Mrs. Jameson made such good use of her brief visit to these regions, as
leaves great cause to regret she did not stay 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 connexion 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. Men, whose life is full and instinctive,
care little for the pen. 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 European culture to
have a standard, by which to judge their native habits and inherited
lore.
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