her name thou bearest, tell me why thou art
changed. Why has thy form, but now straight as the fir and scarcely
less tall, become crooked and misshapen, and no higher than the oak of
two summers? why has thine eye, but now so bright that my own were
pained by its brilliance, faded, and become of the lack-lustre colour
of stone? And thy garments, which glittered like the folds of a cloud
tinged by the beams of the setting sun--why have they partaken of the
change? And thy locks, which were yellow and shining as the sparkling
sand of the Spirits' Island, why have they become of the hue of the
brown moth? Is it because I dared to think thee beautiful--because my
heart dared to feel for thee the flame of sudden love! If thine anger
hath been aroused at my presumption, forgive me, so thou wearest again
the beautiful form that was thine when I first saw thee.'

"Having addressed the beautiful spirit thus, I paused for her reply.
It came in tones soft and sweet as the wind of summer lightly sweeping
the bosom of a prairie, and these were the words which belonged to
them:

"'Mishikinakwa, it is not hatred of thee that makes me refuse to be
seen by thee save at a distance, it is not hatred of thee which makes
me refuse to re-animate that mass of stone and re-shape it to the
proportions thou didst say were so beautiful. Oh no! I have seen thee
before, chief of the Winnebagoes, and spirit as I am, have beheld thee
with the eyes of love. But the beings which are not of clay are not
allowed to associate with flesh and blood. I permitted thee a distant
view of my face and form, that if thou thoughtest them worth the pains
of death, thou mightst encounter those pains, and thy spirit, divested
of its fleshly form, might fly to the arms of thy Light of the Shades,
and rove with her through the valley of endless bliss. Choose, then,
between me, and a longer stay upon earth--between the pains of a life
which must be assailed by woes and sorrows, by continual storm, angry
winter, parching thirst, pinching hunger, and chilling nakedness, and
the joys which will attend thee when thou art clasped in the arms of
her thou lovest, and who will return thy love with equal ardour.
Unlike the maidens of the earth, my charms can never fade; never, like
theirs, can my love be turned into hatred, or my heart grow cold, or
my eyes cease to regard the beloved object with favour. Loving on
through all changes, and loving on for ever, thy mind cannot fanc