27th. I devoted the day and evening in transcribing words into my "Ojibwa Vocabulary." This is a labor requiring great caution. The language is so concrete, that often, when I have supposed a word had been dissected and traced to its root, subsequent attention has proved it to be a compound. Thus verbs have been inserted with pronouns, or with particles, indicating negation, or the past or future tense, when it has been supposed they had been divested of these appendages. I am now going over the work the third time. The simplest forms of the verb seem to be the first and third persons singular of the imperative mood.
Ennui, in situations like the present, being isolated and shut up as it were from the world, requires to be guarded against. The surest preventive of it is employment, and diversity in employment. It has been determined to-day to get up a periodical sheet, or jeu d'esprit newspaper, to be circulated from family to family, commencing on the first of January. Mrs. Thompson asked me for a name. I suggested the "Northern Light." It was finally determined to put this into Latin, and call it Aurora Borealis.
28th. Visits make up a part of the winter's amusements. We owe this duty to society; but, like other duties, which are largely connected with enjoyment, there is a constant danger that more time be given up to it than is profitable. Conversation is the true index of feeling. We read wise and grave books, but are not a whit better by them, than as they introduce and fix in our minds such principles as shall shine out in conversation or acts. Now were an ordinary social winter evening party tested by such principles, what would a candid spectator judge to have been the principal topics of reading or study? I remember once, in my earlier years, to have passed an evening in a room where a number of my intimate friends were engaged in playing at cards. As I did not play, I took my seat at an office-table, and hastily sketched the conversation which I afterwards read for their amusement. But the whole was in reality a bitter satire on their language and sentiments, although it was not so designed by me, nor received by them. I several years afterwards saw the sketch of this conversation among my papers, and was forcibly struck with this reflection.
Let me revert to some of the topics of conversation introduced in the circles where I have visited this day, or in my own room. It is Goldsmith, I think, who says that our thoughts take their tinge from contiguous objects. A man standing near a volcano would naturally speak of burning mountains. A person traversing a field of snow would feel his thoughts occupied with polar scenes. Thus are we here thrown together. Ice, snow, winds, a high range of the thermometer, or a driving tempest, are the almost ever present topics of remark: and these came in for a due share of the conversation to-day. The probability of the ice in the river's breaking up the latter part of April, and the arrival of a vessel at the post early in May!--the dissolution of the seventeenth Congress, which must take place on the 4th of March, the character and administration of Governor Clinton (which were eulogized), were adverted to.
In the evening I went, by invitation, to Mr. Siveright's at the North West House. The party was numerous, embracing most of the officers of the American garrison, John Johnston, Esq., Mr. C.O. Ermatinger, a resident who has accumulated a considerable property in trade, and others. Conversation turned, as might have been expected, upon the topic of the Fur Trade, and the enterprising men who established, or led to the establishment of, the North West Company. Todd, Mackenzie, and M'Gillvray were respectively described. Todd was a merchant of Montreal, an Irishman by birth, who possessed enterprise, courage, address, and general information. He paved the way for the establishment of the Company, and was one of the first partners, but died untimely. He possessed great powers of memory. His cousin, Don Andrew Todd, had the monopoly of the fur trade of Louisiana.
M'Gillvray possessed equal capacity for the trade with Todd, united to engaging, gentlemanly manners. He introduced that feature in the Company which makes every clerk, at a certain time, a partner. This first enabled them successfully to combat the Hudson's Bay Company. His passions, however, carried him too far, and he was sometimes unjust.
Sir Alexander Mackenzie was at variance with M'Gillvray, and they never spoke in each other's praise. Mackenzie commanded great respect from all classes, and possessed a dignity of manners and firmness of purpose which fitted him for great undertakings. He established the X.Y. Company, in opposition to the North West.
29th. The days are still very short, the sun having but just passed the winter solstice. We do not dine till four; Mr. Johnston, with whom I take my meals, observing this custom, and it is dark within the coming hour. I remained to family worship in the evening.
30th. Read the articles in the "Edinburgh Review" on Accum's work on the adulteration of food, and Curran's Life by his Son. Accum, it is said, came to England as an adventurer. By assiduity and attention, he became eminent as an operative chemist, and accumulated a fortune. Curran was also of undistinguished parentage. His mother, in youth, seems to have judged rightly of his future talents.
Mr. Johnston returned me "Walsh's Appeal," which he had read at my request, and expressed himself gratified at the ability with which the subject is handled. Captain Clarke, an industrious reader on local and general subjects, had come in a short time before. Conversation became general and animated. European politics, Greece, Turkey, and Russia, the state of Ireland, radicalism in England, the unhappy variance between the king and queen, Charles Fox, &c., were successively the subjects of remark. We adjourned to Mr. Johnston's.
In the evening I went into my office and wrote to Mr. Calhoun, the Secretary of War, recommending Captain H.'s son William, for the appointment of a cadet in the Military Academy.28
31st. Devoted the day to the Indian language. It scarcely seems possible that any two languages should be more unlike, or have fewer points of resemblance, than the English and Ojibwa. If an individual from one of the nomadic tribes of farther Asia were suddenly set down in London, he could hardly be more struck with the difference in buildings, dress, manners, and customs, than with the utter discrepance in the sounds of words, and the grammatical structure of sentences. The Ojibwa has this advantage, considered as the material of future improvement; it is entirely homogeneous, and admits of philosophical principles being carried out, with very few, if any, of those exceptions which so disfigure English grammar, and present such appalling obstacles to foreigners in learning the language.
On going to dine at the usual hour, I found company invited, among whom were some gentlemen from Upper Canada. Conversation rolled on smoothly, and embraced a wide range of topics. Some of the dark doings of the North West Company, in their struggle for exclusive power in the Indian country, were mentioned. Nobody appeared to utter a word in malice or ill will. Dark and bright traits of individual character and conduct floated along the stream of conversation, without being ruffled with a breeze. In the evening I attended a party at the quarters of one of the officers in the fort. Dancing was introduced. The evening passed off agreeably till the hour of separation, which was a few minutes before twelve. And thus closed the year eighteen hundred and twenty-two.
28. The appointment was made.
CHAPTER XV.
New Year's day among the descendants of the Norman French--Anti-philosophic speculations of Brydone--Schlegel on language--A peculiar native expression evincing delicacy--Graywacke in the basin of Lake Superior--Temperature--Snow shoes--Translation of Gen. i. 3--Historical reminiscences--Morals of visiting--Ojibwa numerals--Harmon's travels--Mackenzie's vocabularies--Criticism--Mungo Park.
January