The "Delicious" Land


It was from Ireland, too, that John White’s drawings of American life turned up, having long ago disappeared from view. In the end, it is through such things as these—Powhatan’s mantle, a wampum girdle or a shell necklace, the things the Elizabethans held in their hands and brought home, the llotsam and jetsam of time—that we are most directly in touch with that early American life, as well as through those fragments of memory that have entered into folklore, the uuforgotten impression that Pocahontas made on the English people in her day—still alive in the famous inn sign, “La Helle Sauvage.” 1 write these words not far from a village in Cornwall still called after her, Indian Queen’s. For what enters into the unconscious life of the mind and is carried on in folklore is the best evidence of the strength of common memories, common alfections, and common ancestry.