I find this written by Salviati:—
July 20th, 1818.—I often—and I think unreasonably—apply to life as a whole the feelings of a man of ambition or a good citizen, if he finds himself set in battle to guard the baggage or in any other post without danger or action. I should have felt regret at forty to have passed the age of loving without deep passion. I should have had that bitter and humiliating displeasure, to have found out too late that I had been fool enough to let life pass, without living.
Yesterday I spent three hours with the woman I love and a rival, whom she wants to make me think she favours. Certainly, there were moments of bitterness, in watching her lovely eyes fixed on him, and, on my departure, there were wild transports from utter misery to hope. But what changes, what sudden lights, what swift thoughts, and, in spite of the apparent happiness of my rival, with what pride and what delight my love felt itself superior to his! I went away saying to myself: The most vile fear would bleach those cheeks at the least of the sacrifices, which my love would make for the fun of it, nay, with delight—for example, to put this hand into a hat and draw one of these two lots: "Be loved by her," the other—"Die on the spot." And this feeling in me is so much second nature, that it did not prevent me being amiable and talkative.
If someone had told me all that two years ago, I should have laughed.
I find in the Travels to the Source of the Missouri River ... in 1804–6 of Captains Lewis and Clarke (p. 215):—
The Ricaras are poor and generous; we stayed some time in three of their villages. Their women are more beautiful than those of the other tribes we came across; they are also not in the least inclined to let their lover languish. We found a new example of the truth that you only have to travel to find out that there is variety everywhere. Among the Ricaras, for a woman to grant her favours without the consent of her husband or her brother, gives great offence. But then the brothers and the husband are only too delighted to have the opportunity of showing this courtesy to their friends.
There was a negro in our crew; he created a great sensation among a people who had never seen a man of his colour before. He was soon a favourite with the fair sex, and we noticed that the husbands, instead of being jealous, were overjoyed to see him come to visit them. The funny part was that the interior of the huts was so narrow that everything was visible.[5]
[1] Here you see one of love's follies; for this perfection, seen by your eyes, is not one for him.
[2] Montaguola, 13th April, 1819.
[3] La Princesse de Tarente. Story by Scarron.
[4] As in the Curieux-impertinent, story by Cervantes.
[5] There ought to be instituted at Philadelphia an academy, whose sole occupation would be the collection of materials for the study of man in the savage state, instead of waiting till these curious peoples have been exterminated.
I know quite well that such academies exist—but apparently regulated in a way worthy of our academies in Europe. (Memoir and Discussion on the Zodiac of Denderah at the Académie des Sciences of Paris, 1821.) I notice that the academy of, I fancy, Massachusetts wisely charges a member of the clergy (Mr. Jarvis) to make a report on the religion of the savage. The priest, of course, refutes energetically an impious Frenchman, called Volney. According to the priest, the savage has the most exact and noble ideas of the Divinity, etc. If he lived in England, such a report would bring the worthy academician a preferment of three or four hundred pounds and the protection of all the noble lords in the county. But in America! For the rest, the absurdity of this academy reminds me of the free Americans, who set the greatest store on seeing fine coats-of-arms painted on the panels of their carriages; what upsets them is that, through their carriage-painter's want of instruction, the blazoning is often wrong.