29th.  Novelty has the greatest attraction for the human mind.  There is such a charm in novelty, says Dr. John Mason Good, that it often leads us captive in spite of the most glaring errors, and intoxicates the judgment as fatally as the cup of Circe.  But is not variety at hand to contest the palm?

“The great source of pleasure,” observes Dr. Johnson, “is variety.  Uniformity must tire at last, though it be uniformity of excellence.”

April 1st.  The ice and snow begin to be burthensome to the eye.  We were reconciled to winter, when it was the season of winter; but now our longing eyes are cast to the south, and we are anxious for the time when we can say, “Lo, the winter is past, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.”

The Chippewas have quite a poetic allegory of winter and spring, personified by an old and a young man, who came from opposite points of the world, to pass a night together and boast of their respective powers.  Winter blew his breath, and the streams were covered with ice.  Spring blew his breath, and the land was covered with flowers.  The old man is finally conquered, and vanishes into “thin air.”

2d.  We talked to-day of dreams.  Dreams are often talked about, and have been often written about.  But the subject is usually left where it was taken up.  Herodotus says, “Dreams in general originate from those incidents which have most occupied the thoughts during the day.”  Locke betters the matter but little, by saying, “The dreams of sleeping men are all made up of waking men’s ideas, though, for the most part, oddly put together.”  Solomon’s idea of “the multitude of business” is embraced in this.

Sacred dreams were something by themselves.  God chose in ancient times to communicate with the prophets in dreams and visions.  But there is a very strong and clear line of distinction drawn on this subject in the 23d of Jeremiah, from the 25th to the 28th verses.  “He that hath a dream, let him tell a dream, and he that hath my word let him speak my word.”  The sacred and the profane, or idle dream, are likened as “chaff” to “wheat.”

The Indians, in this quarter, are very much besotted and spell-bound, as it were, by dreams.  Their whole lives are rendered a perfect scene of doubts and fears and terrors by them.  Their jugglers are both dreamers and dream interpreters.  If the “prince of the power of the air” has any one hold upon them more sure and fast than another, it seems to be in their blind and implicit reliance upon dreams.  There is, however, with them a sacred dream, distinct from common dreams.  It is called a-po-wa.

I have had before me, during a considerable part of the season, a pamphlet of printed queries respecting the Indians and their languages, put into my hands by Gov.  C. when passing through Detroit in the summer.  Leaving to others the subjects connected with history and traditions, &c., I have attempted an analysis of the language.  Reading has been resorted to as a refreshment from study.  I used to read to gratify excitement, but I find the chief pleasure of my present reading is more and more turning to the acquisition and treasuring up of facts.  This principle is probably all that sustains and renders pleasurable the inquiry into the Indian language.