Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/103

Rh Every one listened in silence. I felt a deep sympathy with the solitary champion, who stood here so alone among enemies, addressing a prejudiced audience, and without a friend. But the isolated state is the highest grandeur on earth, if a man knows that the Supreme Judge is his friend, or at least his one confidant.

On Monday, Clay is expected to make his last great, perhaps his dying speech, on the Californian question, after which it will probably be soon decided, and Clay, in any case, will leave Congress and go to the sea-side. I shall yet remain here a few days on purpose to hear him.

I shall now tell you of some other persons and occurrences here which have interested me. Among the former is a scientific man, Mr. Schoolcraft, who has discovered the springs of the Mississipi, far up in the Northern province, Minnesota. He has been very much among the North American Indian tribes, and has a deal to tell about them which is very interesting. He is now busy occupied in bringing out a work on them, and the country around the Upper Mississippi. He walks on crutches, in consequence of lameness, but the soul moves itself unimpeded. He is an interesting and very good-natured man.

He, and two other persons here, have excited in me the greatest inclination to visit the Upper Mississippi, the character of which is described to me as being very magnificent; to go among the Indians and see something of their wild life, and to make a journey down the Valley of the Mississippi, in its whole extent, from the North to New Orleans in the South. I must see this great future home of a population vaster, it is said, than that which the whole of Europe now contains. Since I have seen the Southern parts of North America I have obtained an idea of the life of the West, and see the truth of Waldo Emerson's words, “The poet of America has not yet appeared.” And if I cannot see the poet yet, I must see