Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 131.djvu/476

470 their being used in the inquiry; indeed we may say the same with almost equal justice of the non-Aryan dialects of Asia. It is almost unnecessary for us to say that the Mexican, Central American, and Peruvian civilizations withered away at the contact with the fanaticism and ignorance of the Spaniard, and was replaced by one of foreign growth, which can scarcely be said to be higher. Probably its destruction would have been no less sure had it been brought into relation with any other European peoples. In dealing with it we cannot fairly compare it with any of those which have flourished within the last two thousand years in Europe. It can only be compared with the civilization of the bronze age, which was rapidly passing away at the very dawn of history in the region of the Mediterranean; such, for example, as that revealed by the labors of Dr. Schliemann in the mound at Hisarlik.

The general impression left on our mind by the study of the problem offered by the races of the Americas is: 1. That they are, with the exception of the Eskimos, of Mongolian derivation, and that they have inhabited the new world for a sufficient length of time to develop many languages and a peculiar civilization. 2. That from time to time fresh bodies of emigrants arrived from Asia, probably over sea, bringing with them the knowledge of arts and sciences, which were engrafted into this civilization. 3. That there is no proof of contact of the new with the old world to be found in the civilizations of Mexico, Central America, and of Peru later than the bronze age. The absence of domestic animals, except the dog in the two first, may be accounted for by the difficulty of their being conveyed in canoes, as well as by the seafaring Mongolians, Malays, Polynesians, etc., not being addicted to pastoral habits. 4. That the migration has been on the whole from Asia to America, and the general drift of the tribes from north to south. We can confidently recommend Mr. Bancroft's book to our readers as a trustworthy and well-edited encyclopaedia of all that is known of the "Native races of the Pacific States of North America," and of the most important facts relating to the history, art, and architecture of the civilized peoples of Mexico and Central America.

 

   

night Florimel had her thoughts as well as Malcolm. Already life was not what it had been to her, and the feeling of a difference is often what sets one a-thinking first. While her father lived, and the sureness of his love overarched her consciousness with a heaven of safety, the physical harmony of her nature had supplied her with a more than sufficing sense of well-being. Since his death, too, there had been times when she even fancied an enlargement of life in the sense of freedom and power which came with the consciousness of being a great lady, possessed of the rare privilege of an ancient title, with an inheritance which seemed to her a yet greater wealth than it was. But she had soon found that as to freedom she had less of that than before — less of the feeling of it within her: not much freedom of any sort is to be had without fighting for it, and she had yet to discover that the only freedom worth the name — that of heart and soul and mind — is not to be gained except through the hardest of battles. She was very lonely too. Lady Bellair had never assumed with her any authority, and had always been kind, even to petting, but there was nothing about her to make a home for the girl's heart. She felt in her no superiority, and for a spiritual home that is essential. As she learned to know her better, this sense of loneliness went on deepening, for she felt more and more that her guardian was not one in whom she could place genuine confidence, while yet her power over her was greater than she knew. The innocent nature of the girl had begun to recoil from what she saw in the woman of the world, and yet she had in herself worldliness enough to render her freely susceptible of her influences.

Notwithstanding her fine health and natural spirits, Florimel had begun to know what it is to wake suddenly of a morning between three and four, and lie for a long, weary time sleepless. In youth, bodily fatigue ensures falling asleep, but as soon as the body is tolerably rested, if there be unrest in the mind, that wakes it, and consciousness returns in the shape of a dull misgiving, like the far echo of the approaching trump of the archangel. Indeed, those hours are as a vestibule to the 