"The world would be a paradise," said one philosopher, "if such
characters were common. But one is like a seed in the ocean; it cannot
do much good."
When we arrived in the United States, its activity and evident progress
impressed Wauna with a feeling more nearly akin to companionship. Her
own character received a juster appreciation.
"The time is near," she said, "when the New World will be the teacher of
the Old in the great lesson of Humanity. You will live to see it
demonstrate to the world the justice and policy of giving to every child
born under its flag the highest mental, moral and physical training
known to the present age. You can hardly realize what twenty-five years
of free education will bring to it. They are already on the right path,
but they are still many centuries behind my own country in civilization,
in their government and modes of dispensing justice. Yet their free
schools, as yet imperfect, are, nevertheless, fruitful seeds of
progress."
Yet here the nature of Wauna grew restless and homesick, and she at last
gave expression to her longing for home.
"I am not suited to your world," she said, with a look of deep sorrow in
her lovely eyes. "None of my people are. We are too finely organized. I
cannot look with any degree of calmness upon the practices of your
civilization. It is a common thing to see mothers ill-treat their own
helpless little ones. The pitiful cries of the children keep ringing in
my ears. Cannot mothers realize that they are whipping a mean spirit
into their offspring instead of out. I have heard the most enlightened
deny their own statements when selfishness demanded it. I cannot mention
the half of the things I witness daily that grates upon my feelings. I
cannot reform them. It is not for such as I to be a reformer. Those who
need reform are the ones to work for it."
Sorrowfully I bade adieu to my hopes and my search for Alexis, and
prepared to accompany Wauna's return. We embarked on a whaling vessel,
and having reached its farthest limit, we started on our perilous
journey north; perilous for the lack of our boat, of which we could hear
nothing. It had been left in charge of a party of Esquimaux, and had
either been destroyed, or was hidden. Our progress, therefore, depended
entirely upon the Esquimaux. The tribe I had journeyed so far north with
had departed, and those whom I solicited to accompany us professed to be
ignorant of the sea I mentioned. Like all low natures, the Esquimaux are
intensely selfish. Nothing could induce them to assist us but the most
apparent benefit to themselves; and this I could not assure them. The
homesickness, and coarse diet and savage surroundings told rapidly on
the sensitive nature of Wauna. In a miserable Esquimaux hut, on a pile
of furs, I saw the flame of a beautiful and grandly noble life die out.
My efforts were hopeless; my anguish keen. O Humanity, what have I
sacrificed for you!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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