Chapter 5 Part 2 of Summer on the Lakes in 1843 This is a LibriVox recording. While LibriVox recordings are in the public domain, for more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Summer on the Lakes in 1843 by Margaret Fuller. Chapter 5 Part 2 Aside from Lowenstein, a town in Wurttemberg, a mountain whose highest summit is more than 1,800 feet above the level of the sea, lies in romantic seclusion, surrounded on all sides by woods and hills, the hamlet of Prevorst. Its inhabitants number about 450, most of whom support themselves by wood cutting and making charcoal and collecting wood seed.  Diseases that infest the valley, such as Agu, never touch them, but they are subject in youth to attacks upon the nerves, which one would not expect in so healthy a class. In a town situated near to and like Prevorst, the children were often attacked with a kind of Saint Vitus's dance. They would foresee when it would seize upon them and, if in the field, would hasten home to undergo the paroxysms there. From these they rose as from magnetic sleep without memory of what had happened. Other symptoms show the inhabitants of this region very susceptible to magnetic and sidereal influences. On this mountain and indeed in the hamlet of Prevorst was in 1801 a woman born in whom a peculiar inner life discovered itself from early childhood. Frederika Hof, whose father was gamekeeper of this district of forest, was as the position and solitude of her birthplace made natural, brought up in the most simple manner. In the keen mountain air and long winter cold she was not softened by tenderness, either to dress or bedding, but grew up lively and blooming. And while her brothers and sisters under the same circumstances were subject to rheumatic attacks, she remained free from them. On the other hand her peculiar tendency displayed itself in her dreams. If anything affected her painfully, her mind was excited by reproof. She had instructive warning or prophetic dreams. While yet quite young her parents let her go for the advantages of instruction to her grandfather, Johann Schmidkau in Lowenstein. Here were discovered and heard the sensibility to magnetic and ghostly influences, which the good curner assures us her grandparents deeply lamented and did all in their power to repress. But as it appears that her grandfather also had seen a ghost, and there were evidently legends and existence about the rooms in which the little Frederika saw goes, in spots where the presence of human bones caused her sudden shivering, we may be allowed to doubt whether indirect influence was not more powerful than direct repression upon these subjects. There is the true German impartiality with regard to the scene of appearance for those imposing visitors. Sometimes it is a room in the castle of Lowenstein, long disused, a loradcliffe, sometimes a deserted kitchen. This solemn unhappy gift brought no disturbance to the child life of the maiden. She enjoyed life with more vivacity than most of her companions. The only trouble she had was the extreme irritability of the optic nerve, which, though without inflammation of the eyes, sometimes confined her to a solitary chamber. This, says Dr. K., was probably a sign of the development of the spiritual in the fleshly eye. Sickness of her parents at last called her back to the lonely prey force, whereby trouble and watching beside sick beds, her feelings were too much excited so that the faculty for prophetic dreams and the vision of spirits increased upon her. From her seventeenth to her nineteenth year, when every outward relation was pleasant for her, this inward life was not so active. She was distinguished from other girls of her circle, only by the more intellectual nature, which displayed itself chiefly in the eyes and by a greater liveliness which, however, never passed the bounds of grace and propriety. She had none of the sentimentality so common at that age, and it can be proved that she never had an attachment, though was disappointed in the love that has been groundlessly asserted. In her nineteenth year, she was, by her family, betrothed to Her H. The match was desirable on account of the excellence of the man, and the sure provision it afforded for her comfort through life. But whether from pre-sentiment of the years of suffering that were before her, or from other hidden feelings of which we only know with certainty that, if such there were, they were not occasioned by another attachment, she sank into a dejection inexplicable to her family, past whole days in weeping, scarcely slept for some weeks, and thus the life of healing which had been too powerful in her childhood was called up anew in full force. On the day of her solemn betrothal took place also the funeral of tea. The preacher of Oberstenfeld, a man of sixty or more years, whose preaching instruction and character, he was goodness itself, had had great influence upon her life. She followed the dear remains with others to the churchyard. Her heart still, then so having, was suddenly relieved and calm as she stood beside the grave. She remained there long enjoying her new peace, and when she went away found herself tranquil but indifferent to all the concerns of this world. Here began the period, not indeed as yet a sickness, but of her peculiar inward life which knew afterward no pause. Later in some nabbulent state she spoke of this day in the following verses. The decease had often appeared to her as a shape of life, protecting her from evil spirits. These are little simple rhymes that are not worth translating into verse, though. In the original we have a childish grace. What was once so dark to me I see now clearly in that day when I had given in marriage myself away. I stood quite immersed in thee, thou angel figure above thy grave now, willingly what I have exchanged with thee, willingly given up to thee my earthly luck, which those around praised as the blessing of heaven. I prayed upon thy grave for one blessing only, that the wings of this angel might hence forward on the hot path of life, laughed around me the peace of heaven. There standest thou angel now, my prayer was heard. She was, in consequence of her marriage, removed to Kernbach, place on the borders of Ertenburg and Baden. Its position is low, gloomy, shut in by hills, opposite in all the influences of earth and atmosphere to those who have prayforced in its vicinity. Those of electrical susceptibility are often made sick or well by change of place. Paponi of whom Amoretti writes, a man of such susceptibility was cured of convulsive attacks by change of place. Pennet could find repose while in one part of Calabria, only by wrapping himself in an oil-claw mantle, thus as it were isolating himself. That great sense of sidereal and imponderable influences, which afterward manifested itself so clearly in the Saren, probably made this change of place very unfavorable to her. Later it appeared that the lower she came down from the hills, the more she suffered from spasms, but on the heights her tendency to the magnetic state was the greatest. But also mental influences were hostile to her. Already withdrawn from the outward life, she was placed, whereas consort and housekeeper to a laboring man, the calls on her care and attention were incessant. She was obliged hourly to forsake her in her home to provide for an outer which did not correspond with it. She bore this seven months, though flying to solitude whenever outward relations permitted. But longer it was not possible to conceal the inward verity by an outward action. The body sank beneath the attempt, and the spirit took refuge in the inner circles. One night she dreamed that she awoke and found the dead body of the preacher tea by her side, that at the same time her father and two physicians were considering what should be done with her in a severe sickness. She called out that dead friend would help her. She needed no physician. Her husband, hearing her cry out in sleep, woke her. This dream was a presage of a fever which seized her next morning. It lasted fourteen days with great violence and was seceded by attacks of convulsion and spasm.  She seems to have been very injudiciously treated in the first ages of her illness. Bleeding was resorted to, as usual, cases of extreme suffering where the nurses know not what else to do. And as usual the momentary relief was paid for by an increased nervousness and capacity for suffering. Magnetic influences from other persons were a frequent use to her, but they were applied without care as to what characters and constitutions were brought into connection with hers, that were probably in the end just as injurious to her as the loss of blood. At last she became so weak, so devoid of all power in herself, that her life seemed entirely dependent on artificial means and the influences of other men. There is a singular story of a woman in the neighborhood who visited her once or twice, partly from an instinct that she could injure herself and afterwards interfered in the same way and with the same results in the treatment of her child. This demoniacal impulse and power which were ascribed to the canidias of ancient superstition may be seen subtly influencing the members of everyday society. We see persons led by an uneasy impulse towards the persons and the topics which they are sure they can irritate and annoy. This is constantly observable among children, also in the closest relations between grown-up people who have not yet the government of themselves, neither are governed by the better power. There is also an interesting story of a quack who treated her with amulets, whose parallel may be found in the action of such persons in common society. It is an expression of the power that a vulgar and self-willed nature will attain over one delicate, poetical but not yet clear within itself. Outwardly it yields to a power which it inwardly disclaims. The touching little passage is related of the time in the first years when she seemed to be better, so much so as to receive an evening visit from some female friends. They grew merry and began to dance. She remained sad and thoughtful when they stopped she was in the attitude of prayer. One of her intimates observing this began to laugh. This affected her so much that she became cold and rigid like a corpse. For some time they did not hear her breathe, and when she did it was with a rattling noise. They applied mustard poultices and used foot-and-hand baths. She was brought back to life but to a state of great suffering. She recognized as her guardian spirit, who sometimes magnetized her or removed from her neighborhood substances that were hurtful to her. Her grandmother, thus coinciding with the popular opinion that traits reappear in the third generation, now began still greater wonders. The second sight, numerous and various visits from spirits and so forth. The following may be mentioned in connection with theories and experiments current among ourselves. A friend who is often with her at this time wrote to me, Kerner, When I with my finger touch her on the forehead between the eyebrows, she says each time something that bears upon the state of my soul. Some of these sentences I record. Keep thy soul so thou mayest bear it in thy hands. When thou comest into a world of bustle and folly, hold the Lord fast in thy heart. If any seek to vow from thee thy true feeling, pray to God for grace. Permit not thyself to stifle the light that springs up within thyself. Think often of the cross of Jesus. Go forth and embrace it. As the dove found a resting place in Noah's Ark, so will thou also find a resting place which God has appointed for thee. When she was put under the care of Kerner, she had been five years in the state and was reduced to such weakness that she was, with difficulty, sustained from hour to hour. He thought at first it would be best to take no notice of her magnetic states and directions. Intolerie should not, but should treat her with regard to her bodily symptoms as he would with any other in the loop. At this time she fell every evening into magnetic sleep and gave orders about herself, to which, however, those round her no longer paid attention. I was now called in. I had never seen this woman, but had heard many false or perverted accounts of her condition. I must confess that I shared the evil opinion of the world as to her illness, that I advised to pay no attention to her magnetic situation and the order she gave in it. In her spasms to forebear the laying of hands upon her, to deny her the support of persons of stronger nerves, in short, to do all possible to draw her out of the magnetic state, and to treat her with attention, but with absolutely none but the common medical means. These views were shared by my friend, Dr. Off, of Lowenstein, who continued to treat her accordingly, but without good results. Hemorrhage, spasms, night sweats continued. Her gums were scorputically affected and bled constantly. She lost all her teeth. Strengthening remedies affected her like being drawn up from her bed by force. She sank into a fear of all men in a deadly weakness. Her death was to be wished, but it came not. Her relations in despair, not knowing themselves what they could do with her, brought her almost against my will. She was brought hither, an image of death, perfectly emaciated, unable to raise herself. Every three or four minutes a teaspoon of nourishment must be given her, else she fell into faintness or convulsion. Her somnambulic situation alternated with fever, hemorrhage, and night sweats. Every evening, about seven o'clock, she fell into magnetic sleep. She then spread out her arms and found herself from that moment in a clairvoyant state, but only when she brought them back upon her breast did she begin to speak. Kerner mentions that her child too slept with its hands and feet crossed. In this state her eyes were shut, her face calm and bright. As she fell asleep the first night after her arrival, she asked for me, but I bade them tell her that I, now and in future, should speak to her only when awake. After she awoke, I went to her and declared in brief and earnest terms that I should pay no attention to what she said in sleep, and that her somnambulic state, which had lasted so long to the grief and trouble of her family, must now come to an end. This declaration I accompanied by an earnest appeal designed to awake and affirm will in her to put down the excessive activity of brain that disordered her whole system. Afterwards no address was made to her on any subject when, in her sleep waking state, she was left to lie unheeded. I pursued a homeopathic treatment of her case, but the medicines constantly produced effects opposite to what I expected. She now suffered less from spasm and somnambulism, but with increasing marks of weakness and decay, all seemed as if the end of her sufferings drew near. It was too late for the means I wished to use. The fact that so variously and powerfully by magnetic means in the first years of her illness, she had now no life more so thoroughly was the force of her own organization exhausted, but she borrowed from others. In her now more infrequent magnetic trance, she was always seeking the true means of her cure. It was touching to see how, retiring within herself, she sought for help. The physician who had aided her so little with his drugs must often stand abashed before the inner physician, perceiving it to be far better skilled than himself. After some weeks forbearance, Kerner did ask her in her sleep what he should do for her. She prescribed a magnetic treatment, which was found of use. Afterwards she described a machine of which there is a drawing in this book, which she wished to have made for her use. It was so, and she derived benefit from it. She had indicated such a machine in the early stages of her disease, but at that time no one attended to her. By degree she grew better under this treatment, and lived at Weinberg nearly two years, though in a state of great weakness, and more in the magnetic and clairvoyant than in the natural human state. How his acquaintance with her affected the physician he thus expresses. During those last months of her abode on the earth, they remained to her only the life of a sylph. I have been interested to record not a journal of her sickness, but the mental phenomena of such an almost disembodied life. Such may cast light on the spirit when also our psyche may unfold her wings, free from bodily bonds and the hindrances of space and time. I give facts, each reader may interpret them in his own way. The manuals of animal magnetism and other writings have proposed many theories by which to explain such. All these are known to me. I shall make no reference to them, but only by use of parallel facts here and there, show that the phenomena of this case were called many in which there is nothing marvelous, but which are manifestly grounded in our common experience. Such apparitions cannot too frequently, if only for moments, flash across that common experience as electric lights from the higher world. Frau H. was previous to my magnetic treatment in so deep a synonymic life that she was in fact never rightly awake, even when she seemed to be, or rather, let us say, she was at times more awake than others are. For it is strange to term sleep this state, which is just that of the clearest wakefulness. Better to say, she was immersed in the inward state. In this state and the consequent excitement of the nerves, she had almost wholly lost organic force and received it only by transmission from those of stronger condition, principally from their eyes and the ends of the fingers. The atmosphere and nerve communications of others, she said, bring me the life which I need. They do not feel it, these effusions on which I live would flow from them and be lost if my nerves did not attract them. Only this way can I live. She often assured us that others did not suffer by loss of what they imparted to her, but it cannot be denied that persons were weakened by constant intercourse with her, suffered from contraction in the limbs, trembling, etc. They were weakened also in the eyes and the pit of the stomach. From those related to her by blood she could draw more benefit than from others, and went very weak from them only, probably on account of a natural affinity of temperament. She could not bear to have around her nervous and sick persons, those from whom she could gain nothing, made her weaker.  Other physicians beside myself can vouch that the presence of some persons affected her as a pablim vitae, while if left with certain others or alone she was sure to grow weaker. From the air too she seemed to draw a peculiar, ethereal nourishment of the same sort. She could not remain without an open window in the severest cold of winter. The spirit of things about which we have no perception was sensible to her and had influence on her. She showed the sense of the spirit of metals, plants, animals and men. Imponderable existences such as the various colors of the ray showed distinct influences upon her. The electric fluid was visible and sensible to her when it was not to us. Yay, what is incredible, even the written words of men she could discriminate by touch. These experiments are detailed under their several heads in this book. From her eyes flowed a peculiar spiritual light which impressed even those who saw her for a very short time. She was in each relation more spirit than human. Should we compare her with anything human we would say she was as one detained at the moment of dissolution, betwixed life and death, and who is better able to discern the affairs of the world that lies before than that behind him. She was often in situations when one who had, like her, the power of discerning spirits would have seen her own free from the body, which at times enveloped it only as a light veil. She saw herself often out of the body, saw herself double. She would say, I seem out of myself, hover above my body, and think of it as something apart from me. But it is not a pleasant feeling, because I still sympathize with my body. If only my soul were bound more firmly to the nerve spirit, it might be bound more closely with the nerves themselves. But the bond of my nerve spirit is always becoming looser. She makes a distinction between spirit as the pure intelligence. So the ideal of this individual man and nerve spirit, the dynamic of his temporal existence. Of this feeling of double identity and invalid now wasting under nervous disease often speaks to me. He has it when he first awakes from sleep. Lake the painter, whose life was almost as much a series of trances as that of our Saharan, in his designs of the resurrection, represents spirits as rising from or hovering over their bodies in the same way. Often she seemed quite freed from her body and to have no more sense of its weight. As to artificial culture or dressing. Dressur. Frau H. had nothing of it. She had learned no foreign tongue, neither history nor geography, nor natural philosophy, nor any other of those branches now imparted to those of her sex in their schools. The Bible and him book were especially in the long years of her sickness, her only reading. Her moral character was throughout blameless. She was pious without fanaticism. Even her long suffering and the peculiar manner of it, she recognized as the grace of God, as she expresses in the following verses. Great God, how great is thy goodness, to me thou hast given faith and love, holding me firm in the distress of my sufferings. In the darkness of my sorrow I so far let away, as to beg for peace and speedy death. But then came to me the mighty strong faith, hope came, and came eternal love.   Is it a light? No, but a son of grace. Often in the sense of her sufferings, while in the magnetic trance, she made prayers in verse, of which this is one. Father, hear me, hear my prayer and supplication.  Shed hope into my heart, instill its longing. Father, on thee I call, have pity. Take something from me, the sick one, the poor one. Father, I leave thee not, though sickness and pain consume me. If I, the spring's light, see only through the mist of tears, Father, I leave thee not. These verses lose their merit of a touching simplicity and an unrhymed translation, but they will serve to show the habitual temper of her mind. As I was a maker of verses, continues Dr. Kerner, it was easy to say, Frau Edge, derived this talent from my magnetic influence, but she made these little verses before she came under my care. Not without deep significance was Apollo distinguished as being at once the God of Posey, of prophecy, and the medical art. Sleep-waking develops the powers of seeing, healing, and Posey. How nobly the ancients understood the inner life, how fully is it indicated in their mysteries. I know a pleasant maiden, who cannot write, but who in the magnetic state speaks in measured verse. Dalin was indebted to his nightly dreams for a part of his medical knowledge. The Calomnes, spread about Frau H., were many engrossed, this she well knew. As one day she heard so many of these as to be much affected by them, we thought she would express her feelings that night in the magnetic sleep. But she only said, they can affect my body, but not my spirit. Her mind, raised above such assaults by the consciousness of innocence, maintained its tranquility and dwelt solely on spiritual matters. Once in her sleep-waking she wrote thus, When the world declares of me such cruel ill in Calomne, and to your ears it finds a way, do you believe it, yea or nay? I answered, To us thou seemest true and pure, let others view it as they will. We have our assurance still, if our own sight can make us sure. People of all kinds, to my great trouble, were always pressing to see her. If we refuse them access to the sick-room, they avenge themselves by the invention of all kinds of falsehoods. She met all with equal friendliness, even when it cost her bodily pain, and those who defamed her she often defended. There came to her both good and bad men. She felt the evil in men clearly, but would not censor, lift up a stone to cast at no sinner, but was rather likely to awake in the faulty being she suffered near her, faith in a spiritual life which might make them better. Years before she was brought to me, the earth with its atmosphere and all that is about, and upon it, human beings not accepted, was no more for her. She needed not only a magnetizer, not only a love, and earnestness in insight, such as scarce laws within the capacity of any man, but also what no mortal could bestow upon her, another heaven, other means of nourishment, other air than that of this earth. She belonged to the world of spirits, living here herself as more than half spirit. She belonged to the state after death, into which she had advanced more than half way. It is possible she might have been brought back to an adaptation from this world in the second or third year of her malady, but in the fifth no mode of treatment could have affected this. But by care she was aided to a greater harmony and clearness of the inward life. She enjoyed it, Vinesburg, as she after said, the richest and happiest days of this life, and to us her abode here remains a point of light. As to her outward form, we have already said it seen but a thin veil about her spirit. She was little, her features of an oriental cast, her eye had the penetrating look of a seers eye, which was set off by the shade of long dark eyelashes. She was a light flower that only lived on rays. Eschenmeier writes thus of her in his Mysteries. Her natural state was a mild friendly earnestness, always disposed to prayer and devotion, for I had a highly spiritual expression, and remained notwithstanding her great sufferings, always bright and clear. Her look was penetrating, would quickly change in the conversation, seemed to give forth sparks and remain fixed on some one place. This was a token that some strange apparition fetter did. Then would she resume the conversation. When I first saw her, she was in a situation which showed that her bodily life could not long endure, and that recovery to the common natural state was quite impossible. Without visible derangement of functions, her life seemed only a quick glimmering in the socket. She was, as Kerner truly describes her, like one arrested in the act of dying and detained in the body by magnetic influences. Spirit and soul seemed often divided, and the spirit to have taken up its abode in other regions while the soul was yet bound to the body. I've given these extracts as being happily expressive of the relation between the physician and the clairvoyant, also of her character. It seems to have been one of singular gentleness and grateful piety, simple and pure, but not at all one from which we should expect extraordinary development of brain in any way. Yet the excitement of her temperament from climate, scenery, the influence of traditions which evidently flowed round her. And a great constitutional impressibility did develop in her brain the germs both of poetic creation and science. I say poetic creation, or to my mind the ghost she saw were projections of herself into objective reality. The Hades she imagines is based in fact, for it is one of souls who, having neglected their opportunities for better life, find themselves left forlorn, helpless, seeking aid from being still ignorant and prejudice, perhaps much below themselves in natural powers. Having forfeited their chance of direct access to God, they seek mediation from the prayers of men. But in the coloring and dress of these ghosts, as always in their manner and modus speech, there is a great deal which seems merely fanciful, local and peculiar. To me these interviews represent only prophecies of her mind, yet, considered in this way, they are, if not ghostly, spiritual facts of high beauty, which cast light on the state of the soul after its separation from the body. Her gentle patience with them, her steady reference to a higher cause, her pure joy when they became white in the light of happiness obtained through aspiration, are worthy of a more than half enfranchised angel. As to the stories of mental correspondence and visits to those still engaged in this world, such as are told of her presentiment of her father's death and connection with him in the last moments, these are probably pure facts. Those who have sufficient strength of affection to be easily disengaged from external impressions and habits, and who dare trust their mental impulses are familiar with such. Her invention of a language seems a simply natural motion of the mind when left to itself. The language we habitually use is so broken and so hackneyed by ages of conventional use that, in all deep states of being, we crave one simple and primitive in its stead. Most persons make one more or less clear from looks, tones and symbols this woman in the long leisure of her loneliness, in a mind bent upon itself, attempted to compose one of letters and words. I look upon it as no gift from without but a growth from her own mind. Her invention of a machine of which she made a drawing, the power of drawing correctly her life circle and sun circle, and the mathematical feelings she had of her existence in correspondent sections of the two are also valuable as mental facts. These figures describe her history and exemplify the position of mathematics toward the world of creative thought. Every fact of mental existence ought to be capable of similar demonstration. I attach no special importance to her circles. We all live in such. All who observe themselves have the same sense of exactness and harmony in the revolutions of their destiny. But few attend to what is simple and invariable in the motions of their minds, and still fewer seek out means clearly to express them to others. Gutta has taken up these facts in his Wanderhjar, where he speaks of his Makaria, also one of these persons who are compensated for bodily infirmity by a more concentrated and acute state of mind, and consequent access as a wisdom is being bound to a star. When she was engaged by a sense of these larger revolutions, she seemed to those near her on the earth to be sick, when she was in fact lower but better adapted to the details and variations of an earthly life. These said she was very well. Makaria knew the sun and life circles also, the lives of spirit and soul, as did the forester's daughter of Prevorst. For power of making little verses was one of released gifts. Many excitable persons possess this talent at diversification, as all may possess it. It is merely that a certain exultation of feeling raises the mode of expression with it, in the same way a song differs from speech. Verses of this sort do not necessarily demand the high faculties that constitute the poet, the creative powers. Many verses, good ones are personal or national merely, ballads, hymns, lovelifts, have often no claim differing from those of common prose speech to the title of poems except a greater keenness and terseness of expression. The verses of this seherin are of the simplest character, the natural garb for the sighs or aspirations of a lonely heart. She uses the shortest words, the commonest rhymes, and the verses move us by their nature and truth alone. The most interesting of these facts to me are her impressions from minerals and plants, her impressions coincide with many ancient superstitions. The hazel woke her immediately and gave her more power, therefore the witch, with her hazel wand, probably found herself superior to those around her. We may also mention, in reference to witchcraft, that Dr. Kay asserts that, in certain moods of mine, she had no weight but was upborn upon water like cork, thus confirming the propriety and justice of our forefathers or deal for witchcraft. The laurel produced on her the highest magnetic effect, therefore the sibles had good reason for wearing it on their brows. The laurel had on her, as on most sleepwalkers, a distinguished magnetic effect. We thus see why the priestess at Delphi, previous to uttering her oracles, shook a laurel tree and then seated herself on a tripod covered with laurel boughs. In the temple of Esculapius and others, the laurel was used to excite sleep and dream. From grapes she declared impressions, which corresponded with those caused by the wines made from them. Many kinds were given her, one after the other, by the person who raised them, and who gives a certificate as to the accuracy of her impressions in his belief that she could not have derived them from any cause but that of the touch. She prescribed vegetable substances to be used in her machine as a kind of vapor bath and with good results to herself. She enjoyed contact with minerals, deriving from those she liked a sense of concentrated life. Her impressions of the precious stones corresponded with many superstitions of the ancients, which led to the preference of certain gems for amulets on which they had engraved Tel's manic figures. The ancients, in addition to their sense of the qualities that distinguished the diamond, above all gems, venerated it as a tailspin against wild beasts, poison and evil spirits, thus expressing the natural influence of what is so enduring, bright and pure. Townsend, speaking of the effect of gems on one of his sleep-wakers, said, she loved the diamond so much that she would lean her forehead towards it whenever it was brought near her. Observable that these sleep-wakers in their prescriptions resemble the ancient sages who called only simples for the sick. But if they have this fine sense also for the qualities of animal and mineral substances, there is no reason why they should not turn vain to antidote and prescribe at least homeopathic doses of poison to restore the disease to health. The Seherim prescribed different states to the right and left sides of every body, even of the Lady Moon. The left is most impressible. Query, is this the reason why the left hand has been by the custom of nations so almost disused because the heart is on the left side? She also saw different sites in the left from the right eye. In the left, the bodily state of the person, in the right, is real or destined self, how often unknown to himself almost always obscured or perverted by his present ignorance or mistake. She had also the gift of second sight. She saw the coffins of those about to die. She saw on mirrors cups of water in soap bubbles the coming future. We are here reminded of many beautiful superstitions and legends of the secret pool in which the daring may at mid-moon of night read the future of the magic globe on whose pure surface Britomart sees her future love, whom she must seek berate and nightly armor through a difficult and hostile world. A looking-glass, right wondrously aguized, whose virtues through the wide world soon were solemnized. A virtue had to show in perfect sight whatever thing was in the world contained betwixt the lowest earth and heaven's height so that it to the looker appertained whatever foe had wrought or friend had feigned. Here it discovered was what moat-pas. Nayot, in secret from the same, remained. Fourthy it round and hollow-shaped was, like to the world itself, and seemed a world of glass. From the Fairy Queen, Book III. Such mirrors had Cornelius, Agrippa, and other wizards. The soap bubble is such a globe. Only one had need of second sight or double sight to see the pictures on so transitory a mirror. Perhaps it is some vague expectation of such wonders that makes us so fond of blowing them in childish years. But perhaps it is rather as a prelude to the occupation of our lives, blowing bubbles where all things may be seen that to the looker appertain if we can keep them long enough or look quick enough. In short, were this biography of no other value be most interesting as showing how the floating belief of nations always no doubt shadowing forth in its imperfect fashion, the poetic facts with their scientific exposition, is found to grow up anew and as simple but high-wrought nature. The fashioning spirit, working upwards from the cloud to man, proffers as its last highest essay, the brain of man. In the Lois Zofite it aimed at this. Some faint rudiments may there be discern, but only in man has it perfected that immense galvanic battery that can be loaded from above, below, and around. That engine not only of perception but of conception and consecutive thought, whose right hand is memory, whose life is idea, the crown of nature, the platform from which the spirit takes wing. Yet his gradation is the beautiful secret of nature and the fashioning spirit which loves to develop and transcend, loves no less to moderate, to modulate and harmonize. It did not mean by thus drawing man onward to the next state of existence to destroy his fitness for this. It did not mean to destroy his sympathies with the mineral, vegetable, and animal realms of whose components he is in great part composed, which were the preface to his being, of whom he is to take count, whom he should govern as a reasoning head of a perfectly arranged body. He was meant to be the historian, the philosopher, the poet, the king of this world, no less than the prophet of the next. These functions should be in equi-pose, and when they are not, when we see excess either on the natural, so-called as distinguished from the spiritual, or the spiritual side, we feel that the law is transgressed. And if it be the greatest sorrow to see brain merged into body, to see a man more hands or feet than head, so that we feel he might, with propriety, be on all fours again, or even crawl like the serpent. It is also sad to see the brain too much excited on some one side which we call madness, or even unduly and prematurely, so as to destroy in its bloom the common human existence of the person, as in the case before us, and others of the poetical and prophetical existence.  But in cases like this where the animal life is prematurely broken up, and the brain prematurely exercised, we may as well learn what we can from it, and believe that the glimpses thus caught, if not as precious as the full view are bright with the same light and open to the same scene. There is a family character about all the German ghosts. We find the same features in these stories as those related by Jung's stealing and others. They bear the same character as the pictures by the old masters of a deep and simple piety. She stands before, as this piety, in a full high-necked robe, a simple house-froish cat, a clear straightforward blue eye. These are no terrible gloomy ghosts with Spanish mantel or Italian dagger. We feel quite at home with them and sure of their good faith. To the sehirin, they were a real society constantly inspiring good thoughts. The reference to them in these verses written in her journal, shortly before her death, is affecting and shows her deep sense of their reality. She must have felt that she had been refusing always as she did, request she thought wrong and referring them to a savior. Farewell, my friends. All farewell. God bless you for your love. Bless you for your goodness. All farewell. And you, how shall I name you? Who hath so saddened me? I will name you also. Friends, you have been disciplined to me. Farewell. Farewell. Farewell, you my dear ones. Soon will you know that I might have been my sufferings in the pilgrim land. Farewell. Let it not grieve you that my woes find an end. Farewell, dear ones, to the second meeting. Farewell, farewell. In this journal her thoughts dwell much upon those natural ties which she was not permitted to enjoy. She thought much of her children and often fancied she had saw the one who had died growing in the spirit land.  Other interesting poems are records of these often beautiful visions especially of that preceding her own death. The address to her life-circle, the thought of which is truly great, this was translated in The Dublin Magazine and the descriptions of her earthly state as an imprisonment. The story of her life, though stained like others by partialities and prejudices, which were not to be distinguished from what was altogether true and fair, is a poem of so pure a musing presents such gentle and holy images that we sympathize fully in the love and gratitude Kerner and his friends felt towards her as the friend of their best life. She was a saint Teresa in her own way. His address to her with which his volume closes may thus be translated in homely guise. In the original it has no merit but uttering his affectionate reverent feeling towards his patient the peasant girl, the sick one, the poor one. But we like to see how from the mouths of babes and sucklings praise may be so perfected as to command this reverence from the learned and worldly wise. The CRS of Prevost Farewell, the dead I owe thee ever in my heart I bear my soul sees since I know thee the spirit depth so clear whether in light or shade thy soul now dwelling hath be if my faith should fade the guide upon my path livest thou in mutual power with souls blessed and bright O be in death's dark hour my help to heaven's light upon thy grave is growing the plant by thee beloved St. John's ward golden glowing like St. John's thoughts of love witness of sacred sorrow when ere thou meetest my eye O flower from thee I borrow thoughts of eternity Farewell, the woes of earth no more my soul afright who knows their temporal birth can easy bear their weight I do confess this is a paraphrase not a translation also that in the other extracts I've taken liberties with the original for the sake of condensation and clearness what I have written must be in light and conversational account of the work two or three other remarks I had forgotten may come in here the glances at the spirit world have none of that large or universal significance none of that value from philosophical analogy that is felt in any picture by Swedenborg or Dante of permanent relations the mind of the forester's daughter was exalted and rapidly developed still the wild cherry tree bore no orange she was not transformed into a philosophic or poetic organization yet many of her untaught notions remind of other seers of a larger scope she too receives this life as one link in a long chain and thinks that immediately after death the meaning of the past life will appear to us as one word she tends to a belief in the aromal state and in successive existences on this earth for behind person she often saw another being whether their form in the state before or after this I know not behind a woman a man equipped for fight and so forth her perception of character even in cases of those whom she saw only as they passed her window was correct Kerner aims many a lead in sarcasm at those who despise his projulity he speaks of those sages as men whose brain is a stable incapable of receiving the electric spark and it will not believe because in their mental isolation they are incapable of feeling these facts certainly I think he would be dull who could see no meaning or beauty in the history of the forester's daughter of prevor she lived but nine and twenty years yet in that time had traversed a larger portion of the field of thought than all her race before in their many lives of the abuses to which all these magical implements are prone I have an instance since leaving Milwaukee in the journal of a man equally sincere but not equally inspired led from Germany hither by signs and wonders as a commissioned agent of Providence who indeed has arranged every detail of his life with a minuteness far beyond the promised care of the sparrow he prompts himself by spiritual aid from a maiden now in this country who is once an attendant on the Cirrus and who seems to have caught from her the contagion of trance but not its revelations do not blame me that I have written so much about Germany and Hades while you were looking for news of the West here on the pier I see disembarking the Germans the Norwegians the Swedes the Swiss who knows how much of old legendary lore of modern wonder they have already planted amid the Wisconsin forest soon soon their tales of the origin of things and the Providence which rules them will be so mingle with those of the Indian that the very oak trees will not know them apart will not know whether itself be a runic a druid or a Winnebago oak some seeds of all growths that have ever been known in this world might no doubt already be found in these western wilds if we had the power to tell them life I saw on the newspaper that the American track society boasted of their agents having exchanged at a western cavern door tracks for the devil on two sticks and then burnt that more entertaining than edifying volume no wonder though they study it there could one but have the gift of reading the dreams dreamed by men of such various births various history various mind it would afford much more sense of amusement than did the chambers of one Spanish city could I but have flown at night through such mental experiences instead of being shut up in my little bedroom in the Milwaukee boarding house this chapter would have been worth reading as it is let us hasten to a close had I been rich in money I might have built a house or set up in business during my fortnight stay at Milwaukee matters move on there it's so rapid a rate being only rich in curiosity I was obliged to walk the streets and pick up what I could in casual intercourse when I left the street indeed and walked on the bluffs or sat beside the lake in their shadow my mind was rich in dreams congenial to the scene sometime to be realized though not by me a boat was left keel up half on the sand half in the water swaying with each swell of the lake it gave a picturesque grace to that part of the shore as the only image of inaction only object of a pensive character to be seen near this I sat to dream my dreams and watched the colors of the lake changing hourly till the sun sang these hours yielded impulses wolf webs such as life will not again afford returning to the boarding house which was also a boarding school we were sure to be greeted by gay laughter this school was conducted by two girls of nineteen and seventeen years their pupils were nearly as old as themselves the relation seemed very pleasant between them the only superiority that of superior knowledge was sufficient to maintain authority all the authority that was needed to keep daily life in good order in the west people are not respected merely because they are old in years people there have not time to keep up appearances in that way when they cease to have a real advantage and wisdom knowledge or enterprise they must stand back and let those who are oldest in character go ahead however few years they may count there are no banks of established respectability in which to bury the talent there no napkin of precedent in which to wrap it what cannot be made to pass current is not a steamed coin of the realm to the windows of this house where the daughter of a famous fighter i.e fighter against the Indians was learning French and the piano came wild twenty figures offering for sale their baskets of berries the boys now instead of brandishing the tomahawk tamed their hands to pick raspberries here the evenings were much lightened by the gay chat of one of the party who with the excellent practical sense of mature experience and the kindest heart united a naivete and innocence such as i never saw in any other who'd walk so long life's tangled path like a child she was everywhere at home and like a child received and bestowed entertainment from all places all persons i thanked her for making me laugh as did the sick and poor whom she was sure to find out in her briefest soldier and in any place for more substantial aid happier those who never grieve and so often aid and alive a fellow man this scene however i was not sorry to exchange for the much celebrated beauties of the island of makinaak end of chapter five part two chapter six part one of summer on the lakes in eighteen forty three this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Borg. Summer on the Lakes in 1843, by Margaret Fuller. Chapter 6 Part 1 Mackinaw Late at night we reached this island, so famous for its beauty, and to which I proposed a visit of some length. It was the last week in August, when a large representation from the Chippewa and Ottawa tribes are here to receive their annual payments from the American government. As their habits make travelling easy and inexpensive to them, neither being obliged to wait for steam-boats or right to see whether hotels are full, they come hither by thousands, and those thousands in families, secure of accommodation on the beach and food from the lake, to make a long holiday out of the occasion. There were near 2,000 encamped on the island already, and more arriving every day. As our boat came in, the captain had some rockets let off. This greatly excited the Indians, and their yells and wild cries resounded along the shore. Except for the momentary flash of the rockets, it was perfectly dark, and my sensations as I walked, with a stranger to a strange hotel, through the midst of these shrieking savages, and heard the pants and snorts of the departing steamer which carried away all my companions, were somewhat of the dismal sort, though it was pleasant, too, in the way that everything strange is, everything that breaks in upon the routine that so easily incrusts us. I had reason to expect a room to myself at the hotel, but found none, and was obliged to take up my rest in the common parlor and eating-room, a circumstance which ensured my being an early riser. With the first rosy streak I was out among my Indian neighbors, whose lodges honeycombed the beautiful beach, that curved away in long, fair outline on either side the house. They were already on the alert, the children creeping out from beneath the blanket door of the lodge, the women pounding corn in their rude mortars, the young men playing on their pipes. I had been much amused when the strain proper to the Winnebago courting-flute was played to me on another instrument at any one fancy and at a melody. But now, when I heard the notes in their true tone and time, I thought it not unworthy comparison in its graceful sequence and the light flourish at the close with the sweetest birdsongs, and this, like the birdsong, is only practiced to allure a mate. The Indian, become a citizen and a husband, no more thinks of playing the flute than one of the settled-down members of our society would of choosing the purple light of love as dye stuff for us or two. Mackinaw has been fully described by able pens, and I can only add my tribute to the exceeding beauty of the spot in its position. It is charming to be on an island so small that you can sail round it in an afternoon, yet large enough to admit of long, secluded walks through its gentle groves. You can go round it in your boat, or on foot you can tread its narrow beach, resting at times beneath the lofty walls of stone, richly wooded, which rise from it in various architectural forms. In this stone caves are continually forming from the action of the atmosphere.  The arched rock surprised me, much as I had heard of it, from the perfection of the arch. It is perfect whether you look up through it from the lake or down through it to the transparent waters. We both ascended and descended, no very easy matter, the steep and crumbling path, and rested at the summit beneath the trees and at the foot upon the cool mossy stones beside the lapsing wave. Nature has carefully decorated all this architecture with shrubs that take root within the crevices and small creeping vines. These natural ruins may vie for beautiful effect with the remains of European grandeur, and have beside a charm as of a playful mood in nature. The sugarloaf rock is a fragment in the same kind as the pine rock we saw in Illinois. It has the same air of a helmet as seen from an eminence at the side, which you descend by a long and steep path. The rock itself may be ascended by the bold and agile. Halfway up is a niche to which those who are neither can climb by a ladder. A very handsome young officer and lady who were with us did so, and then, facing round, stood there side by side, looking in the niche, if not like saints or angels wrought by pious hands in stone, as romantically, if not as holily, worthy the gazer's eye. The woods which adorn the central ridge of the island are very full in foliage, and in August show the tender green and pliant leaf of June elsewhere. They are rich in beautiful mosses and the wild raspberry. In Fort Holmes, the old fort, we had the most commanding view of the lake and straits, opposite shores, and fair islets. Mackinaw itself is best seen from the water. Its peculiar shape is supposed to have been the origin of its name, Micheli Mackenac, which means the Great Turtle. One person whom I saw wished to establish another etymology, which he fancied to be more refined. But I doubt not this is the true one, both because the shape might suggest such a name, and that the existence of an island in this commanding position, which did so, would seem a significant fact to the Indians. For Henry gives the details of peculiar worship paid to the Great Turtle, and the oracles received from this extraordinary Apollo of the Indian Delphos.  From this, on one side, stretches the town. How pleasing a sight, after the raw, crude, staring assemblage of houses, everywhere else to be met in this country, an old French town, mellow in its coloring, and with the harmonious effect of a slow growth, which assimilates naturally with objects round it. The people in its streets, Indian, French, half-breeds, and others, walked with a leisure step as those who live a life of taste and inclination, rather than of the hard press of business, as in American towns elsewhere. On the other side, along the fair, curving beach, below the white houses scattered on the declivity, clustered the Indian lodges with their amber-brown matting, so soft and bright of you in the late afternoon sun. The first afternoon I was there, looking down from a near height, I felt that I never wished to see a more fascinating picture. It was an hour of the deepest serenity, bright blue and gold, rich shadows. Every moment the sunlight fell more mellow. The Indians were grouped and scattered among the lodges, the women preparing food in the Kettler frying-pan, over the many small fires, the children, half-naked, wild as little goblins, were playing both in and out of the water. Here and there lounged a young girl with a baby at her back, whose bright eyes glanced as if born into a world of courage and of joy, instead of ignominious servitude and slow decay. Some girls were cutting wood a little away from me, talking and laughing in the low musical tone so charming in the Indian women. Many bark canoes were upturned upon the beach, and by that light of almost the same amber as the lodges. Others coming in, their square sails set and with almost airowy speed, though heavily laden with dusky forms and all the apparatus of their household. Here and there a sailboat glided by, with a different but scarce less pleasing motion. It was a scene of ideal loveliness, and these wild forms adorned it as looking so at home in it. All seemed happy, and they were happy that day, for they had no fire-water to madden them, as it was Sunday and the shops were shut. From my window at the boarding-house my eye was constantly attracted by these picturesque groups. I was never tired of seeing the canoes come in, and the new arrivals set up their temporary dwellings. The women ran to set up the tent-pulls and spread the mats on the ground. The men brought the chests, kettles, and company. The mats were then laid on the outside, the cedar-bows strewn on the ground, the blanket hung up for a door, and all was completed in less than twenty minutes. Then they began to prepare the night-meal, and to learn of their neighbors the news of the day. The habit of preparing food out of doors gave all the gypsy charm and variety to their conduct. Continually I wanted Sir Walter Scott to have been there. If such romantic sketches were suggested to him, by the sight of a few gypsies, not a group near one of these fires but would have furnished him material for a separate canvas. I was so taken up with the spirit of the scene that I could not follow out the stories suggested by these weather-beaten, sullen, but eloquent figures. They talked a great deal, and with much variety of gesture, so that I often had a good guess at the meaning of their discourse. I saw that whatever the Indian may be among the whites, he is anything but taciturn with his own people, and he often would declaim or narrate at length, as indeed it is obvious that these tribes possess great power that way, if only from the fables taken from their stores by Mr. Schoolcraft. I liked very much to walk or sit among them. With the women I held much communication by signs. They are almost invariably coarse and ugly, with the exception of their eyes, with a peculiarly awkward gait, and forms bent by birthings. This gait, so different from the steady and noble step of the men, marks the inferior position they occupy. I had heard much eloquent contradiction of this. Mrs. Schoolcraft had maintained to a friend that they were in fact as nearly on a par with their husbands as the white woman with hers. Although, said she, on account of inevitable causes, the Indian woman is subjected to many hardships of a peculiar nature, yet her position, compared with that of the man, is higher and freer than that of the white woman. Why will people look only on one side? They either exalt the red man into a demigod, or degrade him into a beast. They say he compels his wife to do all the drudgery, while he does nothing but hunt and amuse himself. Forgetting that, upon his activity, and power of endurance as a hunter, depends the support of his family, that this is labour of the most fatiguing kind, and that it is absolutely necessary that he should keep his frame unbent by burdens and unworn by toil, that he may be able to obtain the means of subsistence. I have witnessed scenes of conjugal and parental love in the Indian's wigwam, from which I have often, often, thought the educated white man, proud of his superior civilisation, might learn a useful lesson. When he returns from hunting, worn out with fatigue, having tasted nothing since dawn, his wife, if she is a good wife, will take off his moccasins and replace them with dry ones, and will prepare his game for their repast, while his children will climb upon him, and he will caress them with all the tenderness of a woman. And in the evening the Indian wigwam is the scene of the purest domestic pleasures. The father will relate for the amusement of the wife, and for the instruction of the children, all the events of the day's hunt, while they will treasure up every word that falls, and thus learn the theory of the art, whose practice is to be the occupation of their lives. Mrs. Grant speaks thus of the position of woman amid the Mohawk Indians. Lady Mary Montague says that the court of Vienna was the paradise of old women, and that there is no other place in the world where a woman past fifty excites the least interest. Had her travels extended to the interior of North America, she would have seen another instance of this inversion of the common mode of thinking. Where a woman never was of consequence, till she had a son old enough to fight the battles of his country. From that date she held a superior rank in society, was allowed to live at ease, and even called to consultations on national affairs. In savage and warlike countries the reign of beauty is very short, and its influence comparatively limited. The girls in childhood had a very pleasing appearance, but excepting their fine hair, eyes, and teeth, every external grace was soon banished by perpetual drudgery, carrying burdens too heavy to be born, and other slavish employments, considered beneath the dignity of the men. These walked before, erect and graceful, decked with ornaments which set off to advantage the symmetry of their well-formed persons. While the poor women followed, meanly attired, bent under the weight of the children and utensils, which they carried everywhere with them, and disfigured and degraded by ceaseless toils. They were very early married, for a mohawk had no other servant but his wife, and whenever he commenced hunter it was requisite he should have someone to carry his load, cook his kettle, make his moccasins, and above all produce the young warriors who were to succeed him in the honors of the chase and of the tomahawk. Wherever man is a mere hunter, woman is a mere slave. It is domestic intercourse that softens man and elevates woman, and of that there can be but little, where the employments and amusements are not in common. The ancient Caledonians honored the fair, but then it is to be observed they were fair huntresses, and moved in the light of their beauty to the hill of Rose, and the culinary toils were entirely left to the rougher sex. When the young warrior made his appearance it softened the cares of his mother, who well knew that when he grew up every deficiency in tenderness to his wife would be made up in superabundant duty and affection to her. If it were possible to carry filial veneration to excess it was done here, for all other charities were absorbed in it. I wonder this system of depressing the sex in their early years to exalt them when all their juvenile attractions were flown and when mind alone can distinguish them has not occurred to our modern reformers. The Mohawks took good care not to admit their women to share their prerogatives till they approved themselves good wives and mothers. The observations of women upon the position of woman are always more valuable than those of men, but of these two Mrs. Grants seems much nearer the truth than Mrs. Schoolcraft's, because though her opportunities for observation did not bring her so close she looked more at both sides to find the truth. Carver in his travels among the Winnebagoes describes two queens, one nominally so like Queen Victoria, the other invested with a genuine royalty springing from her own conduct. In the great town of the Winnebagoes he found a queen presiding over the tribe, instead of a sachem. He adds that in some tribes the dissent is given to the female line in preference to the male, that is a sister's son will succeed to the authority rather than a brother's son. The position of this Winnebagoe queen reminded me forcibly of Queen Victoria's.   These her attendants seemed greatly pleased whenever I showed any tokens of respect to their queen, especially when I saluted her, which I frequently did to acquire her favour. The other was a woman who, being taken captive, found means to kill her captor and make her escape, and the tribe were so struck with admiration at the courage and calmness she displayed on the occasion as to make her chief d'nesse in her own right. Notwithstanding the homage paid to women and the consequence allowed her in some cases, it is impossible to look upon the Indian women without feeling that they do occupy a lower place than women among the nations of European civilization. The habits of drudgery expressed in their form and gesture, the soft and wild but melancholy expression of their eye, reminded me of the tribe mentioned by Mackenzie, where the women destroy their female children whenever they have a good opportunity, and of the eloquent reproaches addressed by the Paraguay woman to her mother that she had not, in the same way, saved her from the anguish and weariness of her lot. More weariness than anguish, no doubt, falls to the lot of most of these women. They inherit submission, and the minds of the generality accommodate themselves, more or less, to any posture.  But their place is certainly lower, and their share of the human inheritance less. Their decorum and delicacy are striking, and show that when these are native to the mind, no habits of life make any difference. Their whole gesture is timid yet self-possessed. They used to crowd round me, to inspect little things I had to show them, but never press near. On the contrary, they would reprove and keep off the children. Anything they took from my hand was held with care, then shut or folded and returned, with an air of ladylike precision. They would not stare however curious they might be, but cast side-long glances. A locket that I wore was an object of untiring interest. They seemed to regard it as a talisman. My little sunshade was still more fascinating to them. Probably they had never before seen one. For an umbrella they entertained profound regard, probably looking upon it as the most luxurious superfluity a person can possess, and therefore a badge of great wealth. I used to see an old squaw, whose sullied skin and coarsed tanned locks, told me that she had braved sun and storm without a doubter care, for sixty years at the least, sitting gravely at the door of her lodge, with an old green umbrella over her head, happy for hours together in the dignified shade. For her happiness pomp came not, as it so often does, too late. She received it with grateful enjoyment. One day as I was seated on one of the canoes a woman came and sat beside me, with her baby in its cradle set up at her feet. She asked me by a gesture to let her take my sunshade, and then to show her how to open it. Then she put it into her baby's hand, and held it over its head, looking at me the while with a sweet mischievous laugh, as much as to say, you carry a thing that is only fit for a baby. Her pantomime was very pretty. She, like the other women, had a glance, and shy sweet expression in the eye. The men have a steady gaze. The noblest and loveliest of modern pru, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who came through Buffalo to Detroit and Mackinac with Brandt, and was adopted into the Bear Tribe by the name of Egnadol, was struck in the same way by the delicacy of manners in the women. He says, notwithstanding the life they lead, which would make most women rough and masculine, they are as soft, meek, and modest as the best brought up girls in England. Not coquettish, too. Imagine the manners of a Mimi in a poor squaw that has been carrying packs in the woods all her life. McKinney mentions that the young wife, during the short bloom of her beauty, is an object of homage and tenderness to her husband. One Indian woman, the flying pigeon, a beautiful and excellent woman, of whom he gives some particulars, is an instance of the power uncommon characters will always exert, of breaking down the barriers custom has erected round them. She captivated by her charms, and inspired with reverence for her character, her husband and son. The simple praise with which the husband indicates the religion, the judgment, and the generosity he saw in her are as satisfying as Count Zinsendorf's more labored eulogium on his noble consort. The conduct of her son when, many years after her death, he saw her picture at Washington is unspeakably affecting. Catlin gives anecdotes of the grief of a chief for the loss of a daughter, and the princely gifts he offers in exchange for her portrait, worthy not merely of a European, but of Troubadour sentiment. It is also evident that, as Mrs. Schoolcraft says, the women have great power at home. It can never be otherwise, men being dependent upon them for the comfort of their lives. Just so among ourselves, wives who are neither esteemed nor loved by their husbands have great power over their conduct by the friction of every day, and over the formation of their opinions by the daily opportunities so close a relation affords of perverting testimony and instilling doubts. But these sentiments should not come in brief flashes, but burn as a steady flame. Then there would be more women worthy to inspire them. This power is good for nothing, unless the woman be wise to use it right. Has the Indian, has the white woman, as noble a feeling of life in its uses, as religious a self-respect, as worthy a field of thought and action, as man? If not, the white woman, the Indian woman, occupies an inferior position to that of man. It is not so much a question of power as of privilege. The men of these subjugated tribes, now accustomed to drunkenness and every way degraded, bear but a faint impress of the lost grandeur of the race. They are no longer strong, tall, or finely proportioned. But as you see them stealing along a height, or striding boldly forward, they remind you of what was majestic in the red man. On the shores of Lake Superior it is said, if you visit them at home, you may still see a remnant of the noble blood. The pillagers, pillures, a band celebrated by the old travellers, are still existent there. Still some, the eagles of their tribe, may rush. I have spoken of the hatred felt by the white man for the Indian. With white women it seems to amount to disgust, to loathing. How I could endure the dirt, the peculiar smell of the Indians and their dwellings was a great marvel in the eyes of my lady acquaintance. Indeed, I wonder why they did not quite give me up, as they certainly looked on me with great distaste for it.  Was the felt, if not the breathed, expression toward the hapless owners of the soil. All their claims, all their sorrows quite forgot, in apporance of their dirt, their tawny skins, and the vices the whites have taught them. A person who had seen them during the great part of a life expressed his prejudices to me with such violence that I was no longer surprised that the Indian children through sticks at him as he passed. A lady said, Do what you will for them, they will be ungrateful. The savage cannot be washed out of them. Bring up an Indian child and see if you can attach it to you. The next moment she expressed, in the presence of one of those children whom she was bringing up, loathing at the odor left by one of her people, and one of the most respected as he passed through the room. When the child is grown she will consider it basely ungrateful not to love her, as it certainly will not, and this will be cited as an instance of the impossibility of attaching the Indian. Whether the Indian could, by any efforts of love and intelligence from the white man, have been civilized and made a valuable ingredient in the new state, I will not say. But this we are sure of. The French Catholics, at least, did not harm them nor disturb their minds merely to corrupt them. The French they loved. But the stern Presbyterian, with his dogmas and task work, the city circle and the college, with their niggered concessions and unfeeling stare, have never tried the experiment. It has not been tried. Our people and our government have sinned alike against the firstborn of the soil, and if they are the fated agents of a new era, they have done nothing, have invoked no God to keep them sinless while they do the hest of fate. Worst of all, when they invoke the holy power only to mask their iniquity, when the felon trader who all the week has been besoughting and degrading the Indian, with rum mixed with red pepper and damaged tobacco, kneels with him on Sunday before a common altar, to tell the rosary, which recalls the thought of him crucified, for love of suffering men, and to listen to sermons in praise of purity. My savage friends, cries the old fat priest, you must above all things aim at purity. Oh, my heart swelled when I saw them in a Christian church.  The dog, said an Indian, was once a spirit. He has fallen for his sin, and was given by the great spirit in this shape to man as his most intelligent companion. Therefore, we sacrifice it in highest honour to our friends in this world, to our protecting geniuses in another. There was religion in that thought. The white man sacrifices his own brother and to mammon, yet he turns in loathing from the dog-feast. You say, said the Indian of the south to the missionary, that Christianity is pleasing to God. How can that be? Those men at Savannah are Christians. Yes, slave-drivers and Indian traders are called Christians, and the Indian is to be deemed less like the son of Mary than they. Wonderful is the deceit of man's heart. I have not, unseen something of them in their own haunts, found reason to change the sentiments expressed in the following lines when a deputation of the Sax and Foxes visited Boston in 1837, and were, by one person at least, received in a dignified and courteous manner. Governor Everett receiving the Indian chiefs, November, 1837. Who says that poetry is on the wane, and that the muses tune their liars in vain? Yet all the treasures of romantic story, when thought was fresh and fancy in her glory, has ever art found out a richer theme, more dark a shadow or more soft a gleam, than fall upon the scenes sketched carelessly in the newspaper column of today. American romance is somewhat stale. Talk of the hatchet and the face's pale, wampum and calumets and forest dreary, once so attractive, now begins to weary. Uncus and Magowisca please us still, unreal yet idealized with skill. But every poetaster scribbling, whittling, from the majestic oak his stylus whittling, has helped to tire us and to make us fear the monotone in which so much we hear of stoics of the wood and men without a tear. Yet nature, ever buoyant, ever young, if left alone will sing as earth she sung. The course of circumstance gives back again the picturesque, airwhile pursued in vain. Shows us the fount of romance is not wasted, the lights and shades of contrast not exhausted. Shorn of his strength the Samson now must sue for fragments from the feast his fathers gave. The Indian dare not claim what is his due. But as a boon his heritage must crave. His stately form shall soon be seen no more through all his father's land, the Atlantic shore. Beneath the sun to us so kind they melt. More heavily each day our rule is felt. The tale is old. We do as mortals must. Might makes right here. But God and time are just. So near the drama hastens to its close, on this last scene awhile your eyes repose. The polished Greek and Scythian meet again. The ancient life is lived by modern men. The savage through our busy city's walks. He in his untouched grandeur, silent stalks. Unmoved by all our gayities and shows, wonder nor shame can touch him as he goes. He gazes on the marvels we have wrought, but knows the models from whence all was brought. In God's first temples he has stood so oft, and listened to the natural organ loft, as watched the eagle's flight, the muttering thunder heard. Art cannot move him to a wondering word. Perhaps he sees that all this luxury brings less food to the mind than to the eye. Perhaps a simple sentiment has brought more to him than your arts had ever taught. What are the petty triumphs art has given to eyes familiar with the naked heaven? All has been seen, dock, railroad, and canal, fort, market, bridge, college, and arsenal, asylum, hospital, and cotton mill, the theatre, the lighthouse, and the jail. The braves each novelty reflecting saw, and now and then growled out the earnest yaw. And now the time has come, tis understood, when having seen and thought so much a talk may do some good. A well-dressed mob have thronged the sight to greet, and motley figures throng the spacious street, majestical and calm through all they stride, wearing the blanket with a monarch's pride. The gazers stare and shrug, but can't deny their noble forms and blameless symmetry. If the great spirit their morale has slighted, and wigwam smoke their mental culture blighted, yet the physique at least perfection reaches, in the wilds where neither comb nor spurshyme teaches, where whispering trees invite man to the chase, and bounding deer allure him to the race. Would thou had seen it, that dark, stately band, whose ancestors enjoyed all this fair land, whence they, by force or fraud, were made to flee, are brought the white man's victory to see. Can kind emotions in their proud hearts glow, as through these realms now decked by art they go? The church, the school, the railroad in the mart. Can these a pleasure to their minds in part? All once was theirs, earth, ocean, forest, sky. How can they joy in what now meets the eye? Not yet religion has unlocked the soul, nor each has learned to glory in the whole. Must they not think, so strange and sad their lot, that they by the great spirit are forgot? From the far border to which they are driven, they might look up in trust to the clear heaven. But here, what tales doth every object tell, where Massa Soit sleeps, where Philip fell? We take our turn, and the philosopher sees through the clouds a hand which cannot air.  And human culture rolls its onward flood over the broad plains steeped in Indian blood. Such thoughts steady our faith. Yet there will rise some natural tears into the calmest eyes, which gaze where forest princes haughty go, made for a gaping crowd a rary show. But this a scene seems where in courtesy the pale face with the forest prince could vie, for one presided who, for tact and grace, in any age had held an honoured place. In beauty's own dear day had shown a polished fidean vase. Off have I listened to his accents bland, and owned the magic of his silvery voice, in all the graces which life's arts demand, delighted by the justness of his choice. Not his the stream of lavish, fervid thought, the rhetoric by passion's magic wrought. Not his the massive style, the lion-port, which with the granite class of mind assort. But in a range of excellence his own, with all the charms to soft persuasion known, amid our busy people we admire him, elegant and lone. He scarce needs words, so exquisite the skill which modulates the tones to do his will, that the mere sound enough would charm the ear, and lap in its elysium all who hear. The intellectual paleness of his cheek, the heavy eyelids and slow, tranquil smile, the well-cut lips from which the graces speak, fit him alike to win or to be guile. Then those words so well chosen fit, though few, their linked sweetness as our thoughts pursue. We deem them spoken pearls, or radiant diamond dew. And never yet did I admire the power which makes so lustrous every threadbare theme, which won for Lafayette one other hour, and in on July 4th could cast a gleam. And now, when I behold him play the host, with all the dignity which red men boast, with all the courtesy the whites have lost, assume the very hue of savage mind. Yet in rude accents show the thought refined. Assume the naivete of infant age, and in such prattle seems still more a sage. The golden mean, with tact unerring seized, a courtly critic shown, a simple savage pleased. The stoic of the woods his skill confessed, as all the father answered in his breast. To the sure mark the silver arrow sped. The man without a tear, a tear has shed. And thou hast wept, hath thou been there, to see, how true one sentiment must ever be, in court or camp, the city or the wild, to rouse the father's heart, you need but name his child. It was a fair scene, and acted well by all. So here's a health to Indian brave so tall. Our Governor and Boston people all. I will copy the admirable speech of Governor Everett on that occasion, as I think it the happiest attempt ever made to meet the Indian in his own way, and catch the tone of his mind. It was said in the newspapers that Kiyakak did actually shed tears when addressed as a father. If he did not with his eyes, he might well in his heart. Great Speech Chiefs and Warriors of the Socks and Foxes, you are welcome to our Hall of Council. Brothers, you have come a long way from home to visit your White Brethren. We rejoice to take you by the hand. Brothers, we have heard the names of your Chiefs and Warriors. Our brothers, who have traveled into the West, have told us a great deal of the Socks and Foxes. We rejoice to see you with our own eyes and take you by the hand. Brothers, we are called the Massachusetts. This is the name of the Red Men that once lived here. Their wigwams filled yonder fields. Their council fire was kindled on the spot. They were of the same great race as the Socks and Miss Quackics. Brothers, when our fathers came over the Great Waters, they were a small band. The Red Man stood upon the rock by the seaside and saw our fathers. He might have pushed them into the water and drowned them, but he stretched out his arm to our fathers and said, Welcome, White Men. Our fathers were hungry, and the Red Men gave them corn and venison. Our fathers were cold, and the Red Man wrapped them up in his blanket. We are now numerous and powerful, but we remember the kindness of the Red Man to our fathers. Brothers, you are welcome. We are glad to see you.  The Great Spirit has made his children of different colors, but he loves them all. Brothers, you dwell between the Mississippi and the Missouri. They are mighty rivers. They have one branch far east in the Alleghenes, and the other far west in the Rocky Mountains, but they flow together at last into one great stream and run down together into the sea. In like manner the Red Man dwells in the west and the White Man in the east by the great waters, but they are all one branch, one family. It has many branches and one head. Brothers, as you entered our council house, you beheld the image of our great father Washington. It is a cold stone. It cannot speak. But he was the friend of the Red Man, and bad his children live in peace with their Red Brethren. He has gone to the world of spirits, but his words have made a very deep print in our hearts, like the step of a strong buffalo on the soft clay of the prairie. Brother, I perceive your little son between your knees.  He grows up before you like the tender sapling by the side of the mighty oak. May the oak and the sapling flourish a long time together. And when the mighty oak has fallen to the ground, may the young tree fill its place in the forest and spread out its branches over the tribe like the parent trunk. Brothers, I make you a short talk, and again bid you welcome to our council hall. Not often have they been addressed with such intelligence intact. The few who have not approached them with sordid rapacity, but from love to them, as men, and souls to be redeemed, have most frequently been persons intellectually too narrow, too straightly bound in sects or in opinions, to throw themselves into the character or position of the Indians, or in part to them anything they can make available. The Christ shown them by these missionaries is to them but a new and more powerful Manito, the signs of the new religion, but the fetishes that have aided the conquerors. Here I will copy some remarks made by a discerning observer on the methods used by the missionaries and their natural results. Mr. Blank, and myself, had a very interesting conversation upon the subject of the Indians and their character, capabilities, and company. After ten years' experience among them, he was forced to acknowledge that the results of the missionary efforts had produced nothing calculated to encourage. He thought that there was an intrinsic disability in them to rise above or go beyond the sphere in which they had so long moved. He said that even those Indians who had been converted, and who had adopted the habits of civilization, were very little improved in their real character. They were as selfish, as deceitful, and as indolent as those who were still heathens. They had repaid the kindnesses of the missionaries with the basis in gratitude, killing their cattle and swine and robbing them of their harvests which they wantonly destroyed. He had abandoned the idea of affecting any general good to the Indians. He had conscientious scruples as to promoting an enterprise so hopeless as that of missions among the Indians by sending accounts to the East that might induce philanthropic individuals to contribute to their support. In fact, the whole experience of his intercourse with them seemed to have convinced him of the irremediable degradation of the race. Their fortitude under suffering he considered the result of physical and mental insensibility. Their courage a mere animal excitement which they found it necessary to inflame before daring to meet a foe. They have no constancy of purpose and are, in fact, but little superior to the brutes in point of moral development. It is not astonishing that one looking upon the Indian character from Mr. Blank's point of view should entertain such sentiments. The object of his intercourse with them was to make them apprehend the mysteries of a theology which, to the most enlightened, is an obtuse metaphysical study, and it is not singular that they should prefer their pagan superstitions, which address themselves more directly to the senses. Failing in the attempt to Christianize before civilizing them, he inferred that in the intrinsic degradation of their faculties the obstacle was to be found. Thus the missionary vainly attempts, by once or twice holding up the cross, to turn deer and tigers into lambs, vainly attempts to convince the red man that a heavenly mandate takes from him his broad lands. He bows his head, but does not at heart acquiesce. He cannot. It is not true, and if it were, the descent of blood through the same channels for centuries had formed habits of thought not so easily to be disturbed. Amalgamation would afford the only true and profound means of civilization. But nature seems, like all else, to declare that this race is fated to perish. Those of mixed blood fade early, and are not generally a fine race. They lose what is best in either type, rather than enhance the value of each by mingling. There are exceptions, one or two such as I know of, but this it is said is the general rule.  The atmosphere of the trees does not agree with Caucasian lungs, and it is perhaps in part an instinct of this which causes the hatred of the new settlers towards trees. The Indian breathed the atmosphere of the forests freely. He loved their shade. As they are afaced from the land, he fleets, too, a part of the same manifestation which cannot linger beyond its proper era. The Chippewas have lately petitioned the State of Michigan that they may be admitted as citizens, but this would be vain unless they could be admitted as brothers to the heart of the white man. And while the latter feels that conviction of superiority which enabled our Wisconsin friend to throw away the gun and send the Indian to fetch it, he had need to be very good and very wise not to abuse his position. But the white man, as yet, is a half-tamed pirate, and avails himself as much as ever of the maxim, Might Makes Right. All that civilization does for the generality is to cover up this with a veil of subtle evasions and chicanes, and here and there to rouse the individual mind to appeal to heaven against it. I have no hope of liberalizing the missionary, of humanizing the sharks of trade, of infusing the conscientious drop into the flinty bosom of policy, of saving the Indian from immediate degradation and speedy death. The whole sermon may be preached from the text. Needs be that offenses must come, yet woe them by whom they come. Yet ere they depart, I wish there might be some masterly attempt to reproduce in art or literature what is proper to them, a kind of beauty and grandeur, which few of the everyday crowd have hearts to feel, yet which ought to leave in the world its monuments, to inspire the thought of genius through all ages. Nothing in this kind has been done masterly. Since it was Clefinger's ambition, to his pity he had not opportunity to try fully his powers. We hope some other mind may be bent upon it, ere too late. At present, the only lively impress of their passage through the world is to be found in such books as Catlin's, and some stories told by the old travellers, of which I purpose a brief account. First, let me give another brief tale of the power exerted by the white man over the savage in a trying case, but in this case it was righteous, was moral power. We were looking over McKenney's trip to the lakes, and on observing the picture of Kewe Noat, or the going cloud, Mr. B. observed, Ah, that is the fellow I came near having a fight with, and he detailed at length the circumstances. This Indian was a very desperate character, and whom all the Leech Lake band stood in fear of. He would shoot down any Indian who offended him, without the least hesitation, and had become quite the bully of that part of the tribe. The traitor at Leech Lake warned Mr. B. to beware of him, and said that he once, when he, the traitor, refused to give up to him his stock of wild rice, went and got his gun and tomahawk, and shook the tomahawk over his head, saying, Now give me your wild rice! The traitor complied with his exaction, but not so did Mr. B. in the adventure which I am about to relate. Kewe Noat came frequently to him with furs, wishing him to give for them cotton cloth, sugar, flour, and company. Mr. B. explained to him that he could not trade for furs, as he was sent there as a teacher, and that it would be like putting the hand into the fire to do so, as the traitors would inform against him and he would be sent out of the country. At the same time he gave him the articles which he wished. Kewe Noat found this a very convenient way of getting what he wanted, and followed up this sort of game, until at last it became insupportable. One day the Indian brought a very large otterskin and said, I want to get for this ten pounds of sugar and some flour and cloth, adding, I am not like other Indians, I want to pay for what I get. Mr. B. found that he must either be robbed of all he had by submitting to these exactions, or take a stand at once. He thought, however, he would try to avoid a scrape, and told his customer he had not so much sugar to spare. Give me, then, said he, what you can spare, and Mr. B., thinking to make him back out, told him he would give him five pounds of sugar for his skin. Take it, said the Indian. He left the skin telling Mr. B. to take good care of it. Mr. B. took it at once to the trader's store and related the circumstance, congratulating himself that he had got rid of the Indian's exactions. But in about a month Kiwaynawat appeared, bringing some dirty Indian sugar, and said, I have brought back the sugar that I borrowed of you and I want my otterskin back. Mr. B. told him, I bought an otterskin of you, but if you will return the other articles you have got for it, perhaps I can get it for you. Where has the skin said he very quickly? What have you done with it? Mr. B. replied it was in the trader's store, where he, the Indian, could not get it. At this information he was furious, laid his hands on the knife and tomahawk, and commanded Mr. B. to bring it at once. Mr. B. found this was the crisis, where he must take a stand or be rode over roughshod by this man. His wife, who was present, was much alarmed, and begged he would get the skin for the Indian. But he told her that either he or the Indian would soon be master of his house, and if she was afraid to see it decided which was to be so, she had better retire. He turned to Kiwaynawat, and addressed him in a stern voice as follows. I will not give you the skin. How often have you come to my house, and I have shared with you what I had? I gave you tobacco when you were well, and medicine when you were sick, and you never went away from my wigwam with your hands empty. And this is the way you return my treatment to you. I had thought you were a man and a chief, but you are not.  Leave this house and never enter it again. Mr. B. said he expected the Indian would attempt his life when he said this, but that he had placed himself in a position so that he could defend himself, and he looked straight into the Indian's eye, and like other wild beasts he quailed before the glance of mental and moral courage. He calmed down at once, and soon began to make apologies. Mr. B. then told him kindly but firmly that if he wished to walk in the same path with him he must walk as straight as the crack on the floor before them, adding that he would not walk with anybody who would jostle him by walking so crooked as he had done. He was perfectly tamed, and Mr. B. said he never had any more trouble with him. The conviction here livingly enforced of the superiority on the side of the white man was thus expressed by the Indian orator at Mackinac while we were there. After the customary compliments about son, due, and company, this, said he, is the difference between the white and the red man. The white man looks to the future and paves the way for posterity. This is a statement uncommonly refined for an Indian, but one of the gentlemen present who understood the chip away vouched for it as a literal rendering of his phrases, and he did indeed touch the vital point of difference. But the Indian, if he understands, cannot make use of his intelligence. The fate of his people is against it, and Pontiac and Philip have no more chance than Julian in the times of old. Now that I am engaged on this subject, let me give some notices of writings upon it, read either at Mackinac or since my return. Mrs. Jamison made such good use of her brief visit to these regions as leaves great cause to regret she did not stay long longer and go farther, also that she did not make more use of her acquaintance with, indeed, adoption by, the Johnson family. Mr. Johnson seems to have been almost the only white man who knew how to regard with due intelligence and nobleness his connection with the race. Neither French or English of any powers of sympathy or poetical apprehension have lived among the Indians without high feelings of enjoyment. Perhaps no luxury has been greater than that experienced by the persons who, sent either by trade or war during the last century into these majestic regions, found guides and shelter amid the children of the soil, and recognized in a form so new and of such varied yet simple charms the tie of brotherhood. But these, even Sir William Johnston, whose life, surrounded by the Indians in his castle on the Mohawk, is described with such vivacity by Mrs. Grant, have been men better fitted to enjoy and adapt themselves to this life than to observe and record it. The very faculties that made it so easy for them to live in the present moment were likely to unfit them for keeping its chronicle.  But the father of Mrs. Schoolcraft seems to have taken pleasure in observation and comparison and to have imparted the same tastes to his children. They have enough of a European culture to have a standard by which to judge their native habits in inherited lore. By the premature death of Mrs. Schoolcraft was lost a mine of poetry to which few had access and from which Mrs. Jameson would have known how to coin a series of medals for the history of this ancient people. We might have known in clear outline, as now we shall not, the growth of religion and philosophy under the influences of this climate and scenery from such suggestions as nature and the teachings of the inward mind presented. Now we can only gather that they had their own theory of the history of this globe, had perceived a gap in its genesis, and tried to fill it up by the intervention of some secondary power with moral sympathies. They have observed the action of fire and water upon this earth. Also that the dynasty of animals has yielded to that of man. With these animals they have profound sympathy and are always trying to restore to them their lost honors. On the rattlesnake, the beaver, and the bear they seem to look with a mixture of sympathy and veneration as on their fellow settlers in these realms. There is something that appeals powerfully to the imagination in the ceremonies they observe, even in case of destroying one of these animals. I will say more of this by and by. The dog they cherish as having been once a spirit of high intelligence, and now, in its fallen and imprisoned state, given to man as his special companion. He is therefore to them a sacrifice of peculiar worth, whether to a guardian spirit or a human friend. Yet nothing would be a greater violation than giving the remains of a sacrificial feast to the dogs, or even suffering them to touch the bones. Similar inconsistencies may be observed in the treatment of the dog by the white man. He is the most cherished companion in the familiar walks of many men. His virtues form the theme of poetry and history. The nobler races present grand traits, and are treated with proportionate respect. Yet the epithets dog and hound are there set apart to express the uttermost contempt. Goethe, who abhorred dogs, has selected that animal for the embodiment of the modern devil, who in earlier times chose rather the form of the serpent. There is indeed something that peculiarly breaks in on the harmony of nature in the bark of the dog, and that does not at all correspond with the softness and sagacity observable in his eye. The bay in the moon, I have been inclined to set down as an unfavorable indication. But since Fourier has found out that the moon is dead, and no better than Carrion, and the Greeks have designated her as Hecate, the deity of suicide and witchcraft, the dogs are perhaps in the right. They have among them the legend of the Carbuncle, so famous in Oriental Mythos. A dare states that they believe this fabulous gem may be found on the spot where the rattlesnake has been destroyed. If they have not the archetypal man, they have the archetypal animal, the grandfather of all beavers. To them who do not know the elephant, this is the symbol of wisdom, as the rattlesnake and bear of power.