CHAPTER XVI.
Novel reading--Greenough's "Geology"--The cariboo--Spiteful plunder of private property on a large scale--Marshall's Washington--St. Clair's "Narrative of his Campaign"--Etymology of the word totem--A trait of transpositive languages--Polynesian languages--A meteoric explosion at the maximum height of the winter's temperature--Spafford's "Gazetteer"--Holmes on the Prophecies--Foreign politics--Mythology--Gnomes--The Odjibwa based on monosyllables--No auxiliary verbs--Pronouns declined for tense--Esprella's letters--Valerius--Gospel of St. Luke--Chippewayan group of languages--Home politics--Prospect of being appointed superintendent of the lead mines of Missouri.
1823. Jan. 22d. A pinching cold winter wears away slowly. The whole village seems to me like so many prescient beavers, in a vast snow-bank, who cut away the snow and make paths, every morning, from one lodge to another. In this reticulation of snow paths the drum is sounded and the flag raised. Most dignified bipeds we are. Hurrah for progress, and the extension of the Anglo-Saxon race!
I read the "Recluse," translated from D'Arlincourt's popular novel Le Solitaire, and think the commendations bestowed upon it, in the translator's preface, just in the main. It is precisely such a novel as I should suppose would be very popular in the highest circles of France, and consequently, owing to difference of character, would be less relished by the same circles in England. I suspect the author to be a great admirer of Chateaubriand's "Atala," whose death is brought to mind by the catastrophe of Elode's. Here, however, the similitude ends. There is nothing to be said respecting the comparative features of Charles the Bold and Chactas, except that the Indian possessed those qualities of the heart which most ennoble human nature.
To the readers of Scott's novels, however (for he is certainly the "Great Unknown"), this pleasing poetical romance, with all its sparkling passages, will present one glaring defect--it is not sufficiently descriptive. We rise from the perusal of it with no definite ideas of the scenery of the valley of Underlach. We suppose it to be sublime and picturesque, and are frequently told so by the author; but he fails in the description of particular scenes. Scott manages otherwise. When he sends Baillie Nicoll Jarvie into the Highlands, he does not content himself with generalities, but also brings before the mind such groups and scenes as make one fear and tremble. To produce this excitement is literary power.
23d. I devoted the time before breakfast, which, with us, happens at a late hour, to the Edinburgh Review. I read the articles on Greenough's "First Principles of Geology," and a new edition of Demosthenes. When shall we hear the last panegyric of the Grecian orator, who, in the two characteristics of his eloquence which have been most praised, simplicity and nature, is every day equalled, or excelled, by our Indian chiefs?
Greenough's Essays are bold and original, and evince no weak powers of observation and reasoning. But he is rather a leveler than a builder. It seems better that we should have a poor house over our heads than none at all. The facts mentioned on the authority of a traveler in Spain, that the pebbles in the rivers of that country are not carried down streams by the force of the current, are contradicted by all my observations on the rivers of the United States. The very reverse is true. Those streams which originate in, or run through districts of granite, limestone, graywacke, &c., present pebbles of these respective rocks abundantly along their banks, at points below the termination of the fixed strata. These pebbles, and even boulders, are found far below the termination of the rocky districts, and appear to owe their transportation to the force of existing currents. I have found the peculiar pebbles of the sources of the Mississippi as low down as St. Louis and St. Genevieve.
I resumed the perusal of Marshall's "Life of Washington," which I had laid by in the fall. Lieutenants Barnum and Bicker and Mr. Johnston came to visit me.
24th. I made one of a party of sixteen, who dined with Mr. Ermatinger. I here first tasted the flesh of the cariboo, which is a fine flavored venison. I do not recollect any wise or merry remark made during dinner, which is worth recording. As toasts show the temper of the times, and bespeak the sentiments of those who give them, a few of them may be mentioned. After several formal and national toasts, we had Mr. Calhoun, Governor Cass, General Brown, Mr. Sibley, the representative of Michigan, Colonel Brady, and Major Thayer, superintendent of the military academy. In coming home in the cariole, we all missed the balizes, and got completely upset and pitched into the snow.
25th. Mr. John Johnston returned me Silliman's Travels, and expressed himself highly pleased with them. Mr. Johnston evinces by his manners and conversation and liberal sentiments that he has passed many of his years in polished and refined circles. He told me he came to America during the presidency of General Washington, whom he esteems it a privilege to have seen at New York, in 1793. Having letters to Lord Dorchester, he went into Canada, and through a series of vicissitudes, finally settled at these falls about thirty years ago. In 1814, his property was plundered by the Americans, through the false representations of some low-minded persons, his neighbors and opponents in trade, with no more patriotism than he; in consequence of which he returned to Europe, and sold his patrimonial estate at "Craige," in the north of Ireland, within a short distance of the Giant's Causeway, and thus repaired, in part, his losses.