ted
by a bright morning beam do smiles re-illumine our countenances, and
our faces and hearts become filled with gladness. Tempest and fair
weather, darkness and sunshine, are in us strangely blended. There is
in our nature a strange jarring of the elements of being. Can ye take
to your bosoms wives, who will afflict you with mutabilities as great,
sudden, various, as those of the elements which surround you? Ye are
pleased to think us beautiful, and it may be that we are; but remember
that ye see us in one of our pleased, pleasant, and happy, moments.
Wait till an accident or misfortune happens, till want or calamity
come, or contradiction ensue, or some of the crosses which belong to
human life, as clouds and tempests to the constitution of nature,
assail us. But, if you think your love could survive the hurricanes
which will visit your dwellings when we are stormy; if you can bear to
see the lightnings of our eyes flashing wrath upon you, and our voices
speaking thunder in your ears--I speak for myself and sisters--take
us, and we will assure you of many moments of bright sunshine, many
days of peace and happiness--uninterrupted sun, and cloudless skies."
The beautiful daughter of the sun, who spoke for herself and her
sisters, concluded thus, and the eldest of the four hunters rose, and
replied in these words:

"Beautiful maiden, that speakest for thyself and sisters, do not think
that what thou hast said will affright us. I speak for myself and
brothers--we will take you with all your faults, with the chance of
the hurricanes and stormy weather, linked with the hope of the moments
of bright sunshine and days of peace and happiness. Believe me,
dove-eyed maidens, that the women of the lake Ouaquaphenogan, in the
island of the same name, are not alone in their disposition to be
stormy at times. It need not be told the men of the Creek nation,
that a woman's face, of whatever country, may justly be likened to an
April day, alternately shining and showering, and that her soul is
like a morning in the Variable Moon, which one moment may be dressed
in a thick mantle of clouds, and the next in a glittering robe of
solar glory. It need not be told the son of my mother, that a woman's
voice is sometimes the voice of a gentle rill, and at others, that of
a cloud charged with the poison of the heated and rarefied air. Are
not the Creeks men, and shall they be frightened by what is a mere
momentary delirium? No. Having looked