romance which poets and novelists have thrown around the ill-fated red man.”
Of course common-sense, after all, must be trusted on such themes to draw the line not only between opinions and theories, but even in the statement and interpretation of facts, as they come from romancers, sentimentalists, idealists, and philanthropists, or from literal, practical, matter-of-fact persons, speaking from experience. The familiar line, hackneyed by frequent quotation, —
“When wild in woods the noble savage ran,” —
would have a different meaning according to the
circumstances under which one happened to meet him, — whether
he was running to you or from you. “The stoic of the woods,
the man without a tear,” as a poet has drawn him, was
after all, like most of us, a many-sided being. Much wise
and well-balanced judgment, poised fairly, has been uttered
of the savage in this sentence: “His virtues do not reach
our standard, and his vices exceed our standard.” It seems
to have been with the Indians, as Tacitus says it was with
our German ancestors, that one half of their time was
spent in hunting and war, and the other half in sloth and
play. Two constraining reflections must always guide our
thoughts about them. However degraded, they had the
divine endowment from Him — as Southey says —
| “ | Who in the lowest depths of being framed |
| The imperishable mind.” |
Again, the Indians are a people with a history but
without a historian. The Jesuit Father Lafitau, a man of
great learning in classic lore, and a most intelligent, candid,
and discerning observer of savage life, published in
1724 the fruits of his patient investigations in two stately
quartos, abundantly illustrated with engravings. The title
of his work, — “Mœurs des Sauvages Américains,
Comparées aux Mœurs des Premiers Temps,” — expresses the
