Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - "Ecce Homo"

L. T. Meade - "Sue, A Little Heroine"

Henrik Ibsen - "La kolonoj de la socio"

Courtney Ryley Cooper - "The Cross Cut"

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




Fortune favored our movements. Our preparations had been properly
laid, and Edgerton had the divine in waiting. In less than half
an hour after leaving the house of her parents, Julia and myself
stood up to be married. Pale, feeble, sad--the poor girl, though she
felt no reluctance, and suffered not the most momentary remorse for
the steps she had taken, and was about to take, was yet necessarily
and naturally impressed with the solemnity and the doubts which
hung over the event. Young, timid, artless, apprehensive, she
was unsupported by those whom nature had appointed to watch over
and protect her; and though they had neglected, and would have
betrayed their trust, she yet could not but feel that there was an
incompleteness about the affair, which, not even the solemn accents
of the priest, the deep requisitions of those pledges which she
was called upon to make, and the evident conviction which she now
entertained, that what had been done was necessary to be done,
for her happiness, and even her life--could entirely remove. There
was an awful but sweet earnestness in the sad, intense glance of
entreaty, with which she regarded me when I made the final response.
Her large black eye dilated, even under the dewy suffusion of its
tears, as it seemed to say:--

"It is to you now--to you alone--that I look for that protection,
that happiness which was denied where I had best right to look for
it. Ah! let me not look, let me not yield myself to you in vain!"

How imploring, yet how resigned was that glance of tears--love in
tears, yet love that trusted without fear! It was the embodiment of
innocence, struggling between hope and doubt, and only strengthened
for the future by the pure, sweet faith which grew out of their
conflict. I look back upon that scene, I recall that glance, with
a sinking of the heart which is full of terror and terrible reproach.
Ah! then, then, I had no fear, no thought, that I should see that
look, and others, more sad, more imploring still, and see them
without a corresponding faith and love! I little knew, in that
brief, blessed hour, how rapidly the blindness of the heart comes
on, even as the scale over the eyes--but such a scale as no surgeon's
knife can cut away.






CHAPTER XIII.

BAFFLED FURY.





In the first gush of my happiness--the ceremony being completed,
and the possession of my treasure certain--I had entirely forgotten
my Kentucky friend, whom I had locked up, in confidential TETE-A-TETE
with madam, my exemplary mother-in-law. He was a fellow with
a strong dash of humor, and could not resist the impulse to amuse
himself at the expense of the lady, by making an admirable scene
of the proceeding. He began the business by stating that he had
heard she had several negroes whom she wished to sell--that he was
anxious to buy--he did not care how many, and would give the very
best prices of any trader in the market. At his desire, all were
summoned in attendance--some three or four in number, that she
had to dispose of--all but the worthy Peter, who, under existing
circumstances, was quite too necessary to my proceedings to be
dispensed with. These were all carefully examined by the trader.
They were asked their ages, their names, their qualities; whether
they were willing to go to Kentucky, the paradise of the western
Indian, and so forth--all those questions which, in ordinary cases,
it is the custom of the purchaser to ask. They were, then dismissed,
and the Kentuckian next discussed with the lady the subject of
prices. But let the worthy fellow speak for himself:--

"I was so cursed anxious," he said, "to know whether you had got
off and in safety, for I was beginning to get monstrous tired of
the old cat, that I jumped up every now and then to take a peep out
of the front window. I made an excuse to spit on such occasions--though
sometimes I forgot to do so--and then I would go back and begin
again, with something about the bargain and the terms, and whether
the negroes were honest, and sound, and all that. Well, though I
looked out as often as I well could with civility, I saw nothing
of you, and began to fear that something had happened to unsettle
the whole plan; but, after a while, I saw Peter, with his mouth drawn
back and hooked up into his ears, with his white teeth glimmering
like so many slips of moonshine in a dark night, and I then concluded
that all was as it should be. But seeing me look out so earnestly
and often, the good lady at length said:--

"'I suppose, sir, your horses are in waiting. Perhaps you'd like
to have a servant to mind them.'

"'No, ma'am, I'm obliged to you; but I left the hotel on foot.'

"'Yes, sir,' said she, 'but I thought it might be your horses seeing
you so often look out.'

"I could scarcely keep in my laughter. It did burst out into a sort
of chuckle; and, as you were then safe--I knew THAT from Peter's
jaws--I determined to have my own fun out of the old woman. So I
said--pretty much in this sort of fashion, for I longed to worry
her, and knew just how it could be done handsomest--I said:--

"'The truth is, ma'am--pardon me for the slight--but really I
was quite interested--struck, as I may say, by a very suspicious
transaction that met my eyes a while ago, when I first got up to
spit from the window.'

"'Ah, indeed, sir! and pray, if I may ask, what was it you saw?'

"'Really very curious; but getting up to spit, and looking out
before I did so--necessary caution, ma'am--some persons might be
just under the window, you know--'

"'Yes, sir, yes.' The old creature began to look and talk mighty
eager.

"'An ugly habit, ma'am--that of spitting. We Kentuckians carry it to
great excess. Foreigners, I'm told, count it monstrous vulgar--effect
of tobacco-chewing, ma'am--a deuced bad habit, I grant you, but 'tis
a habit, and there's no leaving it off, even if we would. I don't
think Kentuckians, as a people, a bit more vulgar than English, or
French, or Turks, or any other respectable people of other countries.'

"'No, sir, certainly not; but the transaction--what you saw.'

"Ah yes! beg pardon; but, as I was saying, something really quite
suspicious! Just as I was about to spit, when I went to the window,
some ten minutes ago--perhaps you did not observe, but I did not
spit. Good reason for it, ma'am--might have done mischief"

"How, sir?"

"Ah that brings me to the question I want to ask: any handsome
young ladies living about here, ma'am?--here, in your neighborood?"

"Why, yes, sir," answered the old tabby, with something like
surprise; there's several--there's the Masons, just opposite: the
Bagbys, next door to them below, and Mr. Wilford's daughter: all
of them would be considered pretty by some persons. On the same
side with us, there's Mrs. Freeman and her two daughters, but the
widow is accounted by many the youngest looking and prettiest of
the whole, though, to my thinking, that's saying precious little for
any. Next door to us is a Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs, who have a daughter,
and she IS rather pretty, but I don't know much about them. It might
be a mother's vanity, sir, but I think I may be proud of having a
daughter myself, who is about as pretty as any of the best among
them; and that's saying a great deal less for her than might be
said."

"Ah, indeed--you a daughter, ma'am? But she is not grown-up, of
course--a mere child?"

"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir, said the old creature, tickled up to
the eyes, and looking at me with the sweetest smiles; though it
may surprise you very much, she is not only no child, but a woman
grown; and, what's more, I think she will be made a wife this very
night."

"Egad, then I suspect she's not the only one that's about to
be made a wife of. I suspect some one of these young ladies, your
neighbors, will be very soon in the same condition."

"Indeed, sir--pray, who?--how do you know? and the old tabby edged
herself along the sofa until she almost got jam up beside me."

"Well, said I, I don't KNOW exactly, but I'm deucedly suspicious
of it, and, more than that, there's some underhand work going on."

"This made her more curious than ever; and her hands and feet, and
indeed her whole body, got such a fidgeting, that I fancied she
began to think of getting St. Vitus for a bedfellow. Her eagerness
made her ask me two or three times what made me think so; and, seeing
her anxiety, I purposely delayed in order to worry her. I wished
to see how far I could run her up. When I did begin to explain,
I went to work in a round-about way enough--something thus, old
Kentuck--as I began: "Well, ma'am, this tobacco-chewing, as I said
before, carried me, as you witnessed, constantly to the window.
I don't know that I chew more than many others, but I know I chew
too much for my good, and for decency, too, ma'am."

"Yes, sir, yes; but the young lady, and--"

"Ah, yes, ma'am. Well, then, going to the window once, twice, or
thrice, I could not help but see a young man standing beneath it,
evidently in waiting--very earnest, very watchful--seemingly very
much interested and anxious, as if waiting for somebody."

"Is it possible?" whispered the tabby, full of expectation.

"Yes, very possible, ma'am--very true." There he stood; I could even
hoar his deep-drawn sighs--deep, long, as if from the very bottom
of his heart.'

"Was he so VERY near, sir?"

"Just under the window--going to and fro--very anxious. I was
almost afraid I had spit on him, he looked up so hard--so--"

"What, sir, up at you? at--at MY windows, sir?"

"Not exactly, ma'am, that was only my notion, for I thought I
might have spit upon him, and so wakened his anger; but, indeed,
he looked all about him, as, indeed, it was natural that he should,
you know, if he meditated anything that wa'n't exactly right. There
was a carriage in waiting--a close carriage--not a hundred yards
below, and--"

"Ah, sir, do tell me what sort of a looking young gentleman was
it--eh?"

"Good-looking fellow enough, ma'am--rather tall, slenderish, but
not so slender--wore a black frock." By this time the old creature
was up at the window--her long, skinny neck stretched out as far
as it could go.

"Ah!" said I, "ma'am, you're quite too late, if you expect to see
the sport. They're off; I saw the last of them when I took my last
spit from the window. They were then--"

"But, sir, did he--did you say that this person--the person you
spit on--carried a young lady away with him?"

"You mistake me, ma'am--"

"Ah"--she drew a mighty long breath as if relieved.

"I did NOT spit upon him; I only came near doing it once or twice.
If I hadn't looked, I should very probably have divided my quid
pretty equally between both of them."

"Both! both!" she almost screamed. "Did she go with him, then?--was
there in truth a young woman?"

"You never saw a creature in such a tearing fidget. Her long
nose was nearly stuck into my face, and both her hands, all claws
extended, seemed ready for my cheeks. I felt a little ticklish, I
assure you; but I kept up my courage, determined to see the game
out, and answered very deliberately, after I had put a fresh quid
into my jaws:--"

"Ay, that she did, ma'am, and seemed deuced glad to go, as was
natural enough. A mighty pretty girl she was, too; rather thin,
but pretty enough to tempt a clever fellow to do anything. I reckon
they're nigh on to being man and wife by this time, let the old
people say what they will."

"But the old put didn't wait to hear me say all this. Before the
words were well out of my mouth, she gave a bounce, to the bell-rope
first--I thought she'd ha' jerked it to pieces--and then to the
head of the stairs."

"Excuse me for a moment, sir, if you please," she said, in a
considerable fidget.

"Certainly, ma'am," says I, with a great Kentucky sort of bow and
natural civility; and then I could hear her squalling from the
head of the stairs, and at the top of her voice, "Julia! Julia!
Julia!"--but there was no answer from Julia. Then came the servants;
then came the outcry; then she bounced back into the parlor,
and blazed out at me for not telling her at once that it was her
daughter who had been carried off, without making so long a story
of it, and putting in so much talk about tobacco.

"Lord bless you, my dear woman!" says I, innocent enough, was that
pretty girl your daughter? That accounts for the fellow looking
up at the window so often; and I to fancy that it was all because
I might have given him a quid!"

"You must have seen her THEN!"

"Well, ma'am," said I, "I must come again about the negroes. I
see you've got your hands full."

"And, with that, I pushed down stairs, while she blazed out at
her husband, whom she called an old fool; and me, whom she called
a young one; and the negroes, whom she ordered to fly in a hundred
ways in the same breath; and, to make matters worse, she seized
her hat and shawl, and bounced down the steps after me. Here we
were in a fix again, that made her a hundred times more furious.
The street-door was locked on the outside, and the key gone, and
I fastened up with the old mad tabby. I tried to stand it while
the servants were belaboring to break open, but the storm was too
heavy, and, raising a sash, I went through: and, in good faith, I
believe she bounced through after me; for, when I got fairly into
the street and looked round, there she went, bounce, flounce,
pell-mell, all in a rage, steam up, puffing like a porpoise--though,
thank Jupiter! she took another course from myself. I was glad to
get out of her clutches, I assure you."

Such was Kingsley's account of his expedition, told in his
particular manner; and endued with the dramatic vitality which he
was well able to give it, it was inimitable. It needs but a few
words to finish it. Mrs. Clifford, with unerring instinct, made
her way to the house of that friendly lady who had assisted our
proceedings. But she came too late for anything but abuse. Julia
was irrevocably mine. Bitter was the clamor which, in our chamber,
assailed us from below.

"Oh, Edward, how shall I meet her?" was the convulsive speech of
Julia, as she heard the fearful sounds of her mother's voice--a
voice never very musical, and which now, stimulated by unmeasured
rage--the rage of a baffled and wicked woman--poured forth a torrent
of screams rather than of human accents. We soon heard the rush
of the torrent up stairs, and in the direction of our chamber.

"Fear nothing, Julia; her power over you is now at an end. You
are now mine--mine only--mine irrevocably!"

"Ah, she is still my mother!" gasped the lovely trembler in my
arms. A moment more, and the old lady was battering at the door. I
had locked it within. Her voice, husky but subdued, now called to
her daughter--

"Julia! Julia! Julia!--come out!"

"Who is there? what do you want?" I demanded. I was disposed to
keep her out, but Julia implored me to open the door. She had really
no strength to reply to the summons of the enraged woman; and her
entreaty to me was expressed in a whisper which scarcely filled
my own ears. She was weak almost to fainting. I trembled lest her
weakness, coupled with her fears, and the stormy scene that I felt
might be reasonably anticipated, would be too much for her powers
of endurance. I hesitated. She put her hand on my wrist.

"For my sake, Edward, let her in. Let her see me. We will have to
meet her, and better now--now, when I feel all the solemnity of
my new position, and while the pledges I have just made are most
present to my thoughts. Do not fear for me. I am weak and very
feeble, but I am resolute. I feel that I am not wrong."

She could scarcely gasp out these brief sentences. I urged her not
to risk her strength in the interview.

"As you love me, do as I beg you," she replied, with entreating
earnestness. "It does not become me to keep my mother, under any
circumstances, thus waiting at the door, and asking entrance."

Meanwhile, the clamors of Mrs. Clifford were continued. Julia's
aunt was there also, and the controversy was hot and heavy between
them. Annoyed as I was, and apprehensive for Julia. I yet could not
forbear laughing at the ludicrousness of my position and the whole
scene. I began to think, from the equal violence of the two ancient
dames without, that they might finally get to blows. This was also
the fear of Julia, and another reason why we should throw open the
door. I at length did so; and soon had the doubtful satisfaction
of transferring to myself all the wrath of the disappointed mother.
She rushed in, the moment the door turned upon its hinges, almost
upsetting me in the violence of her onset. Bounding into the apartment
with a fury that was utterly beyond her own control, I was led to
fear that she might absolutely inflict violence upon her daughter,
who by this time had sunk, in equal terror and exhaustion, upon a
sofa in the remotest corner of the room. I hastily placed myself
between them, and did not scruple, with extended hands, to maintain
a safe interval of space between the two. I will not attempt to
describe the tigress rage or the shrieking violence which ensued on
the part of this veteran termagant. It was only closed at length,
when, Julia having fainted under the storm, dead to all appearance,
I picked up the assailant VI ET ARMIS, and, in defiance of screams
and scratches--for she did not spare the use of her talons--resolutely
transported her from the chamber.






CHAPTER XIV.

ONE DEBT PAID.





Staggering forward under this burden--a burden equally active and
heavy--who should I encounter at the head of the stairs, but the
liege lord of the lady--my poor imbecile uncle. As soon as she
beheld him--foaming and almost unintelligible in her rage--she
screamed for succor--cried "murder" "rape," "robbery," and heaven
knows what besides. A moment before, though she scratched and
scuffled to the utmost, she had not employed her lungs. A momentary
imprecation alone had broken from her, as it were, perforce and
unavoidably. Now, nothing could exceed the stentorian tumult which
her tongue maintained. She called upon her husband to put me to
death--to tear me in pieces--to do anything and everything for the
punishing of so dreadful an offender as myself. In thus commanding
him, she did not forbear uttering her own unmeasured opinion of
the demerits of the man whose performances she required.

"If you had the spirit of a man, Clifford--if you were not a poor
shoat--you'd never have submitted so long as you have to this
viper's insolence. And there you stand, doing nothing--absolutely
still as a stock, though you see him beating your wife. Ah! you
monster!--you coward!--that I should ever have married a man that
wasn't able to protect me."

This is a sufficient sample of her style, and not the worst. I am
constrained to confess that some portions of the good lady's language
would better have suited the modes of speech common enough among
the Grecian housekeepers at the celebration of the Eleusinian
mysteries. I have omitted not a few of the bad words, and forborne
the repetition of that voluminous eloquence poured out, after
the Billingsgate fashion, equally upon myself, her daughter, and
husband. During the vituperation she still kicked and scuffled;
my face suffered, and my eyes narrowly escaped. But I grasped her
firmly; and when her husband, my worthy uncle, in obedience to her
orders, sprang upon me, with the bludgeon which he now habitually
carried, I confronted him with the lusty person of his spouse, and
regret to say, that the first thwack intended for my shoulders,
descended with some considerable emphasis upon hers. This increased
her fury, and redoubled her screams. But it did not lessen my
determination, or make me change my mode of proceeding. I resolutely
pushed her before me. The husband stood at the head of the stairs
and my object was to carry her down to the lower story. The stairs
were narrow, and by keeping up a good watch, I contrived to force
him to give ground, using his spouse as a sort of battering-RAM--not to
perpetrate a pun at the expense of the genders--which, I happened
to know, had always been successful in making him give ground on all
previous occasions. His habitual deference for the dame, assisted
me in my purpose. Step by step, however, he disputed my advance;
but I was finally successful; without any injury beyond that which
had been inflicted by the talons of the fair lady, and perhaps
a single and slight stroke upon the shoulder from the club of her
husband, I succeeded in landing her upon the lower flat in safety.
Beyond a squeeze or two, which the exigency of the case made
something more affectionate than any I should have been otherwise
pleased to bestow upon her, she suffered no hurt at my hands.

But, though willing to release her, she was not so willing herself
to be released. When I set her free, she flew at me with cat-like
intrepidity; and I found her a much more difficult customer than
her husband. Him I soon baffled. A moment sufficed to grapple with
him and wrench the stick from his hands, and then, with a moderate
exercise of agility, I contrived to spring up the stairway which I
had just descended, regain the chamber, and secure the door, before
they could overtake or annoy me with their further movements. My
wife's aunt, meanwhile, had been busy with her restoratives. Julia
was now recovering from the fainting fit; and I had the satisfaction
of hearing from one of the servants that the baffled enemy had gone
off in a fury that made their departure seem a flight rather than
a mere retreat.

I should have treated the whole event with indifference--their
rage and their regard equally--but for my suffering and sensitive
wife. Wronged as she had been, and so persecuted as to render all
her subsequent conduct justifiable, she yet forgot none of her
filial obligations; and, in compliance with her earnest entreaties,
I had already, the very day after this conflict, prepared an
elaborate and respectful epistle to both father and mother, when
an event took place of startling solemnity, which was calculated
to subdue my anger, and make the feelings of my wife, if possible,
more accessible than ever to the influences of fear and sorrow.
Only three days from our marriage had elapsed, when her father was
stricken speechless in the street. He was carried home for dead.
I have already hinted that, months before, and just after the
threatened discovery of those fraudulent measures by which he lost
his fortune, his mind had become singularly enfeebled; his memory
failing, and all his faculties of judgment--never very strong--growing
capricious, or else obtuse and unobserving. These were the symptoms
of a rapid physical change, the catastrophe of which was at hand.
How far the excitement growing out of his daughter's flight and
marriage may have precipitated this result, is problematical. It
may be said, in this place, that my wife's mother charged it all to
my account. I was pronounced the murderer of her husband. On this
head I did not reproach myself. It was necessary, however, that a
reconciliation should take place between the father and his child.
To this I had, of course, no sort of objection. But it will scarce
be believed that the miserable woman, her mother, opposed herself to
their meeting with the utmost violence of her character. Nothing
but the outcry of the family and all its friends--including
the excellent physician whose secret services had contributed so
much toward my happiness--compelled her to give way, though still
ungraciously, to the earnest entreaty of her daughter for permission
to see her father before he died! and even then, by the death-bed
of the unhappy and almost unconscious man, she recommenced the scene
of abuse and bitter reproach, which, however ample the reader and
hearer may have already found it, it appears she had left unfinished.
It was in the midst of a furious tirade, directed against myself,
chiefly, and Julia, in part, that the spasms of death, unperceived
by the mother, passed over the contracted muscles of the father's
face. The bitter speech of the blind woman--blind of heart--was actually
finished after death had given the final blow to the victim. Of
this she had no suspicion, until instructed by the piercing shrieks
of her daughter, who fell swooning upon the corse before her.






CHAPTER XV.

HONEYMOON PERIOD.





It was supposed by Julia and certain of her friends that an event
so solemn, so impressive, and so unexpected, as the death of Mr.
Clifford, would reasonably affect the mind of his widow; and the
concessions which I had meditated to address to herself and her
late husband were now so varied as to apply solely to herself. I
took considerable pains in preparing my letter, with the view to
soften her prejudices and asperities, as well as to convince her
reason. There was one suggestion which Julia was disposed to insist
on, to which, however, I was singularly averse. In the destitution
of Mrs. Clifford, her diminished and still diminishing resources,
not to speak of her loneliness, she thought that I ought to tender
her a home with us. Had she been any other than the captious,
cross-grained creature that she was--bad her misfortunes produced
only in part their legitimate and desirable effects of subduing
her perversity--I should have had no sort of objection. But I knew
her imperious and unreasonable nature; and I may here add, that,
by this time, I knew something of my own: I was a man of despotic
character. The constant conflicts which I had had from boyhood,
resulting as they had done in my frequent successes and final
triumph, had, naturally enough, made me dictatorial. Sanguine in
temperament, earnest in character, resolute in impulse, I was
necessarily arbitrary in mood. It was not likely that Mrs. Clifford
would forget her waywardnesses, and it was just as unreasonable
that I should submit to her insolences. Besides, one's home ought
to be a very sacred place. It is necessary that the peace there
should compensate and console for the strifes without. To hope for
this in any household where there is more than one master, would
bo worse than idle. Nay, even if there were peace, the chances are
still great that there would be some lack of propriety. Domestic
regulations would become inutile. Children and servants would
equally fail of duty and improvement under conflicting authorities;
and all the sweet social harmonies of family would be jarred
away by misunderstandings if not bickerings, leading to coldness,
suspicion, and irremediable jealousies. These things seemed to
threaten me from the first moment when Julia submitted to me her
desire that her mother should be invited to take up her abode with
us. I reasoned with her against it; suggested all the grounds of
objection which I really felt; and reviewed at length the long
history of our connection from my childhood up, which had been
distinguished by her constant hostility and hate. "How," I asked,
"can it be hoped that there will be any change for the better now?
She is the same woman, I the same man! It is not reasonable to think
that the result of our reunion will be other than it has been."
But Julia implored.

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