countries having been so often placed before it as the perfect model of
all greatness and all beauty, every spontaneous movement has been
repressed, in order to make room for the most servile imitation; and
every national attempt to develop an original character has been
sacrificed to the reproduction of something conformable to the model
which has been always before its eyes."

This is certainly true of us, since we not only adopt the English view
of everything, but confine ourselves to the very subjects and imagery
which have become consecrated to us by love and habit. Not to enter into
the general subject of our disposition to parrotism, our neglect of
Indian material in particular may be in part accounted for, by our
having become acquainted with the aborigines after the most unpoetical
fashion, in trying to cheat them out of their lands, or shooting them
when they declined being cheated; they, in their turn, driven to the
resource of the weak and the ignorant, counterplotting us, and taking,
by means of blood and fire, what we would not give them in fair
compensation. This has made our business relations very unpleasant;
and everybody knows that when this becomes the case, it is hard for
parties to do justice to each other's good or available qualities.
If we had only read about the Indians, as a people living in the
mountain-fastnesses of Greece, or the, broad plains of Transylvania, we
should without difficulty have discovered the romantic elements of their
character. But as the effect of remoteness is produced by time as well
as distance, it is surely worth while to treasure up their legends for
our posterity, who will justly consider us very selfish, if we throw
away what will be a treasure to them, merely because we cannot or will
not use it ourselves.

A prominent ground of the slight regard in which the English hold