In looking back at the scenes and studies of such a season, there was little to regret, and much to excite in the mind pleasing vistas of hope and anticipation. The spring came with less observation than had been devoted to the winter previous; and the usual harbingers of advancing warmth--the small singing birds and northern flowers--were present ere we were well aware of their welcome appearance.
Hope is a flower that fills the sentient mind
With sweets of rapturous and of heavenly kind;
And those, who in her gardens love to tread,
Alone can tell how soft the odors spread.
HETHERWOLD.
April 20th. "There are, it may be," says Paul, "many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification." It could easily be proved that many of these voices are very rude; but it would take more philological acumen than was possessed by Horne Tooke to prove that any of them are without "signification." By the way, Tooke's "Diversions of Purley" does not seem to me so odd a title as it once appeared.
C. writes to me, under this date, "I pray you to push your philological inquiries as far as possible; and to them, add such views as you may be able to collect of the various topics embraced in my plan."
There is, undoubtedly, some danger that, in making the Indian history and languages a topic of investigation, the great practicable objects of their reclamation may be overlooked. We should be careful, while cultivating the mere literary element, not to palliate our delinquencies in philanthropic efforts in their behalf, under the notion that nothing can be effectively done, that the Indian is not accessible to moral truths, and that former efforts having failed of general results, such as those of Eliot and Brainerd, they are beyond the reach of ordinary means. I am inclined to believe that the error lies just here--that is, in the belief that some extraordinary effort is thought to be necessary, that their sons must be cooped up in boarding-schools and colleges, where they are taught many things wholly unsuited to their condition and wants, while the mass of the tribes is left at home, in the forests, in their ignorance and vices, untaught and neglected.
In the exemplification of St. Paul's idea, that all languages are given to men, with an exact significance of words and forms, and therefore not vaguely, there is the highest warrant for their study; and the time thus devoted cannot be deemed as wasted or thrown away. How shall a man say "raca," or "that fox," if there be no equivalents for the words in barbarous languages? The truth is that this people find no-difficulty in expressing the exact meanings, although the form of the words is peculiar. The derogative sense of sly and cunning, which is, in the original, implied by the demonstrative pronoun "that," a Chippewa would express by a mere inflection of the word fox, conveying a bad or reproachful idea; and the pronoun cannot be charged with an ironical meaning.
In ke-bau-diz-ze, which is an equivalent for raca, there is a personal pronominal prefix, and an objective pronominal suffix. The radix, in baud, has thus the second person thou in ke; and the objective inflection, iz-ze, means a person in a general sense. This reveals two forms of the Chippewa substantive, which are applicable to all words, and leaves nothing superfluous or without "significance." In fact, the whole language is susceptible of the most clear and exact analysis. This language is one of the most pure, clear, and comprehensive forms of the Algonquin.
May 20th. The Rev. Robert McMurtrie Laird, of Princess Anne, Maryland, but now temporarily at Detroit, writes to me in a spirit of affectionate kindness and Christian solicitude. The history of this pious man's labors on the remotest frontiers of Michigan is probably recorded where it will be known and acknowledged, in hymns of gladness, when this feeble and frail memorial of ink and paper has long perished.
Late in the autumn of 1823, he came, an unheralded stranger, to St. Mary's. No power but God's, it would seem, could have directed his footsteps there. There was everything to render them repulsive. The Indian wabene drum, proclaiming the forest tribes to be under the influence of their native diviners and jossakeeds, was nightly sending forth its monotonous sounds. But he did not come to them. His object was the soldiery and settlement, to whom he could utter truths in the English tongue. He was assigned quarters in the cantonment, where an entire battalion of infantry-was then stationed. To all these, but one single family, it may be said that his preaching was received as "sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." Certainly, there were the elements of almost everything else there but religion. And, while occupying a room in the fort, his fervent and holy spirit was often tried
"By most unseemly mirth and wassail rife."
He came to see me, at my office and at my lodgings, frequently during the season, and never came when he did not appear to me to be one of the purest and most devoted, yet gentle and most unostentatious, of human beings. It is hoped his labors were not without some witness to the truths which he so faithfully taught. But, as soon as the straits were relieved from the icy fetters of winter, he went away, never, perhaps, to see us more. He now writes to apprise me of the spread of a rumor respecting my personal interest in the theme of his labors, which had, without permission from his lips, reached the ears of some of my friends at Detroit. Blessed sensitiveness to rumor, how few possess it!
Having said this much, I may add that, in the course of the winter, my mind was arrested by his mode of exhibiting truth. The doctrine of the Trinity, which had seemed to me the mere jingle of a triad, as deduced from him, appeared to be a unity, which derived all its coherence and vitality from a belief in the Second Person. The word "Lord" became clothed with a majesty and power which rendered it inapplicable, in my views, to any human person. The assiduity that I had devoted, night and day, to my manuscripts, in the search after scientific truths, and the knowledge arising from study, did not appear to me to be wrong in itself, but was thought to be pursued with an intensity that withdrew my mind from, or, rather, had never allowed it properly to contemplate and appreciate the character of God.
23d. A literary friend writes: "I am rejoiced to learn that you have made such progress in your new work. I hope and trust that the celerity with which you have written has not withdrawn your attention from those subjects connected with literary success, which are more important than even time itself."
"My prospects of seeing you at the Sault, this season," writes the same hand, "grows weaker and weaker every day. I cannot ascertain in what situation Col. Benton's bill is, for the purchase of the copper country upon Lake Superior, nor the prospects of its eventual passage. Our last Washington dates are of the 8th instant, and at that time there was a vast mass of business pending before both Houses, and the period of adjournment was uncertain. Mr. Lowrie and Governor Edwards have furnished abundant matter for congressional excitement. It really appears to me that, as soon as two or three hundred men are associated together to talk at, and about one another, and everything else, their passions and feelings usurp the place of their reason. Like children, they are excited by every question having a local or personal aspect. Their powers of dispassionate deliberation are lost, and everything is forgotten but the momentary excitement."
25th. Commercial View of Copper Mine Question.--M.M. Dox, Esq., Collector at Buffalo, writes:--
I have long had it in contemplation to write to you, not only on the score of old friendship, but also to learn the feasibility of a scheme relating to the copper mines of Lake Superior. This subject has so often