Basil King - "The Letter of the Contract"

R.M. Ballantyne - "The Young Fur Traders"

Sewell Ford - "Torchy"

Hippolyte A. Taine - "The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2"

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 Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858

V >> Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858




If our times are sterile in genius, we must cheer us with books of
rich and believing men who had atmosphere and amplitude about them.
Every good fable, every mythology, every biography out of a
religious age, every passage of love, and even philosophy and science,
when they proceed from an intellectual integrity, and are not
detached and critical, have the imaginative element. The Greek fables,
the Persian history, (Firdousi,) the "Younger Edda" of the
Scandinavians, the "Chronicle of the Cid," the poem of Dante, the
Sonnets of Michel Angelo, the English drama of Shakspeare, Beaumont
and Fletcher, and Ford, and even the prose of Bacon and Milton,--in
our time, the ode of Wordsworth, and the poems and the prose of
Goethe, have this richness, and leave room for hope and for generous
attempts.

There is no room left,--and yet I might as well not have begun as
to leave out a class of books which are the best: I mean the Bibles
of the world, or the sacred books of each nation, which express for
each the supreme result of their experience. After the Hebrew and
Greek Scriptures, which constitute the sacred books of Christendom,
these are, the Desatir of the Persians, and the Zoroastrian Oracles;
the Vedas and Laws of Menu; the Upanishads, the Vishnu Purana, the
Bhagvat Geeta, of the Hindoos; the books of the Buddhists; the
"Chinese Classic," of four books, containing the wisdom of Confucius
and Mencius. Also such other books as have acquired a semi-canonical
authority in the world, as expressing the highest sentiment and hope
of nations. Such are the "Hermes Trismegistus," pretending to be
Egyptian remains; the "Sentences" of Epictetus; of Marcus Antoninus;
the "Vishnu Sarma" of the Hindoos; the "Gulistan" of Saadi; the
"Imitation of Christ," of Thomas a Kempis; and the "Thoughts" of
Pascal.

All these books are the majestic expressions of the universal
conscience, and are more to our daily purpose than this year's
almanac or this day's newspaper. But they are for the closet, and to
be read on the bended knee. Their communications are not to be given
or taken with the lips and the end of the tongue, but out of the
glow of the cheek, and with the throbbing heart. Friendship should
give and take, solitude and time brood and ripen, heroes absorb and
enact them. They are not to be held by letters printed on a page, but
are living characters translatable into every tongue and form of life.
I read them on lichens and bark; I watch them on waves on the beach;
they fly in birds, they creep in worms; I detect them in laughter
and blushes and eye-sparkles of men and women. These are Scriptures
which the missionary might well carry over prairie, desert, and ocean,
to Siberia, Japan, Timbuctoo. Yet he will find that the spirit which
is in them journeys faster than he, and greets him on his arrival,--
was there already long before him. The missionary must be carried by
it, and find it there, or he goes in vain. Is there any geography in
these things? We call them Asiatic, we call them primeval; but
perhaps that is only optical; for Nature is always equal to herself,
and there are as good pairs of eyes and ears now in the planet as
ever were. Only these ejaculations of the soul are uttered one or a
few at a time, at long intervals, and it takes millenniums to make a
Bible.

These are a few of the books which the old and the later times have
yielded us, which will reward the time spent on them. In comparing
the number of good books with the shortness of life, many might well
be read by proxy, if we had good proxies; and it would be well for
sincere young men to borrow a hint from the French Institute and the
British Association, and, as they divide the whole body into sections,
each of which sit upon and report of certain matters confided to them,
so let each scholar associate himself to such persons as he can rely
on, in a literary club, in which each shall undertake a single work
or series for which he is qualified. For example, how attractive is
the whole literature of the "Roman de la Rose," the "Fabliaux," and
the _gai science_ of the French Troubadours! Yet who in Boston has
time for that? But one of our company shall undertake it, shall
study and master it, and shall report on it, as under oath; shall
give us the sincere result, as it lies in his mind, adding nothing,
keeping nothing back. Another member, meantime, shall as honestly
search, sift, and as truly report on British mythology, the Round
Table, the histories of Brut, Merlin, and Welsh poetry; a third, on
the Saxon Chronicles, Robert of Gloucester, and William of Malmesbury;
a fourth, on Mysteries, Early Drama, "Gesta Romanorum," Collier, and
Dyce, and the Camden Society. Each shall give us his grains of gold,
after the washing; and every other shall then decide whether this is
a book indispensable to him also.




THE DIAMOND LENS.


I.

THE BENDING OF THE TWIG.

From a very early period of my life the entire bent of my
inclinations had been towards microscopic investigations. When I was
not more than ten years old, a distant relative of our family,
hoping to astonish my inexperience, constructed a simple microscope
for me, by drilling in a disk of copper a small hole, in which a
drop of pure water was sustained by capillary attraction. This very
primitive apparatus, magnifying some fifty diameters, presented, it
is true, only indistinct and imperfect forms, but still sufficiently
wonderful to work up my imagination to a preternatural state of
excitement.

Seeing me so interested in this rude instrument, my cousin explained
to me all that he knew about the principles of the microscope,
related to me a few of the wonders which had been accomplished
through its agency, and ended by promising to send me one regularly
constructed, immediately on his return to the city. I counted the
days, the hours, the minutes, that intervened between that promise
and his departure.

Meantime I was not idle. Every transparent substance that bore the
remotest semblance to a lens I eagerly seized upon and employed in
vain attempts to realize that instrument, the theory of whose
construction I as yet only vaguely comprehended. All panes of glass
containing these oblate spheroidal knots familiarly known as
"bull's eyes" were ruthlessly destroyed, in the hope of obtaining
lenses of marvellous power. I even went so far as to extract the
crystalline humor from the eyes of fishes and animals, and
endeavored to press it into the microscopic service. I plead guilty
to having stolen the glasses from my Aunt Agatha's spectacles, with
a dim idea, of grinding them into lenses of wondrous magnifying
properties,--in which attempt it is scarcely necessary to say that I
totally failed.

At last the promised instrument came. It was of that order known as
Field's simple microscope, and had cost perhaps about fifteen
dollars. As far as educational purposes went, a better apparatus
could not have been selected. Accompanying it was a small treatise
on the microscope,--its history, uses, and discoveries. I
comprehended then for the first time the "Arabian Nights'
Entertainments." The dull veil of ordinary existence that hung
across the world seemed suddenly to roll away, and to lay bare a
land of enchantments. I felt towards my companions as the seer might
feel towards the ordinary masters of men. I held conversations with
Xanure in a tongue which they could not understand. I was in daily
communication with living wonders, such as they never imagined in
their wildest visions. I penetrated beyond the external portal of
things, and roamed through the sanctuaries. Where they beheld only a
drop of rain slowly rolling down the window-glass, I saw a universe
of beings animated with all the passions common to physical life,
and convulsing their minute sphere with struggles as fierce and
protracted as those of men. In the common spots of mould, which my
mother, good housekeeper that she was, fiercely scooped away from
her jam pots, there abode for me, under the name of mildew,
enchanted gardens, filled with dells and avenues of the densest
foliage and most astonishing verdure, while from the fantastic
boughs of these microscopic forests hung strange fruits glittering
with green and silver and gold.

It was no scientific thirst that at this time filled my mind. It was
the pure enjoyment of a poet to whom a world of wonders has been
disclosed. I talked of my solitary pleasures to none. Alone with my
microscope, I dimmed my sight, day after day and night after night
poring over the marvels which it unfolded to me. I was like one who,
having discovered the ancient Eden still existing in all its
primitive glory, should resolve to enjoy it in solitude, and never
betray to mortal the secret of its locality. The rod of my life was
bent at this moment. I destined myself to be a microscopist.

Of course, like every novice, I fancied myself a discoverer. I was
ignorant at the time of the thousands of acute intellects engaged in
the same pursuit as myself, and with the advantages of instruments a
thousand times more powerful than mine. The names of Leeuwenhoek,
Williamson, Spencer, Ehrenberg, Schultz, Dujardin, Schact, and
Schleiden were then entirely unknown to me, or if known, I was
ignorant of their patient and wonderful researches. In every fresh
specimen of Cryptogamia which I placed beneath my instrument I
believed that I discovered wonders of which the world was as yet
ignorant. I remember well the thrill of delight and admiration that
shot through me the first time that I discovered the common wheel
animalcule (_Rotifera vulgaris_) expanding and contracting its
flexible spokes, and seemingly rotating through the water. Alas! as
I grew older, and obtained some works treating of my favorite study,
I found that I was only on the threshold of a science to the
investigation of which some of the greatest men of the age were
devoting their lives and intellects.

As I grew up, my parents, who saw but little likelihood of anything
practical resulting from the examination of bits of moss and drops
of water through a brass tube and a piece of glass, were anxious
that I should choose a profession. It was their desire that I should
enter the counting-house of my uncle, Ethan Blake, a prosperous
merchant, who carried on business in New York. This suggestion I
decisively combated. I had no taste for trade; I should only make a
failure; in short, I refused to become a merchant.

But it was necessary for me to select some pursuit. My parents were
staid New England people, who insisted on the necessity of labor;
and therefore, although, thanks to the bequest of my poor Aunt Agatha,
I should, on coming of age, inherit a small fortune sufficient to
place me above want, it was decided, that, instead of waiting for
this, I should act the nobler part, and employ the intervening years
in rendering myself independent.

After much cogitation I complied with the wishes of my family, and
selected a profession. I determined to study medicine at the New
York Academy. This disposition of my future suited me. A removal
from my relatives would enable me to dispose of my time as I pleased,
without fear of detection. As long as I paid my Academy fees, I
might shirk attending the lectures, if I chose; and as I never had
the remotest intention of standing an examination, there was no
danger of my being "plucked." Besides, a metropolis was the place
for me. There I could obtain excellent instruments, the newest
publications, intimacy with men of pursuits kindred to my own,--in
short, all things necessary to insure a profitable devotion of my
life to my beloved science. I had an abundance of money, few desires
that were not bounded by my illuminating mirror on one side and my
object-glass on the other; what, therefore, was to prevent my
becoming an illustrious investigator of the veiled worlds? It was
with the most buoyant hopes that I left my New England home and
established myself in New York.




II.


THE LONGING OF A MAN OF SCIENCE.

My first step, of course, was to find suitable apartments. These I
obtained, after a couple of days' search, in Fourth Avenue; a very
pretty second-floor unfurnished, containing sitting-room, bedroom,
and a smaller apartment which I intended to fit up as a laboratory. I
furnished my lodgings simply, but rather elegantly, and then devoted
all my energies to the adornment of the temple of my worship. I
visited Pike, the celebrated optician, and passed in review his
splendid collection of microscopes,--Field's Compound, Higham's,
Spencer's, Nachet's Binocular, (that founded on the principles of
the stereoscope,) and at length fixed upon that form known as
Spencer's Trunnion Microscope, as combining the greatest number of
improvements with an almost perfect freedom from tremor. Along with
this I purchased every possible accessory,--drawtubes, micrometers,
a _camera-lucida_, lever-stage, achromatic condensers, white cloud
illuminators, prisms, parabolic condensers, polarizing apparatus,
forceps, aquatic boxes, fishing-tubes, with a host of other articles,
all of which would have been useful in the hands of an experienced
microscopist, but, as I afterwards discovered, were not of the
slightest present value to me. It takes years of practice to know
how to use a complicated microscope. The optician looked
suspiciously at me as I made these wholesale purchases. He evidently
was uncertain whether to set me down as some scientific celebrity or
a madman. I think he inclined to the latter belief. I suppose I was
mad. Every great genius is mad upon the subject in which he is
greatest. The unsuccessful madman is disgraced, and called a lunatic.

Mad or not, I set myself to work with a zeal which few scientific
students have ever equalled. I had everything to learn relative to
the delicate study upon which I had embarked,--a study involving the
most earnest patience, the most rigid analytic powers, the steadiest
hand, the most untiring eye, the most refined and subtile
manipulation.

For a long time half my apparatus lay inactively on the shelves of
my laboratory, which was now most amply furnished with every
possible contrivance for facilitating my investigations. The fact was
that I did not know how to use some of my scientific accessories,--
never having been taught microscopies,--and those whose use I
understood theoretically were of little avail, until by practice I
could attain the necessary delicacy of handling. Still, such was the
fury of my ambition, such the untiring perseverance of my experiments,
that, difficult of credit as it may be, in the course of one year I
became theoretically and practically an accomplished microscopist.

During this period of my labors, in which I submitted specimens of
every substance that came under my observation to the action of my
lenses, I became a discoverer,--in a small way, it is true, for I
was very young, but still a discoverer. It was I who destroyed
Ehrenberg's theory that the _Volcox globator_ was an animal, and
proved that his "monads" with stomachs and eyes were merely phases
of the formation of a vegetable cell, and were, when they reached
their mature state, incapable of the act of conjugation, or any true
generative act, without which no organism rising to any stage of life
higher than vegetable can be said to be complete. It was I who
resolved the singular problem of rotation in the cells and hairs of
plants into ciliary attraction, in spite of the assertions of
Mr. Wenham and others, that my explanation was the result of an
optical illusion.

But notwithstanding these discoveries, laboriously and painfully
made as they were, I felt horribly dissatisfied. At every step I
found myself stopped by the imperfections of my instruments. Like
all active microscopists, I gave my imagination full play. Indeed,
it is a common complaint against many such, that they supply the
defects of their instruments with the creations of their brains. I
imagined depths beyond depths in Nature which the limited power of
my lenses prohibited me from exploring. I lay awake at night
constructing imaginary microscopes of immeasurable power, with which
I seemed to pierce through all the envelopes of matter down to its
original atom. How I cursed those imperfect mediums which necessity
through ignorance compelled me to use! How I longed to discover the
secret of some perfect lens whose magnifying power should be limited
only by the resolvability of the object, and which at the same time
should be free from spherical and chromatic aberrations, in short
from all the obstacles over which the poor microscopist finds
himself continually stumbling! I felt convinced that the simple
microscope, composed of a single lens of such vast yet perfect power,
was possible of construction. To attempt to bring the compound
microscope up to such a pitch would have been commencing at the
wrong end; this latter being simply a partially successful endeavor
to remedy those very defects of the simple instrument, which, if
conquered, would leave nothing to be desired.

It was in this mood of mind that I became a constructive microscopist.
After another year passed in this new pursuit, experimenting on
every imaginable substance,--glass, gems, flints, crystals,
artificial crystals formed of the alloy of various vitreous materials,--
in short, having constructed as many varieties of lenses as Argus
had eyes, I found myself precisely where I started, with nothing
gained save an extensive knowledge of glass-making. I was almost
dead with despair. My parents were surprised at my apparent want of
progress in my medical studies, (I had not attended one lecture
since my arrival in the city,) and the expenses of my mad pursuit
had been so great as to embarrass me very seriously.

I was in this frame of mind one day, experimenting in my laboratory
on a small diamond,--that stone, from its great refracting power,
having always occupied my attention more than any other,--when a
young Frenchman, who lived on the floor above me, and who was in the
habit of occasionally visiting me, entered the room.

I think that Jules Simon was a Jew. He had many traits of the Hebrew
character: a love of jewelry, of dress, and of good living. There
was something mysterious about him. He always had something to sell,
and yet went into excellent society. When I say sell, I should
perhaps have said peddle; for his operations were generally confined
to the disposal of single articles,--a picture, for instance, or a
rare carving in ivory, or a pair of duelling-pistols, or the dress
of a Mexican _caballero_. When I was first furnishing my rooms, he
paid me a visit, which ended in my purchasing an antique silver lamp,
which he assured me was a Cellini,--it was handsome enough even for
that,--and some other knick-knacks for my sitting-room. Why Simon
should pursue this petty trade I never could imagine. He apparently
had plenty of money, and had the _entree_ of the best houses in the
city,--taking care, however, I suppose, to drive no bargains within
the enchanted circle of the Upper Ten. I came at length to the
conclusion that this peddling was but a mask to cover some greater
object, and even went so far as to believe my young acquaintance to
be implicated in the slave-trade. That, however, was none of my
affair.

On the present occasion, Simon entered my room in a state of
considerable excitement.

"_Ah! mon ami_!" he cried, before I could even offer him the
ordinary salutation, "it has occurred to me to be the witness of the
most astonishing things in the world. I promenade myself to the
house of Madame -----. How does the little animal--_le renard_--name
himself in the Latin?"

"Vulpes," I answered.

"Ah! yes, Vulpes. I promenade myself to the house of Madame Vulpes."

"The spirit medium?"

"Yes, the great medium. Great Heavens! what a woman! I write on a
slip of paper many of questions concerning affairs the most secret,--
affairs that conceal themselves in the abysses of my heart the most
profound; and behold! by example! what occurs? This devil of a woman
makes me replies the most truthful to all of them. She talks to me
of things that I do not love to talk of to myself. What am I to think?
I am fixed to the earth!"

"Am I to understand you, M. Simon, that this Mrs. Vulpes replied to
questions secretly written by you, which questions related to events
known only to yourself?"

"Ah! more than that, more than that," he answered, with an air of
some alarm. "She related to me things----But," he added, after a
pause, and suddenly changing his manner, "why occupy ourselves with
these follies? It was all the Biology, without doubt. It goes without
saying that it has not my credence.--But why are we here, _mon ami_?
It has occurred to me to discover the most beautiful thing as you
can imagine.--a vase with green lizards on it composed by the great
Bernard Palissy. It is in my apartment; let us mount. I go to show
it to you."

I followed Simon mechanically; but my thoughts were far from Palissy
and his enamelled ware, although I, like him, was seeking in the
dark after a great discovery. This casual mention of the spiritualist,
Madame Vulpes, set me on a new track. What if this spiritualism
should be really a great fact? What if, through communication with
subtiler organisms than my own, I could reach at a single bound the
goal, which perhaps a life of agonizing mental toil would never
enable me to attain?

While purchasing the Palissy vase from my friend Simon, I was
mentally arranging a visit to Madame Vulpes.




III.


THE SPIRIT OF LEEUWENHOEK.

Two evenings after this, thanks to an arrangement by letter and the
promise of an ample fee, I found Madame Vulpes awaiting me at her
residence alone. She was a coarse-featured woman, with a keen and
rather cruel dark eye, and an exceedingly sensual expression about
her mouth and under jaw. She received me in perfect silence, in an
apartment on the ground floor, very sparely furnished. In the centre
of the room, close to where Mrs. Vulpes sat, there was a common
round mahogany table. If I had come for the purpose of sweeping her
chimney, the woman could not have looked more indifferent to my
appearance. There was no attempt to inspire the visitor with any awe.
Everything bore a simple and practical aspect. This intercourse with
the spiritual world was evidently as familiar an occupation with
Mrs. Vulpes as eating her dinner or riding in an omnibus.

"You come for a communication, Mr. Linley?" said the medium, in a dry,
business-like tone of voice.

"By appointment,--yes."

"What sort of communication do you want?--a written one?"

"Yes,--I wish for a written one."

"From any particular spirit?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever known this spirit on this earth?"

"Never. He died long before I was born. I wish merely to obtain from
him some information which he ought to be able to give better than
any other."

"Will you seat yourself at the table, Mr. Linley," said the medium,
"and place your hands upon it?"

I obeyed,--Mrs. Vulpes being seated opposite me, with her hands also
on the table. We remained thus for about a minute and a half, when a
violent succession of raps came on the table, on the back of my chair,
on the floor immediately under my feet, and even on the window panes.
Mrs. Vulpes smiled composedly.

"They are very strong to-night," she remarked. "You are fortunate."
She then continued, "Will the spirits communicate with this gentleman?"

Vigorous affirmative.

"Will the particular spirit he desires to speak with communicate?"

A very confused rapping followed this question.

"I know what they mean," said Mrs. Vulpes, addressing herself to me;
"they wish you to write down the name of the particular spirit that
you desire to converse with. Is that so?" she added, speaking to her
invisible guests.

That it was so was evident from the numerous affirmatory responses.
While this was going on, I tore a slip from my pocket-book, and
scribbled a name under the table.

"Will this spirit communicate in writing with this gentleman?" asked
the medium once more.

After a moment's pause her hand seemed to be seized with a violent
tremor, shaking so forcibly that the table vibrated. She said that a
spirit had seized her hand and would write. I handed her some sheets
of paper that were on the table, and a pencil. The latter she held
loosely in her hand, which presently began to move over the paper
with a singular and seemingly involuntary motion. After a few
moments had elapsed she handed me the paper, on which I found written,
in a large, uncultivated hand, the words, "He is not here, but has
been sent for." A pause of a minute or so now ensued, during which
Mrs. Vulpes remained perfectly silent, but the raps continued at
regular intervals. When the short period I mention had elapsed, the
hand of the medium was again seized with its convulsive tremor, and
she wrote, under this strange influence, a few words on the paper,
which she handed to me. They were as follows:

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