Ewe people

“ Ewing felt his woman-given courage leaving him at this attack, or rather at this lack of attack. He had been prepared to have his friend exhibit doubt, disbelief, chagrin—anything that would still show an undiminished esteem. But the intimate note had gone from Teevan's speech. He talked at large as Ewing had heard him talk to roomfuls of people.
"Ah, yes, the vitality of error. Give the world a lie about soup or souls, and you'll not soon worry that lie away. It's clutched with a bulldog jaw. Say good soup is common—God-fearing Christians echo the lie. ”

“ The girls were busy in the kitchen or turning the mill-wheel.
“We have had luck on our side,” said Two-Legs to his wife. “Everything thrives and grows under our hands. And our children will do better than we and their children better still. I hardly dare picture the power and glory which our race may yet achieve.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Two-Legs. “Things are going well with us. Remind me to strew a little corn for the sparrows, when the bad times come.” ”

“ The influence of schoolbooks is far reaching and goes beyond national boundaries and generation shift. For example, the reconstruction of human history in terms of Ewe worldwide migrations is shared by Togolese Ewes who produced a video summarising the creation and migration narrative of the Ewe, similar to the narrative offered in the interview presented here. ”

“ And yet Roy Ewing, who hasn’t been any further than high school, tells me I’d better submit to all this without protest. Yet he stands for the best there is here in Central City, and I suppose he represents the most liberal thought of the South. How’s it all going to end? Even a rat will fight when he’s cornered, and these coloured people aren’t going to stand for these things all the time. ”

“ Thus Eva pursued her advantage with that fluent ability with which a pretty young woman at her own [Pg 157] fireside always gets the best of the argument. Mr. St. John, attacked on the weak side of conscientiousness, was obliged at last to admit that to spend an evening with agreeable, cultivated, well-dressed people might be occasionally as much a shepherd's duty as to sit in the close, ill-smelling rooms of poverty and listen to the croonings and maunderings of the ill-educated, improvident, and foolish, who make so large a proportion of the less fortunate classes of society. ”

“ Men think of nothing nowadays but themselves and their position.
Evje (to himself) . No, no-that wouldn't do. What would people say? They would only say I was badly hit by this.
Halvdan (half to himself) . A Christian nation, thinking of nothing but its own interests—that is to say, power! Equality and Liberty have no meaning for it. Haakon, it surely will be bliss for a wounded soul to be taken into the Everlasting Love, high above all this so-called Christianity of the world! For my soul is sorely wounded!
Evje (to himself ) . ”

“ Slowly the pencil slipped from his fingers, and the slate followed it into the sand. For a while he lay motionless, then began muttering to himself, folded his little arms, laid his head down upon them, and might have been asleep, but for the muttering sound that from time to time proceeded from him. A curious old ewe came to sniff at him; but it was long before he raised his head. When he did, he looked at the far-off hills with his heavy eyes.
“Ye shall receive—ye shall receive—shall, shall, shall,” he muttered. ”

“ But God answered, "Eve, thou dost not understand. It is right and necessary that the entire world should be supplied from thy children; if they were all princes and lords, who would grow corn, thresh it, grind and bake it? Who would be blacksmiths, weavers, carpenters, masons, labourers, tailors and seamstresses? Each shall have his own place, so that one shall support the other, and all shall be fed like the limbs of one body." Then Eve answered, "Ah, Lord, forgive me, I was too quick in speaking to thee. Have thy divine will with my children." ”

“ But in this new and delightful atmosphere Eva could afford to laugh at her fancies. There were so many pleasant things to be done, and as the sun rose that vast, smiling country unfolded around her with a suggestion of spaciousness and warmth and leisure. A land of infinite promise in which the very simplicity of life’s demands should make one immune from the menace of discontent: where, for a little labour, the rich soil should give great recompense. ”

“ Image by Felix Ameka and Daniela Merolla, 2012. Although the aim of the Ewe creation and migration story aired on the Supreme Master Television is unclear, the video appears to assert the centrality of Ewe cosmology and religious/philosophical knowledge in human global history. As in a paper by the interviewee (Datey-Kumodzie 2006) , the Ewe/African local knowledge foundation is seen as being central to new technical and spiritual developments in Africa. One wonders whether they do not have the same agenda and whether Dr. ”

“ Harvard man, half-back, old New York family, named Van-Something or other; unhappy love affair; tries ranch life; fearless rider, dead shot 'six feet of clean-limbed, virile young manhood,' is the approved phrase for him. He's a beautiful thing—his man keeps his chaps pressed, and he never is seen needing a shave——"
Ewing grinned appreciatively.
"Girl comes out from New York," continued Piersoll—"the girl, with her fierce aunt—home on north side of Washington Square. I'm going to do an article on the story people who've had fine old homes on the north side of Washington Square—thousands! ”

“ Human beings, that’s what Two-Legs’ confounded descendants call themselves. They have subdued the whole earth. There is hardly a place left where an honest lion can go hunting in royal style. I know the whole story: it has been handed down in my house, from father to son. I heard it all, the night before I was captured, in the desert to which the men had driven us: how Two-Legs and his wife came naked and unarmed to the forest; how my ancestor protected them; how they gradually outwitted all the animals: you alone entered their service of your own free will. ”

“ I said, "do you know I believe your people will all go free?"
And his large, honest eyes opened widely, as he said:
"'Way down in yer, I feel sometimes like I see freedom comin' right down on de wings of a savin' angel, and den I sings down in dat yer grown' room, Miss; I sings dat ole cabin-meetin' song, 'Jes' lemme get on my long white robe, and ride in dat golden chariot in de mornin' right straight to New Je-ru-sa-lem.' 'Pears like I get great notions, Miss Emily."
"The Lord will hear you as well as me, Matthias, and some day slavery will die. ”

“ King Eyo is anxious for the civilization of his people and the cultivation of his country, but he has had no one to teach them anything of the latter, and so the fruitful soil of his dominion lies unproductive, save in the one material of palm oil. Those who agree with me in thinking Christianity and civilization to be cause and effect in Africa, as they are all over the world, will rejoice to hear that he has given every countenance and assistance to the body of Presbyterian missionaries settled at Old Kalabar. ”

“ The thought of those friendly men knowing his degradation was another stone on the grave of his self-esteem. It was this that made him wait when the others had gone one night, to take down that first crucified drawing from the wall where it had remained, torn and hanging by one tack.
"Will you give it to me?" said a voice, and, as he did not care one way or the other, the spectacled young man put it in his portfolio. Afterwards Ewing thought of asking him why he wanted it, but he did not come back again. He had been advanced to the life class. ”

“ He found it at last, one wherein the God of Israel thunders, not without humor, against the foes of His chosen tribe.
"I will send a faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth." He chuckled delightedly as he read it, and wiped tears of mirth from his eyes.
So it befell that Ewing forsook the beaten road of minor achievement that winter, and labored toward the far, high peaks. In his own phrase, the trail was rough and blind. ”

“ Teevan's eyes glistened now, and he held out a hand to Ewing.
"Ah—you give me hope. Bravo!"
"Then you do believe in me; you think I have it in me?"
"Power? Yes; I've seen that. I judge men rather accurately. But I saw that you'd be tempted to rest. The more power, the greater the temptation. It's not so hard to fast in a desert—the less gifted man is less tempted. But to fast with plenty at hand for the reaching, and fair women to counsel content—to refuse apples and flagons, waiting for the ultimate jewel—that takes a man. ”

“ I felt glad that I could sometimes come so near to Clara's thoughts. I was greatly wrought upon by Matthias' tales of the South; and yet he venerated the people of that country, and said: [Pg 124]
"The Northerners are too cold-blooded: they didn't invite folks to have a bite without first feelin' in their pockets to see if they could find money there." ”

“ I might not jest or laugh or move a finger without first looking around the corner. I went hampered among free men. I tell you it is a hard thing to live in a world that has no trifles....
Still, exposed or guarded, I had my life to live, and I was no longer disposed in the matter of this intimacy with Miss Levey to do nothing at all. Therefore, when I returned from seeing Aunt Angela away and found Evie still in the dining-room, I took my risk. ”

“ The vision of Ewing as he had passed glowed before her shut eyes, the active, square-shouldered, slender figure, garbed in a decently fitting suit of gray (she was glad to remember that) , the quick eyes, ardent for life, the thinned, brown face, the usual buoyance held down to an easy self-possession that was new to her, the wild, reliant expectancy of a boy tempered all at once by some heritage of insight. Outwardly, at least, he would fit his new life. So reflecting, she dozed on the look of the man in his eyes, and dreamed that she feared this and fled. ”

“ From his stand on the hearth rug he jauntily usurped the talk, winging his way down the world stream of gossip from capital to capital. Circuitous, indeed, was his approach to art; an anecdote of studio life in Paris; a criticism of Rodin, "Whitman in marble;" the vigor of our native art impulse, only now learning to withdraw a slavish deference from the French schools. "And you—Mr.—Ah, yes—Ewing, to be sure—our amiable and rotund host [95] tells me that you are to be a warrior in this fray of brush and chisel. ”

“ At length the messenger looked up, and pushed his wooden platter aside.
“I have come to be the bearer of good tidings to you, noble thane. Edwy, your king, with a small troop of horse, his royal retinue, proposes honouring your roof with his presence, and asks bed and board of his loyal subject, Ella of Æscendune.”
“The king’s will is my law; and since it pleases the son of my late beloved master, King Edmund, to visit me, he shall find no lack of hospitality. But may I ask what sudden event has brought him into the heart of our country?”
“He comes to chastise rebellion. ”

“ She had found good will everywhere, but all had withheld any positive promise. It was so easy to retreat behind the high-sounding words “justice and law,” and then: who for the sake of a squire—who, moreover, was in the service of a foreign knight—would awaken the righteous indignation of the artisans, who made the tailor’s cause their own.
Whatever the aunt and niece tried had failed either wholly or partially. Besides, Eva had been obliged to keep in the background in order not to expose herself to the suspicion of pleading her own cause. ”

“ Its hangings are dingy, its plenteous gilt is tarnished; and it seems to live on memories of a past when fashion splendidly thronged its corridors. But peace lies beyond the gloom of its portals, and Ewing was glad to be housed from the dazing tumult outside. ”

“ Are we not man and wife? Have we not ever been faithful to each other?”
“But this dreadful Church, my Edwy, which crushes men’s affections and rules their intellects with a giant’s strength more fearful than the fabled hammer of Thor. It crushed the sweet mythology of old, with all that ministered to love, and substituted the shaveling, the nun, the monk; it has no sympathy with poor hearts like ours; it is remorseless, as though it never knew pity or fear. You must yield, my Edwy! we must yield!”
“I cannot,” he said; “we will fly the throne together.” ”

“ It was impossible to conceive a limit to the power of a thing that could hold so tight. But in due time the Peas became large and round and black, and the Pod got yellow and shrunken, and was thoroughly despised.
"It is time we left the nursery," said the brothers. "Where shall we go to, when we enter the world?" they inquired of the mother plant.
"You will fall on the ground," said she, "in the south border, where we now are. The soil is good, and the situation favourable. ”

“ Ewing listened, yet with eager eyes for the people at other tables about them. These men and women captivated him by their suggestions of mystery—characters in the play he was forever beholding—curious-looking men whose faces suggested lives of dramatic tension; beautiful women, splendidly arrayed, with much of mystery and something of daring in their animation. ”

“ On the one hand, the arts of life, like Minerva, who was struck out of the intellectual being of her father at a blow, have started full-grown into existence, as the legitimate inheritance of the colonists, while, on the other, every thing tends towards settling down into a medium, as regards quality, a consequence of the community-character of the institutions. Every thing she had seen that day, had struck Eve as partaking of this mixed nature, in which, while nothing was vulgar, little even approached to that high standard, that her European education had taught her to esteem perfect. ”