American art and American art collections; essays on artistic subjects . of the warrior who was Wimars friend and companion in boyhood was so tragic, thatI cannot withhold the story. Some enterprising Yankee conceived the idea of taking a numberof Indians to England for exhibition. Among those who were induced to go was John, as he wasfamiliarly called by the whites. These children of the forest knew nothing of the perils of theocean. When on shipboard, John looked with supreme contempt upon the distressing evidencesof sea-sickness among the passengers. At last a horrible suspicion entered the
American art and American art collections; essays on artistic subjects . of the warrior who was Wimars friend and companion in boyhood was so tragic, thatI cannot withhold the story. Some enterprising Yankee conceived the idea of taking a numberof Indians to England for exhibition. Among those who were induced to go was John, as he wasfamiliarly called by the whites. These children of the forest knew nothing of the perils of theocean. When on shipboard, John looked with supreme contempt upon the distressing evidencesof sea-sickness among the passengers. At last a horrible suspicion entered the mind of the stoi-cal savage. It was strengthened by every lunge of the steamer. He had faced death in manyforms, but here was a danger more terrible than any. He waited until satisfied that there wasbut one way of escape from the humiliation, and then plunged a knife into his heart. In one of his essays Emerson says: All departments of life at the present day — Trade,Politics, Letters, Science, or Religion — seem to feel, and to labor to express, the identity of. ,d u s f/;^ o S £ o < 0 fin w w m o O 288 AMERICAN ART their law. They are rays of one sun; they translate each into a new language the sense of theother. They are sublime when seen as emanations of a Necessity contradistinguished from thevulgar Fate, by being instant and alive, and dissolving man, as well as his works, in its flowingbeneficence. This influence is conspicuously visible in the principles and history of Art. Theworks of Wimar were the result of such an all-controlling impulse. He seemed bound by thelaw of necessity to one line of action, and that was the study of the North American Indianand the delineation of his characteristics as shown in war, the chase, the council, in the observ-ance of his superstitious rites, and in all the relations of life. I doubt if he ever willinglypainted any other subject. He worked with the most conscientious fidelity. He made almostinnumerable careful and detaile
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