with the national character than the ordinary working-day
intercourse of life, he would conceive an infinitely
lower idea of the moral atmosphere of the country
than Captain Hall appears to have done; and the internal
conviction on my mind is strong, that if Captain Hall
had not placed a firm restraint on himself, he must
have given expression to far deeper indignation than
any he has uttered against many points in the American
character, with which he shows from other circumstances
that he was well acquainted. His rule appears
to have been to state just so much of the truth as
would leave on the mind of his readers a correct impression,
at the least cost of pain to the sensitive folks he
was writing about. He states his own opinions
and feelings, and leaves it to be inferred that he
has good grounds for adopting them; but he spares
the Americans the bitterness which a detail of the
circumstances would have produced.
If any one chooses to say that some wicked antipathy
to twelve millions of strangers is the origin of my
opinion, I must bear it; and were the question one
of mere idle speculation, I certainly would not court
the abuse I must meet for stating it. But it
is not so.
. . . . . . .
The candor which he expresses, and evidently feels,
they mistake for irony, or totally distrust; his unwillingness
to give pain to persons from whom he has received
kindness, they scornfully reject as affectation, and
although they must know right well, in their own secret
hearts, how infinitely more they lay at his mercy than
he has chosen to betray; they pretend, even to themselves,
that he has exaggerated the bad points of their character
and institutions; whereas, the truth is, that he has
let them off with a degree of tenderness which may
be quite suitable for him to exercise, however little
merited; while, at the same time, he has most industriously
magnified their merits, whenever he could possibly
find anything favorable.
THE UNDYING HEAD
In a remote part of the North lived a man and
his sister, who had never seen a human being.
Seldom, if ever, had the man any cause to go from
home; for, as his wants demanded food, he had only
to go a little distance from the lodge, and there,
in some particular spot, place his arrows, with their
barbs in the ground. Telling his sister where
they had been placed, every morning she would go in
search, and never fail of finding each stuck through
the heart of a deer. She had then only to drag
them into the lodge and prepare their food. Thus
she lived till she attained womanhood, when one day
her brother, whose name was Iamo, said to her:
’Sister, the time is at hand when you will be
ill. Listen to my advice. If you do not,
it will probably be the cause of my death. Take
the implements with which we kindle our fires.
Go some distance from our lodge and build a separate
