The impressions made on society by our visit to New York, and the circles in which we moved, are given in a letter from Mr. Saml.  C. Conant, of the 19th July, which I found among those awaiting my arrival.  To introduce a descendant of one of the native race into society, as had been done in my choice, was not an ordinary event, and did not presuppose, it seems, ordinary independence of character.  Her grandfather, by the maternal side, had been a distinguished chief of his nation at the ancient council-fire, or seat of its government at Chegoimegon and Lapointe.  By her father, a native of Antrim, in the north of Ireland, she was connected with a class of clergy and gentry of high respectability, including the Bishop of Dromore and Mr. Saurin, the Attorney-General of Ireland.  Two very diverse sources of pride of ancestry met in her father’s family—­that of the noble and free sons of the forest, and that of ancestral origin founded on the notice of British aristocracy.  With me, the former was of the highest honor, when I beheld it, as it was in her case, united to manners and education in a marked degree gentle, polished, retiring, and refined.  No two such diverse races and states of society, uniting to produce such a result, had ever come to my notice, and I was, of course, gratified when any persons of intellect and refinement concurred in the wisdom of my choice.  Such was Mr. Conant and his family, a group ever to be remembered with kindness and respect.  Having passed some weeks in his family, with her infant boy and nurse, during my absence South, his opportunities for judging were of the best kind.

“If you will suffer me to indulge the expression of both my own and Mrs. Conant’s feelings, I am sure that you cannot but be pleased that the frankness and generosity of one, and the virtues and gentleness of the other of you, have made so lively an impression on our hearts, and rendered your acquaintance to us a matter of very sweet and grateful reflection.  Truly modest and worthy persons often exhibit virtues and possess attainments so much allied to their nature as to be themselves unconscious of the treasures.  It does not hurt such ones to be informed of their good qualities.

“When I first visited Mr. Schoolcraft, I looked about for his Indian girl.  I carried such a report to my wife that we were determined to seek her acquaintance, and were not less surprised than recompensed to find such gentleness, urbanity, affection, and intelligence, under circumstances so illy calculated, as might be supposed, to produce such amiable virtues.  But all have learned to estimate human nature more correctly, and to determine that nature herself, not less than the culture of skillful hands, has much to do with the refinement and polish of the mind.

“Mr. S.’s book (’Trav.  Cent.  Ports.  Miss.  Valley’) has also received several generous and laudatory notices; one from the U.S.  Literary Gazette, printed at Boston.  I saw Gov.  Clinton, also, who spoke very highly both of the book and the author.  He thought that Mr. W.’s ill-natured critique would not do any injury either here or in Europe.”