Nov. 1st. The false views of Indian history and philology, engendered in some degree by the misapprehensions of Mr. Heckewelder and some other writers, which were exposed by a glowing article in the North American Review last year, have had the effect to provoke further discussion.  C. is disposed to prepare another article for that paper, and is looking about him keenly for new facts.  In a letter of this date, he says:  “I am extremely anxious for your conjugation of the Chippewa substantive verb.  Let nothing prevent you from sending it to me, as it is more essential than I have time to explain to you.  Send me also your observations on the Chippewa language.  Let them come as you had them.  Take no time to copy them.”

11th.  Mr. R. S. writes one of his peculiar letters, in which the sentiments seem to be compressed, as if some species of finesse were at work—­an attenuated worldly precaution which leads him perpetually to half conceal sentiment, purpose and acts, as if the operations and business of life were not ten times better effected by plain straightforwardness than by any other mode.  He has, however, so long dealt with tricky fur-traders and dealers in interested sentiment, that it seems his intellectual habits are formed, to some extent, on that model.  What annoys me is, that he supposes himself hid, when, like the ostrich, it is only his own head that is concealed in the sand.  Yet this man is alive to general moral effort, unites freely in all the benevolent movements of the day, and has the general air of friendliness in his personal manners.  It continually seems that all the outer world’s affairs are well judged of, but when he comes to draw conclusions of moral men who have the power of affecting his own interests, there is apparent constraint, or palpable narrow-mindedness.

29th.  Professor Chas. Anthon, of Columbia College, writes for specimens of Indian eloquence.  The world has been grossly misled on this subject.  The great simplicity, and occasional strength, of an Indian’s thoughts, have sometimes led to the use of figures and epithets of beauty.  He is surrounded by all the elements of poetry and eloquence—­tempests, woods, waters, skies.  His mythology is poetic.  His world is replete with spirits and gods of all imaginable kinds and hues.  His very position—­a race falling before civilization, and obliged to give up the bow and arrow for the plough—­is poetic and artistic.  But he has no sustained eloquence, no continuous trains of varying thought.  It is the flash, the crack of contending elements.  It is not the steady sound of the waterfall.  Such was the eloquent appeal of Logan, revised and pointed by Gibson.  Such was the more sustained speech of Garangula to La Barrie, the Governor-General of Canada, with La Hontan as a reporter.  Such were the speeches of Pontiac and the eloquent Sagoyawata, or Red Jacket, the readiest reasoner of them all, which were diluted rather than improved by admiring paragraphists.