A Spectre of Power by Mary Noailles Murfree

WITH all its advantages civilization bears also its disadvantages to the postulant of culture. Perhaps no one has adequately appreciated the stress of that period to the mental and moral nature of the Indian when, detached from his _ancien régime_, its methods and manners, growing scornful of its sanctities and questioning its values, he was yet unaccustomed to the new order of things, unversed in its utilities, incompetent of its comprehension -- alienated from the one and not acclimated to the other.

Many an Indian roamed about the little mart, beginning to gather under the guns of Fort Prince George, alike surly with contempt for the old and aversion for the new, unsettled, dissatisfied, dull, and dangerous. Now and again, with a dark, restless eye, one would pause and look out unallured to the forest and river -- not the same, never again to be the same! Then he would turn his gaze, with loathing disgust, to the busy mercantile Europeans, with their quick trading talk, their bearded faces, their knee breeches, and the long woolen stockings on their stout, thick calves. A queer and odious presentment of humanity they seemed. Even the military did not impress the Indians as the soldiers whirled and ranged about to the sound of fife and drum in that close order so favorable to being mowed down by the very musket and ball with which they themselves were armed. A strange mental atmosphere it was -- charged with the fumes from the embers of the burned-out past and the miasma exhaled from the poisonous present. No wonder their outlook was beclouded and drear.