ess we should except Goneril and
Regan, and even their blood is red like ours) have some slight fragrance
of humanity about them, some indefinable touches, which redeem them from
utter hatred and execration, and keep them within the pale of human
sympathy, or at least of human pity.

* * * * *

=_Mary Henderson Eastman,[53]_= about =_1815-._=

From "The American Aboriginal Port Folio."

=_225._= Lake Itasca, the Source of the Mississippi.

There it lay--the beautiful lake--swaying its folds of crystal water
between the hills that guarded it from its birth. There it lay, placid
as a sleeping child, the tall pines on the surrounding summits standing
like so many motionless and watchful sentinels for its protection.

There was the sequestered birthplace of that mighty mass of waters,
that, leaving the wilderness of beauty where they lived undisturbed and
unknown, wound their way through many a desolate prairie, and fiercely
lashed the time-worn bluffs, whose sides were as walls to the great
city, where lived and died the toiling multitude. The lake was as some
fair and pure, maiden, in early youth, so beautiful, so full of repose
and truth, that it was impossible to look and not to love.... There was
but one landing to the lake, our travellers found. It was on a small
island, that they called Schoolcraft's Island. On a tall spruce tree
they raised the American flag. There was enough in the novelty of the
scenery, and of the event, to interest the white men of the party. There
was a solemnity mingled with their pleased emotions; for who had made
this grand picture, stretching out in its beauty and majesty before
them? What were they, in comparison with the great and good Being upon
whose works they were gazing?

[Footnote 53: This lady--a native of Virginia--has written several
interesting books, chiefly relating to Indian tradition.]

* * * * *

=_226._= A PLEA FOR THE INDIANS.

The light of the great council-fire--its blaze once illumined the entire
country we now call our own--is faintly gleaming out its unsteady and
dying rays. Our fathers were guests, and warmed themselves by its
hospitable rays; now we are lords, and rule with an iron hand over those
who received kindly, and entertained generously, the wanderer who came
from afar to worship his God according to his own will. The very hearth
where moulder the ashes of this once never-ceasing fir