Ruth Edna Kelley - "The Book of Hallowe'en"

George Mueller - "A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller"

Lewis Falley Allen - "Rural Architecture"

Moliere (Poquelin) - "The Magnificent Lovers"

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.

Recollections of Europe

J >> J. Fenimore Cooper >> Recollections of Europe




Speaking of the Duke of Bordeaux, reminds me of an odd, and, indeed, in
some degree a painful scene, of which I was accidentally a witness, a
short time before the ceremony just mentioned. The _emigres_ have
brought back with them into France a taste for horse-racing, and,
supported by a few of the English who are here, there are regular races,
spring and autumn, in the Champs de Mars. The course is one of the
finest imaginable, being more than a mile in circumference, and
surrounded by mounds of earth, raised expressly with that object, which
permit the spectators to overlook the entire field. The result is a
species of amphitheatric arena, in which any of the dramatic
exhibitions, that are so pleasing to this spectacle-loving nation, may
be enacted. Pavilions are permanently erected at the starting-post, and
one or two of these are usually fitted up for the use of the court,
whenever it is the pleasure of the royal family to attend, as was the
case at the time the little occurrence I am about to relate took place.

On this occasion Charles X. came in royal state, from St. Cloud,
accompanied by detachments of his guards, many carriages, several of
which were drawn by eight horses, and a cloud of mounted footmen. Most
of the dignitaries of the kingdom were present, in the different
pavilions, or stands, and nearly or quite all the ministers, together
with the whole diplomatic corps. There could not have been less than a
hundred thousand spectators on the mounds.

The racing itself was no great matter, being neither within time nor
well contested. The horses were all French, the trial being intended for
the encouragement of the French breeders, and the sports were yet too
recent to have produced much influence on the stock of the country.
During the heats, accompanied by a young American friend, I had strolled
among the royal equipages, in order to examine their magnificence, and
returning towards the course, we came out unexpectedly at a little open
space, immediately at one end of the pavilion in which the royal family
was seated. There were not a dozen people near us, and one of these was
a sturdy Englishman, evidently a tradesman, who betrayed a keen and a
truly national desire to get a look at the king. The head of a little
girl was just visible above the side of the pavilion, and my companion,
who, by a singular accident, not long before, had been thrown into
company with _les enfans de France_, as the royal children are called,
informed me that it was Mademoiselle d'Artois, the sister of the heir
presumptive. He had given me a favourable account of the children, whom
he represented as both lively and intelligent, and I changed my position
a little, to get a better look of the face of this little personage, who
was not twenty feet from the spot where we stood. My movement attracted
her attention; and, after looking down a moment into the small area in
which we were enclosed, she disappeared. Presently a lady looked over
the balustrade, and our Englishman seemed to be on tenter-hooks. Some
thirty or forty French gathered round us immediately, and I presume it
was thought none but loyal subjects could manifest so much desire to
gaze at the family, especially as one or two of the French clapped the
little princess, whose head now appeared and disappeared again, as if
she were earnestly pressing something on the attention of those within
the pavilion. In a moment the form of a pale and sickly-looking boy was
seen, the little girl, who was a year or two older, keeping her place at
his side. The boy was raised on the knee of a melancholy-looking and
rather hard-featured female of fifty, who removed his straw hat in order
to salute us. "These are the Dauphine and the Duc de Bordeaux,"
whispered my companion, who knew the person of the former by sight. The
Dauphine looked anxiously, and I thought mournfully, at the little
cluster we formed directly before her, as if waiting to observe in what
manner her nephew would be received. Of course my friend and myself, who
were in the foreground, stood uncovered; as gentlemen we could not do
less, nor as _foreign_ gentlemen could we very well do more. Not a
Frenchman, however, even touched his hat! On the other hand, the
Englishman straddled his legs, gave a wide sweep with his beaver, and
uttered as hearty a hurrah as if he had been cheering a member of
parliament who gave gin in his beer. The effect of this single,
unaccompanied, unanswered cheer, was both ludicrous and painful. The
poor fellow himself seemed startled at hearing his own voice amid so
profound a stillness, and checking his zeal as unexpectedly as he had
commenced its exhibition, he looked furiously around him and walked
surlily away. The Dauphine followed him with her eyes. There was no
mistaking his gaitered limbs, dogged mien, and florid countenance; be
clearly was not French, and those that were, as clearly turned his
enthusiasm into ridicule. I felt sorry for her, as, with a saddened
face, she set down the boy, and withdrew her own head within the
covering of the pavilion. The little Mademoiselle d'Artois kept her
bright looks, in a sort of wonder, on us, until the circumspection of
those around her, gave her a hint to disappear.

This was the first direct and near view I got of the true state of
popular feeling in Paris towards the reigning family. According to the
journals in the interest of the court, enthusiasm was invariably
exhibited whenever any of their princes appeared in public; but the
journals in every country, our own dear and shrewd republic not
excepted, are very unsafe guides for those who desire truth.

I am told that the style of this court has been materially altered, and
perhaps improved, by the impetuous character of Napoleon. The king
rarely appears in public with less than eight horses, which are usually
in a foam. His liveries are not showy, neither are the carriages as neat
and elegant as one would expect. The former are blue and white, with a
few slight ornaments of white and red lace, and the vehicles are showy,
large and even magnificent, but, I think, without good taste. You will
be surprised to hear that he drives with what in America we call "Dutch
collars." Six of the horses are held in hand, and the leaders are
managed by a postilion. There is always one or more empty carriages,
according to the number of the royal personages present, equipped in
every respect like those which are filled, and which are held in reserve
against accidents; a provision, by the way, that is not at all
unreasonable in those who scamper over the broken pavements, in and
about Paris, as fast as leg can be put to the ground.

Notwithstanding the present magnificence of the court, royalty is shorn
of much of its splendour in France, since the days of Louis XVI. Then a
city of a hundred thousand souls (Versailles) was a mere dependant of
the crown; lodgings for many hundred _abbes_, it is said, were provided
in the palace alone, and a simple representation at the palace opera
cost a fortune.

It is not an easy matter to come at the real cost of the kingly office
in this country, all the expenditures of the European governments being
mystified in such a way, as to require a very intimate knowledge of the
details to give a perfectly clear account of them. But, so far as I have
been able to ascertain, the charges that arise from this feature of the
system do not fall much short, if indeed they do any, of eight millions
of dollars annually. Out of this sum, however, the king pays the extra
allowances of his guards, the war office taking the same view of all
classes of soldiers, after distinguishing between foot and cavalry. You
will get an idea of the luxury of royalty by a short account of the
_gardes du corps_. These troops are all officers, the privates having
the rank and receiving the pay of lieutenants. Their duty, as the name
implies, is to have the royal person in their especial care, and there
is always a guard of them in an ante-chamber of the royal apartments.
They are heavy cavalry, and when they mount guard in the palaces, their
arm is a carabine. A party of them always appear near the carriage of
the king, or indeed near that of any of the reigning branch of the
family. There are said to be four regiments or companies of them, of
four hundred men each; but it strikes me the number must be exaggerated.
I should think, however, that there are fully a thousand of them. In
addition to these selected troops, there are three hundred Swiss, of the
Swiss and royal guards; of the latter, including all arms, there must be
many thousands. These are the troops that usually mount guard in and
about all the palaces. The annual budget of France appears in the
estimates at about a _milliard_, or a thousand millions of francs; but
the usual mystifications are resorted to, and the truth will give the
annual central expenses of the country at not less, I think, than two
hundred millions of dollars. This sum, however, covers many items of
expenditure, that we are accustomed to consider purely local. The
clergy, for instance, are paid out of it, as is a portion of the cost of
maintaining the roads. On the other hand, much money is collected, as a
general regulation, that does not appear in the budget. Few or no
churches are built, and there are charges for masses, interments,
christenings, and fees for a hundred things, of which no account is
taken in making out the sum total of the cost of government.

It was the policy of Napoleon to create a system of centralization, that
should cause everything to emanate from himself. The whole organization
of government had this end in view, and all the details of the
departments have been framed expressly to further this object. The
prefects are no more than so many political _aides_, whose duty it is to
carry into effect the orders that emanate from the great head, and lines
of telegraphs are established all over France, in such a way that a
communication may be sent from the Tuileries, to the remotest corner of
the kingdom, in the course of a few hours. It has been said that one of
the first steps towards effecting a revolution, ought to be to seize the
telegraphs at Paris, by means of which such information and orders could
be sent into the provinces, as the emergency might seem to require.

This system of centralization has almost neutralized the advancement of
the nation, in a knowledge of the usages and objects of the political
liberty that the French have obtained, by bitter experience, from other
sources. It is the constant aim of that portion of the community which
understands the action of free institutions, to increase the powers of
the municipalities, and to lessen the functions of the central
government; but their efforts are resisted with a jealous distrust of
everything like popular dictation. Their municipal privileges are,
rightly enough, thought to be the entering wedges of real liberty. The
people ought to manage their own affairs, just as far as they can do so
without sacrificing their interests for want of a proper care, and here
is the starting point of representation. So far from France enjoying
such a system, however, half the time a bell cannot be hung in a parish
church, or a bridge repaired, without communications with and orders
from Paris.




LETTER VI.

Letters of Introduction.--European Etiquette.--Diplomatic Entertainments.
--Ladies in Coffee-houses.--French Hospitality.--Mr. Canning at Paris.
--Parisian Hotels.--French Lady at Washington.--Receptions in Paris
and in New York.--Mode of Announcement.--Republican Affectation.
--Hotel Monaco.--Dinner given to Mr. Canning.--Diplomatic Etiquette.
--European Ambassadors.--Prime Minister of France.--Mr. Canning.
--Count Pozzo di Borgo.--Precedency at Dinner.--American Etiquette.
--A French Dinner.--Servants.--Catholic Fasting.--Conversation with
Canning.--English Prejudice against Americans.


To MRS. POMEROY, COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK.

I quitted America with some twenty letters of introduction, that had
been pressed upon me by different friends, but which were carefully
locked up in a secretary, where they still remain, and are likely to
remain for ever, or until they are destroyed. As this may appear a
singular resolution for one who left his own country to be absent for
years, I shall endeavour to explain it. In the first place, I have a
strong repugnance to pushing myself on the acquaintance of any man: this
feeling may, in fact, proceed from pride, but I have a disposition to
believe that it proceeds, in part, also from a better motive. These
letters of introduction, like verbal introductions, are so much abused
in America, that the latter feeling, perhaps I might say both feelings,
are increased by the fact. Of all the people in the world we are the
most prodigal of these favours, when self-respect and propriety would
teach us we ought to be among the most reserved, simply because the
character of the nation is so low, that the European, more than half the
time, fancies he is condescending when he bestows attentions on our
people at all. Other travellers may give you a different account of the
matter, but let every one be responsible for his own opinions and facts.
Then a friend who, just as we left home, returned from Europe after an
absence of five years, assured me that he found his letters of but
little use; that nearly every agreeable acquaintance he made was the
result of accident, and that the Europeans in general were much more
cautious in giving and receiving letters of this nature than ourselves.

The usages of all Europe, those of the English excepted, differ from our
own on the subject of visits. There the stranger, or the latest arrival,
is expected to make the first visit, and an inquiry for your address is
always taken for an intimation that your acquaintance would be
acceptable. Many, perhaps most Americans, lose a great deal through
their provincial breeding, in this respect, in waiting for attentions
that it is their duty to invite, by putting themselves in the way of
receiving them. The European usage is not only the most rational, but it
is the most delicate. It is the most rational, as there is a manifest
absurdity in supposing, for instance, that the inhabitant of a town is
to know whenever a visitor from the country arrives; and it is the most
delicate, as it leaves the newcomer, who is supposed to know his own
wishes best, to decide for himself whether he wishes to make
acquaintances or not. In short, our own practices are provincial and
rustic, and cannot exist when the society of the country shall have
taken the usual phases of an advanced civilization. Even in England, in
the higher classes, the cases of distinguished men excepted, it is usual
for the stranger to seek the introduction.

Under such circumstances, coupled with the utter insignificance of an
ordinary individual in a town like Paris, you will easily understand
that we had the first months of our residence entirely to ourselves. As
a matter of course, we called on our own minister and his wife; and, as
a matter of course, we have been included in the dinners and parties
that they are accustomed to give at this season of the year. This,
however, has merely brought us in contact with a chance-medley of our
own countrymen, these diplomatic entertainments being quite obviously a
matter of accident, so far as the set is concerned. The dinners of your
banker, however, are still worse, since with them the visiting-list is
usually a mere extract from the ledger.

Our privacy has not been without its advantages. It has enabled us to
visit all the visible objects without the incumbrance of engagements, and
given me leisure to note and to comment on things that might otherwise
have been overlooked. For several months we have had nothing to do but to
see sights, get familiarized with a situation that, at first, we found
singularly novel, and to brush up our French.

I never had sufficient faith in the popular accounts of the usages of
other countries, to believe one-half of what I have heard. I distrusted
from the first the fact of ladies--I mean real, _bona fide_ ladies, women
of sentiment, delicacy, taste, and condition--frequenting public
eating-houses, and habitually living, without the retirement and reserve
that is so necessary to all _women_, not to say _men_, of the _caste_. I
found it difficult, therefore, to imagine I should meet with many females
of condition in _restaurans_ and _cafes_. Such a thing might happen on an
emergency, but it was assailing too much all those feelings and tastes
which become inherent in refinement, to suppose that the tables of even
the best house of the sort in Paris could be honoured by the presence of
such persons, except under particular circumstances. My own observation
corroborated this opinion, and, in order to make sure of the fact, I have
put the question to nearly every Frenchwoman of rank it has since been my
good fortune to become sufficiently acquainted with to take the liberty.
The answer has been uniform. Such things are sometimes done, but rarely;
and even then it is usual to have the service in a private room. One old
lady, a woman perfectly competent to decide on such a point, told me
frankly:--"We never do it, except by way of a frolic, or when in a humour
which induces people to do many other silly and unbecoming things. Why
should we go to the _restaurateurs_ to eat? We have our own houses and
servants as well as the English, or even you Americans"--it may be
supposed I laughed--"and certainly the French are not so devoid of good
taste as not to understand that the mixed society of a public-house is
not the best possible company for a woman."

It is, moreover, a great mistake to imagine that the French are not
hospitable, and that they do not entertain as freely, and as often, as
any other people. The only difference between them and the English, in
this respect, or between them and ourselves, is in the better taste and
ease which regulate their intercourse of this nature. While there is a
great deal of true elegance, there is no fuss, at a French
entertainment; and all that you have heard of the superiority of the
kitchen in this country, is certainly true. Society is divided into
_castes_ in Paris, as it is everywhere else; and the degrees of elegance
and refinement increase as one ascends as a matter of course; but there
is less of effort, in every class, than is usual with us. One of the
best-bred Englishmen of my acquaintance, and one, too, who had long been
in the world, has frankly admitted to me, that the highest tone of
English society is merely an imitation of that which existed in Paris
previously to the revolution, and of which, though modified as to usages
and forms, a good deal still remains. By the highest tone, however, you
are not to suppose I mean that laboured, frigid, heartless manner that
so many, in England especially, mistake for high breeding, merely
because they do not know how to unite with the finish which constant
intercourse with the world creates, the graceful semblance of living
less for one's self than for others, and to express, as it were, their
feelings and wishes, rather than to permit one's own to escape him--a
habit that, like the reflection of a mirror, produces the truest and
most pleasing images, when thrown back from surfaces the most highly
polished. But I am anticipating rather than giving you a history of what
I have seen.

In consequence of our not having brought any letters, as has just been
mentioned, and of not having sought society, no one gave themselves any
trouble on our account for the first three or four months of our
residence in Paris. At the end of that period, however, I made my
_debut_ at, probably, as brilliant an entertainment as one usually sees
here in the course of a whole winter. Mr. Canning, then Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, came to Paris on a visit, and, as is usual on
such occasions, diplomacy was a good deal mixed up with eating and
drinking. Report says, that the etiquette of the court was a good deal
deranged by this visit, the Bourbons not having adopted the hale-fellow
hospitality of the English kings. M. de Villele or M. de Damas would be
invited to dine at Windsor almost as a matter of course; but the
descendant of Hugh Capet hesitated about breaking bread with an English
commoner. The matter is understood to have been gotten over, by giving
the entertainment at St. Cloud, where, it would seem, the royal person
has fewer immunities than at the Tuileries. But, among other attentions
that were bestowed on the English statesman, Mr. Brown determined to
give him a great diplomatic dinner; and our own legations having a great
poverty of subordinates, except in the way of travelling _attaches_, I
was invited to occupy one end of the table, while the regular secretary
took his seat at the other. Before I attempt a short description of this
entertainment, it may help to enliven the solitude of your mountain
residence, and serve to give you more distinct ideas of the matter than
can be obtained from novels, if I commence with a summary of the
appliances and modes of polite intercourse in this part of the world, as
they are to be distinguished from our own.

In the first place, you are to discard from your mind all images of two
rooms and folding-doors, with a passage six feet wide, a narrow carpeted
flight of steps, and a bed-room prepared for the ladies to uncloak in,
and another in which the men can brush their hair and hide their hats.
Some such snuggeries very possibly exist in England, among the middling
classes; but I believe all over the continent of Europe style is never
attempted without more suitable means to carry out the intention.

In Paris, every one who mingles with the world lives in an hotel, or a
house that has a court and an outer gate. Usually the building surrounds
three sides of this court, and sometimes the whole four; though small
hotels are to be found, in which the court is encircled on two, or even
on three of its sides, merely by high walls. The gate is always in the
keeping of a regular porter, who is an important personage about the
establishment, taking in letters, tickets, etc., ejecting blackguards
and all other suspicious persons, carrying messages, besides levying
contributions on all the inmates of the house, in the way of wood and
coal. In short, he is in some measure, held to be responsible for the
exits and entrances, being a sort of domestic gendarme. In the larger
hotels there are two courts, the great and _la basse cour_, the latter
being connected with the offices and stables.

Of course, these hotels vary in size and magnificence. Some are not
larger than our own largest town dwellings, while others, again, are
palaces. As these buildings were originally constructed to lodge a
single establishment, they have their principal and their inferior
apartments; some have their summer and their winter apartments. As is,
and always must be the case, where everything like state and
magnificence are affected, the reception-rooms are en suite; the mode of
building which prevails in America, being derived from the secondary
class of English houses. It is true, that in London, many men of rank,
perhaps of the nobility, do not live in houses any larger, or much
better, than the best of our own; though I think, that one oftener sees
rooms of a good size and proper elevation, even in these dwellings, than
it is usual to see in America. But the great houses of London, such as
Burlington-house, Northumberland-house, Devonshire-house,
Lansdown-house, Sutherland-house (the most magnificent of all) etc. are,
more or less, on the continental plan, though not generally built around
courts. This plan eschews passages of all descriptions, except among the
private parts of the dwelling. In this respect, an American house is the
very opposite of a European house. We are nothing without passages, it
being indispensable that every room should open on one; whereas, here
the great point is to have as little to do with them as possible. Thus
you quit the great staircase by a principal door, and find yourself in
an ante-chamber; this communicates with one or two more rooms of the
same character, gradually improving in ornaments and fixtures, until you
enter a _salon_. Then comes a succession of apartments, of greater or
less magnificence, according to circumstances until you are led entirely
round the edifice, quitting it by a door on the great staircase again,
opposite to the one by which you entered. In those cases in which there
are courts, the principal rooms are ranged in this manner, _en suite_,
on the exterior range, usually looking out on the gardens, while those
within them, which look into the court, contain the bed-rooms, boudoir,
eating-rooms, and perhaps the library. So tenacious are those, who lay
any claim to gentility here, of the use of the ante-chambers, that I
scarcely recollect a lodging of any sort, beyond the solitary chamber of
some student, without, at least, one. They seem indispensable, and I
think rightly, to all ideas of style, or even of comfort. I remember to
have seen an amusing instance of the strength of this feeling in the
case of the wife of a former French minister, at Washington. The
building she inhabited was one of the ordinary American double houses,
as they are called, with a passage through the centre, the stairs in the
passage, and a short corridor, to communicate with the bed-rooms above.
Off the end of this upper corridor, if, indeed, so short a transverse
passage deserves the name, was partitioned a room of some eight feet by
ten, as a bed-room. A room adjoining this, was converted into a boudoir
and bed-room, for Madame de ----, by means of a silk screen. The usual
door of the latter opened, of course, on the passage. In a morning call
one day, I was received in the boudoir. Surprised to be carried up
stairs on such an occasion, I was still more so to find myself taken
through a small room, before I was admitted to the larger. The amount of
it all was; that Madame de ----, accustomed to have many rooms, and to
think it vulgar to receive in her great drawing-room of a morning,
believing _au premier_, or up one pair of stairs, more genteel than the
_rez de chaussee_, or the ground floor, and feeling the necessity of an
ante-chamber as there was an abruptness in being at once admitted into
the presence of a lady from a staircase, a sort of local _brusquerie_,
that would suit her cook better than the wife of an envoy extraordinary,
had contrived to introduce her guests through the little bed-room, at
the end of the upstairs entry!

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