Maurice Hewlett - "Earthwork Out Of Tuscany"

Paul Heyse - "Die Einsamen"

G. K. Rose - "The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry"

Lenore Elizabeth Mulets - "Stories of Birds"

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.

Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four.

W >> William H. Elson and Christine Keck >> Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four.




"Willingly," answered Ernest; and then he added, smiling, "Methinks I never
saw the Great Stone Face look so hospitably at a stranger."

The poet sat down on the bench beside him, and he and Ernest talked
together. Often had the poet held intercourse with the wittiest and the
wisest, but never before with a man like Ernest, whose thoughts and
feelings gushed up with such a natural freedom, and who made great truths
so familiar by his simple utterance of them. Angels, as had been so often
said, seemed to have wrought with him at his labor in the fields; angels
seemed to have sat with him by the fireside; and, dwelling with angels as
friend with friends, he had imbibed the sublimity of their ideas, and
imbued it with the sweet and lowly charm of household words. So thought the
poet. And Ernest, on the other hand, was moved and agitated by the living
images which the poet flung out of his mind, and which peopled all the air
about the cottage-door with shapes of beauty, both gay and pensive. The
sympathies of these two men instructed them with a profounder sense than
either could have attained alone. Their minds accorded into one strain, and
made delightful music which neither of them could have claimed as all his
own, nor distinguished his own share from the other's. They led one
another, as it were, into a high pavilion of their thoughts, so remote, and
hitherto so dim, that they had never entered it before, and so beautiful
that they desired to be there always.

As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that the Great Stone Face was
bending forward to listen too. He gazed earnestly into the poet's glowing
eyes.

"Who are you, my strangely gifted guest?" he said. The poet laid his finger
on the volume that Ernest had been reading.

"You have read these poems," said he. "You know me, then,--for I wrote
them."

Again, and still more earnestly than before, Ernest examined the poet's
features; then turned towards the Great Stone Face; then back, with an
uncertain aspect, to his guest. But his countenance fell; he shook his
head, and sighed.

"Wherefore are you sad?" inquired the poet.

"Because," replied Ernest, "all through life I have awaited the fulfilment
of a prophecy; and, when I read these poems, I hoped that it might be
fulfilled in you."

"You hoped," answered the poet, faintly smiling, "to find in me the
likeness of the Great Stone Face. And you are disappointed, as formerly
with Mr. Gathergold, and Old Blood-and-Thunder, and Old Stony Phiz. Yes,
Ernest, it is my doom. You must add my name to the illustrious three, and
record another failure of your hopes. For--in shame and sadness do I speak
it, Ernest--I am not worthy to be typified by yonder benign and majestic
image."

"And why?" asked Ernest. He pointed to the volume. "Are not those thoughts
divine?"

"They have a strain of the Divinity," replied the poet. "You can hear in
them the far-off echo of a heavenly song. But my life, dear Ernest, has not
corresponded with my thought. I have had grand dreams, but they have been
only dreams, because I have lived--and that, too, by my own choice--among
poor and mean realities. Sometimes even--shall I dare to say it?--I lack
faith in the grandeur, the beauty, and the goodness, which my own works are
said to have made more evident in nature and in human life. Why, then, pure
seeker of the good and true, shouldst thou hope to find me, in yonder image
of the divine?"

The poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim with tears. So, likewise, were
those of Ernest.

At the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom, Ernest was to
discourse to an assemblage of the neighboring inhabitants in the open air.
He and the poet, arm in arm, still talking together as they went along,
proceeded to the spot. It was a small nook among the hills, with a gray
precipice behind, the stern front of which was relieved by the pleasant
foliage of many creeping plants that made a tapestry for the naked rock, by
hanging their festoons from all its rugged angles. At a small elevation
above the ground, set in a rich framework of verdure, there appeared a
niche, spacious enough to admit a human figure, with freedom for such
gestures as spontaneously accompany earnest thought and genuine emotion.
Into this natural pulpit Ernest ascended, and threw a look of familiar
kindness around upon his audience. They stood, or sat, or reclined upon the
grass, as seemed good to each, with the departing sunshine falling
obliquely over them, and mingling its subdued cheerfulness with the
solemnity of a grove of ancient trees, beneath and amid the boughs of which
the golden rays were constrained to pass. In another direction was seen the
Great Stone Face, with the same cheer, combined with the same solemnity, in
its benignant aspect.

Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his heart and
mind. His words had power, because they accorded with his thoughts; and his
thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmonized with the life which
he had always lived. It was not mere breath that this preacher uttered;
they were the words of life, because a life of good deeds and holy love was
melted into them. Pearls, pure and rich, had been dissolved into this
precious draught. The poet, as he listened, felt that the being and
character of Ernest were a nobler strain of poetry than he had ever
written. His eyes glistening with tears, he gazed reverentially at the
venerable man, and said within himself that never was there an aspect so
worthy of a prophet and a sage as that mild, sweet, thoughtful countenance,
with the glory of white hair diffused about it. At a distance, but
distinctly to be seen, high up in the golden light of the setting sun,
appeared the Great Stone Face, with hoary mists around it, like the white
hairs around the brow of Ernest. Its look of grand beneficence seemed to
embrace the world.

At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter, the
face of Ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, so imbued with
benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms
aloft, and shouted,--

"Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone Face!"

Then all the people looked, and saw that what the deep-sighted poet said
was true. The prophecy was fulfilled. But Ernest, having finished what he
had to say, took the poet's arm, and walked slowly homeward, still hoping
that some wiser and better man than himself would by and by appear, bearing
a resemblance to the GREAT STONE FACE.



HELPS TO STUDY.


Notes and Questions.

What part of the description of the Great Stone Face do you like the best?

What influence had this Face upon the valley? Upon the clouds? Upon the
sunshine?

Show how each of the four characters failed to realize the ideal.

What purpose do you think Hawthorne had in creating these characters?

Why did so many people think that each of these men was the image of the
Great Stone Face?

Why did not Ernest think so?

What were the characteristics of the ideal? What words name them?

What does the Great Stone Face symbolize?

What words tell you the source of Ernest's power?

What lines tell you of his humility?

Summarize his characteristics.

What pictures do you find in the selection?

Point out sentences that contain examples of alliteration.

Find a humorous sentence.

Who were the Titans?

Who was Midas?


Words and Phrases for Discussion.

"infusing its tenderness into the sunshine"
"transform himself into an angel of beneficence"
"the mountain visage had found its human counterpart"
"a kind of illuminated fog"
"the prophecy was fulfilled"

* * * * *


MY VISIT TO NIAGARA

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Never did a pilgrim approach Niagara with deeper enthusiasm than mine. I
had lingered away from it, and wandered to other scenes, because my
treasury of anticipated enjoyments, comprising all the wonders of the
world, had nothing else so magnificent, and I was loath to exchange the
pleasures of hope for those of memory so soon. At length the day came. The
stage-coach, with a Frenchman and myself on the back seat, had already left
Lewiston, and in less than an hour would set us down in Manchester. I began
to listen for the roar of the cataract, and trembled with a sensation like
dread, as the moment drew nigh, when its voice of ages must roll, for the
first time, on my ear. The French gentleman stretched himself from the
window, and expressed loud admiration, while, by a sudden impulse, I threw
myself back and closed my eyes. When the scene shut in, I was glad to
think, that for me the whole burst of Niagara was yet in futurity. We
rolled on, and entered the village of Manchester, bordering on the falls.

I am quite ashamed of myself here. Not that I ran like a madman to the
falls, and plunged into the thickest of the spray,--never stopping to
breathe, till breathing was impossible; not that I committed this, or any
other suitable extravagance. On the contrary, I alighted with perfect
decency and composure, gave my cloak to the black waiter, pointed out my
baggage, and inquired, not the nearest way to the cataract, but about the
dinner-hour. The interval was spent in arranging my dress. Within the last
fifteen minutes, my mind had grown strangely benumbed, and my spirits
apathetic, with a slight depression, not decided enough to be termed
sadness. My enthusiasm was in a deathlike slumber. Without aspiring to
immortality, as he did, I could have imitated that English traveller, who
turned back from the point where he first heard the thunder of Niagara,
after crossing the ocean to behold it. Many a Western trader, by the by,
has performed a similar act of heroism with more heroic simplicity, deeming
it no such wonderful feat to dine at the hotel and resume his route to
Buffalo or Lewiston, while the cataract was roaring unseen.

Such has often been my apathy, when objects, long sought, and earnestly
desired, were placed within my reach. After dinner--at which an unwonted
and perverse epicurism detained me longer than usual--I lighted a cigar and
paced the piazza, minutely attentive to the aspect and business of a very
ordinary village. Finally, with reluctant step, and the feeling of an
intruder, I walked towards Goat Island. At the toll-house, there were
farther excuses for delaying the inevitable moment. My signature was
required in a huge ledger, containing similar records innumerable, many of
which I read. The skin of a great sturgeon, and other fishes, beasts, and
reptiles; a collection of minerals, such as lie in heaps near the falls;
some Indian moccasins, and other trifles, made of deer-skin and embroidered
with beads; several newspapers, from Montreal, New York, and Boston,--all
attracted me in turn. Out of a number of twisted sticks, the manufacture of
a Tuscarora Indian, I selected one of curled maple, curiously convoluted,
and adorned with the carved images of a snake and a fish. Using this as my
pilgrim's staff, I crossed the bridge. Above and below me were the rapids,
a river of impetuous snow, with here and there a dark rock amid its
whiteness, resisting all the physical fury, as any cold spirit did the
moral influences of the scene. On reaching Goat Island, which separates the
two great segments of the falls, I chose the right-hand path, and followed
it to the edge of the American cascade. There, while the falling sheet was
yet invisible, I saw the vapor that never vanishes, and the Eternal Rainbow
of Niagara.

It was an afternoon of glorious sunshine, without a cloud, save those of
the cataracts. I gained an insulated rock, and beheld a broad sheet of
brilliant and unbroken foam, not shooting in a curbed line from the top of
the precipice, but falling, headlong down from height to depth. A narrow
stream diverged from the main branch, and hurried over the crag by a
channel of its own, leaving a little pine-clad island and a streak of
precipice between itself and the larger sheet. Below arose the mist, on
which was painted a dazzling sunbow with two concentric shadows,--one,
almost as perfect as the original brightness; and the other, drawn faintly
round the broken edge of the cloud.

Still I had not half seen Niagara. Following the verge of the island, the
path led me to the Horseshoe, where the real, broad St. Lawrence, rushing
along on a level with its banks, pours its whole breadth over a concave
line of precipice, and thence pursues its course between lofty crags
towards Ontario. A sort of bridge, two or three feet wide, stretches out
along the edge of the descending sheet, and hangs upon the rising mist, as
if that were the foundation of the frail structure. Here I stationed myself
in the blast of wind, which the rushing river bore along with it. The
bridge was tremulous beneath me, and marked the tremor of the solid earth.
I looked along the whitening rapids, and endeavored to distinguish a mass
of water far above the falls, to follow it to their verge, and go down with
it, in fancy, to the abyss of clouds and storm. Casting my eyes across the
river, and every side, I took in the whole scene at a glance, and tried to
comprehend it in one vast idea. After an hour thus spent, I left the
bridge, and by a staircase, winding almost interminably round a post,
descended to the base of the precipice. From that point, my path lay over
slippery stones, and among great fragments of the cliff, to the edge of the
cataract, where the wind at once enveloped me in spray, and perhaps dashed
the rainbow round me. Were my long desires fulfilled? And had I seen
Niagara?

Oh that I had never heard of Niagara till I beheld it! Blessed were the
wanderers of old, who heard its deep roar, sounding through the woods, as
the summons to an unknown wonder, and approached its awful brink, in all
the freshness of native feeling. Had its own mysterious voice been the
first to warn me of its existence, then, indeed, I might have knelt down
and worshipped. But I had come thither, haunted with a vision of foam and
fury, and dizzy cliffs, and an ocean tumbling down out of the sky,--a
scene, in short, which nature had too much good taste and calm simplicity
to realize. My mind had struggled to adapt these false conceptions to the
reality, and finding the effort vain, a wretched sense of disappointment
weighed me down. I climbed the precipice, and threw myself on the earth,
feeling that I was unworthy to look at the Great Falls, and careless about
beholding them again.

All that night, as there has been and will be for ages past and to come, a
rushing sound was heard, as if a great tempest were sweeping through the
air. It mingled with my dreams, and made them full of storm and whirlwind.
Whenever I awoke, and heard this dread sound in the air, and the windows
rattling as with a mighty blast, I could not rest again, till looking
forth, I saw how bright the stars were, and that every leaf in the garden
was motionless. Never was a summer night more calm to the eye, nor a gale
of autumn louder to the ear. The rushing sound proceeds from the rapids,
and the rattling of the casements is but an effect of the vibration of the
whole house, shaken by the jar of the cataract. The noise of the rapids
draws the attention from the true voice of Niagara, which is a dull,
muffled thunder, resounding between the cliffs. I spent a wakeful hour at
midnight, in distinguishing its reverberations, and rejoiced to find that
my former awe and enthusiasm were reviving.

Gradually, and after much contemplation, I came to know, by my own
feelings, that Niagara is indeed a wonder of the world, and not the less
wonderful, because time and thought must be employed in comprehending it.
Casting aside all preconceived notions, and preparation to be dire-struck
or delighted, the beholder must stand beside it in the simplicity of his
heart, suffering the mighty scene to work its own impression. Night after
night, I dreamed of it, and was gladdened every morning by the
consciousness of a growing capacity to enjoy it. Yet I will not pretend to
the all-absorbing enthusiasm of some more fortunate spectators, nor deny
that very trifling causes would draw my eyes and thoughts from the
cataract.

The last day that I was to spend at Niagara, before my departure for the
Far West, I sat upon the Table Rock. This celebrated station did not now,
as of old, project fifty feet beyond the line of the precipice, but was
shattered by the fall of an immense fragment, which lay distant on the
shore below. Still, on the utmost verge of the rock, with my feet hanging
over it, I felt as if suspended in the open air. Never before had my mind
been in such perfect unison with the scene. There were intervals, when I
was conscious of nothing but the great river, lolling calmly into the
abyss, rather descending than precipitating itself, and acquiring tenfold
majesty from its unhurried motion. It came like the march of Destiny. It
was not taken by surprise, but seemed to have anticipated, in all its
course through the broad lakes, that it must pour their collected waters
down this height. The perfect foam of the river, after its descent, and the
ever-varying shapes of mist, rising up, to become clouds in the sky, would
be the very picture of confusion, were it merely transient, like the rage
of a tempest. But when the beholder has stood awhile, and perceives no lull
in the storm, and considers that the vapor and the foam are as everlasting
as the rocks which produce them, all this turmoil assumes a sort of
calmness. It soothes, while it awes the mind.

Leaning over the cliff, I saw the guide conducting two adventurers behind
the falls. It was pleasant, from that high seat in the sunshine, to observe
them struggling against the eternal storm of the lower regions, with heads
bent down, now faltering, now pressing forward, and finally swallowed up in
their victory. After their disappearance, a blast rushed out with an old
hat, which it had swept from one of their heads. The rock, to which they
were directing their unseen course, is marked, at a fearful distance on the
exterior of the sheet, by a jet of foam. The attempt to reach it appears
both poetical and perilous to a looker-on, but may be accomplished without
much more difficulty or hazard than in stemming a violent northeaster. In a
few moments, forth came the children of the mist. Dripping and breathless,
they crept along the base of the cliff, ascended to the guide's cottage,
and received, I presume, a certificate of their achievement, with three
verses of sublime poetry on the back.

My contemplations were often interrupted by strangers who came down from
Forsyth's to take their first view of the falls. A short, ruddy,
middle-aged gentleman, fresh from Old England, peeped over the rock, and
evinced his approbation by a broad grin. His spouse, a very robust lady,
afforded a sweet example of maternal solicitude, being so intent on the
safety of her little boy that she did not even glance at Niagara. As for
the child,--he gave himself wholly to the enjoyment of a stick of candy.
Another traveller, a native American, and no rare character among us,
produced a volume of Captain Hall's tour, and labored earnestly to adjust
Niagara to the captain's description, departing, at last, without one new
idea or sensation of his own. The next comer was provided, not with a
printed book, but with a blank sheet of foolscap, from top to bottom of
which, by means of an ever-pointed pencil, the cataract was made to
thunder. In a little talk which we had together, he awarded his approbation
to the general view, but censured the position of Goat Island, observing
that it should have been thrown farther to the right, so as to widen the
American falls, and contract those of the Horseshoe. Next appeared two
traders of Michigan, who declared, that, upon the whole, the sight was
worth looking at; there certainly was an immense water-power here; but
that, after all, they would go twice as far to see the noble stone-works of
Lockport, where the Grand Canal is locked down a descent of sixty feet.
They were succeeded by a young fellow, in a homespun cotton dress, with a
staff in his hand, and a pack over his shoulders. He advanced close to the
edge of the rock, where his attention, at first wavering among the
different components of the scene, finally became fixed in the angle of the
Horseshoe falls, which is, indeed the central point of interest. His whole
soul seemed to go forth and be transported thither, till the staff slipped
from his relaxed grasp, and falling down--down--down--struck upon the
fragment of the Table Rock.

In this manner I spent some hours, watching the varied impression, made by
the cataract, on those who disturbed me, and returning to unwearied
contemplation, when left alone. At length my time came to depart. There is
a grassy footpath through the woods, along the summit of the bank, to a
point whence a causeway, hewn in the side of the precipice, goes winding
down to the Ferry, about half a mile below the Table Rock. The sun was near
setting, when I emerged from the shadow of the trees, and began the
descent. The indirectness of my downward road continually changed the point
of view, and showed me, in rich and repeated succession, now, the whitening
rapids and majestic leap of the main river, which appeared more deeply
massive as the light departed; now, the lovelier picture, yet still
sublime, of Goat Island, with its rocks and grove, and the lesser falls,
tumbling over the right bank of the St. Lawrence, like a tributary stream;
now, the long vista of the river, as it eddied and whirled between the
cliffs, to pass through Ontario toward the sea, and everywhere to be
wondered at, for this one unrivalled scene. The golden sunshine tinged the
sheet of the American cascade, and painted on its heaving spray the broken
semi-circle of a rainbow, heaven's own beauty crowning earth's sublimity.
My steps were slow, and I paused long at every turn of the descent, as one
lingers and pauses who discerns a brighter and brightening excellence in
what he must soon behold no more. The solitude of the old wilderness now
reigned over the whole vicinity of the falls. My enjoyment became the more
rapturous, because no poet shared it, nor wretch devoid of poetry profaned
it; but the spot so famous through the world was all my own!


HELPS TO STUDY.

Notes and Questions.

Why was Hawthorne's first impression of Niagara a disappointment?

How did Hawthorne come to know that Niagara is a wonder of the world?

What feelings did Niagara produce in Hawthorne?

What effect on the reader did Hawthorne seek in this story?

What does Hawthorne say is necessary in order to appreciate nature?

What relation has Niagara to the geography of the country, its animal and
vegetable life, its trade and industry?

What is the effect on one's feelings when he "considers that the vapor and
the foam are as everlasting as the rocks which produce them"?

Niagara _grew_ on Hawthorne. Justify this.

Note the comments of other observers based upon their interpretation of
Niagara.

Do you think one who sees nothing in Niagara except a mass of rock and
water, vapor and sunshine, could appreciate its beauty, grandeur, and
sublimity?


Words and Phrases for Discussion.

"insulated"
"rapturous"
"abyss of clouds"
"eddied and whirled"
"epicurism"
"convoluted"
"voice of ages"
"mysterious voice"
"unrivaled scene"
"Eternal Rainbow"
"majestic leap"

* * * * *


EDGAR ALLAN POE

So irregular was the life of Edgar Allan Poe and so strong were the
prejudices of his critics that not only his character and habits of life,
but even the simplest facts of his biography, are surrounded with mystery
and are subjects of doubt and dispute.

By everything, but the accident of birth, Poe belongs to the South. His
father was from Baltimore and his mother was of English birth. They were
both members of a theatrical company playing in Boston at the time of Poe's
birth, January 19, 1809. At the age of three he was left an orphan by the
death of his mother. A wealthy Scotchman of Virginia, Mr. John Allan,
adopted him and brought him up in luxury--a much spoiled child, everywhere
petted for his beauty and precocity.

He was sent to school in a suburb of London and upon his return to America
entered the University of Virginia, a proud, reserved, and self-willed
youth. Here he led an irregular life, so that Mr. Allan was forced to
withdraw him from school and gave him work in his office. The routine of
office work was very distasteful to Poe and he ran away to Boston, where he
published his first volume of poems. Here he enlisted in the army, but when
Mr. Allan heard of his whereabouts he secured his discharge and obtained an
appointment for him, as a cadet, at West Point. The severe discipline of
that school proved irksome to his restless nature and after a few months he
brought upon himself his dismissal. At the age of twenty-two he found
himself adrift with nothing further to expect from Mr. Allan.

Copyright (c) 2007. topboookz.com. All rights reserved.