ite
for this kind of intellectual food, and the circumstance probably leads
us to give up more time to it than we should were we not subject to
these periodical exclusions. The great point of interest is the
succession in the Presidential chair. Parties hinge upon this point.
Economy and retrenchment are talismanic words, used to affect the
populace, but used in reality only as means of affecting the balance of
party power. Messrs. Calhoun, Crawford, and Adams are the prominent
names which fill the papers.

There is danger that newspapers in America will too much supersede and
usurp the place of books, and lead to a superficial knowledge of things.
Gleaning the papers in search of that which is really useful, candid,
and fair seems too much like hunting for grains of wheat in a chaos
of chaff.

_3d_. Our third express went off this morning, freighted with our
letters, and, of course, with our reasons, our sentiments, our thanks,
our disappointments, our hopes, and our fears.

_6th_. I resumed the subject of the Indian language.

_Osanimun_ is the word for vermilion. This word is compounded from
_unimun_, or plant yielding a red dye, and _asawa_, yellow. The peculiar
color of yellow-red is thus indicated. _Beizha_ is the neuter verb "to
come." This verb appears to remain rigid in its conjugation, the tenses
being indicated exclusively by inflections of the pronoun. Thus _nim
beizha, I_ come; _ningee peizha_, I came; _ninguh peizha_, I will come.
The pronoun alone is declined for past and future tense, namely _gee_
and _guh_.

There does not appear to be any definite article in the Chippewa
language. _Pazhik_ means one, or an. It may be doubtful whether the
former sense is not the exclusive one. _Ahow_ is this person in the
animate form. _Ihiw_ is the corresponding inanimate form. More care than
I have devoted may, however, be required to determine this matter.

Verbs, in the Chippewa, must agree in number and tense with the noun.
They must also agree in gender, that is, verbs animate must have nouns
animate. They must also have animate pronouns and animate adjectives.
Vitality, or the want of vitality, seems to be the distinction which the
inventors of the language, seized upon, to set up the great rules of
its syntax.

Verbs, in the Chippewa language, are converted into nouns by adding the
particle _win_.

_Kegido_, to speak. _Kegido-win,_ speech. This appears to be a general
rule. The only doubt I have felt