V. T. Sherman - "The Call of the Beaver Patrol"

Victor Hugo - "Actes et Paroles, Vol. 4"

Frank Norris - "A Deal in Wheat"

Lewis Hodus - "Buddhism and Buddhists in China"

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.

Confession

W >> W. Gilmore Simms >> Confession




The result of my debut, in other respects, was flattering far beyond
my expectations. Business poured in upon me. My old employers,
the merchants, were particularly encouraging and friendly. They
congratulated me warmly on my success, assured me that they had
always thought I was better calculated for the law than trade;
and ended by putting into my hands all their accounts that needed
a legal agency for collection. Mr. Edgerton was loud in his
approbation, and that very week saw his son and myself united in
co-partnership, with the prospect of an early withdrawal of the
father from business in my favor. Indeed, the latter gave us to
understand that his only purpose now was to see us fairly under
way, with a sufficient knowledge of the practice, and assured of
the confident of his own friends, in order to give his years and
enfeebled health a respite from the toils of the profession.

My worthy uncle, true to himself, played a very different part from
these gentlemen. He hung back, forbore all words on the subject of
my debut, and of the promising auspices under which my career was
begun, and actually placed certain matters of legal business into
the hands of another lawyer. Of this, he himself gave me the first
information in very nearly this language:--

"I have just had to sue Yardle & Fellows, and a few others, Edward,
and I thought of employing you, but you are young, and there may
be some legal difficulties in the way:--but when you get older, and
arrive at some experience, we will see what can be done for you."

"You are perfectly right, sir," was my only answer, but the smile
upon my lips said everything. I saw, then, that HE COULD NOT
SMILE. He was now exchanging the feeling of scorn which he formerly
entertained for one of a darker quality. Hate was the necessary
feeling which followed the conviction of his having done me wilful
injustice--not to speak of the duties left undone, which were
equally his shame.

There were several things to mortify him in my progress. His sagacity
as a man of the world stood rebuked--his conduct as a gentleman--his
blood as a relation, who had not striven for the welfare and good
report of his kin, and who had suffered unworthy prejudices, the
result of equal avarice and arrogance, to operate against him.

There is nothing which a base spirit remembers with so much malignant
tenacity as your success in his despite. Even in the small matter
just referred to, the appropriation of his law business, the
observant fates gave me my revenge. By a singular coincidence of
events, the very firm against which he had brought action the day
before were clients of Mr. Edgerton. That gentleman was taken
with a serious illness at the approach of the next court, and the
business of their defence devolved upon his son and myself; and
finally, when it was disposed of, which did not happen till near
the close of that year, it so happened that I argued the case; and
was successful.

Mr Clifford was baffled, and you may judge the feeling with which
he now regarded me. He had long since ceased to jest with me and
at my expense. He was now very respectful, and I could see that
his dislike grew daily in strict degree with his deference. But the
deportment of Mr. Clifford--springing as it did from that devil,
which each man is supposed to carry at times in his bosom, and of
whose presence in mine at seasons I was far from unaware--gave me
less annoyance than that of another of his household. Julia, too,
had put on an aspect which, if not that of coldness, was at least,
that of a very marked reserve. I ascribed this to the influence of
her parents--perhaps, to her own sense of what was due to their
obvious desires--to her own feeling of indifference--to any and
every cause but the right one.

There were other circumstances to alarm me, in connection with this
maiden. She was, as I have said, singularly beautiful; and, as I
thought, until now, singularly meek and considerate. Her charms,
about which there could bo no two opinions, readily secured her
numerous admirers, and when these were strengthened by the supposed
fortune of which she was to be the heiress, the suitors were, some
of them, almost as pressing, after the fashion of the world in
which we lived, as those of Penelope. I now no longer secured her
exclusive regard at the evening fireside or in our way to church.
There were gallants on either hand--gay, dashing lads, with
big whiskers, long locks, and smart ratans, upon whom madame, our
lady-mother, looked with far more complacency than upon me. The
course of Julia, herself, was, however, unexceptionable. She was
singularly cautious in her deportment, and, if reserved to me.
the most jealous scrutiny--after due reflection--never enabled me
to discover that she was more lavish of her regards to any other.
But the discovery of her position led me to another discovery which
the reader will wonder, as I did myself, that I had not made before.
This was the momentous discovery that my heart was irretrievably
lost to her--that I loved her with all the intensity of a first
passion, which, like every other passion in my heart, was absorbing
during its prevalence. I could name my feelings to myself only when
I perceived that such feelings were entertained by others;--only
when I found that the prize, which I desired beyond all others,
was likely to be borne away by strangers, did I know how much it
was desirable to myself.

The discovery of this affection instantly produced its natural
effects as well upon my deportment as upon my feelings; and that
sleepless spirit of suspicion and doubt--that true creature and
consequence of the habitual distrust which my treatment from boyhood
had instilled into my mind--at once rose to strength and authority
within me, and swayed me even as the blasts of November sway the
bald tops of the slender trees which the gusts have already denuded
of all foliage. The change in Julia's deportment, of which I have
already spoken, increased the febrile fears and suspicions which
filled my soul and overcame my judgment. She too--so I fancied--had
learned to despise and dislike me, under the goading influences of
her father's malice and her mother's silly prejudices. I jumped to
the conclusion instantly, that I was bound to my self to assert my
superiority, my pride and independence, in such a manner, as most
effectually to satisfy all parties that their hate or love was
equally a matter of indifference.

You may judge what my behavior was after this. For a time, at least,
it was sufficiently unbecoming. The deportment of Julia grew more
reserved than ever, and her looks more grave. There was a sadness
evidently mingled with this gravity which, amid all the blindness
of my heart, I could not help but see. She became sadder and
thinner every day; and there was a wo-begone listlessness about her
looks and movements which began to give me pain and apprehension.
I discovered, too after a while, that some apprehensions had also
crept into the minds of her parents in respect to her health. Their
looks were frequently addressed to her in evident anxiety. They
restrained her exercises, watched the weather when she proposed
to go abroad, strode in every way to keep her from fatigue and
exposure; and, altogether, exhibited a degree of solicitude which
at length had the effect of arousing mine.

Involuntarily, I approached her with more tenderness than my vexing
spirit had recently permitted me to show; but I recoiled from
the effects of my own attentions. I was vexed to perceive that my
approaches occasioned a start, a flutter--a shrinking inward--as
if my advance had been obtrusive, and my attempts at familiarity
offensive.

I was then little schooled in the intricacies of the female heart.
I little conjectured the origin of that seemingly paradoxical
movement of the mind, which, in the case of one, sensitive and
exquisitely delicate, prompts to flight from the very pursuit which
it would yet invite; which dreads to be suspected of the secret
which it yet most loves to cherish, and seeks to protect, by
concealment, the feelings which it may not defend; even as the bird
hides the little fledglings of its care from the hunter, whom it
dare not attack.

Stupid, and worse than stupid, my blind heart saw nothing of
this, and perverted what it saw. I construed the conduct of Julia
into matter of offence, to be taken in high dudgeon and resolutely
resented; and I drew myself up stiffly when she appeared, and
by excess of ceremonious politeness only, avoided the reproach of
brutality. Yet, even at such moments, I could see that there was
a dewy reproach in her eyes, which should have humbled me, and
made me penitent. But the effects of fifteen years of injudicious
management were not to be dissipated in a few days even by the
Ithuriel spells of love. My sense of independence and self-resource
had been stimulated to a diseased excess, until, constantly on the
QUI VIVE, it became dogged and inflexible. It was a work of time
to soften me and make me relent; and the labor then was one of my
own secret thoughts, and unbiased private decision. The attempt to
persuade or reason me into a conviction was sure to be a failure.

Months passed in this manner without effecting any serious change
in Julia, or in bringing us a step nearer to one another. Meanwhile,
the sphere of my observation and importance increased, as the
circle of my acquaintance became extended. I was regarded as a
rising young man, and one likely to be successful ultimately in
my profession. The social privileges of my friends, the Edgertons,
necessarily became mine; and it soon occurred that I encountered my
uncle and his family in circles in which it was somewhat a matter
of pride with him to be permitted to move. This, as it increased my
importance in his sight, did not diminish his pains. But he treated
me now with constant deference, though with the same unvarying
coldness. When in the presence of others, he warmed a little. I
was then "his nephew;" and he would affect to speak with great
familiarity on the subject of my business, my interests, the last
case in which I was engaged, and so forth--the object of which was
to persuade third persons that our relations were precisely as they
should be, and as people would naturally suppose them.

At all these places and periods, when it was my lot to meet
with Julia, she was most usually the belle of the night. A dozen
attendants followed in her train, solicitous of all her smiles, and
only studious how to afford her pleasure. I, only, stood aloof--I,
who loved her with a more intense fervor than all, simply because
I had none, or few besides to love. The heart which has been evermore
denied, will always burn with this intensity. Its passion, once
enkindled, will be the all-absorbing flame. Devoted itself, it
exacts the most religious devotion; and, unless it receives it,
recoils upon its own resources, and shrouds itself in gloom, simply
to hide its sufferings from detection.

I affected that indifference to the charms of this maiden, which
no one of human sensibilities could have felt. Opinions might have
differed in respect to her beauty; but there could be none on
the score of her virtues and her amiability, and almost as few
on the possessions of her mind. Julia Clifford, though singularly
unobtrusive in society, very soon convinced all around her that
she had an excellent understanding, which study had improved, and
grace had adorned by all the most appropriate modes of cultivation.
Her steps were always followed by a crowd--her seat invariably
encircled by a group to itself. I looked on at a distance, wrapped up
in the impenetrable folds of a pride, whose sleeves were momently
plucked, as I watched, by the nervous fingers of jealousy and
suspicion. Sometimes I caught a timid glance of her eye, addressed
to the spot where I stood, full of inquiry, and, as I could not
but believe, of apprehension;--and yet, at such mcments; I turned
perversely from the spot, nor suffered myself to steal another look
at one, all of whose triumphs seemed made at my expense.

On one of these occasions we met--our eyes and hands, accidentally;
and, though I, myself, could not help starting back with a cold
chill at my heart, I yet fancied there was something monstrous
insulting in the evident recoil of her person from the contact with
mine, at the same moment. I was about to turn hurriedly away with
a slight bow of acknowledgment, when the touching tenderness of
her glance, so full of sweetness and sadness, made me shrink with
shame from such a rudeness. Besides, she was so pale, so thin,
and really looked so unwell, that my conscience, in spite of that
blind heart whose perversity would still have kept me to my first
intention, rebuked me, and drove me to my duty. I approached--I
spoke to her--and my words, though few, under the better impulses
of the moment, were gentle and solicitous, as they should have been.
My tones, too, were softened:--wilfully as I still felt, I could
not forbear the exercise of that better ministry of the affections
which was disposed to make amends for previous misconduct. I do not
know exactly what I said--I probably did nothing more than utter
the ordinary phrases of social compliment;--but everything was
obliterated from my mind in an instant, by the startling directness
of what was said by her. Looking at me with a degree of intentness
by which, alone, she was, perhaps, able to preserve her seeming
calmness, she replied by an inquiry as remote from what my observation
called for as possible, yet how applicable to me and my conduct!

"Why do you treat me thus, Edward? Why do you neglect me as you
do--as if I were a stranger, or, at least, not a friend? What have
I done to merit this usage from one who---"

She did not finish the sentence, but her reproachful eyes, full
of a dewy suffusion that seemed very much like tears, appeared to
conclude it thus--

"One who--used to love me!"

So different was this speech from any that I looked for--so different
from what the usage of our conventional world would have seemed
to justify--so strange for one so timid, so silent usually on the
subject of her own griefs, as Julia Clifford--that I was absolutely
confounded. Where had she got this courage? By what strong feeling
had it been stimulated? Had I been at that time as well acquainted
with the sex as I have grown since, I must have seen that nothing
but a deep interest in my conduct and regard, could possibly have
prompted the spirit of one so gentle and shrinking, to the utterance
of so searching an appeal. And in what way could I answer it?
How could I excuse myself? What say, to justify that cold, rude
indifference to a relative, and one who had ever been gentle and
kind and true to me. I had really nothing to complain of. The vexing
jealousies of my own suspicious heart had alone informed it to its
perversion; and there I stood--dumb, confused, stupid-speaking,
when I did speak, some incoherent, meaningless sentences, which
could no more have been understood by her than they can now be
remembered by me. I recovered myself, however, sufficiently soon
to say, before we were separated by the movements of the crowd:-

"I will come to you to-morrow, Julia. Will you suffer me to see
you in the morning, say at twelve?"

"Yes, come!" was all her answer; and the next moment the harsh
accents of her ever-watchful mother warned us to risk no more.






CHAPTER VI.

DENIAL AND DEFEAT.





My sleep that night was anything but satisfactory. I had feverish
dreams, unquiet slumbers, and woke at morning with an excruciating
headache. I was in no mood for an explanation such as my promise
necessarily implied, but I prepared my toilet with particular
care--spent two hours at my office in a vain endeavor to divert
myself, by a resort to business, from the conflicting and annoying
sensations which afflicted me, and then proceeded to the dwelling
of my uncle.

I was fortunate in seeing Julia without the presence of her mother.
That good lady had become too fashionable to suffer herself to
be seen at so early an hour. Her vanity, in this respect, baffled
her vigilance, for she had her own apprehensions on the score of
my influence upon her daughter. Julia was scarcely so composed in
the morning as she had appeared on the preceding night. I was now
fully conscious of a flutter in her manner, a flush upon her face,
an ill-suppressed apprehension in her eyes, which betokened strong
emotions actively at work. But my own agitation did not suffer
me to know the full extent of hers. For the first time, on her
appearance, did I ask myself the question--"For what did I seek
this interview?" What had I to say--what near? How explain my
conduct--my coldness? On what imaginary and unsubstantial premises
base the neglect in my deportment, amounting to rudeness, of which
she had sufficient reason and a just right to complain? When I
came to review my causes of vexation, how trivial did they seem. The
reserve which had irritated me, on her part, now that I analyzed its
sources, seemed a very natural reserve, such as was only maidenly
and becoming. I now recollected that she was no longer a child--no
longer the lively little fairy whom I could dandle on my knee and
fling upon my shoulder, without a scruple or complaint. I stood like
a trembling culprit in her presence. I was eloquent only through
the force of a stricken conscience.

"Julia!" I exclaimed when we met, "I have come to make atonement.
I feel how rude I have been, but that was only because I was very
wretched."

"Wretched, Edward!" she exclaimed with some surprise. "What should
make you wretched?"

"You--you have made me wretched."

"Me!" Her surprise naturally increased

"Yes, you, dear Julia, and you only."

I took her hand in mine. Mine was burning--hers was colder than the
icicles. Need I say more to those who comprehend the mysteries of
the youthful heart. Need I say that the tongue once loosed, and
the declaration of the soul must follow in a rush from the lips.
I told her how much I loved her;--how unhappy it made me to think
that others might bear away the prize; that, in this way, my rudeness
arose from my wretchedness, and my wretchedness only from my love.
I did not speak in vain. She confessed an equal feeling, and we
were suffered a brief hour of unmitigated happiness together.

Surely there is no joy like that which the heart feels in the first
moment when it gives utterance to its own, and hears the avowed
passion of the desired object:--a pure flame, the child of sentiment,
just blushing with the hues of passion, just budding with the
breath and bloom of life. No sin has touched the sentiment;--no
gross smokes have risen to involve and obscure the flame; the altar
is tended by pure hands; white spirits; and there is no reptile
beneath the fresh blossoming flowers which are laid thereon. The
grosser passions sleep, like the fumes at the shrine of Apollo,
beneath the spell of that master passion in whose presence they
can only maintain a subordinate existence. I loved; I had told
my love;--and I was loved in return. I trembled with the deep
intoxication of that bewildering moment; and how I found my way
back to my office--whom I saw on the way, or to whom I spoke, I know
not. I loved;--I was beloved. He only can conceive the delirium of
this sweet knowledge who has passed a life like mine--who has felt
the frowns and the scorn, and the contempt of those who should
have nurtured him with smiles--whose soul, ardent and sensitive,
has been made to recoil cheerlessly back on itself--denied the
sunshine of the affections, and almost forbade to hope. Suddenly,
when I believed myself most destitute, I had awakened to fortune--to
the realization of desires which were beyond my fondest dreams. I,
whom no affection hitherto had blessed, had, in a moment, acquired
that which seemed to me to comprise all others, and for which all
others might have been profitably thrown away.

I fancied now that henceforth my sky was to be without a cloud. I
did not--nor did Julia imagine for a moment that any opposition to
our love could arise from her parents. What reason now could they
have to oppose it? There was no inequality in our social positions.
My blood had taken its rise from the same fountains with her own.
In the world's estimation my rank was quite as respectable as that
of any in my uncle's circle, and, for my condition, my resources,
though small, were improving daily, and I had already attained
such a place among my professional brethren, as to leave it no
longer doubtful that it must continue to improve. My income, with
economy--such economy as two simple, single-minded creatures, like
Julia and myself, were willing to employ--would already yield us
a decent support. In short, the idea of my uncle's opposition to
the match never once entered my head. Yet he did oppose it. I was
confounded with his blunt, and almost rugged refusal.

"Why, sir, what are your objections?"

He answered with sufficient coolness.

"I am sorry to refuse you, Edward, but I have already formed other
arrangements for my daughter. I have designed her for another."

"Indeed, sir--may I ask with whom?"

"Young Roberts--his father and myself have had the matter for some
time in deliberation. But do not speak of it, Edward--my confidence
in you, alone, induces me to state this fact."

"I am very much obliged to you, sir;--but you do not surely mean
to force young Roberts upon Julia, if she is unwilling?"

"Ah, she will not be unwilling. She's a dutiful child, who will
readily recognise the desires of her parents as the truest wisdom."

"But, Mr. Clifford--you forget that Julia has already admitted to
me a preference--"

"So you tell me, Edward, and it is with regret that I feel myself
compelled to say that I wholly disapprove of your seeking my
daughter's consent, before you first thought proper to obtain mine.
This seems to me very muck like an abuse of confidence."

"Really, sir, you surprise me more than ever. Now that you force
me to speak, let me say that, regarding myself as of blood scarcely
inferior to that of my cousin, I can not see how the privilege of
which I availed myself in proposing for her hand, can be construed
into a breach of confidence. I trust, sir, that you have not
contemplated your brother's son in any degrading or unbecoming
attitude."

"No, no, surely not, Edward; but mere equality of birth does not
constitute a just claim, by itself, to the affections of a lady."

"I trust the equality of birth, sir, is not impaired on my part
by misconduct--by a want of industry, capacity--by inequalities in
other respects--"

"And talents!"

He finished the sentence with the ancient sneer. But I was now a
man--a strong one, and, at this moment particularly a stern one.

"Stop, sir," I retorted; "there must be an end to this. Whether you
accede to my application or not, sir, there is nothing to justify
you in an attempt to goad and mortify my feelings. I have proffered
to you a respectful application for the hand of of your daughter,
and though I were poorer, and humbler, and less worthy in all respects
than I am, I should still be entitled to respectful treatment. At
another time, with my sensibilities less deeply interested than
they are, I should probably submit, as I have already frequently
submitted, to the unkind and ungenerous sarcasms in which you have
permitted yourself to indulge at my expense. But my regard for
your daughter alone would prompt me to resent and repel them now.
The object of my interview with you is quite too sacred--too solemnly
invested--to suffer me to stand silently under the scornful usage
even of her father."

All this may have been deserved by Mr. Clifford, but it was scarcely
discreet in me. It gave him the opportunity which, I do not doubt,
he desired--the occasion which he had in view. It afforded him
an excuse for anger, for a regular outbreak between us, which, in
some sort, yielded him that justification for his refusal, without
which he would have found it a very difficult matter to account
for or excuse. We parted in mutual anger, the effect of which was
to close his doors against me, and exclude me from all opportunities
of interview with Julia, unless by stealth. Even then, these
opportunities were secured by my artifice, without her privity. As
dutiful as fond, she urged me against them; and, resolute to "honor
her father and mother" in obedience to those holy laws without a
compliance with which there is little hope and no happiness, she
informed me with many tears that she was now forbidden to see me,
and would therefore avoid every premeditated arrangement for our
meeting. I did not do justice to her character, but reproached her
with coldness--with a want of affection, sensibility, and feeling.

"Do not say so, Edward--do not--do not! I cold--I insensible--I
wanting in affection for you! How, how can you think so?" And she
threw herself on my bosom and sobbed until I began to fancy that
convulsions would follow.

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