Frank Chouteau Brown - "Letters and Lettering"

Anonymous - "The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I"

Juliana Horatia Ewing - "The Peace Egg and Other tales"

W. S. Gilbert - "The Bab Ballads"

Editorial
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.

Evenings at Donaldson Manor

M >> Maria J. McIntosh >> Evenings at Donaldson Manor




Farewell, dear Edward. You may hear of me next among the Sacs and
Foxes;--at present address H. Danforth, care of G---- & D----,
Merchants, ---- ---- street, Boston.

Yours ever, H. DANFORTH.


A new external life had indeed opened upon this child of luxury and
conventional refinement. He whose movements had been chronicled as
matter of interest to the public, for whose presence the "world" had
postponed its fetes, might now travel hundreds of miles without
observation or inquiry. He upon whose steps had waited a crowd of
obsequious attendants, now found himself with one follower, whose tone
of independence hardly permitted him to call him servant. In cities,
where he would still have been surrounded by those conventional
distinctions of which he had himself been deprived, the sense of a great
loss would have been ever present with him, and the contrast with the
past would have made the fairest present to which he could now attain,
desolate. But there could be no comparison, and therefore no painful
contrast, between the wild life of the prairies and the
ultra-civilization of English aristocratic society. In the excitement
and adventure of the one, he hoped to forget the other. He sought to
forget--not to be resigned, to acquiesce. His inner life was unchanged.
He had been a dreamer--a pleasure-seeker--and a dreamer and
pleasure-seeker he continued, though the dreams and the pleasures must
be wrought from new materials. To sketch the progress of such a
character through the shifting scenes of his new existence--to observe
him in his association with the strong, daring, acute, but uncultivated
denizens of our frontier States--to stand with sympathizing heart beside
him as he first entered upon those unpeopled solitudes in whose silence
God speaks to the soul, is not permitted us at present. This may be the
work of another day; but now we must pass at once with him from Boston
to a scene within the confines of Iowa. His carriage had been left
behind, and for two days he had been riding over a rolling country,
whose grassy knolls, dotted here and there with clumps of trees, brought
occasionally to his mind the park scenery of his own land. Early in this
day he had passed a farm with a comfortable house and substantial
out-buildings, but no dwelling of man had since presented itself to him,
though the sun was now low in the western sky. Under ordinary
circumstances this would have been of little consequence, for he had
already spent more than one night in the open air without discomfort;
but his attendant had heard a distant muttering of thunder, and John
Stacy was not the lad to encounter without murmuring a night of storm
unsheltered. John's anxiety made him keen-sighted, and he was the first
to perceive and announce the approach of a rider. We use the neutral
term _rider_ not without consideration, for he was one in whom a certain
ease of manner, and even an air of command, contradicted the testimony
of habiliments made and worn after a fashion recognized nowhere as
characteristic of the _genus_ gentleman. A courteous inquiry from Horace
Danforth respecting the nearest place at which a night's shelter might
be obtained, led to a cordial invitation to him to return with him to
his own house. It was an invitation not to be disregarded under existing
circumstances, and it was accepted with evident pleasure both by master
and man.

Mr. Grahame, for so the new-comer had announced himself, led the way
back for a short distance over the route just pursued by our travellers,
and then striking off to the left, rode briskly forward for several
miles. The light gray clouds which had long been gathering in the
western sky had deepened into blackness as they proceeded, and flashes
of lightning were darting across their path, and large drops of rain
were falling upon them when they neared a house constructed of logs, yet
bearing some evidence of taste in the grounds around it, as well as in
its position, which was on the side of a gently sloping hill, looking
out upon a landscape through which wound a clear and rapid, though
narrow stream.

"Like good cavaliers, we will see our horses housed first," said Mr.
Grahame, riding past the main building to one of the out-houses, built
also of logs, which served as a stable. Here Horace Danforth
relinquished his tired steed to the care of John Stacy, and Mr. Grahame
having himself rubbed down his own beautiful animal, and thrown a bundle
of hay before him, with a slight apology to his visitor for the
detention, led the way into the house. As they entered the vacant parlor
a shade of something like dissatisfaction passed over the master's
countenance, and having seen his guest seated by a huge fireplace, whose
cheerful blaze of wood a chilly evening made by no means unwelcome, he
left him alone. He soon returned, however, with a brighter expression,
which was explained by his saying, "I feared, on finding this room
empty, that my daughter had been sent for to a sick woman with whom she
has lately spent several days and nights, and that I could offer you
only the discomforts of a bachelor's establishment; but I find she is at
home, and will soon give us supper."

During the absence of his host, our Englishman had looked around with
increasing surprise at the contents of the parlor. The furniture was of
the most simple description, yet marked by a certain neatness and
gracefulness of arrangement, indicative, as he could not but think, of a
cultivated taste. The same mingling of even rude simplicity of material
and tasteful arrangement prevailed in the chamber to which his host now
conducted him, and where the luxury, for such he had learned to regard
it, of abundance of clear water and clean napkins awaited him. In a few
minutes after his return to the parlor a door was opened, through which
he obtained a view of an inner apartment, well lighted, and containing a
table so spread as to present no slight temptation to a traveller who
had not broken his fast since the morning meal. At the head of this
table stood a young woman of graceful form, whom his host introduced to
him as his daughter, Miss Grahame.

Mary Grahame's clear complexion, glowing with the hue of health, her
large and soft and dark gray eyes, her abundant glossy black hair, might
have won from the most fastidious some of that admiration given to
personal beauty; but in truth Horace Danforth had grown indifferent as
well as fastidious, and it was not until in after days he had seen the
complexion glow and the dark eyes kindle with feeling, that he said to
himself, "She is beautiful!" To the fascination of a peculiarly
graceful, gentle, yet earnest manner, he was, however, more quickly
susceptible. During this first evening, the chief emotion excited in his
mind was surprise at the style of conversation and manner, the
acquaintance with books and with _les bien-seances_ which marked these
inhabitants of a log cabin in the western wilds--these denizens of a
half-savage life.

A day of hard riding had induced such fatigue, that even the rare and
unexpected pleasure of communication with refined and cultivated minds,
could not keep Horace Danforth long from his pillow. As he expected to
set out in the morning very early, he would have made his adieus in
parting for the night, mingling with them courteous expressions of the
enjoyment which such society had afforded him after his long abstinence
from all intellectual converse.

"Believe me," said Mr. Graham, and the sentiment was corroborated by his
daughter's eyes, "the pleasure has been mutual. Society is the great
want of our western life. I have been wishing to ask whether your
business were too urgent to permit you to afford us more of this coveted
good?"

"I am ashamed to confess," said Horace Danforth, with some
embarrassment, "that I have no business at present--that I am an
idler--I verily believe the only one in your country."

"Then will you not give us the pleasure of your company for a longer
time? A little rest will be no disadvantage either to your horses or
yourself, and on us you will be conferring a favor which you cannot
appreciate till you have lived five hundred miles away from
civilization."

The invitation was accepted as cordially as it was given, to the great
satisfaction of John Stacy, who had been much pleased with the
appearance of land in this neighborhood, and wanted time to look about
him preparatory to purchasing.

Horace Danforth awoke early next morning, and throwing open the shutters
of the only window in his room, found that a stormy night had been
succeeded by an unusually brilliant morning. "To brush the dews from off
the upland lawn" had not been a habit of his past life; but the cool
fresh air, the spicy perfumes which it wafted to him, and the brightness
and verdure of the whole landscape, proved now more inviting than his
pillow; and dressing himself hastily, he descended the clean but rude
and uncarpeted stairs as gently as possible, lest he should arouse Miss
Grahame from her slumbers. He found the front door open, showing that he
was not the first of the household to go abroad that day. As he stepped
out upon the lawn, he discovered that the parlor windows were also
open, and a familiar air, hummed in low, suppressed tones, caused him
to look through them as he passed. Could he believe his eyes? Was that
neatest and prettiest of all housemaids, who, moving with light and even
graceful steps, was yet busied in the very homely task of dusting and
arranging the furniture in the parlor--was she indeed the same Miss
Grahame who had last evening charmed him by her lady-like deportment and
intelligent conversation? Yes, the very same; for though the glossy
black braids were covered by a gay colored handkerchief wound around her
head _a la Turque_, there was the same wide forehead and well-defined
brows; the same soft dark gray eyes; the same slightly aquiline nose and
smiling mouth. Nor was the conversation of last evening more opposed, in
his imagination, to her present employment, than the evident taste and
feeling with which she was now singing that most beautiful hymn of the
Irish poet:--

"O God! Thou art the life and light
Of all this wondrous world I see."

Listening and gazing, wondering and comparing, he had well nigh
forgotten himself, when the lady of the mansion turning suddenly to the
window, raised her head. Their eyes met! The color which rushed quickly
to her very temples, recalled him to himself, and bowing with certainly
not less embarrassment than she evinced, he walked rapidly on. He had
not proceeded far, however, when he saw his host approaching from an
opposite direction. As Mr. Grahame had already spent more than an hour
in his fields, sharing as well as directing the labors of his men, he
expressed no surprise at meeting his guest abroad. After a cordial
greeting, and a few general observations on the weather and scenery had
been exchanged, Mr. Grahame, glancing up at the sun, which had now risen
considerably above a distant wood, said, "I am sorry to interrupt your
walk, but my morning's work has made me by no means indifferent to my
breakfast, and I think that Mary's coffee and biscuits are about this
time done to a turn."

A few minutes brought them back to the house, and into the parlor from
which Mary Grahame had disappeared, leaving behind her, in its neat and
tasteful arrangement, and in the fresh flowers that adorned the table
and mantelpiece, evidence of her early presence. The gentlemen were soon
summoned to breakfast.

It may have been that his early rising had given to Horace Danforth an
unusual appetite; but certain it is that no breakfast of which he had
ever partaken seemed to him half so inviting as this. And yet, in truth,
it was simple enough; toast, crisp and brown, warm, light biscuits,
fresh eggs, good butter, excellent coffee, and rich cream were all it
offered. Mary Grahame presided, and speaking little herself, listened to
her father and Horace, while they discussed the different
characteristics of English or European and American society, with a
pleased and intelligent countenance. Some observations from him drew
from Mr. Grahame the following reply:--

"There is one feature of American society upon which I think no
foreigner has remarked, or if he have, it has been so cursorily as
plainly to show that he was far from appreciating its importance: I mean
the fact that here the thinker is also the worker. In England and the
European States, the working class is distinct from the consumers, and
there must be almost as great a contrast in the intellectual as in the
physical condition of the two. All the refinement, the cultivation, must
remain with those who have leisure and fortune--as a class, I mean, for
individuals will of course be found, who, in spite of all disadvantages,
will rise to the highest position. But here, in America, there are no
idlers. Here, with few if any exceptions, all must be, in some way,
workers, and all may be thinkers. We attain thus to a republic of
mind."

"Do you not fear that the result of this will be to check the
development of individual greatness; that as you have no king in the
State, so you will have no king in literature?"

"Even were this so, it would remain a question whether the great
increase of general intelligence would not more than compensate the
evil."

"Can many Polloks repay us for one Milton--many Drydens for one
Shakspeare?"

"You take extreme cases; besides, I only admitted your supposition to
show that I could produce a set-off to the disadvantage. I do not
believe that the necessity for labor of some sort will prevent a truly
great mind from achieving for itself the highest distinction. I think
the history of such minds proves that it will rather serve as a stimulus
to their powers."

Horace Danforth was silent, and after a moment's pause, Mr. Grahame
resumed.

"In this union of the working and the thinking classes, the refinements
of life, those things which adorn, and beautify it, take their true
place as consolers and soothers of the care-worn and toil-wearied mind.
No Italian opera can give such delight to the sated man of pleasure as
the tired laborer feels in listening to the evening song with which some
loved one, in his home, sings him to repose.

"You speak _con amore_" said Horace Danforth, smiling at his host's
fervor.

"I do. Had I been excluded from the refinements of social life, I should
long since have fainted and grown weary of my toil here. I felt this
when compelled to relinquish my daughter's society for two years, that
she might have the advantage of instruction in those branches of a
womanly education in which I could give her no aid."

"And having spent two years in the more cultivated East, did Miss
Grahame return willingly to her home in the wilderness?"

This question was addressed to Mary Grahame herself, and she answered
simply, "My father was here."

"You acknowledge, then, that could your father have been with you, you
would have preferred remaining at the East?"

"Oh no! I was fifteen when my father sent me from home, and they who
have enjoyed the free life of the prairies so long, seldom love
cities."

"But the ease, the freedom from labor, which is enjoyed in a more
advanced stage of society, the power to devote yourself to pursuits
agreeable to your taste--did you not regret these?"

"Permit me to put your question into plainer language," interposed Mr.
Grahame. "Mr. Danforth would ask, Mary, whether you would not prefer to
live where you would not be compelled to degrade your mind----"

"No, no, I protest against the degradation," exclaimed Mr. Danforth.

"To degrade your mind," pursued Mr. Grahame, answering the interruption
only by a smile, "by exercising it on such homely things as brewing
coffee and baking cakes, or to soil your fair hands with brooms and
dusters."

"For the soil of the hands we have sparkling rills, and for the
degradation of the mind, I, like Mr. Danforth, protest against it."

"But how can you make your protest good?"

"You have taught me that there is no degradation in labor, pursued for
fair and right ends, and that where the end is noble, the labor becomes
ennobling."

"But what noble ends can be alleged for the drudgery of domestic life? I
am translating your looks into language," said Mr. Grahame, turning
playfully to his guest; "correct me if I do not read them rightly."

"If I say you do, I fear Miss Grahame will think them very impertinent
looks."

"I shall not complain of them while I can reply to them so easily," said
Mary gayly. "He who knows how much a well-ordered household contributes
to the cultivation of domestic virtues and family affections, will not
think a woman degraded who sacrifices somewhat of her tastes and
pleasures to the deeper happiness of procuring such advantages for those
she loves."

"But is not that state of society preferable, in which, without her
personal interference, by the employment of those who have no higher
tastes, she may accomplish the same object?"

"That question proves that you do not, like my father, desire to see the
working and the thinking classes united. You seem to propose that the
first shall ever remain our hewers of wood and drawers of water."

"Is it not a fact that there have been, are, and always will be those in
the world who are fitted for no other position?"

"That there are and always have been such persons, I acknowledge; but
when labor ceases to be degrading, because it is partaken by all, may we
not hope that new aspirations will be awakened in the laborer--that he
will elevate himself in the scale of being when he feels elevation
possible?"

Mary Grahame spoke with generous enthusiasm, yet with a modest
gentleness which made Horace Danforth desire to continue the argument.

"Admitting all this," he said, "it does not answer my question, which
was, whether you did not prefer that state of society in which you were
able to avail yourself of the services of such a class?"

"There are moments, doubtless, when indolence would plead for such
self-indulgence; but I should be mortified, indeed, where this the
prevailing temper of my mind."

"Pardon me if I say that I do not see how it can be otherwise--how a
lady of Miss Grahame's refinement and taste can be pleased with the
employments, for instance, to which Mr. Grahame just now referred."

"Not pleased with them in themselves, but she may accept them, may she
not, as a necessary part of a great object to which she has devoted
herself?"

"And this object?--but, forgive me. The interest you have awakened in
the subject, and your kindness in answering my questions, make me an
encroacher, I fear," he added, as he marked the heightened color with
which Mary glanced at her father as he paused for her answer.

"Not at all; but I speak in presence of my master, and will refer you to
him," she replied, with another smiling glance at her father.

"You see," said Mr. Grahame, "that even in these wilds, 'the world's
dread laugh' retains its power. Mary, I see, is afraid of being called a
female Quixote, and even I find myself disposed to win you to some
interest in my object, before I avow it. This I think I can best do by a
sketch of the circumstances which led to its adoption. I will give you
such a sketch, therefore, if you will promise to acquit me of egotism in
doing so."

"That I will readily do. I shall be delighted to hear it."

"You shall have it, but not now; for I see, by certain cabalistic signs,
known only to the initiated, that Mary is about to leave us for some of
those same degrading employments, and if you will take a ride with me, I
will relieve you from all danger of contact with them, and will, at the
same time, show you something of our neighborhood."

The proposal was of course accepted. The ride embraced a circuit of ten
miles, in which they passed only two houses. The first of these was
built with an apparent regard to convenience and comfort, and even some
effort at adornment, as manifested in the climbing plants with which the
windows were draperied, and the flowers which adorned the little court
in front. Mr. Grahame stopped before the gateway of this court, and a
woman of coarse, rough exterior, though scrupulously clean, came out to
speak to him, and to urge his alighting and entering the house with his
friend. This Mr. Grahame declined; he had stopped only to inquire after
a sick child, and to express a hope that her husband's hay had turned
out well.

"Dreadful fine," was her reply to the last. "I'm sure we be much
obleeged to you for the seed, and for tellin' Jim how to plant it He
never had sich hay before."

"I'm glad to hear it. Where is Lucy?"

"Oh, she's off to school. Tell Miss Mary she's gittin' to be 'most as
grand a reader as she be. And yet the child's willin' enough to work,
for all."

As the gentlemen rode on, after this interview, Mr. Grahame said, "That
last speech expressed one of the greatest difficulties against which we
had to contend in our efforts to induce our neighbors to give to their
children some of the advantages of education. They were afraid 'larnin'
would make them lazy.' They were of your opinion, that the thinker and
the worker must remain of different classes."

"I was much surprised to hear that woman speak of a school. I should not
think the teacher could find his situation very profitable."

"He is one who has regard to a higher reward than any earthly one. He is
a self-denying Christian missionary, whom I induced to settle in our
neighborhood. He preaches on the Sabbath, in a little church about two
miles from my house, to a congregation of about twenty adults, and twice
that number of children; and during the week, he keeps a school which is
well attended in the summer. Some of his earlier pupils are already
showing, by their more useful and more happy lives, the importance of
the schoolmaster's work in the elevation of a people."

The next dwelling they approached was very small and mean-looking. It
seemed to Horace Danforth to contain only one apartment, warmed by an
ill-constructed clay chimney, and lighted by one small, square window.
That window, however, was not only sashed and glazed, but shaded by a
plain muslin curtain.

"Here," said Mr. Grahame, "lives one of those pupils of whom I spoke
just now. He has commenced life with nothing but the plot of ground you
see, and having a wife to support, he must work hard, yet already he is
aiming at something more than the supply of merely physical wants; and I
doubt not he will, should he live long enough, become the intelligent
and wealthy father of a well-educated family."

They were approaching the house as Mr. Grahame spoke. Near it was a
small field, in which a man was hoeing.

"How is your wife, Martin?" asked Mr. Grahame.

"Oh, thank you, sir, she is quite smart. She's been getting better ever
since the night Miss Mary sat up with her last. We say she always brings
good luck."

"And how are your potatoes?"

"How could they help but be good, sir, with such grand seed as you gave
me? Tell Miss Mary, if you please, sir, that the rose-tree is growing
finely, and that as soon as I can get time to put up the fence, Sally is
to have the flower-garden she talked about."

"I am glad to hear it, Martin; if you are brisk you may have some
flowers yet before frost. I will bring you some seeds the next time I
come."

"Do you procure your seeds from the East, or is it the result of your
superior cultivation, that you are able thus to supply your neighbors?"
asked Horace Danforth of Mr. Grahame, as they rode on.

"The potatoes were from my own field, raised from the seed two years
ago. The grass and flower seeds were from my agent at the East. These
little favors win for my daughter and myself considerable influence over
our neighbors, and thus facilitate our attainment of the object for
which we have pitched our tent in the wilderness, and accepted those
labors which you justly regard as distasteful in themselves."

The return home of Mr. Grahame and his visitor, their dinner and
afternoon engagements, offer nothing worthy of our notice. It was not
till the labors of the day had been concluded, and the little party were
gathered again before a cheerful fire in the parlor, that the subject of
the morning's conversation was resumed. As Mary entered from the
supper-room, bringing with her a little basket of needle-work, Horace
Danforth asked if he might not now hope to receive the promised sketch.

"I will give it you with pleasure when I have had my evening song from
Mary," said Mr. Grahame.

Opening the piano for his young hostess, Horace Danforth stood beside
her as she sang, but he forgot to turn the leaves of the music before
her as he listened once again to a rich and cultivated voice,
accompanied by a fine instrument, touched by a skilful hand. As the
sweet and well-remembered strains fell on his ear, he closed his eyes
and gave the reins to fancy. The loved and lost gathered around him, and
it was with a strange, dream-like feeling that, as the sweet sound
ceased, and Mary arose from the piano, he opened his eyes and looked
upon the rough walls and simple furniture of his present abode.

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