wiping the tears of joy from his eyes.

"Gee, Petka, you are a nice boy!" gushed the bride, trying to show
the quality of her refinement.

She took his both hands and whispered that he should kiss them
gracefully in the American manner. Then she leaned her head on
his shoulder and sighed. These American manners so embarrassed
the groom that he blushed and dropped his eyes. But after all, was
she not a highly educated American lady? And of course, she knew
what was proper.

Though Liza looked ten years older than Petka, yet she had all the
city air, the American manners and style, and most important of
all, she had the capital. The first question Liza asked was whether
they had a manicure, hair-dresser and boot-black in the village.
No one had ever heard that such functionaries existed, so the groom
explained excitedly that he would take her after the wedding to
the town where she could get what she wanted. Petka carried the
trunk and the five suit-cases into he house, implements which on
one had ever seen. All the novelties and sensations were so great
that the guests and the groom felt dazed for a moment.

"Have you got here champagne?" asked the bride, entering the house.

"We do not have such American drinks. We have kvas, beer, vodka
and all the home-made cordials," stammered the groom.

"But you must have some high-balls or cocktails at least," went on
the bride with an affected gesture.

"My gracious, there we are!" groaned the groom, and shrugged
denyingly his shoulders. "We've never handled those things here,
so you must forgive us."

"Mademoiselle Liza, I beg your pardon," interrupted the inn-keeper
seriously. "We can arrange the balls and the tails, but you see
we are simply country people and keep our bowels in order. City
amusements put our stomachs in a bad fix and don't agree with us."

The groom felt embarrassed and did not know what to do. He bowed
apologetically before his bride and tried to please her in every
possible way. He imitated her gestures and manners, her shrugs
and voice. He even kept his hands on his breast, as was Liza's
manner. Finally the bride asked whether there was any entertainment
prepared as she had asked. The groom gave the inn-keeper a hint
and the latter said that he would do his best. The three musicians
were already concealed with their instruments in a big barrel and
the imposing organist began his function. Strains of an unique
music issued from the decorated music-box. Everybody at once rushed
into the room. All stared amazed at the strange contrivance which
played at one and the same time concertina, violin and drum. It
was like a miracle, gripping and inspiring.

"I bet you this would interest your American audiences," remarked
the inn-keeper to the bride.

"It beats the Coney Island noise," stammered Liza, and took up the
conversation with a village woman.

All the house now was jollity. The room was bursting of the powerful
music, the laughter and the loud conversation of the guests. How
it happened no one knows, but one of the women had placed a bowl
with hot punch on the music box. Whether through an accident, or
the excitement of the organist, the vessel broke, and the punch
leaked through the cracks and holes into the instrument. Suddenly
the music stopped, although the conductor was still industriously
turning the lever. Then were heard mysterious voices and sounds
as if of muffled exclamations. Everybody looked at the music-box,
which began to quake and tremble as if a ghost were within. Then
arose fierce yells and agonizing cries, mixed with loud curses.
Before anybody could realize what had happened, three angry musicians
leaped from the music instrument, the steaming punch dropping from
their heads.

"Good Lord, what's this?" gasped the men while the women shrieked
and fled. One of the musicians put his fist under the frightened
organist and shouted:

"I'll pay for this joke, you scoundrel!"

"Semen, don't be a fool. I didn't do it. By Jove, I didn't do
it," exclaimed apologetically the organist, trembling.

"Damn, who did it?" asked the groom excited.

No one replied. And when the people realized what had happened,
everybody roared. No one who glanced at the overturned music
instrument and at the musicians, with their punch-dropping heads
could restrain their laughter. Even the pompous bride found it so
funny that she laughed with the rest.

When the excitement was over and the dessert was ready the wedding
guests once more took their seats at the table. The inn-keeper,
thinking that this was the moment to settle the matter of dowry,
before the actual marriage act could be performed by the priest,
knocked on the table for quiet. Then he arose, wiped his beard
and began:

"Friends, this is a very unusual ceremony, our best known citizen
and friend Petka, marrying a girl from America. Petka loves Liza,
it is all right. But I know and so all our guests know, that Petka
expected the bride to bring a fat dowry. Now we all would like to
see the bride place her dowry upon the table before she is declared
the wife of our friend, Petka. We think that in justice to the
guests she ought to do that, because it was understood that she
bring the money and we give her the husband. Don't you think,
friends and guests, that I am right?"

Everybody shouted "Bravo, inn-keeper," only the groom and the bride
sat silent with downcast eyes. Finally the bride glanced at Petka,
pulled a bag from her dress, opened it and laid a bunch of green
bills on the table. All eyes stared in awe at the money, and the
guests were so silent that one could hear the beating of their
hearts. Only the purring of the cats, looking curiously down from
the big stove, was to be heard.

"Here is the dowry, right here. It is in American money, one
thousand dollars, which is equal to two thousand rubles in your
money. It's all in cash," exclaimed the bride proudly.

The inn-keeper took the bills, looked at them curiously, turned
them over and over and shook his head. The blacksmith took one bill
after the other, and did the same. For several minutes everybody
was quiet. The "organist" who sat next to the inn-keeper, took
the money, looked at it still more closely and then smelled it.
Taking one of the bills in his hand, he rose and showed it to all
the guests and asked:

"Friends, have you ever seen this kind of money?"

"No," was the unanimous reply of the guests.

"Can any one here read American?" asked the blacksmith.

No one replied.

"The money is all right. I rushed to reach the train so I had no
time to exchange it into your rubles," replied the bride.

"It might be all right," replied the inn-keeper, "but what do we
know about the American money and its value? I've been told many
stories of American girls boasting they have money enough to buy
their husband, but heaven knows. It's a country too far away and
a language too complicated for us to understand. We like to have
our stuff on the table before everything is all right."

The bride glanced at the groom. The groom took silently her hand,
assuring her that he cared nothing for what her dowry was worth,
if he had only her as his wife.

"What nonsense! I came on Petka's invitation, and I'll stay with him,
do you let the priest marry us or not. We can go both to America
and marry there, but never here," exclaimed the bride, tossing her
head and snorting her indignation. As she rose, she took Petka by
his hand and gave this parting thrust:

"Do you want or not, but I'll stay with Petka here. We don't care
for your priest. I keep the American law and know what's what."

"Liza, Liza, listen. Don't make a scandal like that here. Let's
better harness our horses and get to the priest as fast as we can,"
shouted the excited guests, all following the couple.

[signed]Ivan Narodny





The Insane Priest




A priest insane went many days without repose or sleep,
"My visions are a shadow world but love is real and deep."
He, like a prophet, staff in hand, sought out a distant shrine.
"As sacred ash are all my dreams, and fateful love is mine."
Long, long he knelt and prayed alone, his tears fell unrestrained.
"My visions are the snow-crowned heights, my love the flood unchained."
A sacrifice he laid upon that altar far away.
"My visions are a dream of dawn, my love the radiant day."
A knife he thrust into his heart, to seal the holy rite.
"My visions all resplendent glow, my love is like the night."
And on the altar falling prone, he then gave up his soul.
"My visions are the lightning's flash, my love the thunder's roll."
Upon the altar poured his blood, it formed a crimson pall.
"As his deliriums are my dreams, as death my love my all."

Sergey Makowsky
Translation by Constance Purdy

Note: To this poem Mr. Reinhold Gliere has composed a magnificent
musical setting with piano and orchestra accompaniment and dedicated
it to a prominent Russian revolutionist.





Without a Country




One thought awakes us early in the morning,
One thought follows us the whole day long,
One thought stabs at night our breast:
Is my father suffering?

One sorrow awakes us at dawn like an executioner,
One sorrow is persecuting us ceaselessly,
One sorrow is swelling our breast the whole night long:
Is my mother alive?

A longing awakes us at daybreak,
A longing is continually hidden in our heart,
A longing is burning at night in our breast;
What of my wife?

A fear awakes us early like a funeral mass,
A fear persecutes us and darkens our eyes,
A fear fills at night our breast with hatred:
Our sisters are threatened with shame.

A pain awakens us in the morning like a trumpet,
With pain is filled every glass we drink
With pain is secretly weeping our breast:
Where are our children?

...Only one way will give an answer:
Through a river of blood and over a bridge of dead!
Woe! you will reach your home where the mother, who died of sorrow,
Does not wait for her son any more.

M. Boich

Note: M. Boich is a young Serbian poet, now about twenty-six
years old, who already has a recognized place in modern Serbian
Literature. The poem "Without a Country" was written after the
well-known Serbian tragedy of 1915, and was published last year
(March 28) in the official Serbian journal "Srpske Novine," which
now appears at Corfu.





Indian Prayer to the Mountain Spirit




Lord of the Mountain,
Reared within the Mountain
Young Man, Chieftain,
Hear a young man's prayer!

Hear a prayer for cleanness.
Keeper of the strong rain,
Drumming on the mountain;
Lord of the small rain
That restores the earth in newness;
Keeper of the clean rain,
Hear a prayer for wholeness.

Young Man, Chieftain.
Hear a prayer for fleetness.
Keeper of the deer's way,
Reared among the eagles,
Clear my feet of slothness.
Keeper of the paths of men,
Hear a prayer for straightness.

Hear a prayer for braveness.
Lord of the thin peaks,
Reared amid the thunders;
Keeper of the headlands
Holding up the harvest,
Keeper of the strong rocks
Hear a prayer for staunchness.

Young Man, Chieftain,
Spirit of the Mountain!

Interpreted by [signed] Mary Austin





To America--4 July, 1776




When England's king put English to the horn[1],
To England thus spake England over sea,
"In peace be friend, in war my enemy";
Then countering pride with pride, and lies with scorn,
Broke with the man[2] whose ancestor had borne
A sharper pain for no more injury.
How otherwise should free men deal and be,
With patience frayed and loyalty outworn?
No act of England's shone more generous gules
Than that which sever'd once for all the strands
Which bound you English. You may search the lands
In vain, and vainly rummage in the schools,
To find a deed more English, or a shame
On England with more honor to her name.

[written] Respectfully submitted to the Defenders of Democracy

[signed] M. Hewlett

(Westluilaruig[illegible, this is a guess], Chichester, England)

[1] To "put to the horn" was to declare an outlawry.
[2] The "man" is George III, his "ancestor," Charles I.





The Need of Force to Win and Maintain Peace




Must, then, gentle and reasonable men and women give over their sons
to the National Government to be trained for the devilish work of
war? Must civilized society continue to fight war with war? Is
not the process a complete failure? Shall we not henceforth contend
against evil-doing by good-doing, against brutality by gentleness,
against vice in others solely by virtue in ourselves?

There are many sound answers to these insistent queries. One is
the policeman, usually a protective and adjusting force, but armed
and trained to hurt and kill in defense of society against criminals
and lunatics. Another is the mother who blazes into violence, with
all her might, in defense of her child. Even the little birds do
that. Another is the instinctive forcible resistance of any natural
man to insult or injury committed or threatened against his mother,
wife, or daughter. The lions and tigers do as much. A moving
answer of a different sort is found in words written by Mme. le
Verrier to the parents of Victor Chapman on her return from his
funeral in the American Church in Paris--"It...has brought home to
me the beauty of heroic death and the meaning of life."

The answer from history is that primitive Governments were despotic,
and in barbarous societies might makes right; but that liberty
under law has been wrung from authority and might by strenuous
resistance, physical as well as moral, and not by yielding
to injustice and practising non-resistance. The Dutch Republic,
the British Commonwealth, the French Republic, the Italian and
Scandinavian constitutional monarchies, and the American republics
have all been developed by generations of men ready to fight and
fighting.

So long as there are wolves, sheep cannot form a safe community.
The precious liberties which a few more fortunate or more vigorous
nations have won by fighting for them generation after generation,
those nations will have to preserve by keeping ready to fight in
their defense.

The only complete answer to these arguments in favor of using force
in defense of liberty is that liberty is not worth the cost. In
free countries to-day very few persons hold that opinion.

[signed] Charles W. Eliot





Woman and Mercy




Woman and Mercy--to think of one is to think of the other, and yet
the suggestion of ideas is purely Christian. The ancient world knew
of a few great women who transcended the conditions of society in
those days and helped, each one her country, in some extraordinary
way. Thus Deborah helped the people of God in a time of terrible
difficulty. And even the Pagan world was not without its Semiramis
and its Portia. When mercy came into the world with Christianity
the dispensation of it was largely committed to the gentle hands
of women, for since men have believed that God has taken a woman
to be His human mother, the position of every woman has been that
of a mother and of a queen. The wife has become the guardian of
the internal affairs of the home as the husband is of its external
affairs.

Whenever women have acted up to the noble ideals of womanhood
preached by the Christian religion, they have received honor,
respect, deference and almost worship from the ruder sex.

It gives me great pleasure to think that in our own country so
many women have banded themselves together for such a noble ideal
as that embodied in the very name of "The Militia of Mercy." Here
in her true sphere, as nurse, woman will shed the gentle light
of mercy over the gory battle field and amid the pain and wounds
of the hospital wards; or, if she is not called to such active
participation she will find means to hold up the hands of those
more actively engaged, and in countless ways will she be able to
mitigate the evils of this most terrible of all wars, and not least
of all because of the gift of piety with which Almighty God has so
generously endowed her. Her unceasing prayers will ascend to the
throne of God for those engaged in this terrible struggle, and
mercies and blessings will be drawn down upon multitudes of people
whom she has never seen.

I bid Godspeed to The Militia of Mercy, and I hope that every
American woman who can will take part in this most womanly and most
patriotic work.

[signed] J. Cardinal Gibbons





Joan of Arc--Her Heritage




I saw in Orleans three years ago the celebration of the 487th
Anniversary of the deliverance of the ancient city by Joan of Arc.

The flower of the French army passed before me, the glorious
sunlight touching sword and lance and bayonet tip until they formed
a shimmering fretwork of steel. Then came the City Fathers in
democratic dress--and following them, the dignitaries of the Church,
in purple and crimson and old lace, and a host of choir boys singing
Glory to God in the Highest, and finally in his splendid scarlet
robe, a cardinal symbolical of power and majesty and dominion.

In whose honor was all this gorgeous pageantry? In honor of a simple
peasant girl, who saw or thought she saw visions--it is perfectly
immaterial whether she did or not--and who heard or fancied she
heard--it matters not--voices calling to her out of the silences
of the night to go forth and save France. Soldiers and clergy and
populace, Catholics and Protestants and pagans united in paying
homage to the courage of a woman. And I thought as I watched
the brilliant spectacle in the shadow of the old cathedral, that
thousands of women in the twentieth century in England and America,
and France and Germany and all the Nations are serving in a different
way, it is true, from the way in which Joan of Arc served France,
but none the less effectively. Aye, even more so, as they go forth
clad not in mail, but in Christian love to help mankind. In the
very forefront of this shining host are the trained nurses, following
the standard uplifted by Florence Nightingale.

When I see a trained nurse in her attractive cap and gown I always
feel that a richer memory, a finer intention has been read into
life. Wherever they go they carry healing with them.

To maintain this army of militant good will and helpfulness, and
to increase it as occasion requires is an obligation so imperative
that it cannot be evaded.

Never was it as urgent as it is to-day, that there should be generous
response to the appeal for nurses.

If we are often discouraged in our philanthropic work, it is not
because we consider what we are doing in a detached way, independent
of its world relationships. If we could only realize that we are
part of the mighty army composed of all nationalities and races
and creeds, an army of life, not of death, marching past disease
and suffering and misery and sin, we would be inspired to wage the
conflict with greater vigor, until our vision of the world freed
from suffering, was realized.

When the realization comes, it will not come with shouting and
tumult, but will come quietly and beautifully as the sun makes its
triumphant progress through the heavens, gradually conquering the
night until at last the earth is flooded with glorious warmth and
light and all the formless shapes that loved darkness rather than
light silently steal away and are forgotten.

John Lewis Griffiths

Note: Although the above selection was part of an address delivered in
London in 1911, its truth is more apparent today than ever before.





Things Which Cannot Be Shaken




There are season in life when everything seems to be shaking. Old
landmarks are crumbling. Venerable foundations are upheaved in a
night, and are scattered abroad as dust. Guiding buoys snap their
moorings, and go drifting down the channel. Institutions which
promised to outlast the hills collapse like a stricken tent.
Assumptions in which everybody trusted burst like air-balloons.
Everything seems to lose its base, and trembles in uncertainty and
confusion.

Such seasons are known in our personal life. One day our
circumstances appear to share the unshaken solidity of the planet,
and our security is complete. And then some undreamed-of antagonism
assaults our life. We speak of it as a bolt from the blue!
Perhaps it is some stunning disaster in business. Or perhaps death
has leaped into our quiet meadows. Or perhaps some presumptuous
sin has suddenly revealed its foul face in the life of one of our
children. And we are "all at sea!" Our little, neat hypotheses
crumple like withered leaves. Our accustomed roads are all broken
up, our conventional ways of thinking and feeling, and the sure
sequences on which we have depended vanish in a night. It is
experiences like these which make the soul cry out with the psalmist,
in bewilderment and fear,--"My foot slippeth!" His customary
foothold had given way. The ground was shaking beneath him. The
foundations trembled.

And such seasons are known in the life of nations. An easy-going
traditionalism can be overturned in a single blast. Conventional
standards, which seemed to have the fixedness of the stars are
blown to the winds. Political and economic safeguards go down like
wooden fences before an angry sea. The customary foundations of
society are shaken. We must surely have had such experiences as
these during the past weeks and months. What was unthinkable has
become a commonplace. The impossible has happened. Our working
assumptions are in ruins. Common securities have vanished. And
on every side men and women are whispering the question,--Where
are we? We are all staggered! And everywhere men and women, in
their own way, are whispering the confession of the psalmist,--"My
foot slippeth!"

Well, where are we? Amid all these violations of our ideals, and
the quenching of our hopes, in this riot of barbarism and unutterable
sorrow, where are we? Where can we find a footing? Where can
we stay our souls? Where can we set our feet as upon solid rock?
Amid the many things which are shaking what things are there which
cannot be shaken?

"Things which cannot be shaken." Let us begin here: THE SUPREMACY
OF SPIRITUAL FORCES CANNOT BE SHAKEN. The obtrusive circumstances
of the hour shriek against that creed. Spiritual forces seem to
be overwhelmed. We are witnessing a perfect carnival of insensate
materialism. The narratives which fill the columns of the daily
press reek with the fierce spectacle of labor and achievement.
And yet, in spite of all this appalling outrage upon the sense, we
must steadily beware of becoming the victims of the apparent and
the transient. Behind the uncharted riot there hides a power whose
invisible energy is the real master of the field. The ocean can
be lashed by the winds into indescribable fury, and the breakers
may rise and fall in crushing weight and disaster; and yet behind
and beneath all the wild phenomena there is a subtle, mystical
force which is exerting its silent mastery even at the very height
of the storm. We must discriminate between the phenomenal and
the spiritual, between the event of the hour and the drift of the
year, between the issue of a battle and the tendency of a campaign.
All of which means that "While we look at the things which are seen,
we are also to look at the things which are not seen." Well, look
at them.

THE POWER OF TRUTH can never be shaken. The force of disloyalty
may have its hour of triumph, and treachery may march for a season
to victory after victory; but all the while truth is secretly
exercising her mastery, and in the long run the labor of falsehood
will crumble into ruin. There is no permanent conquest for a lie.
You can no more keep the truth interred than you could keep the
Lord interred in Joseph's tomb. You cannot bury the truth, you
cannot strangle her, you cannot even shake her! You may burn up
the records of the truth, but you cannot impair the truth itself!
When the records are reduced to ashes truth shall walk abroad as
an indestructible angel and minister of the Lord! "He shall give
His angels charge over thee," and truth is one of His angels, and
she cannot be destroyed.

There was a people in the olden days who sought to find security
in falsehood, and to construct a sovereignty by the aid of broken
covenants. Let me read to you their boasts as it is recorded
by the prophet Isaiah: "We have made a covenant with death, and
with hell are we at agreement: when the overflowing scourge shall
pass through, it shall not come unto us, for we have made lies our
refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves." And so they
banished truth. But banished truth is not vanquished truth. Truth
is never idle; she is ever active and ubiquitous, she is forever
and forever our antagonist or our friend. "Therefore thus saith the
Lord God...your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your
agreement with hell shall not stand...and the hail shall sweep away
the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-places."
Thus said the Lord! We may silence a fort, but we cannot paralyze
the truth. Amid all the material convulsions of the day the
supremacy of truth remains unshaken. "The mouth of the Lord hath
spoken it."

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