Wau wau tay see! Wau wau tay see! E mow e shin

Tshe bwau ne baun-e wee!

Be eghaun-be eghaun-ewee!
Wa Wau tay see!

Wa wau tay see!
Was sa koon ain je gun
Was sa koon ain je gun.

Flitting-white-fire-insect! waving-white. fire-bug! give me light before I go to bed! give me light before I go to sleep. Come, little dancing-white-fire-bug! Come, little flitting-white-fire-beast! Light me with your bright white-flame-instrument-your little candle.

Metre there was none, at least, of a regu. lar character: they were the wild improvisa. tions of children in a merry mood."

As a farther illustration of the real elements of poetry native with the Indians-especially that perfect simplicity of pathos which makes numerous passages and little snatches of stories in the Bible so exceedingly touching, and which is found the most, and in the greatest purity, among nations not highly cultivated the following unaffected lament may be cited. It was obtained a great distance in the north-west-the plaint of an Indian mother, by Athabasca Lake,

nearly a thousand miles beyond the waters of Lake Superior :

"My son! my son!-why hast thou left me?
Oh! where hast thou gone, my child-
To what strange land and people?
Poor boy! so young-so young, and taken
away so soon!

Who now will hold thy head?
Who now will prepare thy food?
Who now will full thee to rest,
And lay thee to sleep on the moss?
Of what avail was my care?
I watched by thee all the night,
I gave to thee herbs from the plain,
But nothing could save thee, or keep thee!
Why hast thou thus left me, my child!
Ah! where art thou gone, my boy!"

But we have not space for further illustrations or remarks. The general subject is one which will bear recurring to.

We trust such a reception will be given to the numbers of Oneöta, of which we understand there will be six or eight, as to encourage the author to edit soon the long-projected “Indian Cyclopædia." Such a work, if rightly executed, would be the most valuable by far that has ever appeared on the character, history, customs, feelings, and opinions of the aboriginal race.

THOSE influences which affect the characters of a whole people are less observed, although more important, than such as are peculiar to classes or individuals. The exertions which one may make to protect himself from error, or demeaning influences, are sometimes rendered ineffectual from his ignorance of the tremendous biases which he receives from a corrupt public opinion; as the most careful observations of the mariner are sometimes vitiated by an unknown current which insensibly drifts him from his supposed position. What everybody does in our own community, we are apt to suppose to be universal with men; and universal custom is, by general consent, not to be disputed. We are not disposed to suspect public opin

ion, or to question common custom.Nay, we do not even, for the most part, distinguish between a prevailing sentiment and an innate idea-between a universal or national habit and a law of nature. The customs of the city in which we are brought up seem to most persons of divine appointment. We are apt to account a foreigner who prefers (in accordance with his own national manners and prejudices) a different division of the day, different hours at the table, a different style of dress, as almost immoral. This proves how little aware we may be of the nature of the social habits and sentiments which greatly influence our characters. We propose to offer a few observations upon some of our national habits and tendencies.

There is but one thing to discourage such an inquiry, and that is, that after understanding the direction and force of the current on which we are borne, there is little hope of withstanding it, or guiding ourselves upon it. But to this it must be replied, that public opinion is made up of private opinions, and that the only way of ever changing it is by commencing to correct, be it ever so little, the judgments of one's own mind and of the few others under our influence. We must not despise humble means of influence, nor hesitate to do a little good, because an almost hopeless amount of evil surrounds us.

All strangers who come among us remark the excessive anxiety written in the American countenance. The widespread comfort, the facilities for livelihood, the spontaneous and cheap lands, the high price of labor, are equally observed, and render it difficult to account for these lines of painful thoughtfulness. It is not poverty, nor tyranny, nor overcompetition which produces this anxiety; that is clear. It is the concentration of the faculties upon an object, which in its very nature is unattainable-the perpetual improvement of the outward condition. There are no bounds among us to the restless desire to be better off; and this is the ambition of all classes of society. We are not prepared to allow that wealth is more valued in America than elsewhere, but in other countries the successful pursuit of it is necessarily confined to a few, while here it is open to all. No man in America is contented to be poor, or expects to continue so. There are here no established limits within which the hopes of any class of society must be confined, as in other countries. There is consequently no condition of hopes realized, in other words, of contentment. In other lands, if children can maintain the station and enjoy the means, however moderate, of their father, they are happy. Not so with us. This is not the spirit of our institutions. Nor will it long be otherwise in other countries. That equality, that breaking down of artificial barriers which has produced this universal ambition and restless activity in America, is destined to prevail throughout the earth. But because we are in advance of the world in the great political principle, and are now experiencing some of its first effects, let us not mistake these for the desirable fruits of freedom. Commerce is to be

come the universal pursuit of men. It is to be the first result of freedom, of popular institutions everywhere. Indeed, every land not steeped in tyranny is now feeling this impulse. But while trade is destined to free and employ the masses, it is also destined to destroy for the time much of the beauty and happiness of every land. This has been the result in our own country. We are free. It is a glorious thing that we have no serfs, with the large and unfortunate exception of our slaves-no artificial distinctionsno acknowledged superiority of bloodno station which merit may not fill-no rounds in the social ladder to which the humblest may not aspire. But the excitement, the commercial activity, the restlessness, to which this state of things has given birth, is far from being a desirable or a natural condition. It is natural to the circumstances, but not natural to the human soul. It is good and hopeful to the interests of the race, but destructive to the happiness, and dangerous to the virtue of the generation exposed to it.

Those unaccustomed, by reading or travel, to other states of society, are probably not aware how very peculiar our manner of life here is. The laboriousness of Americans is beyond all comparison, should we except the starving operatives of English factories. And when we consider that here, to the labor of the body is added the great additional labor of mental responsibility and ambition, it is not to be wondered at that as a race, the commercial population is dwindling in size, and emaciated in health, so that palor is the national complexion. If this devotion to business were indispensable to living, it would demand our pity. It is unavoidable, we know, in one sense. That is, it is customary-it is universal. There is no necessity for the custom; but there is a necessity, weakly constituted as men are, that every individual should conform greatly to the prevailing habits of his fellows, and the expectations of the community in and with which he deals. It is thus that those who deeply feel the essentially demoralizing and wretched influences of this system are yet doomed to be victims of it. Nay, we are all, no matter what our occupations, more or less, and all greatly, sufferers from the excessive stimulus under which every thing is done. We are all worn out with thought that does not develop our thinking faculties in a right direction, and with feeling expended upon poor and

low objects. There is no profession that does not feel it. The lawyer must confine himself to his office, without vacation, to adjust a business which never sleeps or relaxes. The physician must labor day and night to repair bodies, never well from over-exertion, over-excitement, and over-indulgence. The minister must stimulate himself to supply the cravings of diseased moral appetites, and to arouse the attention of men deafened by the noise, and dizzy with the whirl in which they constantly live.

We call our country a happy country; happy, indeed, in being the home of noble political institutions, the abode of freedom; but very far from being happy in possessing a cheerful, light-hearted, and joyous people. Our agricultural regions even are infected with the same anxious spirit of gain. If ever the curse of labor was upon the race, it is upon us; nor is it simply now "by the sweat of thy brow thou shalt earn thy bread." Labor for a livelihood is dignified. But we labor for bread, and labor for pride, and labor for pleasure. A man's life with us does consist of the abundance of the things which he possesseth. To get, and to have the reputation of possessing, is the ruling passion. To it are bent all the energies of nine-tenths of our population. Is it that our people are so much more miserly and earth-born than any other? No, not by any constitutional baseness; but circumstances have necessarily given this direction to the American mind. In the hard soil of our common mother, New England-the poverty of our ancestors-their early thrift and industry-the want of other distinctions than those of property-the frown of the Puritans upon all pleasures; these circumstances combined, directed our energies from the first into the single channel of trade. And in that they have run till they have gained a tremendous head, and threaten to convert our whole people into mere money-changers and producers. Honor belongs to our fathers, who in times of great necessity met the demand for a most painful industry with such manly and unflinching hearts. But what was their hard necessity we are perpetuating as our willing servitude! what they bore as evil we seek as good. We cannot say that the destiny of this country did not demand that the spirit of trade should rule it for centuries. It may be that we are now carrying out only the decree of Providence. But if so, let us

consider ourselves as in the wilderness, and not in the promised land. Let us bear the dispensation of God, but not glory in our bondage. If we are doomed to be tradesmen, and nothing but tradesmen-if money, and its influences and authority, are to reign for a season over our whole land, let us not mistake it for the kingdom of heaven, and build triumphal arches over our avenues of trade, as though the Prince of Peace and the Son of God were now and thus to enter in.

It is said that we are not a happy people. And it is true; for we most unwisely neglect all those free fountains of happiness which Providence has opened for all its children. Blessed beyond any people with the means of living, supplied to an unparalleled extent with the comforts and luxuries of life, our American homes are sombre and cheerless abodes. There is even in the air of comfort which their well-furnished apartments wear something uncomfortable. They are the habitations of those who do not live at home. They are wanting in a social and cheerful aspect. They seem fitted more to be admired than to be enjoyed. The best part of the house is for the occasional use of strangers, and not to be occupied by those who might, day by day, enjoy it, which is but one proof among many that we love to appear comfortable rather than to be so. Thus miserable pride hangs like a mill stone about our hospitality. "We sacrifice the hospitality of a year to the prodigality of a night." We are ashamed of any thing but affluence, and when we cannot make an appearance, or furnish entertainments as showy as the richest, we will do nothing. Thus does pride close our doors. Hospitality becomes an event of importance. It is not our daily life, one of our chiefest enjoyments, but a debt, a ceremony, a penance. And not only pride, but anxiety of mind, interferes with sociality. Bent upon one aim, the merchant grudges his thoughts. He cannot expend his energies in social enjoyment. Nay, it is not enjoyment to him; society has nothing of the excitement of business. The excessive pursuit of gain begets a secrecy of thought, a contradiction of ideas, a barrenness of interest, which renders its votary any thing but social or companionable. Conversation incessantly takes an anxious and uninteresting turn; and the fireside becomes only a narrower exchange, and the parlor a more private news-room.

It is rare to see a foreigner without some taste for amusement, some power of relaxing his mind, some interest in the arts, or in literature. This is true even of the less privileged classes. It is rare, on the contrary, to find a virtuous American past middle life, who does not regard amusements of all sorts either as childish or immoral; who possesses any acquaintance with or taste for the arts, except it be a natural and rude taste for music; or who reads any thing except newspapers, and only the political or commercial columns of those. It is the want of tastes for other things than business which gives an anxious and unhappy turn to our minds. It cannot be many years before the madness of devoting the whole day to the toils of the countinghouse will be acknowledged; before the claim of body and mind to relaxation and cheerful, exhilarating amusement will be seen. We consider the common suspicion which is felt of amusements among thoughtful people to be one of the most serious evils to which our community is exposed. It outlaws a natural taste, and violates and ruins the consciences of the young, by stamping as sinful what they have not the force to refrain from. It makes our places of amusement low, divides the thoughtful and the careless, the grave and the gay, the old and the young, in their pleasures. Children are without the protection of their parents in their enjoyments. And thus, too, is originated one of the greatest curses of our social state-the great want of intimacy and confidence between children and their parents, especially between fathers and

sons.

The impulses that incline to pleasure, if opposed, tend to vice. Nature finds a vent for her pent-up forces. Alas! for what are called strict morals in this view; when, by an unnatural restriction, innocent and open pleasures make way for secret vices or sins of the heart. While the commercial spirit in this extravagant form gives a certain sobriety and moral aspect to society, it occasions an excessive barrenness of real moral excellencies. This is a very difficult and delicate distinction to render popularly apparent, although of the most vital and substantial reality. There is a very great difference between what are called strict morals, and morals that are really profound in their sources, and pervading in their influence. We are more strict in our morals in these Northern States VOL. I.-NO. I.

than anywhere in the world, but it is questionable whether our morality is not of a somewhat inferior quality, and in a too narrow view. It is artificial, conventional. There is no quarter of the earth where the Sabbath is more scrupulously observed-where religious institutions are so well supported, or where more abstinence from pleasure is practised. The great virtue of industry prevails. Overt sins are more rare here than elsewhere. As far as morality is restrictive in its nature, it has accomplished a great work in America. The vices or sins which are reducible to statute, or known by name, are generally restrained. We have a large class of persons of extraordinary propriety and faultlessness of life. Our view of morals has a tendency to increase this class. Our pursuits are favorable to it. The love of gain is one of the most sober of all desires. The seriousness of a miser surpasses the gravity of a devotee. Did not every commercial city draw a large body of strangers to it, and attract many reckless and vicious persons, it would wear a very solemn aspect. The pleasure-seeking, the gay, the disorderly, are never the trading population. Large commercial cities tend to great orderliness and decency of manners and morals. But they also tend to very low and barren views of moral excellence. And the American spirit of our own day illustrates this. Our moral sense operates only in one direction. Our virtues are the virtues of merchants, and not of men. We run all to honesty, and mercantile honesty. We do not cultivate the graces of humanity. We have more conscience than heart, and more propriety than either. The fear of evil consequences is more influential than the love of goodness. There is nothing hearty, gushing, eloquent, in the national virtue. not see goodness leaking out from the full vessel at every motion it feels. Our goodness is formal, deliberate, premeditated. The upright man is not benevolent, and the just man is not generous. The good man is not cheerful. The religious man is not agreeable. In other words, our morals are partial, and therefore barren. It is not generally understood how great scrupulousness of character may be united with great selfishness, and how, along with a substantial virtue, there may exist the most melancholy deficiencies. This seems to be very common with us, and to be the natural result

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of our engrossing pursuits. Every one minds his own business, to the extreme peril of his own soul. The apostolic precept, Mind not thine own things, but also the things of another, is in danger of great neglect. Our social condition makes us wary, suspicious, slow to commit ourselves too far in interest for others. The shyness of the tradesman communicates itself to the manners of the visiter; we learn to live within our selves; we grow unsocial, unfraternal in feeling; and the sensibility, the affection, the cordiality, the forth-putting graces of a warm and virtuous heart, die of disuse. For our part, we are ready to say, let us have more faults and more virtues; more weaknesses and more graces; less punctilio, and more affluence of heart. Let us be less dignified and more cordial; less sanctimonious and more unselfish; less thriving and more cheerful; less toilsome and more social.

We want, as a people, a rounder character. Our humanity is pinched; our tastes are not generous. The domestic and social virtues languish. The dearest relations of life are stripped of beauty; a wretched utility usurps that proper theatre of beautiful sentiment, our very homes. Children grow up unknown to their parents. The mature despise their own youth, and have no sympathy with the romance, the buoyancy, the gayety of their children. Enterprise is our only enthusiasm. We grow to be ashamed of our best affections. We are afraid to acknowledge that we derive enjoyment from trifles, and make apologies for being amused with any thing. Thus is the beautiful field of life burnt over, and all its spontaneous flowers and fruitage destroyed; a few towering trunks alone redeeming the landscape. Happiness is made up of little things, and he who would be happy at all, must enjoy the little things day by day. So fraternal love, benevolence, virtue, consist in small acts prompted by love, and binding the day with a chain of delicate moral links. Character, too, is the result of right purposes, and pure feelings, and generous emotions, exercised upon trivial occasions day after day; and heroic and high virtue is the necessary result of this mode of life. We fear that the ruling passion of our community, the habits of business which it has established, the anxious and self-concentrated mind which ensues, the morals which it engenders, are very hostile to any thing like perfect

ed humanity. It is very probable that we may have erred in supposing a greatly better state of things to exist in other communities. But we know that we are right as to the positive state of our own, whatever it may be relatively to others. We know, too, very well the almost insuperable difficulties in the way of any individual who shall attempt to withstand the prevailing current of sentiment, or of business habits. But if none are to escape, it is well to be aware of the danger; nor must it be assumed that a firm will cannot do much to emancipate a man from the general bondage of trade. Sooner than slave from morning to night at business, we would counsel any man conscious of inward resources, of the desire to cultivate his better nature, his social feelings, his tastes, his generous and cheerful sentiments, to give it up altogether as soon as the most moderate competency is secured; to seek the country-to occupy some of our rich western lands-to do any thing which will give him time to enjoy domestic pleasures, to rear his children, to acquaint himself with nature, to read, to meditate. The excitement, the bustle, the toil of our life render us dead to the voice of the highest truth. We cannot stop to consider the matter. How few are aware that Christianity is a call to freedom-a call to happiness. Would we but listen, it would break these very chains whose galling wounds we have been opening; it would allay these feverish anxieties; it would restore to us contentment; it would legitimate our pleasures; it would re-establish, or for the first time build, our homes; it would give our children parents, and us parents children; it would teach us that happiness resides ever in the simple and impartial bounties of God-in a domestic love-in social intercourse-in generous sympathy-in a mind pleased with little things-in the gratification of our various innocent tastes-in the love of nature-in thought-in doing good. We meanwhile barter the substance for the shadow-delve for the means instead of quietly enjoying the end-keep up appearances, deceive others with the show of happiness, and fall at length from the top of life's laborious gains into our graves, worn out with anxieties that have benefited no one, and carrying neither the recollection nor the capacity of happiness with us into a spiritual existence.