198 LITERARY VALUES 



was of French extraction; and every drop of his 

 blood seems to have turned toward the aboriginal, as 

 the French blood has so often done in other ways 

 in this country. He, for the most part, despised 

 the white man ; but his enthusiasm kindled at the 

 mention of the Indian. He envied the Indian ; he 

 coveted his knowledge, his arts, his woodcraft. He 

 accredited him with a more " practical and vital 

 science " than was contained in the books. " The 

 Indian stood nearer to wild Nature than we." " It 

 was a new light when my guide gave me Indian 

 names for things for which I had only scientific ones 

 before. In proportion as I understood the lan- 

 guage, I saw them from a new point of view." And 

 again, " The Indian's earthly life was as far oflf 

 from us as Heaven is." In his " Week " he com- 

 plains that our poetry is only white man's poetry. 

 "If we could listen but for an instant to the chant 

 of the Indian muse, we should understand why he 

 will not exchange his savageness for civilization." 

 Speaking of himself, he says, " I am convinced that 

 my genius dates from an older era than the agricul- 

 tural. I would at least strike my spade into the 

 earth with such careless freedom, but accuracy, as 

 the woodpecker his bill into a tree. There is in 

 my nature, methinks, a singular yearning toward 

 all wildness." Again and again he returns to 

 the Indian. "We talk of civilizing the Indian, 

 but that is not the name for his improvement. 

 By the wary independence and aloofness of his dim 

 forest life he preserves his intercourse with his 



