B 3 125 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Class Ibenrp 3D* FRANCIS PARKMAN. i6mo, $1.10 net. Postage, 10 cents. In A tnerican Men of Letters Series. ESSAYS ON GREAT WRITERS. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.50 net. Postage, 13 cents. SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN. Small i6mo, 65 cents net. Postage, 6 cents. In River side Biographical Series. American jWen of 3lettcr FEANCIS PARKMAN & American ini of Jlcttcre FRANCIS PARKMAN BY HENRY DWIGHT SEDGWICK BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY ibe prc.stf, 1904 COPYRIGHT 1904 BY HENRY DWIGHT SKDGWICK ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published May, iqcy. TO S. M. S. Qual vuol gentil donna parere, Vada con lei. 213367 *. PKEFACE THE life of a scholar is almost of necessity un eventful, and his accomplished work speaks for itself; therefore the biographer must deal in the main with the scholar s labors of acquisition and preparation. Journals kept on two summer vacations, and on a trip to Europe, and several erratic and scrappy notebooks, show Parkman s methods of examining historic places and of col lecting historical materials. These, together with the " Oregon Trail," his own brief narrative of his life, and an irregular correspondence, consti tute the autobiographical records of his life. My thanks are due to Miss Parkman, the his torian s sister, for putting those records at my disposal ; to Mr. Charles Haight Farnham, the author of the " Life of Francis Parkman," for his generous permission to make what use I might wish of his biography and but for his labors my own would have been fourfold greater; to Messrs. Little, Brown & Co., for their per- viii PREFACE mission to quote from that " Life " and from Parkman s published works; to the late Abb6 H. R. Casgrain, for leave to use his unpublished " Correspondence for twenty-eight years with Mr. Parkman ; " to The Westborough Histor ical Society, for leave to make extracts from the " Diary of Rev. Ebenezer Parkman," and to those ladies and gentlemen who have kindly allowed me to print letters written to Parkman. I am also indebted to the monographs of Mr. Edward Wheelwright, the Rev. O. B. Frothing- ham, Mr. John Fiske, and Mr. Barrett Wendell. H. D. SEDGWICK. NEW YOBK, April, 1904. CONTENTS CHAPTEB PAGB I. ACHIEVEMENT 1 II. ANCESTRY 12 III. BOYHOOD 20 IV. COLLEGE 27 V. EXPLORATIONS 32 VI. THE MARGALLOWAY 45 VII. TRAVELS 56 VIII. EUROPE 69 IX. IN SICILY l 80 X. NAPLES AND ROME 90 XI. FROM FLORENCE TO EDINBURGH . . .105 XII. A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT . . 116 XIII. PREPARATION FOR PONTIAC . . -133 XIV. OFF ON THE OREGON TRAIL ... 148 XV. THE OGILLALLAH 160 XVI. A ROUGH JOURNEY . , . . . .168 XVII. LIFE IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE iXVTII. UNDER DR. ELLIOTT S CARE XTX. ILL HEALTH, 1848-1850 205 XX. LIFE AND LITERATURE, 1850-1856 . 217 XXI. 1858-1865 229 XXII. HISTORY AND FAME 246 X CONTENTS XXIII. CANADA AND CANADIAN FKIENDS . . . 263 XXIV. LATER LIFE 282 XXV. CHARACTER AND OPINIONS . . . 304 XXVI. A MORE INTIMATE CHAPTER . . .316 APPENDIX AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL LETTER OF 1886 . . . 327 POEM BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES .... 339 INDEX 341 FRANCIS PARKMAN FRANCIS PARKMAN CHAPTER I ACHIEVEMENT THERE is a fine passage in Bunyan which de scribes the fighting courage of the Puritan type : - Then said Great-heart to Mr. Valiant-for- Truth, " Thou hast worthily behaved thyself ; let me see thy sword." So he showed it to him. When he had taken it in his hand, and looked thereon a while, he said, " Ha ! it is a right Jerusalem blade." Valiant. It is so. Let a man have one of these blades, with a hand to wield it and skill to use it, and he may venture upon an angel with it. He need not fear its holding, if he can but tell how to lay on. Its edge will never blunt. Great-heart. But you fought a great while. I wonder you was not weary. Valiant. I fought till my sword did cleave to my hand ; and then they were joined together as if a sword grew out of my arm, and when the blood ran through my fingers, then I fought with most courage. 2 FRANCIS PARKMAN Great-heart. Thou hast done well. . . . Mr. Great-heart was delighted in him (for he loved one greatly that he found to be a man of his hands). Parkman was such another Valiant-for-Truth, and with the right Jerusalem blade of character fought his victorious way. Silent in pain, patient in accomplishment, modest in victory, gentle in bearing, and yet determined to grimness, he proved himself lawful heir of the best Puritan traits. The name Puritan he disliked, but how ever much he might wish he could not escape his moral ancestry. He inherited not the acci dental beliefs of the Puritans, but their attitude toward life, their disposition and inherent bent. " Not happiness but achievement " was his watch word. Cut off by race and temperament from those light, sunny, skeptical, feminine moods that belong to other bloods, his nature was con centrated in the pith of his race. With head erect, jaw fixed, shoulders square, he was the image of New England s best. He had New England s difficulty of self-expression, he was not without traces of her inflexibility of mind, and he was endowed, more than the measure of his race, with a proud, shy tenderness. Nature would have made a soldier of him, but in Fortune s hugger-mugger allotment of parts, it fell to him to grasp the pen instead of the ACHIEVEMENT 3 sword ; his name is not written upon fort and battlefield, but it is inseparably united with the story of the first great epoch in the history of North America. In the field of history Parkman s name stands as high, perhaps higher, than that of any other American. John Fiske, a student of the histo rians of Europe and America, says : " Into the making of a historian there should enter some thing of the philosopher, something of the natu ralist, something of the poet. In Parkman this rare union of qualities was realized in a greater degree than in any other American historian. Indeed, I doubt if the nineteenth century. can show in any part of the world another historian quite his equal in respect to such a union. . . . It is only the historian who is also philosopher and artist that can thus deal in block with the great and complex life of a whole society. The requisite combination is realized only in certain rare and high types of mind, and there has been no more brilliant illustration of it than Park man s volumes afford." And he adds, speaking of Parkman s whole history : " Strong in its individuality, like to nothing else, it clearly belongs, I think, among the world s few master pieces of the highest rank, along with the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Gibbon." A writer in the " Spectator," reviewing an Eng- 4 FRANCIS PARKMAN lish edition of Parkman s works, says: "Fran cis Parkman long since won an honorable place among the classic historians of the world, and it is with the greatest cordiality that we welcome the present reprint of his works. Now, at last, we have a library edition which we may put by the side of Gibbon and Michelet, of Livy and Taine. For Francis Parkman need not fear the most august society ; he has the true genius of history in him, the genius which knows how to wed accuracy with romance." Goldwin Smith compares him with Tacitus. Professor Albert Bushnell Hart says : " Francis Parkman is the greatest of all the writers who have ever made America their theme or have written as American scholars, and his greatness depends upon three qualities rarely brought together in one man ; he was a matchless investigator, a man of the most unflinching tenacity, and somehow he knew how to write so that men loved to read him." These are enthusiastic praises, and Mr. Fiske, who had a warm heart and a fine capacity for friendship, might be thought to have spoken from a May morning mood, the English reviewer might be deemed over-grateful to Parkman after reviewing other historians, Goldwin Smith en thusiastic from love of Canada, Professor Hart from love of Harvard ; but such conjectures fail, for these men make but the mouthpiece of the ACHIEVEMENT 5 common voice. The boy who in the course of nature reads Parkman after Cooper and the Wa- verley novels finishes "Pontiac" or "Montcalm and Wolfe" with a "By Jove, that s bully!" The temperate person of uncertain age says, " What an admirable piece of work I how true, how just! would that our fiction had half the charm of such history ! " The student rejoices in the accuracy, the impartiality, the wise correct ness of this history. It is for scholars, however, to decide whether Parkman is as great as Thucydides and Gibbon ; the very suggestion is more than enough honor for any other historian ; it is for readers to de termine if his books are as agreeable as Michelet or Livy ; the biographer can but show whether the historian has been loyal to his task, whether he has studied, explored, reconnoitred in all those places where he might ferret out knowledge of his subject; for in such loyalty lies not only the historian s honor, but also what benefit men may derive from history. In considering the merits of a historian, heed must be paid to the subject of the history, the theme must be looked at ; a little man minces up to a little subject, a strong man strides up to a great subject. No story of Martha s Vine yard, of Dorking, or Tarascon could deserve the title of a great history. Parkman chose worthily, 6 FRANCIS PARKMAN sagaciously seeing clearly where other men had only peered. His subject is universally acknow ledged to be a great subject. It is the history of Canada, it is the history of the United States as well. The events which he recounts are the great prologue to the drama of the American Revo lution ; they are the slow factors which begot sentiments of mutual dependence among bicker ing colonies, and finally, forcing them to confed erate, enabled them to break the ties that held them to Great Britain and to found a new nation. Incidentally, as a story of two nations of differ ent stocks, Parkman s history involves the con trast between two political systems, one where a single man holds the power of the state, the other where the general body of citizens possess it ; likewise it involves the contrast between two great religious systems, Roman Catholicism and Teutonic Protestantism. The English-French con flict was the struggle between two sets of ideas one derived from Rome, the other from Ger many for domination on the continent of North America. In Europe those discordant ideas had set up their respective boundaries ; in the New World they fought not for boundaries, but for all or nothing. The importance of this struggle Parkman was perhaps the first fully to realize. So great a theme imposed a grave duty. Parkman s self -training and self-education, in ACHIEVEMENT 7 order to fulfill this duty, make the most interest ing part of his life. To be sure, as a historian of past time, he had in some respects unrivaled opportunities. When Froude described Eliza bethan buccaneers and Freeman the Normans of the Conquest, they were constrained to use that constructive sense which out of manuscripts, stones, and bones must create living men ; but Parkman was able to live in the past, as it were, to use eyes and ears instead of his imagination. Indians, French Canadians, and American fron tiersmen are his dramatis personce. Fortunately for him, Indians are singularly persistent in an cestral ways, singularly incapable of adaptation to altered modes of life. What the Iroquois and the Algonkins of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were, such were the Snakes and the Dakotas of 1846. Likewise the French Cana dian, in less degree, is rigid and obstinate ; the habitant follows his father s footsteps with the fidelity of instinct, what he learned to do as a boy he does as a man, and unless he emigrate, he remains the same from generation to genera tion. Were it not for assaults from the outer world, his gun, his plough, his boat would re main as they were in Frontenac s time ; so would his gayety and his politeness. In 1842 the fron tiersman, also, on the borders of Vermont and Maine, was not greatly changed from his pre- 8 FRANCIS PARKMAN decessors of a century before. Those were still the days before the great Irish immigration ; the frontiersmen whom Parkman met in his undergraduate days were Yankees, handling gun and axe very much as their forefathers had done, theological, independent, lanky, ready, rough, unmannerly. So, too, in the days of Park- man s roamings, the woods on the borders of Lake George and of Lake Champlain, the for ests of pine, spruce, oak, and maple, between the White Mountains and the St. Lawrence, had not changed since the French and Indian wars. Here fortune favored him. Paris of the second empire was not like the Paris of Henri IV, London of Queen Victoria was not the London of Charles II ; but in Parkman s boy hood great tracts of the American forest were changed only in so far as old trees had fallen to decay and young shoots had grown up to take their places. All these dramatis persons the Indian, the Canadian, the frontiersman, the forest could be studied in the life, and in these respects Park man had great advantages over other historians. These advantages he used to the full, and this little book will, in great measure, consist merely of Parkman s own accounts of these studies afield. But the peculiar praise due to Park man is that he determined, while still a lad, not ACHIEVEMENT 9 merely to write a history of the French and English war, but to be thorough in his prepara tion. Thoroughness ordinarily means alcoves, green shades, spectacles ; with Parkman it meant not merely such " emasculate scholarship," but also hardening the muscles, aiming the rifle, riding bareback, in order to qualify the student to undertake his outdoor studies. Fully aware of the greatness of his under taking, ready and eager to submit to whatever schooling should best educate him, Parkman judged that history should be written with a view to being read. However accurate, however profound it be, if it remain on the shelf, whether of the bookshop or public library, it is a failure. Parkman, too, was deeply impressed with the beauty, the color, the romance of our North American history ; he believed that beauty, color, romance are not mere trappings and holiday decorations of history, but integral parts, and that to omit them is to be false to fact. To some men this world, both present and past, looks dry, dull, autumnal ; to Parkman it blossomed with the bloom of spring, and he knew that, in order to gather and preserve that beauty in little black printed letters, art was necessary, and that art means training. Therefore he set himself to work to become a master of art in prose, just as he worked to become a master of art with his 10 FRANCIS PARKMAN rifle. His diaries are sketches and studies in narrative, his reading aimed at the same end ; until after long years by this patient labor he was able to produce those " glorious " and " shin ing " pages which, not for Mr. John Fiske alone, fill "the most brilliant and fascinating books that have been written since the days of Herodo tus." By these means, by the simple method of faith ful fulfillment of his duty, Parkman accom plished his great task. " The path of duty was the path of glory," and to those who are pri marily concerned with history and literature, the process of his preparation will be the most inter esting period of his life ; but to those who prefer manhood to history, and fortitude to fame, who are zealous for American character, to them the most brilliant parts of Parkman s story are the periods of enforced idleness. In boyhood he had some physical weakness, and throughout his life from undergraduate days till his death, there is one long record of physical ills, pausing but continuing again inexorable, of lameness that forbade walking, of almost complete blindness that forbade seeing, of insomnia that banished sleep, of pain that stopped the impatient brain. Intense of purpose, impetuous in pursuit, in tolerant of idleness, effeminacy, and indifference, emphatic in belief, dependent on himself alone, ACHIEVEMENT 11 pleasant to his acquaintance, beloved by his friends, he fought his way through fifty years of achievement, a worthy comrade to those great figures in his histories whom he has lifted to fame and honor. CHAPTER II ANCESTRY INDOMITABLE resolution was the chief trait in Francis Parkman. It may be somewhat fanciful to trace a single trait up the male line through eight generations, but in Parkman s case there is satisfaction in finding that this ascent takes us to Devonshire, the breeding place of indomitable spirit. Parkman s last English ancestor was Wil liam Parkman of Sidmouth, Devon, of whom we know little, yet at least that he was born and bred in Elizabethan England, in the same shire that begot Raleigh, Drake, Gilbert, Hawkins, and other freebooting buccaneers, and that he was entitled to a birthright of will and courage. William s son Elias emigrated to Massachusetts Bay prior to 1633; there he married, and be got a line of descendants, over whom worthy people with Old Testament names we may lightly skip to the fourth generation from the Devonshire ancestor. In that generation the twelfth child, Ebenezer, is well known by reason of a journal which he kept for many years. He graduated at Harvard College in 1721, at the ANCESTRY 13 age of eighteen, and three years later was elected town minister of Westborough, Massachusetts. He continued his ministry in this little town for fifty-eight years, until his death. His published journal begins abruptly on February 13, 1737, about two years after his first wife s death. The minister s second attempt at wooing is recorded thus : Feb. 17. Capt Foot & Sister Elizabeth & M Mary Tilestone took a ride with me in a double slay at evening to Capt. Robert Sharp s at Brook- line, & Br r Elias came to us upon my horse, after supper there. At 10 o clock they returned in y e slay but I tarried. N. B. The discovery of my Inclinations to Capt Sharp & to Mm. By y eir urgent Persuasions I tarried and lodged there. N. B. M r _ 8 Susannah Sharp. [Mistress Susan nah was twenty-one years old.] . . . March 3 d . Towards night I rode over to Rox- bury. N. B. I proceeded to Capt Sharp s. By Capt Sharp s strong Solicitation I tarried all night. N. B. Mrs Susan not very willing to think of going so far in y e Country as West- borough, &G &G &G. . . . March 4. I returned P. M. from Town & went again to Capt Sharp s. N. B. Capt Sharp & Mm. gone to the Funeral of a Relation at Rox- bury. I tarried whilst the Capt and his spouse came home. Arguments which be fruitless with Mrs Susan. I returned to Father Champney s between 8 and 9 in y e Evening. [This rebuff was received philosophically.] 14 FRANCIS PARKMAN March. 18. Eve at D r . Gott s. M r - Gott had been very ill, but is recovering. Mrs Hannah Breek with her, but I spent my time with y e men. [Mistress Hannah was twenty-one years old and was a younger sister of Mrs. Gott.] . . . March. 19. A. M. To Dr. Gott s, but a short space with Mrs Hannah. At my Request, she had (she assured me) burnt my Letters, Poems, etc ... March 25. I rode to Marl b [Marlborough] . Spent ye afternoon at D r Gott s was at ye Coll. s, [certain friends] but returned to Dr s. M Hovey there with a Bass Viol. N. B. M? H h B k at ye Dr s still. Our conversa tion of a piece with what it used to be. I mark her admirable Conduct, her Prudence and wis dom, her good manners and her distinguishing Respectfulness to me w c [which] accompany her Denyals. After it grew late in y e Even g, I rode home to Westb., through the Dark and the Dirt but cheerfully and comfortably (compara tively). . . . April. 1. At Eve, I was at Dr. Gotts, Mrs H h was thought to be gone up to Mr Week s or Capt Williams, with design to lodge there, but she returned to ye Doctor s. And she gave me her Company till it was very late. Her Conversation was very Friendly, and with divers expressions of Singular and Peculiar Regard. Hfemorand, Oscul : But she cannot yield to being a step mother. I lodged there, and with g rt Satisfaction & Composure. The two were married in September and lived very contentedly, yet an entry on the anniversary ANCESTRY 15 of his first wife s death, forty-three years after wards, betrays the fact that she was his real love. The records of this diary, brief and matter-of- fact as they are, bring a vivid picture of the sim ple, frugal country life of the time. The minis ter s salary was eked out, or perhaps wholly paid, by the labor and the gifts of his congregation. For instance, in October, the month after his marriage, occur the entries : 6. Young men came to gather my corn. Set y m to work. . . . About 18 or 20 hands husked out all my Corn. N. B. in my absence Winter Apples gathered in. ... 7. M? John Pratt brought home my cyder which he had made. . . . 12. M* Lock came & carried in Corn. . . . 13. At evening Br r Hicks helped in more Corn. . . . 14. Jon n Kogers got in Pumpkins, & ye re mainder of y e Corn. . . . 15. Noah How helped in with Turnips & some of y e Potatoes. . . . In this Westborough minister we have a typi cal instance of the moral and intellectual life of New England in that awkward age of transition preceding the Revolutionary War, during which Massachusetts and its fellow settlements were passing from boyhood to manhood. Here were 16 FRANCIS TARKMAN still the narrow horizon, the scant intellectual resources, and the tough conservatism of Puritan days, but also that rigid sentiment of duty and that desire to do well and to make the most of granted opportunities, which have made New England what she has been. Francis Parkman and his great-grandfather, with the differences appropriate to their generations, held in com mon this belief, that life is man s opportunity to try his mettle, to measure himself against adverse forces, and to determine whether he or they be the stronger and more resolute. The minister s intellectual life was limited, but not willfully lim ited. He endeavored to acquaint himself with a wider range of thought than ordinarily found its way into Westborough. On the 13th of July, 1779, is this entry : - M r Adams has brought home to me at length Sir W m Temple. He has led me also into an Ex change of a number of Books viz. For Voetius 3 vols, I have T) T . Stanhope s Thomas a Kempis D r Calamy, of Vows : Horneck s crucified Jesus, & T) r . Goodman s Old Religion. For Mons r Boi- leau s 2 d vol and Mat Prior s Works 2 vols, I have D r Hammond s Annotations in large Folio. For the Lay Monastery, I have Herman Pru dence, & Three Select Pieces of M r Thos. Shep herd. For Comin s Real Christian, unbound, I gave him at his proposal a Pound of Sugar. He presented me a Pamphlet, D* Gibson on y e Sin- fulness of Neglecting and profaning the Lord s ANCESTRY 17 Day. N. B. I returned him Drexilius on Eter nity. The Rev. Ebenezer Parkman died in his eighti eth year. His successor in our story is Samuel j Parkman, his son, a prosperous merchant and prominent citizen of Boston. He began life a poor boy his father s purse was too light to pay col lege fees ; " he did his own lugging," as he said in his opulent age, and when he came to die left a large property, a portion of which enabled our historian to devote his life to a non-money-getting pursuit. Several of SamueFs brothers displayed their New England spirit: William, at the age of seventeen, served in a Massachusetts regiment during the French war, keeping a diary, a family trait ; Breck, a minute-man, marched from Westborough to Lexington on the 19th of April, 1775 ; a third brother also served in the Continental Army. Samuel s son Francis, father of the historian, was born in 1788, and graduated at Harvard College in 1807. Destined for the pulpit, he stud ied theology under William Ellery Channing, and, in obedience to the moral law which then prevailed in Boston, became a Unitarian. He took to his grandfather s calling, and in 1813 was ordained pastor of the New North Church, where he remained throughout his active life, and 18 FRANCIS PARKMAN until his son Francis had grown to manhood. He was a kind, benevolent man, esteemed an elo quent preacher with " a special gift in prayer," and took a prominent place among his fellow clergy. For thirty years he was one of the overseers of Harvard College, and presented a sum of money towards the endowment of the Parkman Professorship of Theology. His con versation was well spiced with wit and humor ; anecdotes of his high spirits in talk are still remembered. He possessed a tenacious conserva tism, and yet in spite of this their common trait, he was very unlike his more serious son, and did not sympathize with his literary ambition. Notwithstanding their differences and fundamen tal lack of sympathy, he was a good father, and did his duty as he saw it towards his son. To him a noble eulogy has been paid, " he was par ticularly kind to the unattractive." His house was open and hospitable, and many guests of note in their day were entertained there. Happy memories long lingered on of " that blessed 5 Bowdoin Square house and its radiant inmates . . . that spacious, hospitable mansion graced by a household into which it was an unspeakable privilege for a child to have been born." Francis Parkman resembled his mother more than his father. She was a tender, loving, duti ful, unselfish woman, a great favorite in the large ANCESTRY 19 family circle, whose interest in life did not often travel beyond the threshold of her home ; she, too, was of Puritan stock, having descended from the Cottons, and was endowed with charac ter, reserve, simplicity, and a certain shrewd humor. Frank was like her in many ways, and the older he grew the more the expression of his face became like hers. Their children were Francis, Caroline, Mary, Eliza, and John Eliot ; Mr. Parkman had also an older child, Sarah, by an earlier marriage. CHAPTER III BOYHOOD FRANCIS PARKMAN, the historian, was born September 16, 1823, in a house on a little street which runs across the northern slope of Beacon Hill, then known as Somerset Place, now Allston Street. The Rev. Mr. Parkman lived there until Frank was six or seven years old, when he moved to a larger house, No. 1 Green Street. Town life was not suited to the boy ; his health was deli cate, and his woodland nature, unsatisfied with the resources of his father s yard, rebelled against the cramping streets and alleys of the city. He went to Medford to live with his mother s father, Mr. Nathaniel Hall, who, having retired from business, kept a farm about a mile from the vil lage. Frank, as day-scholar, attended a boarding- school for boys and girls kept by Mr. John Angier, a graduate of Harvard College. Others liked the school but Frank did not, and since with boys as well as with men learning waits upon liking, he learned little ; but he was constant in his attendance at another school, adapted to his disposition and well equipped to teach him the BOYHOOD 21 beginnings of that knowledge which was to make him famous, the school of the woods. At the distance of a few rods from Mr. Hall s farm lay the Middlesex Fells, a capital wilderness. This tract of six or seven square miles, of rocky, barren soil, retained no marks of certain ancient and vain attempts at cultivation except some old apple-trees and tumble-down stone walls. It had ponds, one, half a mile across ; a hill hundreds of feet high ; heaths, glens, dales, crags ; thickets full of trees too big to clasp, jungles of under brush ; rotten stumps to be smashed by a battle- axe ; thick moss to drive a spear into ; mud to smear new clothes from head to foot ; glorious varieties of dirt, and all the riches of a wilder ness. In this great school and playground the boy spent all the time he could save from Mr. Angier, gathering birds eggs, setting traps for squirrels and woodchucks, catching snakes, or creeping on his belly with bow and arrow to get a shot at a robin, which, in spite of the utmost ingenuity of approach, by some chance, miraculous in the hunter s eyes, almost always succeeded in flying away unharmed. These days of rambling through this trackless forest were among the happiest of his life ; he always liked to look back upon them. No doubt they owe a part of their joyous colors to the black back ground of Mr. Angier s school. In spite of a 22 FRANCIS PARKMAN pure and honest purpose of play, the roamings in Middlesex Fells provided Frank with some knowledge ; here he began to make a collection of minerals, which gradually grew until in course of time it became worthy to be presented to the Harvard Natural History Society ; here he hacked, picked, and plucked trees and flowers till he found to his surprise that he had learned a little botany ; here he acquired a love of plants which in later days, when ill health chained him to a garden chair, opened to him the vegetable kingdom ; here he picked up, by tail and hind legs, newts, frogs, polly wogs ; and made close acquaintance with all kinds of little living crea tures. Now things there are that, upon him who sees, A strong vocation lay ; and strains there are That whoso hears shall hear for evermore. So, in these early days, one may discover the bent of Parkman s mind towards the forest ; here, to quote his words, " he became enamoured of the woods," and plainly showed that inclination to wards outdoor schooling and self-instruction in nature to which he gave loose rein in college. After four years at Medford Frank went back to Boston to live with his parents. In spite of active life in the country, his body was not ro bust, and perhaps physical inability to join in athletic games was the cause that turned the BOYHOOD 23 boy s attention to the indoor diversion of chem istry. There was a shed at the rear of the house which his father converted into a laboratory, and here Frank shut himself up too steadily for the good of his health, and devoted himself to chem ical experiments. In his fragmentary autobio graphy he says that he accomplished nothing beyond poisoning himself with noxious gases and scorching his skin with explosions ; but probably he did well enough, his years considered, for his masterful disposition always determined to have the upper hand in a grapple with any study to which he turned. He impressed his comrades with respect for his skill, and succeeded in mak ing an electrical machine with which he admin istered shocks to sundry rash boys and girls. He also entertained himself and his friends with lectures, duly announced by printed bills. In the autobiography an extreme seriousness, begotten in great part by long illness, seems to have cast a shadow backward over his youth, or at least to have left the man somewhat oblivious, or careless, of the lightheartedness of his boy hood, which, in fact, had its fair share of gayety. The records of his childhood indicate jollity and happiness ; and he would have been most ready to acknowledge this and render thanks, but in his little memoir his mind was fixed upon the lessons which others might learn from his life, 24 FRANCIS PARKMAN and therefore he passed by those details which in that view were irrelevant. For instance, at the age of thirteen, Frank and his companions turned the loft of a barn behind the house into a theatre. They were the scene-painters, cos- turners, and in part, perhaps, playwrights, as well as the company of players. Sometimes, in moments of greater ambition, they borrowed costumes from a theatre. Here is a copy of a play-bill, printed by one of the company : STAR THEATRE. On Wednesday, Feb. 22, will be presented for the first time in this Theatre, (with new scenery, &c.,) the celebrated play of MY FELLOW CLERK! Mr. Hooker F. MINOT Tactic -_--__ WM. MARSTON Victim - - - - - - - Q. A. SHAW Fag ------- F. PARKMAN Mr. Knitbrow - - - - - C. DEXTER Bailiff P. DEXTER AFTER WHICH A COMIC SONG!! BY MR. MARSTON. To conclude with some interesting experiments in Chemistry by Mr. Parkman, being his first appearance as a Chemist. Doors open at 1-4 before 3. Curtain rises at 1-4 after 3. BOYHOOD 26 The company gave performances on Wednes day and Saturday afternoons, and acted before their public for a year or two. Frank commonly played women s parts, and trailed calico skirts across the boards with great effect. About the year 1837 the Rev. Francis Park- man left Green Street, and moved his family into the "hospitable house," No. 5 Bowdoin^ Square, which his father, Samuel Parkman the merchant, had built. This was a large, hand some house, in the colonial style, adorned with pilasters, which rose in dignity from the first story to the roof, with a round porch held up by Doric pillars ; there was a grass plot in front, and a general appearance of prosperity. In the rear was a large paved court, and beyond that a garden sloping away in terraces, where pear- trees did their best to reconcile boyhood to the abstinences of town life. The house and its yard were characteristic of Boston, displaying the urban pleasures of retired leisure, full of unostentatious ease ; it marked the change which had come over the commonwealth since the days when her clerical aristocracy dwelt in little wooden houses like that of the Rev. Ebenezer Parkman at Westborough. Frank went to school under Mr. Gideon Thayer, and seems to have studied with dili gence Latin, Greek, English, and the rudiments 26 FRANCIS PARKMAN of science. He himself wrote long afterward concerning his experience at this school : When fourteen or fifteen years old I had the good luck to be under the direction of Mr. Wil liam Russell, a teacher of excellent literary tastes and acquirements. It was his constant care to teach the boys of his class to write good and easy English. One of his methods was to give us lists of words to which we were required to furnish as many synonyms as possible, distin guishing their various shades of meaning. He also encouraged us to write translations, in prose and verse, from Virgil and Homer, insisting on idiomatic English, and criticising in his gentle way anything flowery and bombastic. At this time I read a good deal of poetry, and much of it remains verbatim in my memory. As it in cluded Milton and other classics, I am confident that it has been of service to me in the matter of style. He had a boyish fancy for poetry, and put into verse the scenes of the Tournament at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in "Ivanhoe," which he and other boys declaimed with the dauntless declama tion of boyhood. Perhaps the curious may here discover a touch of that fondness for rhetoric the heart of the boy lasting on into manhood that willingness to express with purple and gold the exaltation of a high mood which stayed with him always. CHAPTER IV COLLEGE FRANK entered the class of 1844 at the age of seventeen. Harvard College in those days was as different from the University of to-day as the rivulet from the river. There were sixty or sev enty students in the freshman class ; most of them about sixteen years old. Frank must have been one of the older boys. The instruction was scarcely more advanced than in a good school to-day. President Quincy was not the executive head of a great corporation ; he was the shepherd of his flock, the father of his children. The yard served as a garden for Holworthy, Massa chusetts, Hollis, S tough ton, University, the Law School, and the Chapel. Football was played for fun or some such old-fashioned reason on the Delta, by all the boys who cared to take off their coats and kick. There were no boat-races except such as random students rowed, in an tique craft, against each other ; so that a lad, like Frank, bent upon gaining muscular strength, was obliged to divide his times for exercise be- 28 FRANCIS PARKMAN tween walking, riding, and dumb-bells. In social matters numbers were too few to permit the sections and subsections which now divide un dergraduates into all the genera and species between the grinds, with nose to book, and the groups of young Pendennises lilies of the field who adorn Kandolph and Claverly. But the college, both as a place of study and as an under graduate world, by its very incompleteness, proba bly served Frank s purposes as well as the present university would have done. In like manner as when a boy at Medford he had learned more from his own lessons in the Middlesex Fells than in Mr. Angier s class-room, so in Cambridge he continued to be his own teacher, and pursued a system that, if it had been followed in moder ation, would have well fitted him to do his life s work. In his freshman year that life s work was haunting the background of his mind, not as yet in the definite form which it took a little later, but rather as a strong attraction which drew him towards the forest, and persuaded him that the way to woo her with success was to ac quire strength of limb and understanding of woodcraft. There was a holiday side to his undergraduate life ; but usually Frank was going about his own business in his impetuous Devon fashion ; he tried to cram endurance by long walks taken at COLLEGE 29 a pace far too rapid to make his companionship comfortable, and spent long hours into the night reading English classics and all sorts of books concerning American Indians. He avoided all interests and occupations that did not feed the sacred flame of his forest love. Prior to this time Frank had nursed a whim for poetry, and had entertained a notion that he might become a poet or a devotee of literature, half poet, half man-of-letters, for he was fond of poetry and had a knack for rhyming. Traces of this taste lasted up to the year after graduation, when he published in " The Knickerbocker " a poem of several hundred verses called " The New Hampshire Ranger." But the whim for poetry, like the caprice for chemistry, was quickly van quished by the real interest of his life ; and before the end of his freshman year all thought of poetry as a serious pursuit had passed out of his head. The real business of the year began with the summer vacation, when he took his gun and fishing-rod, and, in the company of his class mate, Daniel Denison Slade, a tall and athletic young man, set forth on what might be called a field course in American history. In his autobi ography Parkman says, with happy recollection : " For the student there is, in its season, no bet ter place than the saddle, and no better com- 30 FRANCIS PARKMAN pan ion than the rifle or the oar." He kept a full diary, from which lack of space forbids quota tion. The two went on foot, with an occasional " lift," to the White Mountains and adjacent re gions, and Parkman enjoyed himself immensely. This year was the determining period of his life, for in it he resolved to devote himself to the task of writing the story of French colonization and empire in North America, which he at last com pletely accomplished after, as has been aptly said, " a half century of conflict." We need not suppose that Frank sat in Mas sachusetts Hall, like Gibbon on the steps of the Capitol, and at a definite hour made up his mind to write a history ; but in his sophomore year "the plan was in its most essential features formed," and the designer immediately set to work to carry out his plan : Before the end of the sophomore year my various schemes had crystallized into a plan of writing a story of what was then known as the " Old French War," - - that is, the war that ended in the conquest of Canada, for here, as it seemed to me, the forest drama was more stir ring and the forest stage more thronged with appropriate actors than in any other passage of our history. It was not till some years later that I enlarged the plan to include the whole course of the American conflict between France and England, or, in other words, the history of the COLLEGE 31 American forest ; for this was the light in which I regarded it. My theme fascinated me, and I was haunted with wilderness images day and night. There are few records, if there are any, of so large a purpose, conceived so young, and with such constancy executed ; and when we consider the pain, the attacks of almost complete blind ness, the physical infirmities that barred his way, we may excuse those who in an outburst of American enthusiasm challenge the world to show such another hero in the world of letters since the death of Cervantes. Frank took his share in the ordinary college life of young gentlemen ; he was a member of the " Institute of 1770," of the " Hasty Pud ding," of a little and very intimate group called the Chit-Chat Club, whenever the mysterious letters C. C. were allowed to assume all their significance. He was a fair student, too, taking certain minor academical honors. At his com mons he got the ironical nickname, " The Lo quacious ; " he was never that, though all life long he enjoyed talking with his friends. He was good company, vigorous even fiery in argument, entertaining, an excellent story-teller, of lively imagination and well provisioned memory, and on the whole was much more sought than seek ing. Boy and man, he was a modest, unassum ing, resolute, high-minded gentleman. CHAPTER V EXPLORATIONS THE college term ended in July, and Frank lost no time in setting out upon his summer excursion in company with his friend, Henry Orne White : July 15th, 42. Albany. Left Boston this morning at half-past six, for this place, where I am now happily arrived, it being the longest day s journey I ever made. For all that, I would rather have come thirty miles by stage than the whole distance by railroad, for of all methods of progressing, that by steam is incomparably the most disgusting. . . . July 16th. Caldwell. This morning we left Albany which I devoutly hope I may never see again in the cars, for Saratoga. . . . After passing the inclined plane and riding a couple of hours, we reached the valley of the Mohawk and Schenectady. I was prepared for something filthy in the last mentioned venerable town, but for nothing quite so disgusting as the reality. Canal docks, full of stinking water, superannu ated rotten canal-boats, and dirty children and pigs paddling about formed the foreground of the delicious picture, while in the rear was a mass of tumbling houses and sheds, bursting EXPLORATIONS 33 open in all directions, green with antiquity, dampness, and lack of paint. Each house had its peculiar dunghill, with the group of reposing hogs. In short, London itself could exhibit no thing much nastier. . . . Finally reached Sara toga, having traveled latterly at the astonishing rate of about seven miles an hour. " Caldwell stage ready." We got our baggage on board, and I found time to enter one or two of the huge hotels. After perambulating the entries filled with sleek waiters and sneaking fops, dashing through the columned porticoes and inclosures, drinking some of the water and spitting it out again in high disgust, I sprang onto the stage, cursing Saratoga and all New York. . . . Dined at the tavern, and rode on. Country dreary as before ; the driver one of the best of his genus I ever met. He regaled me as we rode on with stories of his adventures with deer, skunks, and passengers. A mountain heaved up against the sky some distance before us, with a number of small hills stretching away on each hand, all wood-crowned to the top. . . . But as we drew near, the mountain in front assumed a wilder and a loftier aspect. Crags started from its woody sides and leaned over a deep valley below. " What mountain is that ? " " That ere is French Mounting," - the scene of one of the most desperate and memorable battles in the old French War. As we passed down the valley, the mountain rose above the forest half a mile on our right, while a hill on the left, close to the road, formed the other side. The trees flanked the road on both sides. In a little opening in 34 FRANCIS PARKMAN the woods, a cavity in the ground with a pile of stones at each end marked the spot where was buried that accomplished warrior and gentleman, Colonel Williams, whose bones, however, have since been removed. Farther on is the rock on the right where he was shot, having mounted it on the look-out an event which decided the day the Indians and English broke and fled at once. Still farther on is the scene of the third tragedy of that day, when the victorious French, having been in their turn, by a piece of good luck, beaten by the valorous Johnson at his in- trenchment by the lake, were met at this place on their retreat by McGinnis, and almost cut to pieces. Bloody Pond, a little slimy dark sheet of stagnant water, covered with weeds and pond- lilies and shadowed by the gloomy forest around it, is the place where hundreds of dead bodies were flung after the battle, and where the bones still lie. A few miles farther, and Lake George lay before us, the mountains and water confused and indistinct in the mist. We rode into Cald- well, took supper a boat and then a bed. July 17th. Caldwell. The tavern is full of fashionable New Yorkers all of a piece. Henry and myself both look like the Old Nick, and are evidently looked upon in a manner cor responding. I went this morning to see William Henry. The old fort is much larger than I had thought ; the earthen mounds cover many acres. It stood on the southwest extremity of the lake, close by the water. The enterprising genius of the inhabitants has made a road directly through the ruins, and turned bastion, moat, and glacis EXPLORATIONS 36 into a flourishing cornfield, so that the spot so celebrated in our colonial history is now scarcely to be distinguished. Large trees are growing on the untouched parts, especially on the em bankment along the lake shore. In the rear, a hundred or two yards distant, is a gloomy wood of pines, where the lines of Montcalm can easily be traced. A little behind these lines is the burying place of the French who fell during that memorable siege. The marks of a thousand graves can be seen among the trees, which of course have sprung up since. . . . One of Mont- calm s lines ran northwest of the tavern toward the mountains. Two or three years ago in dig ging for some purpose, a great quantity of deer, bear, and moose bones were found here, with arrows and hatchets, which the tavern keeper thinks mark the place of some Indian feast. The spikes and timbers of sunken vessels may be seen in strong sunlight, when the water is still, at the bottom of the lake, along the southern beach. Abercrombie sunk his boats here. There are remains of batteries on French Mt., and the mountain north of it, I suppose to command the road from Ft. Edward. This evening visited the French graves. I write this at camp, July 18th. Just turned over my ink bottle and spilt all the ink. July 18th. Camp at Diamond Island. Set out this morning in an excellent boat, hired at Cald- well. . . . We landed occasionally, and fished as we went along. About ten o clock stretched across Middle Bay and got bread, pork, and potatoes at a farmhouse, with which and our fish 36 FRANCIS PARKMAN we regaled ourselves at a place half way down the Bay. Here 1 wrote my journal for yesterday ; we slept an hour or two on the ground, bathed, and read Goldsmith, which Henry brought in his knapsack. At three we proceeded to explore the bay to its bottom, returned, made for Diamond Island, which is now uninhabited, prepared our camp and went to sleep. July 19th. I woke this morning about as weak and spiritless as well could be. All enterprise and activity was fairly gone ; how I cannot tell, but I cursed the weather as the most probable cause. Such has been the case with me, to a greater or less degree, for the last three or four weeks. Rowed to-day along the eastern shore. . . . But everything was obscured with mist. When the wind became less violent we rowed to an island in the middle, where we are now encamped. Wednesday, July 20th. Entered the narrows this morning, and rowed among all the islands and along all the shores. . . . We passed under Black Mt., whose precipices and shaggy woods wore a very savage and impressive aspect in that peculiar weather, and kept down the lake seven miles to Sabbath Day Pt. High and steep moun tains flanked the lake the whole way. In front, at some distance they seemed to slope gradually away, and a low green point, with an ancient dingy house upon it, closed the perspective. This was Sabbath Day Pt., the famous landing place of many a huge army. . . . We ran our boat on the beach of Sabbath Day Pt. and asked lodg ing at the house. An old woman, after a multi tude of guesses and calculations, guessed as how EXPLORATIONS 37 she could accommodate us with a supper and a bed, though she could n t say nohow how we should like it, seeing as how she warn t used to visitors. The house was an old, rickety, dingy shingle palace, with a potato garden in front, hogs perambulating the outhouses, and a group of old men and women engaged in earnest con versation in the tumble-down portico. The chief figure was an old gray-haired man, tall and spare as a skeleton, who was giving some advice to a chubby old lady about her corns. " Well now," said the old lady, " I declare they hurt me mighty bad." " I 11 give you something to cure them right off." " What is it ? I hope it ain t snails. I always hated snails since I was a baby, but I ve heerd say they are better for corns nor anything else at all," etc., etc. The old man was a revolutionary pensioner, Captain Patchin by name, and stout-hearted, hale, and clever by nature. . . . Thursday, 21st. Fished for bass. . . . We caught fish enough, landed, and with Myrtle Bailey, one of the young Brobdignagians, a sim ple, good-natured, strong-handed, grinning son of the plough, set out on a rattlesnake hunt on the mountain back of the Point. . . . We soon reached a still higher point, which commanded the noblest view of the lake I had yet seen. There would be no finer place for gentlemen s seats than this ; but now, for the most part, it is occupied by a race of boors about as uncouth, mean, and stupid as the hogs they seem chiefly to 38 FRANCIS PARKMAN delight in. The captain s household is an excep tion. . . . Afternoon: Fished again. Evening: Fished again, and caught a very large bass all in company of Myrtle, whose luck not satisfying him, he cursed the " darned cussed fish " in most fervent style. Friday, 22nd. Left old Patchin s this morn ing. . . . We broke an oar when within about half a mile, and paddled to shore with great dif ficulty through a considerable surf which was dashing against the beach like the waves of the ocean. We found the post-office a neat little tavern kept by one Garfield, entitled the Judge. He referred us to a carpenter, who promised to make an oar forthwith, and worked six hours upon it, an interval which I spent chiefly in wandering through the country. . . . Returned to Garfield s, and found there Mr. Gibbs with his wife the " vocalist." Presently the man ap peared with the oar finished. White undertook to pay him with a Naumkeag Bank bill the only bills he had. " Don t know nothing about that money: wait till Garfield comes and he ll tell whether it s genuine or not." " There s the paper," said I ; " look and see." He looked all was right. " Well, are you satisfied ? " " How do I know but what that ere bill is counterfeit. It has a sort of counterfeit look about it to my eyes. Deacon, what do you say to it?" The deacon put on his spectacles, held the bill to the light, turned it this way and that, tasted of it, and finally pronounced that according to his cal culation it was good. But the carpenter was not contented. " Bijah, you re a judge of bills ; EXPLORATIONS 39 what do you think ? " Bijah, after a long exam ination, gave as his opinion that it was counter feit. All parties were beginning to wax wroth, when the judge entered and decided that the bill was good. We pushed from the beach and steered down the lake, passed some islands, and beheld in front of us two grim mountains, standing guard over a narrow strait of dark water between. . . . One of these mountains was the noted Rogers Slide, the other, almost as famous, Anthony s Nose, Jr. Both had witnessed, in their day, the passage of twenty vast armies in the strait be tween ; and there was not an echo on either but had answered to the crack of rifles and screams of dying men. We skirted the base of the Nose for which sentimental designation I could find no manner of reason till we arrived opposite the perpendicular front of his savage neighbor. About a mile of water was between. We ran the boat ashore on a shelving rock, and looked for a camping place among the precipices. We found, to our surprise, at the side of a steep rock, amid a growth of cedars and hemlocks, a little inclos- ure of logs, like a diminutive log cabin without a roof. We made beds in it of hemlock boughs there was just space enough brought up our baggage and guns, ate what supper we had, and essayed to go asleep. But we might as well have slept under a shower-bath of melted iron. In that deep sheltered spot, bugs, mos quitoes, and " no-see-ems " swarmed innumera ble. . . . This morning was the most toilsome we have passed. The wind was dead against us ; 40 FRANCIS PARKMAN the waves ran with a violence I had never seen before except on the ocean. It required the full force of both arms to hold the boat on her course. If we slackened our efforts for a single moment, she would spin round and drive back wards. We had about twelve miles to row under these agreeable auspices. "Well," said White, "you call this fun, do you ? To be eaten by bugs all night and work against head winds all day is n t according to my taste, whatever you may think of it." "Are you going to back out ? " said I. " Back out, yes ; when I get into a bad scrape, I back out of it as quick as I can," and so he went on with marvelous volubility to recount his grievances. Lake George he called a " scrubby looking place," said there was no fishing in it he hated camping, and would have no more of it, he would n t live so for another week to save his life, etc., etc. Verily, what is one man s meat is another man s poison. What troubles me more than his treachery to our plans is his want of cash, which will make it absolutely necessary to abandon our plan of descending through Maine. His scruples I trust to overcome in time. We reached Patchin s at last, and were wel comed by the noble old veteran as cordially as if we were his children. We dined, and sat in his portico, listening to his stories. He is eighty- six. . . . We consigned our boat to the captain, to be carried back to Caldwell, and got on a stage we found at the wharf, which carried us to the village of Ty. [Ticonderoga]. It is a despicable manu- EXPLORATIONS 41 facturing place, straggling and irregular, mills, houses,and heaps of lumber, situated in abroad valley with the outlet of Lake George running through the middle, a succession of fierce rapids, with each its saw-mill. I bespoke me here a pair of breeches of a paddy tailor who asked me if I did not work on board the steamboat, a question which aggravated me not a little. I asked a fellow the way to the fort. " Well," said he, " I ve heerd of such a place, seems to me, but I never seen it, and could n t tell ye where it be." " You must be an idiot," thought I ; but I found his case by no means singular. At last I got the direction, and walked about two miles before I saw the remains of a high earthen parapet with a ditch running through a piece of woods for a great distance. This, I suppose, was the place where the French beat off Abercrombie s army. Farther on, in a great plain scantily covered with wood, were breastworks and ditches in abundance running in all directions, which I took for the work of Amherst s besieging army. Still farther were two or three square redoubts. At length, mounting a little hill, a cluster of gray ruined walls, like an old chateau, with mounds of earth and heaps of stone about them, appeared crowning an eminence in front. When I reached them, I was astonished at the extent of the ruins. Thousands of men might have en camped in the area. All around were ditches, of such depth that it would be death to jump down, with walls of masonry sixty feet high. Ty stands on a promontory, with Champlain on one side and the outlet of Lake George on the other ; his 42 FRANCIS PARKMAN cannon commanded the passage completely. At the very extremity is the oldest part of the for tress, a huge mass of masonry, with walls sinking sheer down to the two lakes. All kinds of weeds and vines are clambering over them. The sense less blockheads in the neighborhood have stolen tons upon tons of the stone to build their walls and houses of, may they meet their reward. Wednesday, 27th. In Yankee land again, thank heaven. Left Ty this noon after going over the ruins again in one of the great Cham- plain steamboats, and reached Burlington at night. Visited the college. It was term time and the students were lounging about the ugly buildings or making abortive attempts at revelry in their rooms. The air was full of their diaboli cal attempts at song. We decided that they were all green, and went back, drawing comparisons by the way between the University of Vermont and old Harvard. Thursday, 28th. Left Burlington this morn ing, knapsack on back, for Canada. . . . We followed the road through a deep wood, and when we emerged from it the village of Cam bridge lay before us, twenty-five miles from Burlington. We stopped here for the night. Friday, 29th. From Cambridge we walked on to Johnson. ... At Johnson we took the stage for Stanstead, in Canada. The " stage " was a broken down carryall, into which six passen gers with luggage were stowed, and the thing set in motion under the auspicious influences of two sick horses over a road of diabolical roughness. EXPLORATIONS 43 Saturday, July 30th. Stanstead, Canada. Re sumed our journey this morning in the same " stage." . . . The place is large, with several handsome churches. There was nothing in par ticular to distinguish it from a flourishing Yan kee town till we pulled up at the tavern, where were two or three British soldiers, in their un dress, standing on the porch. There were thir teen of them, with a cornet, quartered at the house, as there now are in all the border villages. They were good-looking fellows, civil enough ; natives of the provinces. They were gathered round a fire in the barroom, smoking and tell ing stories, or else indulging in a little black guardism and knocking one another about the room. They invited us to drink with them, and the liquor being mead the house being tem perance we consented. They have just clubbed to buy a barrel of cider. Sunday, July 31st. Last night we were kept awake by the din of bugles and drums with which the soldiers were regaling themselves in the entry, singing and dancing meanwhile. This morning rainy and dismal. Soldiers and all gathered round the stove in the barroom. Their conver sation was about as decent and their jokes as good as those of a convocation of Harvard stu dents. . . . We set out on foot for Canaan, which pro mised land some told us was twenty miles distant, while others reckoned it thirty. The road for a few miles was good, but we were soon compelled to leave it and take a path through the woods. A beautiful river smooth and rapid ran 44 FRANCIS PARKMAN across the road under a bridge of logs, between forest-covered banks. Not far from Stanstead we had crossed a furious stream, answering to the sentimental designation of the Nigger River. We had walked but a few miles when the clouds settled on the hills and it began to rain. We went to a log cabin for shelter. The " old man " was frank and hospitable like all his genus I ever met, and the " old woman " a damsel of twenty-two, who sat combing her hair in the cor ner extremely sprightly and talkative. She seemed somewhat moved at heart by the doc trines of Miller, whose apostles are at work all along the Vermont frontier. We abused that holy man to our content, and, the rain ceasing, left the cabin. Soon after leaving this place we entered the aforementioned path through the woods. Now and then there would be a clearing with its charred stumps, its boundary of frown ing wood, and its log cabin, but for the most part the forest was in its original state. The average depth of the mud in the path was one foot. . . . The day was showery, with occasional glimpses of the sun ; so that we were alternately wet and dry. . . . Thence passing various dwell ings, and holding various colloquies with the in mates, we reached Canaan, and a good tavern. The landlord has quartered [us] in his hall large as a barn. Canaan is a microscopic village, the houses scattered through a valley among low mountains, all covered with forest. We saw here the Connecticut for the first time rapid and full of rocks and foam. We follow its banks to-morrow. CHAPTER VI THE MARGALLOWAY TUESDAY (2d). Weather still cold and bluster ing. Thick clouds all over the sky. Set out after breakfast for the Connecticut Lake, twenty miles distant. . . . White seems to have lost his apathy and is now quite ready to proceed. Re ports of the Margalloway trout have inflamed him. The road was still hilly, narrow, and great part of the way flanked by woods. The valley of the river looked, as it always does, rich and fertile, but the hills and mountains around pre sented one broad unbroken expanse of forest, made the more sombre by the deep shadows of the clouds. In the afternoon we reached a hill top and a vast panorama of mountains and for ests lay before us. A glistening spot of water, some miles to the north, girt with mountains which sloped down to it from all sides with a smooth and gradual descent, was Lake Connecti cut. As far as we could see, one mountain of peculiar form rose above the rest which we af terward learned was the Camel s Hump. Passing a river with rapids and a saw-mill, at the end of the day we reached the lake, where are two houses, Barns and Abbot s. There are steep rapids at the outlet, with a mill, of course. We 46 FRANCIS PARKMAN went to Abbot s house, and asked for lodging and a supper. . . . Abbot says that one of his relations, Kenfield by name, fought at William Henry, and, at the massacre, seeing an Indian about to strip a fallen officer, caught him, raised him in his arms, and dashed him to the ground with such violence as to make him senseless. Our host greatly exults in the bodily strength for which his family have been eminent he himself noway dishonors his race in that respect. Wednesday (3d). . . . We lived in backwoods style to-day sugarless tea for dinner water drunk from a mug common to all the company, etc. We liked it I did, at least. Abbot sat cobbling his shoe against his projected expedition towards evening, but as I came up he turned round and remarked that he was not a disciple of St. Crispin but only an occasional follower. As I was marveling at this unexpected display of erudition, his wife thrust her head from the door, and exclaimed, " Here, supper s ready. Where s that other man gone to ? " We ac cepted the elegant invitation and walked in, where Abbot astonished us still more by com paring the democrat levelers to Procrustes, who wished to reduce all men to the same dimensions by his iron bedstead. All this was while he was squatting on his home-made chair, one leg cocked into the air, shirt-sleeves rolled up to his elbows, bushy hair straggling over his eyes, and eating meanwhile as if his life depended on his efforts. I have since found that he has re.ad a vast amount of history, ancient and modern, and various other things all fact, however, for fiction, he says, he THE MARGALLOWAY 47 cannot bear. When twenty-five he is now thirty-six he defended himself against a good lawyer in a court, and won his case, his opponent confessing himself outmatched by Abbot s gen eral knowledge and quick memory. Thursday (4th). Started this morning to strike the Little Margalloway. We proceeded first towards the north, with a path for the first few miles. It soon failed us, and we had to force our way through tangled woods. . . . White had hurt his foot the day before and constantly lagged behind, so that we had to wait for him, every minute the prey of torturing flies. At length the ascent of the first mountain made the way still more laborious. When at length we reached the top we could see nothing on account of the thick growth of trees. We passed through a singular piece of boggy ground, of an oblong shape, inclosed in a fringe of cedars rising one above the other, all hung with tassels of white moss. There was another place, partially open, near the summit. As we passed it, a large buck sprang from the ground, and leaped with long bounds down the mountain, before my rifle was at my shoulder. We heard him crashing the boughs far below. In this spot were several springs of cold water, in broad cup-shaped hol lows in the ground, which had probably attracted the deer. We w,ent down the mountain and found a little stream flowing through the valley at the bottom. Both Abbot and myself were for proceeding, but White said he could not go on on account of his foot ; so we found a convenient spot and encamped. It was by the stream, flow- 48 FRANCIS PARKMAN ing half concealed beneath brushwood and fallen trees, in a thick growth of firs, spruces, and birches. We made a fire, and proceeded to cook our supper. We had brought with us seven pounds of bread, six and a half of rice, and a quantity of butter. We had beside about an ounce of tea, and salt, of course. We made our fire in the middle of the grove, cut spruce boughs for a bed, lay down on our blankets, and with our knives speedily made way with a mess of rice placed on a broad piece of birch bark amongst us. Then we heaped new wood on the fire, and lay down again, cooled by a gentle rain which just now began to fall. The fire blazed up a column of bright flame, and flung its light deep into the recesses of the woods. In the morning we breakfasted on rice, bread, and tea without sugar and cream, and then Friday prepared to resume our course. . . . After journeying many hours in this painful style, we heard the plunging of waters in a valley below us, and joyfully turned towards the sound. We had struck a branch of the Little Margalloway. White s lameness seemed mys teriously to leave him ; he seized his fishing tackle and rushed up and down the rocks, pull ing a trout from every deep hole and the foot of every waterfall. I soon followed his example. Abbot built a fire by the bank and cooked our fish. We made a plentiful dinner, and then began to follow downward the course of the stream. . . . Saturday, Aug. 5th. The morning opened with a grand council. How were we to get down the THE MARGALLOWAY 49 river? Abbot could make a raft, thought he could make a spruce canoe, and was certain that he could make a log one. I told him to make a log one. We roused White from the spruce boughs where he persisted in snoring, in spite of our momentous discussion, and then prepared and ate our breakfast. White went to fishing. Abbot shouldered his axe and he and I went off together for a suitable pine-tree to make our canoe of. He found one to his satisfaction on the other side of the stream, some distance down. I built him a fire to " smudge " the flies, waded back across the stream, and as I ascended the farther bank heard the thundering crash of the falling pine behind me, bellowing over the wil derness, and rolling in echoes far up the moun tains. . . . As I went back to camp, I found that Abbot was not at work on his canoe. While I was marveling at this I stumbled upon a half finished spruce canoe, which Abbot had set about making, having found the pine-tree, which he had cut down for his log boat, rotten. I was not much pleased at this change of plan ; neverthe less, as the thing was begun I lent him assistance as I could, so that by nightfall we had finished something which had the semblance of a canoe, but, owing chiefly to haste and want of tools, had such a precarious and doubtful aspect that White christened it the Forlorn Hope. We put it into the water. It leaked. We took it out and stuffed the seams with pounded spruce bark, chewed spruce gum, and bits of cloth. It still leaked, but we hoped it would do, with diligent baling ; so, fastening it to the bank, we cooked 60 FRANCIS PARKMAN our supper, rolled ourselves in our blankets, and went to sleep before the fire. Sunday, Aug. 6th. We were obliged perforce to adopt the sailor s maxim, "No Sunday off soundings," for our provisions were in a fair way of failing, and starvation in the wilderness is not a pleasant prospect to look forward to. . . . After breakfast we packed our luggage, and proceeded to make the dubious experiment of the canoe. All were embarked ; White in the middle to bale, Abbot at the stern, I in the prow. " Push off ! " the canoe glided with a quiet and gentle motion down the swift stream, between the tall walls of forest on each side, but soon the ripple and tumbling of a rapid appeared in front and the hour of trial came. She quivered and shook as she entered the disturbed waters ; at last there was a little grating sound. She had struck upon the stones at the bottom, but the peril was past ; the water grew smooth and deep again, and again we floated quietly and prosper ously down in the shadows of the woods. At last another rapid came. She entered it, grated heavily over the stones, and struck hard against a large one before her. The water spouted in like a stream from a pump. It would not do. The experiment was an utter failure. We left Abbot with the canoe to conduct that and the baggage as he could down to the basin, and waded to shore ourselves to walk there through the woods. We had not gone quarter of a mile when " Hello, here," came from the river. "What s the matter now?" shouted we in re turn. " The canoe s burst all to pieces ! " Sure THE MARGALLOWAY 51 enough, we found it so. Abbot stood in the mid dle of a rapid, up to the knees, holding our bag gage aloft to keep it dry, while the miserable remnant of the demolished vessel was leisurely taking its way down the current. We pushed through the woods towards the basin, deliberat ing what to do next. Abbot was sure he could make a raft which would carry us down to the settlements, and yet draw so little water as to pass the " rips " in safety. The navigation would indeed be slow with such a machine, but it could be made in an hour or two, and this would more than counterbalance the want of speed. The river was high ; the plan seemed eligible, and we pro ceeded to execute it. Meanwhile it began to rain furiously. We walked into the water to our waists and held the timbers in place while Abbot withed them together. Jerome s camp was de molished to furnish materials, his setting-poles and birch-bark vessels appropriated to our use. After about two hours of aquatic exertion, dur ing which we were wet equally by the rain above and the river beneath, the raft was finished. Owing to the badness of the timber it drew twice as much water as we expected. We pushed from shore in a deluge of rain. Like its luckless predecessor, the raft passed the first rapid in safety, only venting a groan or two as its logs encountered the stones beneath. These rapids in the main river were of course much deeper than those of the Little Margalloway, above the basin, where the canoe had met its fate. When it came on the second rapid, the machine seemed to shiver in direful expectancy of its approach- 52 FRANCIS PARKMAN ing destruction. Presently it grunted loud and dolefully. We set our poles and pushed it into the deepest part. For a while it bumped and blundered downward ; at length there was a heavy shock, a crash, a boiling and rushing of many waters. The river spouted up between the logs. We were fixed irrecoverably aground. The water coursed savagely by us, and broke over the end of the raft, but it could not be moved. The result of this second experiment was more dismal than of the first. We were in the middle of the river ; the trees on both shores loomed gloomily through rain and mist, and a volume of boiling and roaring waves rolled between. However, there being no remedy, we walked in, and, by dint of considerable struggling, waded safe to the western bank, where I directed Abbot to try no more experiments but to work on a log canoe till he had finished it. He accordingly felled another tree, while we were, with great difficulty on account of the rain, building a fire. Abbot worked with great perseverance and skill. Before night, his canoe was nearly hewed out. We plied him with tea to keep his spirits up, relieved him of the cooking and all his other duties, so that his task was accomplished in what seemed an incredibly short time. That afternoon I went back to the basin to get fish for the pub lic benefit. At night the rain, which had ceased for a while, began to pour afresh. We put up White s blanket, which was wet, for a tent, and spreading mine on the ground beneath, made a great fire before it, ate our supper, and lay down. As soon as we were quiet, the continual drop- THE MARGALLOWAY 53 ping and splashing of rain through the forest had a sound singularly melancholy and impres sive. White dropped asleep, after his established custom on all occasions, but Abbot and myself, both of us wet to the skin, chose to lie and talk before the fire till past midnight. Our guide is a remarkably intelligent fellow, has astonishing information for one of his condition, is resolute and as independent as the wind. Unluckily, he is rather too conscious of his superiority in these respects, and likes too well to talk of his own achievements. He is coarse and matter-of-fact to a hopeless extremity, self-willed, and self- confident as the devil ; if any one would get respect or attention from him, he must meet him on his own ground in this matter. He is very talkative. I learned more, from his con versation, about the manners and customs of the semi-barbarians he lives among, than I could have done from a month s living among them. That night in the rain, leagues from the dwell ings of men, was a very pleasant one. We slept a few hours towards day, and rose before it was fairly light, he to finish the canoe, we to pre pare breakfast. We launched the boat soon after, embarked, and paddled down stream. . . . At length we saw, on the left bank, a camp built of logs for the use of " loggers." We went ashore. The place was dry, the roof being slant and thatched waterproof, with a hole at one side to let out the smoke of the fire. . . . Fortunately, I had secured my matches in a tin case, and this in my waterproof knapsack, so that we were able to build a fire with the aid of some dry 64 FRANCIS PARKMAN birch bark we found in the hut. . . . Hanging our superfluous clothing to dry, we laid down in the rest and slept comfortably all night. Tuesday, Aug. 8th. [After a hard paddle and a long tramp they reached Brag s.] Wednesday, Aug. 9th. Left Brag s this morn ing to walk to Colebrook. I had to carry about thirty pounds weight, including my blanket, which having covered White s shoulders through all the storms of yesterday, had become saturated with moisture, and was about as heavy when rolled up as a log of hard wood. Abbot carried his for him. The day was overcast and showery. When we had got about six miles, we overtook an old fellow in a wagon, who was jolting along over stones, logs, gullies, and all other impediments, towards Colebrook. White got in with him and rode the rest of the way, Abbot and I going on together, first committing the baggage to his care, except my knapsack, which I chose to keep with me. . . . Thursday, Aug. 10th. Stayed at Colebrook to day, for want of means to get off. In the villain ous little hole of a tavern there, there is never anything stirring to break the dismal monotony. Every day is a Sunday. . . . Friday, Aug. llth. The stage came by this morning from Canaan. It is called a stage, but is in reality a milk-cart. We got in. At noon we reached Lancaster, where White stopped, being reduced to his last quarter of a dollar, to see his uncle and borrow the needful of him. I kept on to Littleton, where I now am. Saturday, Aug. 12th. Started for home by way THE MARGALLOWAY 55 of Ply mouth. . . . With an accommodating driver and a pleasant party of ladies and gentlemen one of the former exceedingly handsome, roman tic, and spirited we rode on towards Plymouth, and got there late at night. There was a gen eral on board, a man of exalted character and vast political influence which he exercised on the righteous side of radical democracy, fiercely main taining that ninepence was better than a million dollars, insomuch that the possessor of the first is invariably a good man and contented with his lot, while the owner of the last is always a grasp ing, avaricious child of the devil. When the gen eral alighted at his own tavern he saluted the first loafer who met him at the door as "Major," the next but one was " Colonel," while our driver answered to the title of " Captain." Not long after his return home the autumn term of his junior year began. CHAPTER VII TRAVELS IN the winter of his junior year Frank made a visit to the village of Keene, New Hampshire, where his classmates lived George S. Hale, destined to an honorable position at the Boston bar, and Horatio J. Perry, subsequently first secretary to our legation at Madrid. Here he followed deer-tracks, which lent a great interest to the snow-covered ground even without sight or smell of buck or doe, and here he forgot the ill success of the chase in the company of some attractive girls, of whom his friends often make mysterious mention in their invitations to him, " There are some here who would not be dis pleased at your coming." It is not to be wondered that girls liked him. He was a tall lad, near six feet, of strong build, straight legs, and soldierly carriage. His face was brave, open, and sunny, full of trustfulness and manhood, his brow broad and intelligent, his thick brown hair, parted at the side, curled a little where it was brushed back over the ears ; his nose was masculine but delicate, his mouth TRAVELS 57 good, and his chin the emblem of fortitude. The garb of the period became him, the swallow-tail coat with big round buttons, rolling away to show the white waistcoat and shirt- front, a bandanna or plaid cravat swathed round the neck, reminiscent of the stock, and knotted sparkishly under the chin. Boyish convictions, flashes of vehemence, good humor, and good manners, made his conversation acceptable, even to persons who were indifferent to the "flourish set on youth." The most important and the most unfortunate event of his junior year, however, was not the society of young women but the building of the first gymnasium at Harvard. Frank set to work with his usual " pernicious intensity," in order to cram into six months the swelling muscles that should have been acquired in as many years, and strained himself; and, in consequence of this strain, or perhaps from general ill-health, that summer he forebore a journey into the woods and contented himself with a tour by Lake George, Montreal, Quebec, and the White Mountains in search of historical information. His little pocket diary shows his methods : - GILES F. YATES, ESQ., SCHNECTADY. "The best of Am. Antiquarians" -that is, with an extensive knowledge of the colonial hist, of N. Y. 58 FRANCIS PARKMAN Rev. Mr. Williams, Schenectady. Kerney Clergyman, Clermont, Columbia County, N. Y. A grand-nephew of Sir W. Johnson. The Germans of the Mohawk know much of Sir William and family. The gent, who told me the preceding told me also what follows. He was a man of most ex tensive and minute information on similar topics. His ancestor s house, together with one other, were all that escaped the Schnectady burning [Count Frontenac, etc., pp. 212, etc.] for this reason. His ancestor, an old Dutchman, saved a Jesuit priest whom the Mohawks were about to burn at their " burning place " near Schenec tady. The priest was secretly packed in a hogs head, boated down to Albany, and thence sent home to Canada. The old man accounted to the Mohawks for his escape by the priest s omni potent art magic. This priest accompanied the war party and protected the house. The grandfather-iii-law of this gent, was saved when at the stake by Grant. He made the ma sonic sign, Grant was a Mason and so interfered. Lake George. On a little hill by a pine-tree, near Ft. George, I saw a flat rough stone with an inscription as follows : u 1776. Here lies Stephen Hedges," and more unreadable. Close by, on a fresh ploughed [field] a boy with me found a buckshot and a coin about the size of a 50 ct. piece. I myself picked up a musket ball and a copper coin. TRAVELS 59 Montreal Friday. Visited the nunnery of the Sceurs Grises, Hospital for invalids, School for children. Patients hideous to look upon nuns worse. Building of the same rough gray stone generally used here. . . . Two regiments are in town 71st Highlanders and the 89. A part of the 43rd are on the island a short way off. ... 44 Hope Gate." Quebec is defended some thing in this manner : [Here follows a diagram lettered] G gate, B blockhouse, stone below, with loops for musketry wood above, and portholes for two cannon commanding the street S, which is a precipiece on one side, a a a loops all along the wall, c two more guns on the wall, also commanding the street. . . . 44 Emily Montague," a novel to be read forth with. Butler Jesuits. [The traveler then went to Crawford s, and to Franconia Notch.] M. S. Wars of Canada C. F. Hoffman knows. Hoffman s " Wild Scenes in Forest and Prai rie," " Winter in the West," etc. From Senter Harbor to Fryeburg, spent Sun day and visited the Pond. Paugus s gun, so called, is shown at the Academy. [Half Century of Conflict, vol. i. p. 258.]. . . Stayed a day or two and rode on to Ethan s to spend the night. Mrs. C. soon produced her history of her 60 FRANCIS PARKMAN husband s adventures, etc. a manuscript which she means to publish. . . . " Captivity of Mrs. Johnson," Windsor, Vt., 1807. A book worth getting, " Frontier Life in 44," etc. . . . Robert Southey had in his possession the whole of Wolfe s correspondence. Went over to see the Indians. . . . Saw Francois and others, some squaws extremely good-looking with their clubbed hair [?] and red leggings. . . . The Indians use the genuine wampum. . . . There are a number of loggers in their red shirts seated in the bar ; some of them have been, to see " the Lord s Supper." One expressed his disapprobation of the charac ter of the exhibition as follows : " G d d 11 it, I should like to take that fellow by the nape of the neck, and pitch him into the road. He s no right to serve that ere up for a show in that way." Bought some wampum of F. s squaw which he says he bought from the Caughnawagas near Montreal 25 years ago. It is, however, some times made by the whites in Canada. Frank picked up some bloody yarns from the Indians, and discontinued his diary. The last entry is, " Saturday night, had no supper." That summer there was another visit to Keene, and the plan at least of a visit to his classmate Snow at Fitchburg ; the visit had to be deferred on account of the illness of Snow s father. TRAVELS 61 SNOW TO FRANK. FITCHBURG, Tuesday [1843]. MY DEAR FRANK, ... A hard thing it is for me, my friend, to have your visit delayed even for a week. I had famous anticipations of the glorious times I should have with you. And mother had no less agreeably anticipated your visit, and had baked twenty most unexception able mince pies, each one of which I should ven ture to pit against that famous one of your sis ter s, nice as it was. However, they will keep till you come back. Now I stipulate most firmly that you make me the visit when you have finished your sojourn in the enchanted land [Keene], and if you don t, I shall have terrible suspicions that "your gorge has risen" at the delay. I also stipulate you use your influence to get Hale to accompany you, and I will entertain both as far as my capabilities will admit. Yrs in great haste, CHAS. A. B. SNOW. Thus passed winter and summer in that happy time when a buckshot on a historic field, yes terday s rabbit-tracks in the soft fallen snow, twenty unexceptionable mince pies, and the ran dom glance from a pair of eyes, indifferent black, will convert much poorer material than a New England village into an enchanted land. The holidays passed, as holidays will, hopping, skip ping, jumping ; but when college opened its lec ture rooms, Frank found himself not well enough 62 FRANCIS PARKMAN to take up college life, and it was decided to send him to Europe. He started on a dull No vember day ; he was not well, the ship was a little craft, his fond mother and his little sisters were very unhappy to part with him, so there was very little cheer that day, but Frank was not daunted, and went off, no doubt, with boyish smiles on his face and boyish tears in his heart. He kept a long diary, for he would not inter mit his training in rhetoric, from which I take the following pages : BARQUE NAUTILUS, November 16th, 43. (Devil of a sea cabin dark as Hades.) Got under weigh from Central Wharf about 10 A. M. of Sunday, Dec. 12th [November 12] fine weather, and a noble west wind. . . . Before long we were pitched up and down on an execrable swell the fruit of yesterday s east wind. The barque tossed about like a cork, snorted, spouted the spray all over her deck, and went rushing along like mad in a great caldron of foam she raised about her. At the same time it grew cloudy, and the wind became stronger. The sea rose and fell in great masses, green as grass, the wind driving the spray in clouds from their white tops. As I came from the cabin, I beheld to my great admiration a huge wall of water piled up in front, into which the vessel was apparently driving her bows ; a moment more, and the case was reversed her bowsprit and half her length rose straight from TRAVELS 63 the waters and stood relieved against the sky. In consequence of which state of things I, like a true greenhorn, grew seasick by the time we were fairly out of sight of land. Accordingly I got into my berth as soon as it was dark, and stayed there twelve hours. When I came on deck in the morning, the weather had changed nowise for the better. I wrapped myself in my cloak, and sprawling on the poop-deck read the " Bible in Spain." A schooner, with only topsails set, went scouring past us, before the wind, homeward bound also, in the afternoon, a brig, tossing so that her keel was almost visible. A troop of porpoises went tumbling about us, and I ransacked the vessel in vain for a musket to get a shot at them. The next morning opened under direful aus pices. I came on deck, disconsolate with sea sickness, when I was straightway saluted by about two hogsheads of water which came dash ing over the gunnel, accommodating me with a most unwelcome morning shower-bath. ... I spent most of the morning in my berth, reason ably miserable with seasickness cogitating, meanwhile, on things human and divine, past, present, and to come. When dinner-time came, I heard the captain s invitation to dinner, and staggered to the cabin door, determined to accept it, in spite of fate, when lo ! the ship gave a lurch, the plates and the rack which should have secured them slid together from the table,. in a general ruin, to the floor. . . . We have a sin gular company on board the three officers, "the passenger," the steward, and six men, viz. : a 64 FRANCIS PARKMAN Yankee, a Portuguese, a Dane, an Englishman, a Prussian, and an old gray-haired Dutchman, the best sailor in the ship. Of the officers, the cap tain is a sensible gentlemanly man ; the mate has rather more individuality, being, as to his outer man, excessively tall, narrow-shouldered, spindle- shanked, and lantern-jawed, with a complexion like dirty parchment. Mr. Jonathan Snow is from Cape Cod, a man of the sea from his youth up. When I first came on board he was evidently inclined to regard me with some dislike, as being rich(l) He constantly sighs forth a wish that he had five thousand dollars " then ketch me going to sea again, that s all." He is rather given to polemic controversies, of which I have held sev eral with him, on the tenets of sophists, Unita rians, Universalists, Christians, etc., etc. Of course, he imagines that men of his rank in life labor under all sorts of oppressions and injustice at the hands of the rich. Harvard College he regards with peculiar jealousy, as a nurse of aris tocracy. " Ah ! riches carry the day there, I guess. It s a hard thing to see merit crushed down, just for want of a thousand dollars." Mr. Hansen, second mate, is the stoutest man on board, and has seen most service, but being, as Mr. Snow remarks, a man of no education, he has not risen very high in the service. He ac companied Wyeth s trapping party to the Rocky Mts., where he was more than once nearly starved and within a hair s breadth of being shot. He speaks with great contempt of Indians, but not with quite so much virulence as I have known from some others of his stamp. He plumes him- TRAVELS 65 self on having killed two or three. " Oh, damn it, I d shoot an Indian quicker than I d shoot a dog." He is now seated at supper, amusing me and himself with some such discourse as fol lows : " I ve lost all my appetite, and got a horse s. Here, steward, you nigger, where be yer fetch along that beef-steak. What do you call this here ? Well, never mind what it be ; it goes down damned well, anyhow." Here he sat stuffing a minute or two in silence, with his grizzly whis kers close to the table, rolling his eyes, and puffing out his ruddy cheeks. At last pausing, and lay ing down his knife a moment ! " I ve knowed the time when I could have ate a Blackfoot Indian, bones and all, and could n t get a mouthful, noway you could fix it." Then resuming his labors "I tell you what, this here agrees with me. It s better than doctor stuff. Some folks are always running after the doctors, and getting sick. Eat! that s the way I do. Well, doctoring is a good thing, just like religion to them that likes it ; but damn the doctors for all me ; I shan t die," etc., etc. By treating Mr. Hansen with brandy and water, I have got on very good terms with him, and made him very communicative on the sub ject of his Oregon experiences. Would that we had a consumptive minister, with his notions of peace, philanthropy, Christian forgiveness, and so forth, on board with us ! It would be sport of the first water to set Mr. Hansen talking at him, and see with what grace the holy man would lis ten to his backwoods ideas of retributive justice 66 FRANCIS PARKMAN and a proper organization of society. " Shoot him over, and that damn quick, too," is Mr. Hansen s penalty for all serious offenses. . . . As soon as it was daybreak I went on deck. Two or three sails were set, the vessel scouring along, leaning over so that her lee gunnel scooped up the water ; the water in a foam, and clouds of spray flying over us, frequently as high as the main yard. The spray was driven with such force that it pricked the cheek like needles. I stayed on deck two or three hours ; when, being thor oughly salted, I went down, changed my clothes, and read Don Quixote till Mr. Snow appeared at the door with, " You re the man that wants to see a gale of wind, are ye ? Now s your chance ; only just come up on deck." Accordingly I went. The wind was yelling and howling in the rig ging in a fashion that reminded me of a storm in a Canada forest. The ship was hove to. One small rag of a topsail set to keep her steady all the rest was bare poles and black wet cord age. I got hold of a rope by the mizzen mast, and looked about on a scene that it would be perfect folly to attempt to describe though nothing more, I suppose, than an ordinary gale of wind. . . . Friday. As yesterday was Thanksgiving, I may as well record how we fared. Our breakfast was utterly demolished by the same catastrophe that overtook a former repast, that, namely, of being dashed in ruins upon the floor by an ill- timed lurch of the ship. We dined on a lump of ham, Cuffee being unable to purvey a more sumptuous banquet, because the seas put out the TRAVELS 67 fire in his galley as fast as he kindled it. As for our supper, it was of bread, pork, and onions. Not that this is a fair sample of our bills of fare, which are usually quite as luxurious as any rea sonable man need desire. . . . Wednesday, Dec. 6th. We have been tor mented for ten days past with a series of accursed head winds. Here we are, within thirty-six hours sail of Gibraltar, standing alternately north and south, with no prospect of seeing land for many days. The captain is half mad, and walks about swearing to himself in an undertone. Mr. Snow s philosophy has given way and I never had any. Han sen alone is perfectly indifferent. He sits on deck whistling and talking over his work, without troubling himself about our where abouts, or caring whether we are in the North Sea or at Cape Horn. Thursday, Dec. 7th. " Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion ; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean." This has been our enviable position to-day. A dead calm a stupid flapping of sails and creak ing of masts. Saturday. Again a calm ! The captain s signs and portents have come to nought. A turtle came up at the ship s side to sleep on the quiet surface, but prudently sunk back to the depths just as Mr. Hansen was lowering me by a rope to take him prisoner. A few bonitos splashed about the bow, some " rudder fish " played along side ; and a pair of " garfish " glided about in 68 FRANCIS PARKMAN defiance of all attempts to capture them. Before noon a breeze a favorable one sprang up ! It bore us on a hundred miles farther, but now has subsided into the old trebly accursed calm. Tuesday. A light wind to-day but dead ahead. More porpoises and more fruitless attempts at harpooning, on the part of Mr. Snow. I am rapidly growing insane. My chief resource is the conversation of Mr. Hansen, who has humor, vol ubility, much good feeling, and too much coarse rough manhood in his nature to be often offen sive in his speech. Moreover, one man may say a thing with a very good grace that would be insufferable from the mouth of another. Witti cisms and stories which, uttered by Snow, would make me turn my back on the fellow with con tempt and disgust, sound well enough in the frank and bold accents of Hansen. Evening. We have beat up against the wind into full view of the Spanish coast. Right and left, from Trafalgar far beyond Cadiz, the line of rugged and steep bluffs reaches, with here and there a tower just visible with the glass. But about noon our evil genius becalmed us again ! Thirty days from Boston. Old Worthington promised that I should see Gibraltar in eighteen, but he is a deacon. CHAPTER VIII EUKOPE WEDNESDAY evening. We have not yet reached Tarifa. Dozens of vessels come past us from Gibraltar, some of them of a most outlandish aspect to my eye. Thursday. More delay and vexation. The captain has not slept for two nights, and is half worn out by fatigue and anxiety. For myself, I was so exasperated by our continued ill fortune that I could not stay below. We passed Tarifa light about midnight then were driven back four miles by a rain squall. But by nine in the morning we had fairly entered Gibraltar Bay ! [Gibraltar.] Saturday. Yesterday I came ashore in the barque s boat, landed, got passport signed and established myself at the "King s Arms." I dined at the consul s and spent the day in exploring this singular city the world in epit ome. More of it in future. This morning I set out, in company with a midshipman, the son of Captain Newton of the Missouri, to ride round the Bay to the Spanish town of Algeciras. Sunday. . . . Sunday is the day to see the motley population of Gibraltar at one glance. Just without the walls is a parade large enough 70 FRANCIS PARKMAN to hold the six regiments stationed here. This evening, according to custom, everybody was thronging up there. I established myself at the foot of a bronze statue of the defender of Gi braltar I forget his name, General Eliot but there he stands towering above the trees and aloes at the summit of a hill above the parade, wilh the emblematic key in his hand, and with a huge cannon and a mortar on each side of him. Here I had a specimen of every nation on earth, it seemed, around me. A dozen Moors with white turbans and slippered feet lolled one side ; Jews by couples in their gaberdines ; the Spanish gentleman in his black cloak and som brero the Spanish laborer with his red cap hanging on one side of his head the Spanish blackguard in bespangled tights and embroi dered jacket. On benches among the trees of ficers and soldiers carried on successful love suits ; on the parade below English captains were showing forth good horsemanship to the best advantage. The red coats of soldiers appeared everywhere among the trees and in the crowd below. There were women in cloaks of red and black, ladies with the mantilla and followed by the duenna, no needless precaution, and ten thousand more, soldier and civilian, bond and free, man and woman and child. Not the least singular of the group were the little black slaves belonging to the Moors, who were arrayed in a very splendid and outlandish attire, following after their masters like dogs. Bands were stationed on the parade and around a summer- house among the trees. The evening gun dis- EUROPE 71 solved the pageant God save the Queen rose on the air ; then the crowd poured through the gates into the town. I went to a diminutive theatre in the evening, to see a play performed by the privates of an artillery company. . . . A " rock scorpion " carried me off to the fri gates in the harbor, English and American. The reptile in question was a mixture of Genoese and French blood spoke both languages fluently, besides English and half a score of others. . . . Sunday, Dec. . Got tired of Gibraltar heard of a government steamer about to sail for Malta embarked on her, abandoning my pre vious design of penetrating Spain immediately. ... I was prepared for no very agreeable pas sage, knowing the hauteur approaching to inso lence of a certain class of English naval officers, and was surprised as well as gratified by the polite attentions of Lt. Spark, the commander of the boat, with whom I spent about half the night in conversation. Unfortunately I am the only passenger. Lt. Spark seems resolved that my voyage shall be agreeable notwithstanding certainly, he spares no pains for my accommo dation, opening his library to me, producing an endless variety of wines, doing all he can, in short, to promote my enjoyment. We have passed Cape de Got and the Sierra Nevada, which looks down on the city of Gra nada. The coast of Barbary is now in full sight. To-day the old man mustered his sailors and marines in the cabin a large and elegant one and read the service of the Church, not for- 72 FRANCIS PARKMAN getting a special prayer for the British Navy, arid the success of the British arms. He knew Sir John Moore, Sir P. Parker, and other he roes of those days, has shaken hands with Blucher, has fought the French by sea and land. Beside his manifold experiences in active life, he has been a great reader, not only of English works but of all the eminent American authors. . . . Here in this old world I seem, thank Heaven, to be carried about half a century back wards in time. As far as religion is concerned, there are the ceremonies of the Catholic church and the English litany, with rough soldiers and sailors making the responses. A becoming hor ror of dissenters, especially Unitarians, prevails everywhere. No one cants here of the temper ance reform, or of systems of diet eat, drink, and be merry is the motto everywhere, and a stronger and hardier race of men than those round me now never laughed at the doctors. Above all, there is no canting of peace. A whole some system of coercion is manifest in all direc tions thirty-two pounders looking over the bows, piles of balls on deck, muskets and cut lasses hung up below, the red jackets of marines, and the honest prayer that success should crown all these warlike preparations, yesterday re sponded to by fifty voices. There was none of the new-fangled suspicion that such belligerent petition might be averse to the spirit of a reli gion that inculcates peace as its foundation. And I firmly believe that there was as much hearty faith and worship in many of those men as in any feeble consumptive wretch at home, EUROPE 73 who, when smitten on one cheek, literally turns the other likewise, instead of manfully kicking the offender into the gutter. Thursday. After a passage of about five days we reached Malta. Friday. Late last evening I made an attempt to see the Church of St. John. It was closed. My servant pommeled the oaken door in vain. He then proceeded to sundry coffee-houses in the neighborhood, hoping to find the man who had the doors in charge. Three or four Maltese, all jabbering their bastard Arabic, soon aided in the search. At length the great bell began to roar from the church tower, an unequivocal evidence that somebody was there. " Gulielmo, Gulielmo ! " roared my troop of assistants. After a lapse of five minutes Gulielmo descended and issued from a portal among the columns at one side, summoning me in. ... [Here he describes the church.] Leaving reluctantly the church where so many brave men had kneeled to God for his blessing on their matchless enterprises, I got into a boat, and was put on board the Nea politan steamer Francesco Primo, bound for Messina, where I lay an hour or two on deck, listening to the distant music of the English drums and trumpets. As I lounged about the deck in the morning, utterly unable to hold any intercourse with any one on board except by signs, a sleek-looking fel low came up and accosted me in English. We soon got deep into conversation. My new acquaint ance proved to be Giuseppe Jackson, a Sicilian with an English grandfather, who had been a 74 FRANCIS PARKMAN cook at the Albion, and at Murdoch s tavern, had frequently been to Fresh Pond, knew some of the Cambridge students, and was now on his way to Mr. Marston s in Palermo. I was right glad to see him, cook though he was. He made me a very good interpreter. In the course of our conversation he made some remark about " the Pope, that fool." " What," said I, " do you speak so of the Pope. Are you not a Roman Catholic ? " " Ah ! I was till I live in America. I was all in the dark you understand what I say till I come there. Then my eyes open ; I say, dat for the Pope, and his old red cap. Ah ! once I was afraid to think of him." " You are no longer a Catholic ; what religion do you believe in now ? " " Oh, no religion in particular." I congratulated him on so happy a conversion from the error of his ways. At breakfast a Mediterranean breakfast of eggs, fruit, and nuts an old man, of severe countenance and tremendous mustache, sat op posite me. We made various attempts at conver sation ; as neither understood the other, we had to be satisfied with reiterated bowings, and mu tual attentions of various kinds, in which the old man showed himself exceedingly apt and polite. I afterwards found that he was no less a personage than il Principe Statelli, a general of the Sicilian army but Sicilian " Principes " are apt to be humbugs. Mount ^Etna is smoking vigorously in front of us. We are skirting the shore of Sicily. EUROPE 75 We stopped at Syracuse. ... In going ashore, a little square-built English-looking man, making a low congee, presented me with a bundle of papers, which proved to be certificates of his qualifications as a guide to the curiosities of the place. Accordingly Jack Robinson for such was his name and I got into a kind of ferry boat and landed on the other side of the bay. [His guide took him to the Ear of Dionysius and other places of interest.] Jack insisting on showing me his certificates of service in the American Navy, and I, being desirous of seeing how the Syracusans lived, went home with him, and enjoyed the exhibition of his numerous progeny, who were all piled together in bed. This done we took boat and went off to the steamer. Jack was so well satis fied with the dollar and a half I gave him for his day s services that he must needs salute me after the Sicilian style with a kiss on the cheek, which I submitted to. He then departed, kissing his hand as his head disappeared over the ship s side. The stubborn English temper was well nigh melted away with his long sojourn among the Gentiles. He had been pressed in early youth into the navy had served both England and America (though the latter, I believe, in the capacity of a washerman). As far as I could see, Jack was an honest man, an exceedingly rara avis in these quarters. Arriving at Messina in the morning, my ac quaintance the cook an experienced traveler was of the greatest service to me. Indeed, without his assistance niy inexperience and igno- 76 FRANCIS PARKMAN ranee of the language would have put me to seri ous embarrassment. He showed me how to treat a Sicilian landlord, and to bribe a custom-house officer. I am indebted to him for very excellent accommodations at a very reasonable price. Messina, Sunday. I took my station outside one of the gates in the rear of the city, to look at the scum of humanity that came pouring out. All was filth, and age, and ruin, the walls, the tall gateway with its images and inscriptions, the hovels at the top of the wall and in the an cient suburb, all seemed crumbling to decay. The orange and lemon groves in the ditch of the for tification were dingy and dirty, but away in the distance appeared the summits of the mountains, almost as wild and beautiful as our mountains of New England. I thought of them, and, in the revival of old feelings, half wished myself at home. I soon forgot, however, all but what was before my eyes, in watching the motley array that passed by me. Men and women literally hung with rags, half hid in dirt, hideous with every imaginable species of deformity, and bear ing on their persons a population as numerous as that of Messina itself, these formed the bulk of the throng. Priests with their black broad- brimmed hats and their long robes, fat and good-looking men, were the next numerous class. They draw life and sustenance from these dregs of humanity, just as tall pigweed flour ishes on a dunghill. Then there were mustachioed soldiers, very different from the stately and se date soldier of England. There were men bear ing holy pictures and images ; ladies in swarms, EUROPE 77 whose profession was stamped on their faces ; musicians, with a troop of vagabonds in their rear. All around the gateway were the tables of butchers, fruiterers, confectioners, money changers, boot-blackers, and a throng of dirty men, women, and children. Shouts, yells, and a universal hubbub. Tuesday, Jan. 2nd. This morning I set out on an expedition to see a little of the country, in company with a Spanish gentleman, Don Mateo Lopez, who speaks good English. We hired a carriage together, and got outside the gates by eleven, after some trouble in procuring pass ports. At night we reached a little fishing town called Giardini, not far from ^Etna. The weather was beautiful, the atmosphere clear and soft. As for the scenery on the road, it was noble be yond expression. For myself, I never imagined that so much pleasure could be conveyed through the eye. The road was a succession of beautiful scenes, of mountains and valleys on one side and the sea on the other ; but as to the people, they are a gang of ragamuffins. . . . These dis gusting holes of villages only added zest to the pleasure of the scenery, a pleasure not inferior and not unlike that of looking upon the face of a beautiful woman. In many respects our own scenery is far beyond it ; but I cannot say that I have ever looked with more delight on any of our New England mountains and streams than upon these of Sicily. The novelty of the sight, and the ruined fortresses on the highest crags, add much to the effect. . . . I went to the museum of Prince Boscari, a 78 FRANCIS PARKMAN valuable collection of antiquities, etc. In the midst of a hall, surrounded by precious frag ments of statues and broken pottery, lay the skeleton of a Chippeway birch canoe. I wel comed it as a countryman and an old friend. I bought some specimens of lava and amber of a couple of rascals who asked twice their value, and abated it at once when I refused to buy. I went to see an opera of Bellini a native, I have heard, of Catania. . . . Lopez had a friend waiting for him here a light-hearted and lively young Spaniard whose youthful ec centricities sat as easily and gracefully upon him as awkwardly upon old Mateo. When we set out on our return, il mio amico, as Lopez called him, was rattling away incessantly, and imitating every dog, hog, or jackass we met. We had a sort of caleche. Besides the driver, a small boy ran along by our side, or clung be hind, ready to do what offices might be required of him. A still smaller one was stowed away in a net, slung between the wheels where he kept a constant eye on the baggage. The larger one employed himself in tying knots in the horses tails as he ran along or he would dart along the road before us, clamber on a wall, and sit till we came by, when he would spring down with a shout and run on again. . . . The women of this country are not handsome. You see groups of them about the stone door ways spinning twine, with their hair drawn back in the fashion represented in the portraits of our grandmothers. We stopped at night at Giardini. The " pa- EUROPE 79 drone " showed us with great complacency the register of his house, which, he said, contained the recommendations of the guests who had honored him with their company. One man s " recommendation " warned all travelers that the padrone s beds were full of fleas; another s that nothing in the house was fit to eat, etc. The importunate padrone could not read English CHAPTER IX IN SICILY THE Church of the Benedictines is the noblest edifice I have seen. This and others not unlike it have impressed me with new ideas of the Catholic religion. Not exactly, for I reverenced it before as the religion of generations of brave and great men, but now I honor it for itself. They are mistaken who sneer at its ceremonies as a mere mechanical force ; they have a power ful and salutary effect on the mind. Those who have witnessed the services. in this Benedictine church, and deny what I say, must either be singularly stupid and insensible by nature, or rendered so by prejudice. Saturday. I recall what I said of the beauty of the Sicilian women so far, at least, as con cerns those of high rank. This is a holyday. They are all abroad, in carriages and on foot. One passed me in the church of the Capuchin convent, with the black eye, the warm rich cheek, and the bright glance that belong to southern climates. They are beautiful beyond all else. Sunday. Took leave of the hospitable family of Consul Payson with much regret, and went off to the steamer Palermo, bound for Palermo. I found her completely surrounded by boats, IN SICILY 81 wedged close together ; friends were kissing their adieus, and boatmen cursing. The delicacy of sentiment expressed in the Italian national oath is admirable they rival the Spaniards in that matter, " Arcades ambo ; id est, blackguards both." At length visitors were warned off, the boats dispersed, scattering from a common centre, in all directions ; a man screamed the names of the passengers, by way of roll-call; and among the rest the illustrious one of Signore Park-a- man ; and we got under weigh. It was late at night. We passed the long array of bright lights from the fine buildings along the quay of Messina, could just discern the mountains behind the town, indistinct in the darkness, like thunder-clouds, left a long train of phosphoric light behind us, as we steered down between Scylla and Charybdis, and in half an hour were fairly out on the Sicilian Sea. The ghost of de parted perils still lingers about the scene of Ulysses submarine adventures ; an apology for a whirlpool on one side still bearing the name of Scylla and an insignificant shoal on the other. I thought as we passed, and the moon made a long stream of light on the water, that it would be an adventure worth encountering, to be cast away in that place, but my unwonted classical humoi? was of very short duration ; for, going below, I found a cabin full of seasick wretches, which attractive spectacle banished all recollection of Virgil and Homer. I was doomed to lie all night a witness to their evolutions ; a situation not many degrees more desirable than being yourself a sufferer. . . . 82 FRANCIS PARKMAN Wednesday. I have just arranged an expedi tion to Girgenti, at the southern point of the island. Traveling in Sicily is no joke, especially at this season. I engaged a man named Luigi to furnish three mules, supplies of provisions, cook ing apparatus, an attendant, and thus to pilot me round the island, paying himself all tavern reckonings and buona manos. For this I am to give him four dollars a day. I thus avoid all hazard of being imposed upon, or robbed, for I shall have scarce any money with me. Luigi is perfectly familiar with the island ; has, more over, the reputation of an honest man, notwith standing which I follow Mr. Marston s advice in making him sign a written agreement. I have laid it down as an inviolable rule to look on everybody here as a rascal of the first water, till he has shown himself by undeniable evidence to be an honest man. Giuseppe has been with me as a servant of late. The chief fault with him was his continu ally stopping to kiss some of his acquaintances in the street. He seems to know everybody, un derstands perfectly how to cheat everybody, has astonishing promptness and readiness for all kinds of service. " It is trange, Mister Park-a- man," he modestly remarked the other day, "that I cannot go nowhere, but what all the people seem to like-a me, and be good friends with me." He is vain as a turkey-cock dresses infinitely better than I ever did. He is a great coward, trembling continually with fear of robbers in all our rides. The Sicilian robbers, by the way, are a great humbug. When I engaged Giuseppe I IN SICILY 83 offered him half a dollar a day for wages. " No, Mist r Park-a-man, I no take-a wages at all. When you go away, you make-a me a present, just as much as you like ; then I feel more bet ter." So I told him I would make-a him a pre sent of half a dollar a day ; which I did, a mode of remuneration more suited to Giuseppe s self- importance. Thursday, Jan. 18th. All this morning Luigi Eannesi was in a fever-heat of preparation. I told him to be ready at two ; he came to me at twelve announcing that all was ready ; that he had engaged mules at Marineo, and that the carriage was at the door to take us there. I was not prepared for such promptitude. After some delay, I got ready too, and we set out. Luigi, a diminutive Sicilian with a thin brown face and an air of alertness about every inch of him, began to jabber Italian with such volubility that I could not understand a word. He must needs exhibit every article of the provisions he had got ready for the journey, extolling the qualities of each, and they deserved all his praises, and always ended by pounding himself on the breast, rolling up his eyes, and exclaiming, " Do you think Luigi loves money ? No ! Luigi loves honor ! and then launching forth into interminable eulo gies of the country we were going to see, and the adventures we should meet there. We stopped at night at Marineo, where Luigi provided a most sumptuous dinner ; talked and gesticulated, half frenzied because he found I could not under stand half he said ; then seized my hand, which he dutifully kissed, and left me to my niedita- 84 FRANCIS PARKMAN tions. He reappeared, however, bringing a tie- canter of wine, and a large book of antiquities which he had brought for me to read. All this was at his own expense. The terms of his bar gain bound him to nothing else than to keep me alive on the road. (Castel Termini.) Luigi is a great antiqua rian. Pie rakes up ancient money at every vil lage as he goes along. His antiquarian skill is a passport to introduce him anywhere ; to the nobles and princes, who are not always, however, such dignified personages as would appear from their titles. I went with him to-night to the house of a judge, who produced a bottle of rosolio and showed me a grotto in his garden which he had stuck all over with specimens of the Sicily minerals. I then went with him to a " conversazione," where some dozen people were playing cards. They looked at the " signore Americano," as the judge introduced me to them, with great curiosity, and at last left their game and clustered round me, very curious to know something of the place I came from. I talked to them for some time in a most original style of Italian ; but getting tired of being lionized in such a manner, I bade them good-night and went back to the albergo. I went to visit the famous sulphur works not far from these places. In the shaft I entered the rock was solid sulphur scarce any mixture of foreign ingredients. As we rode away, a noble prospect of Volcanic mountains lay off on our right. Soon after the mule-track became a good road. A carriage from Caltanisetta passed us, IN SICILY 85 belonging to some English travelers who had made a wide detour for the sake of a road. We saw at last the battlements and church spires of Girgenti, crowning a high hill before us, and had occasional glimpses of the sea through the valleys. Approaching the hill, we found a deep and shad owed valley intervening. Luigi left the road and descended into it by a wretched mule-track. Flocks of goats passed on the road above us, mules and asses loaded with their panniers came down from the city. One of his fits of enthusi asm had taken possession of Luigi. He began to lash his mule and drive him along over sand and rocks at such a rate that I thought him mad, till he told me that it was necessary to get to Girgenti before the Englishmen. " Corragio ! my brave mule ! Corragio, signore," he shouted, " we shall be the victors ! " At that he drove full speed up the steep hill toward the gate. Nothing would stop him. He leaped over ditches, scrambled through mud and stones, shouting " Corragio " at the top of his lungs. At last an insuperable gully brought him up short. He clapped his hand to his forehead, exclaiming, " Santissima Maria ! " in a tone of wrath and despair, then recovered his spirits and dashed off in another direction. We succeeded. When we got to the top the carriage was quarter of a mile off, and Luigi shouted " Vittoria ! " as he rode into the gate, as much elated as if he had accom plished some great achievement. It was a festa day. All the people in the crowded streets and in the little square wore white caps. They were a hardy and athletic race their faces, their 86 FRANCIS PARKMAN short strong necks, their broad and prominent chests, were all burnt to a dark ruddy brown. (Girgenti.) Luigi brings me pockets full of ancient money and seems greatly astonished at my indifference. As for himself he is rabid. He dodges into every house and shop, inquiring for " antica moneta," stops contadini at work with the same question ; he has scraped together an enormous bagful for which he pays scarce any thing, perfectly familiar as he is with its true value, and with the "costumi del paese," as he says, the customs of the country. His enthusi asm embraces every object, far and wide. He raves of love on the road tells how he eloped with his wife sings love songs, then falls into the martial vein, shouts " Corragio," defies the wind, rain, and torrents. He enters into all my plans with the most fervid zeal, leaving me nothing to do. Every night he comes upstairs bringing all kinds of dresses and utensils of the people for me to look at. Sometimes he comes in with a handful of old coins, telling me with a chuckle that he had bought them for " pochis- simo," kissing them repeatedly in the exultation of a good bargain. I have lived most sumptu ously ever since I have been with him. He puts the whole inn into a ferment, rakes the town to find the best of everything, and waits on table with an eulogium of every dish. " Ah ! signore," he repeats, " do you think Luigi loves money ? No, Luigi loves honor." He has something to give to every beggar he meets. In short, the fellow is a jewel, and shall be my particular friend henceforward. IN SICILY 87 At the English consul s I met a blind trav eler, a Mr. Holeman, who has been over Siberia, New Holland, and other remote regions, for the most part alone, and written seven volumes of his travels. Traveling, he told me, was a passion with him. He could not sit at home. I walked home with him through the streets, admiring his indomitable energy. I saw him the next morn ing sitting on his mule, with the guide he had hired, his strong frame, his manly English face, his gray beard and mustaches, and his sightless eyeballs gave him a noble appearance in the crowd of wondering Sicilians about him. From Girgenti our course lay westward to a village called Mont Allegro. . . . Luigi came up in the evening to hold " un discorso " with me, according to his custom. He was in his usual state of excitement. He takes a glass of wine in his hand, " Viva F onore, sig- norino mio ! " rolling up his eyes and flourishing his hands, " viva Bacco ; viva Dio ; viva il con- solo Americano ! " and so on, the finale being a seizure and kissing of my hand ; after which he inquires if I shall want him, looks about to see that all is right, kisses my hand again, and goes off. One of Luigi s dignified acquaintances in this place was the Marchese Giacomo, a nobleman of great wealth and a determined virtuoso. Luigi called on him with an offering of coins, and re turned with an invitation to his " signore " to visit the Marchese and see his pictures. He had a most admirable picture-gallery among the rest was an original of Guido. He kindly in- 88 FRANCIS PARKMAN vited me to dine with him, but Luigi s care had supplied me a plentiful meal already. So much for one specimen of a Sicilian nobleman. I saw one or two more of nearly the same stamp at a conversazione. The next morning I found Luigi at the albergo, sitting over a bottle of wine with a large, fat, sleepy -looking man, in rather a dingy coat, whom on my entering he slapped on the shoulder, " Ecco, signore, mio amico il ba- rone ; un brav uomo," etc., running on with a long string of praises of his friend the baron, at which this extraordinary specimen of a noble kept shaking his large head in modest denial. . . . The way was enlivened by the edifying sin gularities of the muleteer Michele, who walked along talking without intermission for an hour together, though no one listened or replied. He interrupted his discourse only to belabor his mule and curse him in Sicilian. When we came to a steep place, he would take a firm hold of the beast s tail with one hand, while he bela bored him with a rope s end that he held in the other, and thus they would scramble up to gether. Where the mud was more than a foot deep Michele would place both hands on the mule s rump and vault, with a sort of grunt, upon his back ; wriggle himself about for a while to find a comfortable seat, and then burst forth with some holy canticle in praise of a saint. Just after leaving the ruins of Selinuntum we were struggling along in the mud of a lane between rows of cork-trees and aloes, when Mi chele suddenly set up a yowling like a tom-cat, stopped in the midst of a note to expostulate IN SICILY 89 with his mule, and then proceeded in a more dismal tone than before. Luigi clapped his hands and shouted, " Bravo ! compare Michele, belli- sima ! " at which the gratified Michele redoubled his exertions, and squalled at the top of his throat, putting his hand to the side of his mouth to increase the volume of sound. A young con- tadino who was wading along on an ass at a little distance behind was seized with a fit of emula tion, and set up a counter howl to one of the airs peculiar to the contadini. I cried bravo to this new vocalist, while Luigi cried bella and bellis- siina to the exertions of Michele. Michele jogged along on his mule, the tassel of his woolen cap flapping ; while Luigi twisted himself in his sad dle to see how I relished the entertainment, re marking with a grin, " Canta Michele," Michele is singing. Marsala, as everybody knows, is famous for its wine. For travelers there is little to see. . . . CHAPTER X NAPLES AND ROME I HAVE seen my last of Sicily. I bade adieu to Luigi, who insisted on my receiving a number of valuable ancient coins, and would have given me an hundred if I had let him have his own way took leave of the Marstons and Gardi- ners had my baggage carried on board the Palermo by three facchini, and followed it my self. The next morning the famous Bay of Naples looked wretched and dismal enough under the influences of an easterly storm, through which Vesuvius w r as just visible. I went to the Hotel de Rome, an excellent house, with a restaurant beneath where you get and pay for precisely what you want, an arrangement far better than a table d hote. I spent the first day at the Royal Museum, where I could not determine which I liked best, the Hercules Farnese or the Venus of Praxi teles. I met, at the house of Mr. Rogers, Mr. Theo dore Parker and Mr. Farnam from Philadelphia. I had already met Mr. Parker at the Hotel de Rome. Yesterday we went up Vesuvius together. . . . We got some of the famous Lacrimce NAPLES AND ROME 91 Christi wine at a house half way down. We reached Naples at three, where the outskirts of the town were deserted, with the exception of a few miserable old men and women sitting in the doorways. It was Sunday, the great day of the carnival. King Ferdinand, however, sets his face against the carnival, which for several years has been a mere nothing at Naples. This year, in consideration of the distress of tradesmen, he has consented, much against his inclination, to make a fool of himself. This was the day ap pointed for a grand masked procession, in which the king and his ministers were to pelt his sub jects with sugar-plums, and be pelted in return. There was a great crowd as we entered the square upon the Toledo the main street of Naples. While we were slowly driving through it, the head of the procession appeared. First came a dragon about fifty feet long, with his back just visible above the throng of heads, as if he was swimming in the water. He was drawn by a long train of horses. Five or six masked noblemen were on his back pelting the crowd and the people in the galleries of the houses on each side. Then came a sort of car, full of bears, cats, and monkeys, all flinging sugar-plums. The horses of this vehicle were appropriately ridden by jackasses. Then came a long train of car riages, which we joined. The crowd was enor mous. The Toledo was one wide river of heads, the procession slowly moving down on one side and returning. on the other. Along the middle, a line of dragoons sat motionless, with drawn swords, on their horses. Mrs. P. was hit on 92 FRANCIS PARKMAN the nose by a formidable sugar-plum flung by a vigorous hand from one of the balconies. She was in great trouble, but there was no such thing as retreat. We got our full share. Mr. Farnam s dignity was disturbed. Mr. Parker had a glass of his spectacles broken. I alone escaped unin jured. At length the royal carriage appeared. Ferdinand a gigantic man, taller and heavier than any of his subjects was flinging sugar plums with hearty good-will, like all the rest. As they passed our carriage the royal family greeted us with a broadside, which completed Mrs. Parker s discomposure. They threw genu ine sugar-plums the others were quite uneat able. The king wore a black silk dress which covered him from head to foot. His face was protected by a wire mask. He carried a brass machine in his hand to fling sugar-plums with. His uncle, his mother, his wife, and all his chief noblemen soon appeared, all protected by masks. The procession passed several times up and down the Toledo, with occasional stoppages. One of these happened when the king s carriage was not far before us, while directly over against it, on the other side of the street, was a triumphal car full of noblemen. Instantly there began a battle. Ferdinand and the princes sent volley after vol ley against their opponents, who returned it with interest. The crowd set up a roar, and made a rush for the spoils. There was a genuine battle for the sugar-plums that fell between the two carriages, pushing, scrambling, shouting, yelling, confusion worse confounded, till the dignified combatants thought proper to separate. . . . NAPLES AND ROME 93 The remoter and more obscure parts of this great city are quite as interesting. Here you may see an endless variety of costumes, of the women, almost all beautiful and neat. There is something particularly attractive about these women, who are seldom, however, handsome, properly speaking, but there is the devil in their bright faces and full rounded forms. Each town in the environs has its peculiar costume. On Saturday I left Naples for Kome in the diligence, with Mr. and Mrs. Parker. . . . At length we got a glimpse of St. Peter s. On every side of us were remains of temples, aqueducts, and tombs ; Mr. Parker became in spired, and spouted Cicero and Virgil. Three young Romans followed us for a mile, running along in their rags, with their dingy peaked hats in their hands, constantly exclaiming in a wail ing tone, "Eccelenz^ eccelenz ! povero miserabile, molto difame ! " Your excellency, your excel lency, I am a poor miserable devil, very hungry. Monday. To-day is one of the great days. Mr. P. with his lady and myself went in a carriage to see the " show." The streets were crowded with maskers of all descriptions, in carriages and on foot. A blast of trumpets from the end of the Corso was the signal for all the carriages to draw up to one side and the crowd to divide, to make way for a column of the Pope s soldiers. First came the sappers, with beards and mus taches that fell over their chests, shaggy bearskin caps and leather aprons. Each carried a broad- axe over his shoulder, and his musket slung at his back. They were savage and martial-looking 94 FRANCIS PARKMAN fellows. A long train of soldiers followed, with a body of cavalry bringing up the rear. So much for the Pope s summary measures for preserving order. After this the carnival began in earnest. It was not the solemn sugar-plum foolery of Naples, but foolery entered into with right hearti ness and good- will. There were devils of every description, from the imp of two feet high to a six foot monster with horns and hoofs and tail, and a female friend on each arm. There were harlequins with wooden swords, or with bladders tied to poles, which they beat over the heads of all they met ; Pulcinellas, and an endless variety of nondescripts. Some of the carriages were triumphal cars gayly ornamented, full of mask ers, men and girls, in spangled dresses. Instead of sugar-plums, they flung flowers at one an other. Some of the women wore wire masks or little vizards, which left the lower part of the face bare ; many, however, had no covering at all to their faces. Few had any regular beauty of features, but there was an expression of heart and spirit, and a loftiness, beside, which did not shame their birth. They flung their flowers at you with the freest and most graceful action imaginable. To battle with flowers against a laughing and conscious face showering your ammunition thick as the carriage slowly passes the balcony then straining your eyes to catch the last glance of the black-eyed witch and the last wave of her hand as the crowd closes around her, all this is no contemptible amusement. The inferior class of women walked in the NAPLES AND ROME 95 street, very prettily dressed in a laced jacket and a white frock that came an inch below the knee. Some were disguised as boys, some wore fierce mustaches, which set off. well enough their spirited faces. Hundreds of men were shouting round the carriages with flowers for sale. Thus it went on for hours, till the report of a cannon gave the sig nal for clearing the Corso for the horse-race. . . . So much for my classic "first impressions" of Rome ! Yesterday was the 22d of February the birthday of Washington. The Americans here must needs get up a dinner, with speeches, toasts, etc. It was like a visit home. There they sat, slight, rather pale and thin men, not like beef-fed and ruddy Englishmen ; very quiet and apparently timid ; speaking low to the waiters instead of roaring in the imperative tone of John Bull. There was not a shadow of that boisterous and haughty confidence of manner that you see among Englishmen in fact most of them seemed a little green. A General Dix presided and made a speech about the repudiation ; the consul, Mr. Green, made another excellent speech, so did Dr. Howe. Mr. Conrade of Virginia gave us a most characteristic specimen of American eloquence, and toasted " Washington and Cincinnatus ! Patrick Henry and Cicero ! " There are numbers of American artists here, some of them fine fellows. In fact, it is some con solation, after looking at the thin faces, narrow shoulders, and awkward attitudes of the " Yan kees," to remember that in genius, enterprise, and courage nay, in bodily strength - they are a full match for the sneering Englishmen. Would 96 FRANCIS PARKMAN that they bore themselves more boldly and confi dently. But a time will come when they may meet Europeans on an equal footing. Feb. 27th. A weary week of lionizing. I would not give a damn for all the churches and ruins in Rome at least, such are my sentiments at pre sent. There is unbounded sublimity in the Coli seum by moonlight, that cannot be denied, St. Peter s, too, is a miracle in its way ; but I would give them all for one ride on horseback among the Apennines. 1 A Virginian named St. Ives, lately converted to Catholicism, has been trying to convert me, along with some of the Jesuits here. He has abandoned the attempt in disgust, telling me that I have not logic enough in me to be convinced of anything, to which I replied by cursing logic and logicians. I have now been three or four weeks in Rome, have been presented to his Holiness the Pope, have visited churches, convents, cemeteries, cata combs, common sewers, including the Cloaca Maxima, and ten thousand works of art. This will I say of Rome, that a place on every ac count more interesting, and which has a more vivifying and quickening influence on the facul ties, could not be found on the face of the earth, or, at least, I should not wish to go to it if it could. 1 . . . Rome, Friday. Yesterday I went to the Ca puchins for permission to stay there, which was refused peremptorily ; but the Passionists told me to come again at night, and they would tell 1 Life of Francis Parkman, p. 192. NAPLES AND ROME 97 me if I could be admitted. I came as directed, and was shown a room in the middle of the build ing, which contains hundreds of chambers con nected by long and complicated passages, hung with pictures of saints and crucifixes. The monk told me that when the bell rang I must leave my hat, come out, and join the others, and then, displaying some lives of the saints and other holy works on the table, he left me to my meditations. The room has a hideous bleeding image of Christ, a vessel of holy water, and a number of holy pictures a bed, a chair and a table. Also, hung against the wall was a " Notice to persons with drawn from the world for spiritual exercises, to the end that they may derive all possible profit from their holy seclusion." The " Notice " pro hibited going out of the chamber without neces sity ; prohibited also speaking at any time, or making any noise whatever, writing also, and looking out of the window. It enjoined the saying of three Ave Marias, at least, at night, also to make your own bed, etc. The devil ! thought I, here is an adventure. The secret of my getting in so easily was ex plained. There were about thirty Italians re tired from the world, preparing for the General Confession, and even while I was coming to this conclusion the bell clanged along the passage, and I went out to join the rest. After climbing several dark stairs, and descending others, pull ing off their skull-caps to the great images of Christ on the landing places, they got into a little chapel, and after kneeling to the altar, seated themselves. The shutters were closed, 98 FRANCIS PARKMAN and the curtains drawn immediately after ; there was a prayer with the responses, and then a ser mon of an hour and a half long, in which the monk kept felicitating himself and his hearers that they were of the genuine church little thinking that there was a black sheep among his flock. The sermon over, we filed off to our rooms. In five minutes the bell rang again for supper, then we marched off to a conversazione in another part of the building, where the in junction of silence was taken off. I told the di recting priest that I was a Protestant. He seemed a little startled at first, then insinuated a hope that I might be reclaimed from my damnable heresy, and said that an American had been there before, who had been converted meaning my acquaintance St. Ives. He then opened a little battery of arguments upon me, after which he left me saying that a lay brother would make the rounds to wake us before sunrise. The lay brother came in fact, but not before I had been waked by a howling procession of the Passionists themselves, who passed along about midnight. There was a mass, another prayer, and another endless sermon, soon after which we were summoned to coffee. I observed several of the Italians looking hard at me as I drank a glass of water instead of coffee, on ac count of my cursed neuralgia. Doubtless they were thinking within themselves, How that pious man is mortifying the flesh ! There was an hour s repose allowed, after which came another sermon in the chapel. This over, a bell rang for dinner, which was at eleven NAPLES AND ROME 99 in the morning. The hall was on the lower floor very long, high, and dark with panels of oak, and ugly pictures on the walls narrow oaken tables set all round the sides of the place. The monks were all there, in their black robes, with the emblem of their order on the breast. They had their scowling faces, as well they might, for their discipline is tremendously strict. Before each was placed an earthen bottle of wine and a piece of bread, on the bare board. Each drew a cup, a knife, fork, and wooden spoon from a drawer under the table ; the at tendant lay brothers placed a bowl of singular- looking soup before each, and they eat in lugu brious silence. The superior of the order sat at the upper end of the hall a large and power ful man, who looked sterner, if possible, than his inferiors. We, who sat at another table, were differently served with rice, eggs, fish, and fruit. No one spoke, but from a pulpit above a monk read at the top of his lungs from a book of religious precepts in that peculiar drawling tone which the Catholics employ in their exer cises. There was, apparently, little fructifica tion in the minds of his hearers. The monks eat and scowled ; the laymen eat and smiled at each other, exchanging looks of meaning, though not a word passed between them. There were among them men of every age and of various conditions, from the field laborer to the gentle man of good birth. The meal concluded with a prayer and the growling responses of the Pas- sionists, who then filed off through the galleries to their dens, looking like the living originals of 100 FRANCIS PARKMAN the black pictures that hang along the white washed walls. A monk has just been here, trying to convert me, but was not so good a hand at argument, or sophistry, as the Jesuits. I told him that he could do nothing with me, but he persisted, clapping his hand on my knee and exclaiming, 44 Ah, fglio, you will be a good Catholic, no doubt." There was a queer sort of joviality about him. He kept offering me his snuff-box, and when he thought he had made a good hit iii argument, he would wink at me, with a most comical expression, as if to say, "you see you can t come round me with your heresy." He gave over at the ringing of a bell which sum moned us to new readings and lecturings in the chapel, after which we were turned out into the garden of the convent, where we lounged along walks shaded with olives and oleanders. Padre Lucca, the directing priest, talked over matters of faith to me. He was an exception to the rest of the establishment plump and well-fed, with a double chin like a bull-frog, and a most con tented and good-humored countenance. After supper to-night some of the Italians in the conversazione expressed great sympathy for my miserable state of heresy : one of them, with true charity, according to his light, said that he would pray to the Virgin, who could do all things, to show me the truth. The whole community assembled to vespers. The dark and crowded chapel fairly shook with the din of more than a hundred manly voices chanting the service. NAPLES AND ROME 101 There is nothing gloomy and morose in the religion of these Italians here, no camp-meeting long faces. They talk and laugh gayly in the in tervals allowed them for conversation ; but when the occasion calls it forth, they speak of religion with an earnestness, as well as a cheerfulness, that shows that it has a hold on their hearts. Saturday. This morning, among the rest, they went through the Exercise of the Via Crucis, which consists in moving in a body around the chapel, where are suspended pictures, fourteen in number, representing different scenes in the passion of Christ. Before each of these they stop, the priest reads the appropriate prayer and expressions of contrition from the book, re peats a Pater Noster, etc., and so they make a circuit of the whole. I saw the same ceremony, on a larger scale, in the Coliseum, without know ing what it was. A thin, hollow-eyed father tried to start my heresy this morning, but was horrified at the enormity of my disbelief ; and when I told him that I belonged to a Unitarian family, he rolled up his bloodshot eyes in their black sockets, and stretched his skinny neck out of his cowl, like a turtle basking on a stone in summer. He gave me a little brass medal of the Virgin with a kind of prayer written on it. This medal he begged me to wear round my neck, and to re peat two or three Aves now and then. It was by this means, he said, that Ratisbon the Jew was converted, not long since ; who, though he wore the medal and repeated the Aves merely to get rid of the importunities of a Catholic friend, 102 FRANCIS PARKMAN yet nevertheless was favored with a miraculous vision of the Virgin, whereupon he fell on his knees and was joined to the number of the Faith ful. I told the monk that I would wear the medal if he wished me to, but should not repeat the Aves ; so I have it now round my neck, greatly to his satisfaction. [This medal Parkman kept all his life.] Miracles, say all the Catholics here, happen frequently nowadays. The other day a man was raised to life who had just died in con sumption, and now is walking the streets in com plete health ! These Italians have come to the seclusion of this convent in order that their minds may not be distracted by contact with the world, and that the religious sentiments may grow up unimpeded and receive all possible nutriment from the con stant exercises in which they are engaged. It is partly, also, with the intention of preparing them for the General Confession. It is only for a few days in the year that any are here. Their " ex ercises " are characteristic of the Church. The forms of prayer are all written down : they read, repeat, and sing. Very little time is allowed them for private examinations and meditations, and even in these they are directed by a printed card hung in each of the rooms, and containing a list of the subjects on which they ought to examine themselves, together with a form of contrition to be repeated by them. The sermons and readings are full of pictures of Christ s sufferings, exhorta tions to virtue, etc., but contain not a syllable of doctrine. One of the first in the printed list of questions which the self-examiner is to ask him- NAPLES AND ROME 103 self is, " Have I ever dared to inquire into the mysteries of the Faith?" Sunday. This is Palm Sunday, the first day of the famous Settimana Santa, the Holy Week. I determined to get out of the convent and see what was going on. The day and night previous I had worn the medal, but had no vision of the Virgin, at least of Santissima Maria. Padre Lucca was unfeignedly sorry to have me go with unimpaired prospects of damnation. He said he still had hopes of me; and taking the kindest leave of me, gave me a book of Catholic devo tions, which I shall certainly keep in remem brance of a very excellent man. He looked at the book I had been reading the night before, and expressed his approbation, it was a life of Blessed Paul of the Cross, detailing among other matters how the apostle hated women with a holy and religious hatred, justly regarding them as types of the devil, and fountains of unbounded evil to the sons of men ; and how, when women were near, he never raised his eyes from the ground, but continually repeated Pater Nosters that the malign influence might be averted. When I got into the fresh air I felt rather glad to be free of the gloomy galleries and cells, which, nevertheless, contain so much to be ad mired. 1 . . . I heard it computed that there are forty thou sand strangers in Rome, which must, however, be a great exaggeration. The English are the most numerous, esteemed, and beloved as usual. 1 Cf. " A Convent at Rome," Harper s New Monthly Maga zine, August, 1890. 104 FRANCIS PARKMAN One of them, standing in St. Peter s, before the ceremony yesterday, civilly exclaimed, " How long does this damned Pope expect us to stand here waiting for him ! " A priest who spoke English reminded him that, since he had come to Rome, it was hoped that he would conform to the usages, or at least refrain from insulting the feelings of those around. The Englishman answered by an insolent stare ; then turning his back, he said, 44 The English own Rome ! " FBANK TO HIS MOTHER. ROME, April 5, 44. DEAR MOTHER, ... We are in the midst of the fooleries of Holy Week. To-night the Pope took a mop, and washed the high altar, in the presence of some ten thousand people. . . . I have been spending a few days in a convent of the monks called Passionists. ... I find that though I am very well indeed in other respects, there has not been any great change in the dif ficulty that brought me out here. ... I have resolved to go to Paris and see Dr. Louis, the head of his profession in the world, and see if he can do anything for me. ... I have been a per fect anchorite here, have given up wine, etc., and live at present on 40 cents a day for pro visions so if I do not thrash the enemy at last, it will not be my fault. . . . Here are four thousand English in Rome and they are tolerably hated by the Italians, while we sixty or seventy Americans seem, I am happy to say, liked and esteemed everywhere. . . . Yours, FRANK. CHAPTER XI FROM FLORENCE TO EDINBURGH THE next day I left Rome for Florence, in the diligence and left it with much regret, and a hope to return. A young American named Marquand went with me. . . . I went to the studio of Powers the sculptor, a noble-looking fellow and a wonderful artist. I have seen Florence that is, I have had a glance at everything there, but one might stay with pleasure for months. Its peculiar architecture and its romantic situation make it striking enough at first sight, but the interest increases, instead of diminishing. It is impossible to have seen enough of its splendid picture galleries, gar dens, and museums. On Wednesday I left Florence, unsatisfied, but unable to stay longer. After all, I shall not see Granada at least for some years, thanks to the cursed injury that brought me to Europe ; for as I find no great improvement, I judge it best to see what a French doctor can do for me, instead of running about Spain. At ten in the evening we left Parma. At five in the morning we were at Piacenza. Here we stopped an hour or two. Here again the strik ing difference between the towns of northern 106 FRANCIS PARKMAN and southern Italy was manifested. The people looked as grave and solemn as the brick fronts of the palaces and churches. . . . We crossed the Po, by a wretched bridge of boats, and entered Lombardy and the domains of Austria. The black eagle of Austria was painted above the guard-house, on the farther bank, where a dozen sullen-looking soldiers loi tered about. There was a barrack of them near the custom-house, where we must stop an hour and a half to be searched, and to pay the fellows for doing it. After that we rode all day through a beautiful and fertile country, passing through Lodi, the scene of Bonaparte s victory, till at night we entered Milan, saturated with dust. As for the city, it is well enough. The people are different in appearance, in manners, in lan guage, and in habits, from the southern Italians. The women are all out sunning themselves ; whole, flights of them came out of the Cathedral, with little black veils flung over their heads, and mass books in their hands. Their faces and fig ures are round and rich of the fiery black eye of Rome I have seen nothing ; their eyes are blue and soft, and have rather a drowsy meek expression, and they look excessively modest. This morning, when the whole city was quiet, the shops shut in honor of Sunday, the people issuing from the Cathedral, gentlemen walking listlessly about, and porters and contadini sitting idle at the edge of the sidewalks. There was a group of gentlemen taking their coffee under awnings in front of each of the caffes on the piazza before the Cathedral. This vagabond way FROM FLORENCE TO EDINBURGH 107 of breakfasting and seeing the world at the same time is very agreeable. There is no place where you can be more independent than in one of these cities ; when you are hungry there is always a restaurant and a dinner at a moment s notice, when you are thirsty there is always a caffe at hand. If you are sleepy, your room awaits you, a dozen sneaking waiters are ready at your bidding, and glide about like shadows to do what you may require, in hope of your shil ling when you go away. But give me Ethan Crawford, or even Tom, in place of the whole race of waiters and gardens. I would ask their pardon for putting them in the same sentence, if they were here. A funeral procession filed into the Cathedral, each priest, layman, woman, and child with an enormous wax candle in hand. The noble chapel, at the left extremity of the transept, was hung with black for the occasion the coffin was placed in the midst, and the ceremonies were performed. The priests seemed not fairly awake. One fat bull-frog of a fellow would growl out of his throat his portion of the holy psalmody, interrupting himself in some interesting conver sation with his neighbor, and resuming it again as soon as the religious office was performed. Another would gape and yawn in the midst of his musical performances, another would walk about looking at the people, or the coffin, or the kneeling women, singing meanwhile with the most supreme indifference and content on his fat countenance. I could imagine the subject of their conversation, as they walked out in a 108 FRANCIS PARKMAN double file, leaving the coffin to the care of the proper officials, after they had grunted a con cluding anthem over it. " Well, we ve fixed this fellow s soul for him. It was a nasty job ; but it s over now. Come ! won t you take something to drink?" [The foregoing quotation and some others that I shall make to indicate the ginger and spice of his character, must be read with the recollection that they are the hasty jottings of a young man who was writing in his private notebook, never expecting them to be seen. If we were to misinterpret these sallies unfairly even for a moment, we should do injustice to the reasonableness of his character. Had he spoken then, his smile would have dispelled any misun derstanding.] I used to like priests, and take my hat off and make a low bow, half in sport and half in ear nest, whenever I met them, but I have got to despise the fellows. Yet I have met admirable men among them ; and have always been treated by them all with the utmost civility and atten tion. I write on the Lake of Como, with three women, a boy, and four men looking over my shoulder, but they cannot read English. I have seen nothing, at home or abroad, more beautiful than this lake. It reminds me of Lake George the same extent, the same figure, the same crystal purity of waters, the same wild and beautiful mountains on either side. But the comparison will not go farther. Here are a hun dred palaces and villages scattered along the water s edge and up the declivities. . . . All FROM FLORENCE TO EDINBURGH 109 here is like a finished picture ; even the wildest rocks seem softened in the air of Italy. Give me Lake George, and the smell of the pine and fir! (Andeer.) I stopped here, and will stay here several days. Nothing could surpass the utter savageness of the scenery that you find by tracing up some of the little streams that pour down on all sides to join the Rhine not a trace of human hand it is as wild as the back-forests at home. The mountains, too, wear the same aspect. . . . Here was a change, with a vengeance, from the Italian beauties of the Lake of Como ! I sat on the rock, fancying myself again in the American woods with an Indian companion, but as I rose to go away the hellish beating of my heart warned me that no more such expeditions were in store for me for the present, at least ; but if I do not sleep by the camp-fire again, it shall be no fault of mine. . . . (Zurich.) The Germans lighted their pipes with their flint and steel, and, stretching out their legs and unbuttoning their coats, disposed themselves to take their ease. Here was none of the painful dignity which an Englishman thinks it incumbent upon him to assume throughout his travels no kneepans aching with the strain of tight strapped pantaloons, no neck half severed by the remorseless edge of a starched dickey. . . . The journey to Paris occupies two days. Yes terday morning, looking from the window, I saw an ocean of housetops stretching literally to the very horizon. We entered the gate, but rode for 110 FRANCIS PARKMAN nearly an hour through the streets before we reached the diligence office. Then I went to the Tuileries, the Palais Royal, the Boulevard des Italiens, and the Place Vendorne. " Let envious Englishmen sneer as they will," I thought, " this is the Athens of Modern Europe. " I had called on my uncle [Mr. Samuel Park- man] , and found him not at home. He called on me with the same fortune, but left a note direct ing me to be at a celebrated cafe at a certain time, where he was to be distinguished by a white handkerchief in his hand. I found him there, and went with him to a ball at the Champs Elysees. Boulogne, May 16th. I have been a fortnight in Paris, and seen it as well as it can be seen in a fortnight. Under peculiarly favorable circum stances, too ; for it was the great season of balls and gayeties, and I had a guide, moreover, who knows Paris from top to bottom, within and without. . . . When I got to London, I thought I had been there before. There, in flesh and blood, was the whole host of characters that figure in Pickwick. Every species of cockney was abroad in the dark and dingy looking streets, all walking with their heads stuck forward, their noses turned up, their chin pointing down, their knee-joints shaking, as they shuffled along with a gait perfectly ludi crous, but indescribable. The hackney coachmen and cabmen, with their peculiar phraseology, the walking advertisements in the shape of a boy completely hidden between two placards, and a hundred others seemed so many incarnations FROM FLORENCE TO EDINBURGH 111 of Dickens characters. A strange contrast to Paris ! The cities are no more alike than the " dining room " of London and the elegant res taurant of Paris, the one being a quiet dingy establishment where each guest is put into a box and supplied with porter, beef, potatoes, and plum-pudding. Eed-faced old gentlemen of three hundred weight mix their " brandy go " and read the " Times." In Paris the tables are set in ele gant galleries and saloons, and among the trees and flowers of a garden, and here resort coats cut by the first tailors and bonnets of the latest mode, whose occupants regale their delicate tastes on the lightest and most delicious viands. The wait ers spring from table to table as noiselessly as shadows, prompt at the slightest sign ; a lady, elegantly attired, sits within an arbor to preside over the whole. Dine at these places, then go to a London " dining room " swill porter and de vour roast beef ! I went immediately to Catlin s Indian Gallery. It is in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly. There was a crowd around the door ; servants in livery waiting ; men with handbills of the exhibition for sale ; cabmen, boys, and pickpockets. I was rejoicing in Mr. Catlin s success, when the true point of attraction caught my eye, in the shape of a full-length portrait of Major Tom Thumb, the celebrated American dwarf, who it seems occupies the Indian Gallery for the present. I paid my shilling and went in. The little wretch was singing Yankee Doodle with a voice like a smothered mouse, and prancing about on a table, a la Jeffrey Hudson, with a wooden sword in his 112 FRANCIS PARKMAN hand ; a great crowd of cockneys and gentlemen and ladies were contemplating bis evolutions. But for the Indian Gallery, its glory had de parted ; it had evidently ceased to be a lion. The portraits of the chiefs, dusty and faded, hung round the walls, and above were a few hunting shirts and a bundle or two of arrows ; but the rich and invaluable collection I had seen in Bos ton had disappeared, and no one thought of look ing at the poor remains of that great collection that were hung about the walls. Catlin had done right. He would not suffer the fruits of his six years labor and danger to rot in the damp ness to gratify a few miserable cockneys, so has packed up the best part of his trophies. . . . St. Paul s, which the English ridiculously com pare to St. Peter s, is without exception the dir tiest and gloomiest church I have been in yet. I went up to the ball at the top of the cupola, whence the prospect is certainly a most wonder ful one. . . . Walk out in the evening, and keep a yard or two behind some wretched clerk, who with nose elevated in the air, elbows stuck out at right angles, and the pewter knob of his cane playing upon his under lip, is straddling his bow legs over the sidewalk with a most majestic air. Get behind him, and you see his dignity greatly dis turbed. First he glances over one of his narrow shoulders, then over the other, then he edges off to the other side of the walk, and turns his va cant lobster eyes full upon you, then he passes his hand over his coat-tail, and finally he draws forth from his pocket the object of all this solici- FROM FLORENCE TO EDINBURGH 113 tude in the shape of a venerable and ragged cot ton handkerchief, which he holds in his hand to keep it out of harm s way. I have been thus taken for a pickpocket more than a dozen times to-night, not the less so for being respectably dressed, for these gentry are the most dashy men on the Strand. There is an interesting mixture of vulgarity and helplessness in the swarm of ugly faces you see in the streets meagre, feeble, ill-propor tioned, or not proportioned at all, the blockheads must needs put on a game air and affect the " man of the world " in their small way. I have not met one handsome woman yet, though I have certainly walked more than fifty miles since I have been here, and have kept my eyes open. To be sure, the weather has been raw and chill enough to keep beauty at home. Elsewhere Eng- glishmen are tall, strong, and manly ; here, the crowd that swarms through the streets are like the outcasts of a hospital. . . . I spent seven or eight days in London. On the eighth day I went up the river to Richmond in a steamboat, with a true cockney pleasure party on board, whose evolutions were very en tertaining. . . . I got into the cars one night having sent my trunks to Liverpool and found myself in the morning at Darlington, nearly three hundred miles distant. Thence I took stage for Carlisle, famous in Border story. I went away at four in the morning for Ab- botsford. We were in the region where one thinks of nothing but of Scott, and of the themes 114 FRANCIS PARKMAN which he has rendered so familiar to the whole world. The Cheviot was on our right the Teviot hills before us. The wind came down from them raw and cold, and the whole sky was obscured with stormy clouds. I thought as we left the town of the burden of one of his ballads : " The sun shines fair on Carlisle wall." It was little applicable now. The ancient fortification looked sullen and cheerless as tottering battle ments and black crumbling walls, beneath a sky as dark and cold as themselves, could make it. I was prepared for storms and a gloomy day, but soon the clouds parted and the sun broke out clear over the landscape. The dark heathery sides of Teviot the numberless bright rapid streams that came from the different glens, and the woods of ash, larch, and birch that followed their course, and grew on the steeper declivities of the hills never could have appeared to more advantage. Esk and Liddel, Yarrow, the Teviot, Minto Crag, Ettrick Forest, Branksome Castle, these and more likewise we passed before we reached the Tweed and saw Abbotsford on its banks among the forests planted by Scott him self. I left my luggage at the inn at Galashiels, telling the landlord that I was going away, and might return at night, or might not. I visited Abbotsford, Melrose, and Dryburgh and con sider the day better spent than the whole four months I was in Sicily and Italy. I slept at Mel- rpse, and returned to Galashiels in the morning. I like the Scotch I like the country and everything in it. The Liverpool packet will not wait, or I should stay long here, and take a FROM FLORENCE TO EDINBURGH 115 trout from every "burnie " in the Cheviot. The scenery has been grossly belied by Irving and others. It is wild and beautiful. I have seen none more so. There is wood enough along the margins of the streams (which are as transparent as our own); the tops of the hills alone are bare. The country abounds in game, pheasants, moor cock, curlew, and rabbits. . . . I walked up Arthur s Seat, passing the spot where Jeanie Deans had her interview with her sister s seducer, and, when I arrived at the top, looking [sic] down on the site of her father s cottage. Under the crags here is the place where Scott and James Ballantyne used to sit when boys and read and make romances together. Edinburgh, half wrapped in smoke, lies many hundred feet below, seen beyond the ragged pro jecting edge of Salisbury Crag, the castle rising obscurely in the extreme distance. . . . Frank was obliged to hurry off to Liverpool, where he went aboard the packet Acadia, and after an uneventful voyage, during which he amused himself with a little satire upon some fellow passengers, notably my lord bishop of Newfoundland, returned safely home. CHAPTER XII A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT FRANK landed about June 20th, took his degree of A. B., and attended a senior class supper, at which we do not know whether he used the temperance ticket for $2.12|, or the wine ticket for $4.62|. Off he went again in the beginning of July with a little green notebook about as large as a porte-monnaie in his pocket, which he brought back filled with notes, descriptions, memoranda, reflections. Conscious of his bach elorhood in arts, of a philosophic superiority to youth and folly, and dignified by a sense of a horizon stretching from Palermo to Edinburgh, he begins in fragmentary, critical mood : The traveler in Europe. Art, nature, history combine. In America art has done her best to destroy nature association, nothing. Her for mer state. Her present matter of fact. . . . July 4, 44. The celebration at Concord. The admirable good humor of the people in the cars during some very vexatious delays was remark able. Some young men sang songs and amused A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 117 themselves with jokes, among whom my former schoolmate was conspicuous. In spite of the cold ness attributed to the Am. character, he seems to play the rowdy with all his heart, and as if he considered it the height of glory. The cheerfulness, the spirit of accommodation and politeness was extraordinary. Perfect order, in the most difficult evolutions of the day. An hundred soldiers would not in Europe have as sured such quiet and unanimity. Some young men exhibited a good deal of humor and of knowledge, in their observations, and I remem bered that this is our lowest class. This orderly, enthusiastic, and intelligent body is the nearest approach to the peasantry of Europe. If we have not the courtly polish of the European upper cir cles, the absence of their stupid and brutal pea santry is a fair offset. . . . Students of H. [Harvard] do not on all occa sions appear much better than their less favored countrymen, either in point of gentlemanly and distingue appearance or in conversation. . . . The discussion on Fourierism, etc., of the she- philosophers of W. Roxbury. Their speculations, and the whole atmosphere of that heart of new philosophy, were very striking and amusing after seeing the manners of Paris and London, the entertainments and pleasures and the workings of passions which they in their retirement seem scarce to dream of. ... England has her hedges and her smooth green hills, robed [?] with a spirit of power and worth, strengthened and sanctioned by ages ; but give me the rocky hillside, the shaggy cedar and scrub- 118 FRANCIS PARKMAN oak, the wide reach of uncultivated landscape, the fiery glare of the sun ... its wild and ruddy light. All is new, all is rough, no charm of the familiar. Fierce savages have roamed like beasts amid its rugged scenery ; there was a day of strug gle, and they have passed away, and a race of indomitable men have succeeded them. . . . Kahant, July 17th. The company on board the steamboat difference in silence and intelligence from a cackling party. The man with the model of a beehive, Ohio. . . . The traveled fool, set ting his name in the bar book as , Cosmopolite. He finds some improvements here "very creditable to the town," of which he is a native. He imitates English dress and manners. The dinner party was various and far from dis tingue. Roland Green, Mansfield. His family have relics of the Indians. The disagreeable whining manner of some vulgar Yankee girls. " John Norton s Captivity," taken at a fort in Adams, 1746. Springfield. The independent Yankee whom I spoke to about his failure to call me. In Job s language he " stood right up to it," giving shot for shot. No English creeping. The landlord no bowing. Montague. Grape shot dug up. A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 119 The landlord of Chester Factory, sitting cross- legged on his chair, took no notice of me as I came in, but on my asking if the landlord was in, he said, " Yes, here I be." . . . An American landlord does not trouble himself to welcome his guests. He lets them enter his house, and sits by quite indifferent. He seems rather to consider himself as conferring an obli gation in anything he may do for them. Stockbridge. Maple and beech have followed the fir of the original growth. . . . Dr. Partridge. The old man was in his labo ratory, bedroom, etc., among his old tables, book cases, etc., with shelves of medicines, and scales suspended hard by. He is about 94, and remem bered Williams [Capt. Ephraim Williams] well, who he describes as a large, stout man, who used often to visit his father, and take him on his knee. He says he remembers the face as if he saw it yesterday, especially the swelling of the ruddy cheeks. His father, Colonel Partridge, was in the service, and despised Abercrombie as a coward. The Dr. remembers seeing a thou sand of Abercrombie s Highlanders at Hatfield or some other town where they were billeted. Abercrombie was always trembling with fear of Indians, and sending out scouts about camp. When Howe fell, Partridge, the Dr. says, was at his side, and his lordship said, " The army has no leader, and is defeated." . . . Gt. Barrington . . . Mt. Washington . . . Bash-a-Bish. 120 FRANCIS PARKMAN The hearty, horse-swapping, thumping young Dutchman, who would be damned if he cared for anything if he could only swap off his old wag ons for Jim Fray s colt. . . . The crouching, cadaverous, lank old man with the opium for his rheumatic wife. . . . The Irish priest, with his jovial conversation and hints about a mitre. [Here follow various rumors concerning letters, journals, remembrances, tra ditions, concerning perhapses and may-be s, con cerning Capt. Ephraim Williams and Rogers the Ranger, all clues carefully noted, followed by a " Nil Desperandum"] The two girls on the road from N. Adams. One of them was a mixture of all the mean quali ties of her sex with none of the nobler. She was full of the pettiest envy, spite, jealousy, and malice, singularly impudent and indelicate. " Should have given ye a pie to-day, but ain t got no timber to make em." Then follow memoranda of books, maps, his tories, memoirs, travels, letters, papers, pam phlets, notes from a French MS., etc., ending with a reminder to be at Cambridge on the third Wednesday of August. But before the middle of September, with another neat little leather-tongued notebook, he went off to Concord. On the flyleaf is the note " Read Dryden s prose " and also a copy of a plan of old Fort Mackinaw made by A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 121 Lieutenant Whiting. This notebook served the purpose of a spleen-valve, for in the midst of historical notes and references are interspersed very caustic descriptions of acquaintances and companions. It would be unjust to think that these satirical sketches indicate the usual pitch of his judgments. A lad of twenty-one or two, with a proud resolution hidden in his breast, with strong ambition and high purposes, and perhaps not unmindful of certain maidenly opinions, en tertained at Keene and Salem, as to what the world and young men should be, may well be forgiven if he measures his fellows by exacting standards, standards to which he endeavors to conform his own conduct. Perhaps it was the memory of a girl at Keene that provoked this little irritation. Sunday, Sept. 21. Some men are fools, utter and inexpressible fools. I went over to Dr. Z s last night to call on Miss . Heaven knows I am quite indifferent to her charms, and called merely out of politeness, not caring to have her think I slighted her. But the Dr. in the con temptible suspicion that he is full of, chose to interpret otherwise. William X was there, whom I allowed to converse with Miss Y while I talked with the Dr. s lady. The Dr. watched me, though I was not aware of it at the time, till happening to rise to take a bottle of cologne, out of a mere whim, and applying some of it to my handker- 122 FRANCIS PARKMAN chief, the idiot made a remark, in a meaning tone, about " long walks " in the evening. He soon after asked me to take a glass of wine, say ing that it would make me feel better. He whis pered in my ear that X would go soon and I better stay. What could I do or say ? I longed to tell him the true state of my feelings, and above all what I thought of his suspicious imper tinence. I left the house vexed beyond measure at being pitied as a jealous lover, when one ob ject of my visit to Miss that evening was to prove to her and the rest how free I was from the influence of her attractions. Is it not hard for a man of sense to penetrate all the depths of a blockhead s folly ? and to know what inter pretation such a fellow will put on his conduct ? I sent him a letter which I think will trouble not a little his jealous and suspicious temper. . . . L s freaks ; his disgusting habits at table ; windows broken and he will not mend them ; goes to B s room, looks into his drawers, " Hulloo, you Ve got some gingerbread ! " invites himself to spend the evening there ; stays till morning, and sleeps standing against the wall, like a horse ! Neither was our young gentleman very broad- minded : May 30, 1845. A great meeting of the Fou- rierites in Tremont Chapel. Most of them were rather a mean set of fellows several foreign ers plenty of women, none pretty there was most cordial shaking of hands and mutual con- A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 123 gratulations before the meeting began. A dirty old man four feet high, filthy with tobacco, came and sat down by me and was very enthusiastic. He thought Mr. Kipley, who made the opening speech, "one of the greatest men our coun try can produce." Kipley was followed by a stout old man ; he spoke with his hands in his pockets, and gave nothing but statistics, in a very dry uninteresting manner. It surprised me to see these old fellows, who looked like any thing but enthusiasts, attached to the cause. H , the editor from N. Y., spoke in a very weak indecisive manner, seemingly afraid of himself and his audience. . . . Brisbane and Dana followed in a pair of windy speeches, and Channing was beginning a ditto when I came away. They say that there is a system of laws by which the world is to be governed " harmo niously," and that they have discovered those laws. F. was there looking much more like a lunatic or a beast than a man. The young man had standards of his own ; to his thinking there were certain things a man should endeavor to do, certain behaviors to which a gentleman must conform ; and as he was endowed with a masterful quality of mind and an impatience of bad work, Frank had a youthful tendency to abrupt and severe judg ments ; of which, be it said, there is not a trace in his history. At Cambridge, soon after the summoning bell of the third Wednesday, he began a new note- 124 FRANCIS PARKMAN book, not of the holiday kind incased in green leather, but a large square blue-covered notebook intended for the base uses of grinds. This little book proves his great zeal in acquiring know ledge of European history. Long notes from Gibbon on polytheism, policy, population, roads, trade, and other great matters, so heavy to read, so light to forget. On Gibbon s heels follow Robertson and the Feudal System, then Gibbon again, who had not been finished but intermitted ; after him de Mably and Sismondi, then Gibbon back again, like a great whale coming up to breathe, all about kings, popes, declines of this and growths of that ; then, on loose and separated pages as befitted a lesser dignity, hints of Polizi- ano and Savonarola. Then come Sully, Wraxall, Michelet, glimpses of the humanities, and so on through close pages of abstracts and memo randa, until Notebook, No. 2, is reached, which to the reader s relief of mind is dated six months later, where Frank makes a headlong plunge into the Holy Roman Empire, and all for the sake of a background for Indian and coureur de bois. Macaulay, von Ranke, Guizot, Dunham, Millot, Pfeffel, Giannone (unless perchance these latter two be makers and not writers of history), pri mogeniture, Salic law, patriotism, vavasours, de cretals, Venice, heresy, and despotism, all come up to be taxed according to the decree of the A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 125 young Csesar, who had resolved to put a new province under his subjection. No doubt even such a hearty appetite, whetted by ambition, helped by a strong memory, could not digest the great stretch of recorded time from Augus tus to the sailing of Jacques Cartier from Havre de Grace, but he learned enough to know what he must follow up more closely and what he might pass by. Professor Wendell relates how he once met Parkman in the Louvre, in front of a picture of the murder of the due de Guise, and Parkman immediately recounted with finished detail all the story. The immediate service of the Roman Empire, of the feudal system, of mediaeval Europe was, not to stand either as scenery or background, but to fill the vast spaces behind, where carpenters, machinists, stage- managers toil and sweat, all to cast the right lights upon the stage on which Pontiac was to play his brilliant part. When the Law School opened, Frank took a room in Divinity Hall, and using Blackstone as a stalking horse betook himself to the immedi ate object of his thoughts. Here is a list of some of the books he took from the college library while in college and at the Law School : Scott, Shakespeare, Coleridge, Goldsmith, Dr. John son, Irving, Chateaubriand, Carlyle, Machiavelli in Italian, and, first interspersed but soon domi- 126 FRANCIS PARKMAN nating general reading, books of American his tory, "Long s Expedition," "Indian Wars," "New Hampshire Historical Collection," "Lewis and Clark," " Travels in Canada," " American Annals," " Rogers s Journal," " Carver s Trav els," " Bouquet s Expedition," " Tracts on the War," " Charlevoix," Colden s " Five Nations," " Moeurs des Sauvages," and scores more, many 1 or all contributing their tale of notes to fill little books. But study did not play too tyrannical a part in his life ; he gave friendship and social pleasure their dues. PARKMAN TO GEORGE S. HALE, KEENE, N. H. CAMBRIDGE, Monday, Oct. 6, [1844]. DEAR GEORGE, . . . When shall I hear of you and of your intentions with regard to your pro fession ? Have you decided on the black gown ? Believe me it will turn out the best spec. I am down at Divinity, devoting one hour per diem to law, the rest to my own notions. It is a little dismal here without the fellers, and no Gary [George Blankern Gary, a classmate] to laugh at life a dull, unchanging monotony, varied by a constitutional walk, or an evening expedition to see Macready. . . . We have here in the Law School a sprinkling of fine fellows from north, south, east, and west some in the quiet studying line, some in the all Hell style, and some a judicious combination A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 127 of both. Dr. Walker pronounces a " very good spirit " to prevail among the undergraduates, so that there is no chance of a rebellion or any other recreation to entertain us lookers-on. . . . Please remember me to your father, mother, and sister. Yrs. very truly, FRANK PARKMAN. HALE TO PARKMAN, CAMBRIDGE KEBNE, Oct. 28, 1844. DEAR FRANK, . . .In common with you I have paid a little attention to Blackstone, and hope to finish the second volume this week, but not in such a way as to feel confident that I am gaining much certain knowledge. Will you tell me when you write how you study at C, at what [and what] your lectures amount to, how fast you read, etc. [embarrassing questions to a young gentleman whose attention was already fixed on a "Ranger s Adventure " and a " Scalp-Hunter "]. . . . You ask about the black gown It trem bles in the balance. Would I could see my way clear I should certainly feel more at ease. To tell the truth sub rosa, I am not in love with any one of the learned professions. Oh glorious lit erary ease," sweet otium cum scientia " ! " glo rious humbug " " sweet nonsense," says Frank Parkman and perhaps rightly. In the mean time we both shout Vive Famitie and cherish faithfully the remembrance of youthful efforts which made the . . . [Chit Chat Club] worthy of fame to our vanity, as it certainly was a bond of union to its members. Please tell Ned D wight he owes me a letter, 128 FRANCIS PARKMAN and remember that you also are now ray debtor. Meanwhile and ever, I am most truly Yr. friend and classmate, GEORGE S. HALE. SAME TO SAME. KEENE,. N. H., Nov. 17, 1844. DEAR FRANK, ... I was very glad to hear from you so soon. Quick replies are the life of a friendly correspondence. ... I think the bal ance is rather inclining to sackcloth and the black gown, but I do not wish to decide at pre sent. Miss Hall was very glad to hear from you and will welcome you to Keene with pleasure whenever your memory or fancy may lead you away from your present literary ease. Do not forget the maxim I laid down upon quick replies. I assure you that your letters can never wear out the hearty welcome they always get from me. Most sincerely your friend, GEORGE S. HALE. Keene was not the only place where Frank was in favor. SALEM, Noon, Wednesday, Jan. 15th, 45. MY DEAR FRANK, You will scarcely ex pect me to pop in again on you so soon, but I wish to nudge your memory, which seems to be very short lived in regard to your Fair friends in this City of Peace ; our next Assembly is to morrow night, i. e. Thursday, Jan. 16th, 45, and my grandmother begs me to assure you that your chamber is ready for your occupation on A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 129 said night, and your knife and fork will be placed for as many meals as you will honor her ; for be it known to you, she considers the " Rev. Dr. P. s son as a young man of remarkably quick parts and very correct," to say nothing of his being my friend. ... So if the recollection of the last Assembly is agreeable enough to tempt you, and nothing better offers nearer home, you must come down to-morrow. Besides, we must chat over and arrange the Keene expedition. . . . If you will dine enfamille with us to-morrow, I should be happy to measure appetites with you. . . . Farewell my estomac cries " cupboard," and half -past one our primitive dinner hour is at hand. Kind remembrances, JOE PEABODY. Dancing and flirting, if that light word may be applied to Salem in the forties, were not the only indications of youth and lightheartedness to be found in the life of Francis Parkman, Junior, ostensible votary of Blackstone and Kent. PARKMAN TO HALE, KEENE, N. H. CAMBRIDGE, Nov. 24, 44. DEAR GEORGE, ... We wanted you the other night. Joe got up one of his old-fashioned suppers on a scale of double magnificence, in viting thereunto every specimen of the class of 44 that lingered within an accessible distance. There was old S. and Snaggy, N. D., Ned W. 130 FRANCIS PARKMAN (who by the way is off for Chili !), P., etc., etc. The spree was worthy of the entertainment. None got drunk, but all got jolly ; and Joe s champagne disappeared first ; then his Madeira ; and his whiskey punch would have followed suit if its copious supplies had not prevented. At first all was quiet and dignified, not unworthy of graduates ; but at length the steam found vent in three cheers for 44, and after that we did not cease singing and roaring till one o clock. ... I succeeded in actually singing in the chorus to Yankee Doodle without perceptibly annoying the rest. . . . The whole ended with smashing a dozen bottles . . . and a war dance with scalp yells in the middle of the Common, in the course of which several nightcapped heads appeared at the opened windows of the astonished neighbors. 1 PARKMAN TO GEORGE B. GARY. CAMBRIDGE, Dec. 15, 44. DEAR GEORGE, Here I am, down in Divin ity Hall enjoying to my heart s content that otium cum dignitate which you so affectionately admire ; while you poor devil are jolted in Eng lish coaches. . . . Do you not envy me in my lit erary ease ? a sea-coal fire a dressing-gown slippers a favorite author ; all set off by an occasional bottle of champagne, or a bowl of stewed oysters at Washburn s ? This is the cream of existence. To lay abed in the morning, till the sun has half melted away the trees and cas tles on the window-panes, and Nigger Lewis s fire is almost burnt out, listening meanwhile to 1 Life of Francis Parkman, p. 23. A MAKE-BELIEVE LAW STUDENT 131 the steps of the starved Divinities as they rush shivering and panting to their prayers and reci tations then to get up to a fashionable break fast at eleven then go to lecture find it a little too late, and adjourn to Joe Peabody s room for a novel, conversation, and a morning glass of Madeira. ... After all a man was made to be happy ; ambition is a humbug a dream of youth ; and exertion another ; . . . I think the morbid tendency to unnecessary action passes away as manhood comes on. . . . At this time he injured sight and health by getting up very early and studying by candle light, often without a fire. Perhaps you may imagine me under some vi nous influence in writing this. Not at all ; yet if I had written this a few nights ago, perhaps it might have smacked more of inspiration. We had a class spree ! Where if there was not much wit, there was, as the Vicar of Wakefield says, a great deal of laughing, not to mention singing, roaring, and unseemly noises of a miscellaneous character. . ." . Our brothers, whilom of ... [Chit Chat Club] accused me in the beginning of the term of an intention of authorship! probably taking the hint from the circumstance of my never appearing till eleven o clock, a la Scott ; but I believe they no longer suspect me of so ill advised an intention. It would run a little counter to my present principles, though I do remember the time when G. B. C. [Gary] meditated the Baron of B ; and Snow felt sure (in his cups) of being Captain General of Transatlantic 132 FRANCIS PARKMAN Literature, while your humble servant s less soar ing ambition aspired to the manufacture of blood and thunder chronicles of Indian squabbles and massacres. . . . You will answer this, will you not ? I am very eager to hear from you. Yours truly, F. PARKMAN. 1 Frank kept his purpose to himself, and con cealed from even his intimate friends that " Capt. Jonathan Carver " had been at work on a tale entitled " The Ranger s Adventure," and after that on another entitled " The Scalp-Hunter." 1 Life of Francis Parkman, pp. 19-22. CHAPTER XIII PREPAEATION FOR PONTIAC THE earlier progress of the relations between Frank and his first publisher may be deduced from the following letters : - KNICKERBOCKER OFFICE, NEW YORK, Feb. 18, 45. To Capt. JONATHAN CARVER : Dear Sir, I thank you most cordially for your excellent sketch," The Scalp-Hunter," which you were so good as to send us. It is truly a thrilling story, and, to my mind, the closing scene is worthy of Cooper s pen. It is even better than "The Ranger s Adventure," which graces our March issue. It shall have a " place of honor " in our April number. I need not say that we shall be but too happy to hear from you at all times ; and it gives me pleasure to say to you, that your impression of the character of the medium of communication with the public which you have chosen is by no means a mistaken one. If ever there was a peri odical that could be proud of its class of readers, it is the " Knickerbocker." There is an affection in the public mind toward it, which I am sure is not surpassed by any kindred work at home or 134 FRANCIS PARKMAN abroad. Pardon this seeming egotism, my dear sir. I love the "Old Knick.," having been for eleven years its editor ; and the feeling is widely shared ; for more than half our subscribers are of that long standing. Our corps of contributors God bless them ! can t be exceeded ; as one may see, by looking at their names on the cover. You will receive the " Knickerbocker " regu larly hereafter. Is " Capt. Jonathan Carver " a nom de plume ? I partly suspect so, since proba bility seems rather to favor the conclusion that a gentleman tolerably familiar with his own name would n t be very apt to make a mistake in spell ing it. I observe you subscribe yourself Captain " Jo/mathan " Carver ! May I hope to hear from you. Gratefully and truly yrs, L. GAYLORD CLARK. Capt. " JO//NATHAN " CARVER. KNICKERBOCKER SANCTUM, Monday, March 10th, 45. MY DEAR SIR, ... I must again cordially thank you for the " Scalp-Hunter." I am an " old stager " in matters of the sort ; and it must be something really "thrilling" to keep me awake at night, after reading a proof sheet. . . . I should be glad to hear from you as often as may be agreeable to you ; and as early as the sixth of each month, if intended for the ensuing Number. Very truly, your obliged L. GAYLORD CLARK. Frank was, not unnaturally, taxed by his friends with " concealment," or with what among law students was probably known as suppressio PREPARATION FOR PONTIAC 135 veri, the suppression of an important matter, which the intimacy of friendship claimed a title to hear. This charge, made by an affection that felt a little hurt to find itself ranked lower than it ranked itself, was not without justification. PARKMAN TO HALE, FEB. 13, 1845. By the way, what do you mean by charging me (for the fourth time, is it ?) with a design to write a novel, or a poem, or an essay, or what ever it is? Allow me to tell you that though the joke may be good, it is certainly old. . . . If you catch me writing anything of the sort, you might call me a " darned fool " with great pro priety as well as elegance. 1 Frank, boy and man, was not oversensitive to criticism. His own judgment was the only tribu nal of much consequence to him ; moreover, he was already in full cry upon the scent of Pontiac, " laboring through an army of musty books and antiquarian collections," and what between Eu ropean history, which he was reading hard, and a decent appearance of attending lectures on law, he was too much occupied to trouble him self with animadversions on what he deemed his own business. And, though Frank was a good son, then and always, he did not take his family into his confidence about his literary work any more than he did his comrades. This 1 Life of Francis Parkman, p. 22. 136 FRANCIS PARKMAN was natural, as his father was out of sympathy with his interests, and wished him as fathers do to pursue a safe career, and win a high position at the Suffolk bar. But Frank was always dutiful, and their relations, if not inti mate, were right-minded and affectionate. This summer s trip was begun in July, but in the mean time, by dint of five o clock in the morning application, Frank had sent off the copy for another tale to be published in the " Knicker bocker Magazine" for June, and also a poem, entitled, " The New Hampshire Ranger," to be published in August. This year s little notebook, crammed as usual with memoranda of MSS., maps, pamphlets, and addresses of possible anti quarians, shows that Frank stopped in New York long enough to make caustic notes on some young women, and quickly continued his journey to Phil adelphia. PHILADELPHIA, July 14, 45. DEAR MOTHER, Though I have been sev eral days here, I have been compelled to re main quiet and passive by the furious heat ; it has now got up to 100 of the thermometer. There is positively no place tolerably comfort able but the bath, where I spend most of my time. Yesterday I was at a Quaker meeting, where, as it was too hot for the Spirit to move anybody, the whole congregation slept in perfect quiet for an hour and then walked off, without a PREPARATION FOR PONTIAC 137 word said. . . . The Philadelpliians have shrunk away to the dimensions of Frenchmen, by the effects of the climate. People lounge about at corners and around pumps, rapidly cooking in the sun. ... I go to Lancaster to-morrow, thence to Harrisburg, thence to Pittsburg, thence give a look at Ohio, and thence go to Detroit, from which I propose to return by Niagara and Albany. My love to Carrie [his sister] and the rest, and believe me, Affectionately yours, FRANK. At Lancaster he interested himself in observ ing the Dutch farmers ; at Harrisburg he divided his attention between the Dutch and the Sus- quehanna, and made expeditions in the neighbor hood to scenes of old forays. The railroads met with his disapproval, so did some of his fellow passengers ; " a drunken, swearing puppy in the cars first amused and then disgusted me." At Buffalo he took the steamer for Detroit in com pany with " a host of Norwegian emigrants, very diminutive, very ugly, very stupid and brutal in appearance, and very dirty. They appeared to me less intelligent and as ignorant as the Indians." At Detroit he studied all the places which he describes in the chapters relating to the siege of the fort by Pontiac. Thence he went down Lake Huron to Mackinaw, noting woodland and marsh, promontory, beach and island, Indian huts and 138 FRANCIS PARKMAN Canadian settlements. Here he met a lieutenant in the regular army, an antiquarian like him self (" of which title I am a little ashamed," he modestly says). He went about as usual, hunting up the oldest inhabitants, buttonholing all per sons suspected of special knowledge, conversing with Indians, crawling into caves, climbing hills, measuring fortifications, pacing the sites of an cient forts, jotting down odd scraps of informa tion ready for use thereafter. Nor did he forget to find room in his diary for biting comments: The dyspeptic man who insisted on helping himself to such morsels as suited him (with his own knife and fork). He had nursed himself till he had reached a state of egotistic selfish ness. . . . Niagara, Aug. 17. The " Cataract " is a bloated, noisy house ; a set of well-dressed blackguards predominated at table. ... I have looked at the great cataract, but do not feel in the temper to appreciate it, or embrace its gran deur. An old woman, who for the pure love of talking and an itching to speak to every one, sev eral times addressed me with questions about she knew not what, filled me with sensations of par ticular contempt instead of amusing me, as they would have done had not my stomach been dis ordered. I sat down near the rapids. " What s all this but a little water and foam ? " thought I. " What a pack of damned fools ! " was my inter nal commentary on every group that passed, and some of them deserved it. But, thank Heaven, I have partially recovered my good humor, can PREPARATION FOR PONTIAC 139 sympathize with the species, and to some degree feel the sublimity of the great cataract. How many of the visitors here deserve to look on it ? I saw in the tower a motherly dame and her daughters, amid the foam and thunder and the tremendous pouring of the waters. "Oh, ma ! (half whispered) he s looking at us ! There, I Ve torn my sash. I must go home and pin it up," etc. From Niagara he went to Oswego, Syracuse, to the little Onondaga River, where he inspected the council-house of the Indians, presented to the chiefs gifts of cigars and pipes, and for return extracted what information he could ; thence to Oneida, to the valley of the Mohawk, and home ward by Albany and New York. These little notebooks not only show where Frank went and what he did, but by indirection reveal his dutiful character ; for, secluded on back pages, there are accounts of expenditure, kept in boyish-clerkly fashion and somewhat spas modically. Frank had little natural taste for the counting-room virtues, but he wished to please his father, and so we find entries such as these : Funds at starting, Tuesday, July 8, 1845 $103.17 A bill of credit for $100 more. July 8. Cravat $ .75 Shave .06 Cider .04 Ticket to N. Y. 2. " Supper on board .50 140 FRANCIS PARKMAN 9th Ale .06 " Boots .12 Porter .11 Carriage to Astor H. .50 Baths .25 and so on with minute precision till his return. In this same little book, at the top of a page, in among notes of American history, of Indians, of frontiersmen, of journals, of gazettes, and all the heady current of furious historic chase, is written, abbreviated in order to squeeze in amid more important matter : M. W. F. Greenleaf Tues. T. S. Story 10-11 o clock Story on Bailments Tuesday from 10-11 Blackstone on Wednesday 11-12 2 d & 3 d Sections espe cially. A poor pennyworth of law to an intolerable deal of border war ; this affords a fair measure of the division of his interest between law and history. The next year he lived at home in Boston, partly because his third term at the Law School would be completed on January 16, and partly be cause he was not well ; at times he lay in bed and listened to his little sister, Eliza, read a stumpy little volume of Blackstone, and on one day at least Frithiof s Saga. The girl was shy about reading poetry, and the admired big brother, PREPARATION FOR PONTIAC 141 perceiving her diffidence, turned and praised her; then and always his careless seeming but instinctive tenderness knit bonds that grew stronger and stronger all their lives. In spite of Kent and Blackstone, Frank con tinued to give his almost exclusive interest to historical research, and we find traces of a wide spread correspondence, Ohio, Delaware, Italy, questions and answers about Pontiac, Paxton Boys, Jesuits, etc. Some of these letters were to his cousin, J. Coolidge Shaw, a young man lately converted to Catholicism, then studying in Rome for the priesthood. SHAW TO PARKMAN. ROME, Nov. 16th, 1845. MY DEAR FKANK, I have inquired at the Gesu of Father Glover and Father de Villefort concerning your Canada affairs, but it was in 1762 that the Company of Jesus was suppressed in France, and though the missionaries in Can ada were not meddled with, this of course de stroyed the communication between them and the mother country. [Here follows advice as to getting historical information, and the names of several Jesuit Fathers.] If these cannot give you what you seek, I fear it cannot be found. Do you think you shall stick to the Law, or cut it in a year or two to give yourself completely to history ? I am glad you have taken this turn, for we want literary men, and a fair historian 142 FRANCIS PARKMAN is a great desideratum. ... It was history made Hunter a Catholic ; and I think if you continue it, it will make you one ; . . . and we may live to see the poor Pope stripped of what little earthly power yet remains to him, and as completely a beggar as St. Peter or our Saviour himself ; but we shall see him still the Pope, and his people still look to him as father. Negas ? Well, we shall see. . . . Remember me with all love to Uncle Francis. . . . Tell him we are now studying the treatise De Trini- tate, which I think, if he read it, would convince him that our Lord is not over well pleased at being stripped of his Divinity and only honored as a man when he ought to be worshiped as a God. Hope to have the pleasure of reading your work when it is out, and that its success will give you a right to make it your fixed pur suit. . . . Truly and affectionately yrs, J. C. SHAW. With theology and formal religion Frank had little sympathy ; but random comments in his diaries show that all his life he had a " reverent gratitude for Christianity " and a strong senti ment for what he deemed a real and masculine religion. Probably the epithet, " reverent agnos tic," which near, the end of life he accepted in a conversation with his sister, of right belonged to him in youth. Manliness was an essential char acteristic of everything that found favor in his PREPARATION FOR PONTIAC 143 eyes, and he believed the agnostic position the most manly, for with that belief, so he thought, a man stood on his own feet and faced the universe, asking no prop except his own stout heart. But metaphysics never interested him, and at this time history crowded out every other thought from his mind. Frank now perceived that he had reached a point in his studies at which he must take a new course. On his summer excursions he had got much information concerning the Yankee fron tiersman, he had read all the books he could find that dealt with his subject, he had quizzed farmer, antiquarian, and wayfarer for tradition, gossip, hearsay ; he must now study the Indians, not the tamed savages living by the Kennebec, or the Onondaga, but the aboriginal savages, in their homes. He knew that personal knowledge of their life and customs was essential to his work, and now that he had performed the filial duty of taking his lawyer s degree, he felt that it was high time to go westward to the land of the Sioux and the Snakes. Accordingly he gladly accepted a suggestion from Mr. Quincy A. Shaw, Coolidge s brother, he, too, bred upon Cooper and Catlin, to join him and to take a journey towards Oregon and California. Already that year, immediately on the comple tion of his third term in the Law School, Frank 144 FRANCIS PARKMAN had made a trip to Philadelphia and Baltimore, on which he had acquired certain valuable ex periences carefully jotted down in his notebook : "N. B. Always take a driver s card. . . . N. B. Employ a porter in preference to a carriage for baggage. . . . Always ask for a porter s card see your baggage ticketed in person and get the number of the car that contains it." From this trip he got home about the middle of February, and on March 28th started off again, this time on his memorable expedition upon the Oregon Trail. The careful little record of accounts, in which bills for copying MSS. begin to appear item 11.50, item $5.00, item $25.00 show that he went to New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and so to St. Louis. FRANK TO HIS MOTHER. CINCINNATI, April 9th, 1846. DEAR MOTHER, ... To-day I reached Cincinnati, after a two days passage down the Ohio. The boat was good enough though filled with a swarm of half-civilized reprobates, gam bling, swearing, etc., among themselves. . . . The great annoyance on board these boats is the ab surd haste of everybody to gulp down their meals. Ten minutes suffices for dinner, and it requires great skill and assiduity to secure a competent allowance in that space of time. As I don t much fancy this sort of proceeding, I generally manage to carry off from the table PREPARATION FOR PONTIAC 145 enough to alleviate the pangs of hunger without choking myself. The case is much the same here in the best hotel in Cincinnati. When you sit down, you must begin without delay grab whatever is within your reach, and keep hold of the plate by main force till you have helped yourself. Eat up as many potatoes, onions, or turnips as you can lay hands on ; and take your meat afterwards, whenever you have a chance to get it. It is only by economizing time in this fashion that you can avoid starvation such a set of beasts are these western men. ... In three or four days I shall be at St. Louis, stop ping a short time at Louisville, Kentucky. My eyes are decidedly improved, and my health ex cellent. In going about Cincinnati this morning, I found a most ridiculous piece of architecture, in utter defiance of taste or common sense ; and learned that it was built by Mrs. Trollope during her stay here. ... I am, dear mother, Very affectionately yrs, F. P. This letter must have crossed two from his sister Caroline. CAROLINE TO FRANK. April 4, 1846. MY DEAR FKANK, ... I don t believe you can form any idea of your importance in our family. We wish for you just as much to-day as we did a week ago, when you left us. I was really truly sorry that I had not a better com mand of myself when you went away, for it is too bad to give way to the feelings and make a leave- 146 FRANCIS PARKMAN taking for such a pleasant journey so gloomy. If I could have gone over the goocl-by again, it should have been with smiles rather than tears, for I would not be so selfish as to think of my self, when there is so much pleasure in prospect for you. . . . With true love, CARRIE. CAROLINE TO FRANK. April 7, BOSTON, 1846. ... I spent Sunday with Aunt Mary, who misses your visits and the prospect of them very much. I mean to spend a day or two with her every week. Mrs. Swan wished me to give her love to you, and says that she cannot realize that such a quiet little boy as you were should ever be such a " Will-o-the-Wisp." ... I for got to tell you in our last letter how extremely disappointed Perry [his classmate, H. J. Perry] was on coming to see you on the afternoon you had gone. . . . They all send their love, espe cially Elly [his little brother], who misses you very much, as we all do. . . . With much love, CARRIE. Frank was making notes all the time. He had stopped to see the site of Fort Duquesne, the remains of Fort Pitt, the spot of Braddock s de feat, and various scenes of border war ; nor did he pretermit his practice of making comments on the people he met. " The English reserve or offishness seems to be no part of the western character I observe this trait in myself to- PREPARATION FOR PONTIAC 147 day, for instance, when a young fellow expressed satisfaction that he should accompany me to St. Louis, I felt rather inclined to shake him off, though he had made himself agreeable enough." This trait of Parkman s remained with him through life ; it may receive sympathy or blame, according to temperament, or perhaps accord ing to the mood of the moment, but those who, like this young fellow, wished to come within a line beyond which Parkman proposed that they should stay, were sometimes wounded in their vanity. He reached St. Louis about the 13th of April, and was soon joined by Shaw. CHAPTER XIV IN the early part of 1846 Oregon was still the whole country west of the Rocky Mountains, stretching from Mexico (as it was then still un- dispossessed by the United States), on the south, as far north as the parallel 50 40 , and was jointly occupied by Great Britain and the United States, until later in that year the treaty fixed the boundary between them at the 49th par allel. The trail was the somewhat uncertain track followed by emigrants and traders. This expedition, which Shaw wished to ex tend to California but could not as Frank had not the time to give, took them into the vast region east of the Rocky Mountains which is now cut up into the States of Nebraska, Colo rado, and Wyoming. Parkman and Shaw left St. Louis on the 28th of April, 1846, on board a river steamboat in a somewhat disorderly company of traders, adventurers, gamblers, negroes, Indians, and emi- 1 See The Oregon Trail. OFF ON THE OREGON TRAIL 149 grants. They landed on the western frontier of Missouri near Kansas City, which they reached the next day. There they made their headquar ters while purchasing horses, mules, and various articles necessary for the journey. Near by, en camped on the prairie, were a multitude of emi grants. Some of them were sober men, inter ested in the doctrine of regeneration, others were rogues from the lowest layer of society, prompted by a forlorn hope of bettering their condition, or by mere restlessness, or perhaps by a wish to shake off the restraints of law and society. Parkman and Shaw did not like such company, and therefore they joined forces with a small party of Englishmen for the sake of mutual protection. Their first experiences of the journey westward were a mild foretaste of what was to come. No sooner were the animals put in harness than the shaft-mule reared and plunged, burst ropes and straps, and nearly flung the cart into the Mis souri. The beast was uncontrollable, and an other had to be procured. This done, their cart started, but had barely gone a few miles before it stuck fast in a muddy gully, where it remained for more than an hour. Their outfit was suffi cient but not elaborate. Their guide was dressed in broad felt hat, moccasins, and deerskin trou sers ; he rode a Wyandot pony and carried his 150 FRANCIS PARKMAN rifle in front, resting on the pommel of the sad dle, bullet-pouch and powder-horn at his side, and knife in belt. Parkman and Shaw wore flannel shirts, buckskin breeches, and moccasins ; each had a blanket rolled up behind, holsters with heavy pistols, and the trail-rope coiled and fastened to the front of the saddle. Each had a gun, and a horse beside the one he rode. The cart carried the provisions, tent, ammunition, blankets, and presents for Indians. The mule teer, Deslauriers, was a Canadian. Neither fatigue, exposure, nor hard labor could ever impair his cheerfulness and gayety, or his politeness to his bourgeois [employer] ; and when night came he would sit down by the fire, smoke his pipe, and tell stories with the utmost contentment. The prairie was his element. The guide, Henry Chatillon, was of a much higher type ; he came of a family of French Ca nadians, though he was born in Missouri. He was a tall, powerful, fine-looking fellow. The prairies had been his school ; he could neither read nor write, but he had a natural re finement and delicacy of mind, such as is rare even in women. His manly face was a mirror of uprightness, simplicity, and kindness of heart ; he had, moreover, a keen perception of charac ter, and a tact that would preserve him from flagrant error in any society. He had not the OFF ON THE OREGON TRAIL 151 restless energy of an Anglo- American. He was content to take things as he found them ; and his chief fault arose from an excess of easy gen erosity not conducive to thriving in the world. Yet it was commonly remarked of him that, whatever he might choose to do with what belonged to himself, the property of others was always safe in his hands. His bravery was as much celebrated in the mountains as his skill in hunting ; but it is characteristic of him that, in a country where the rifle is the chief arbiter be tween man and man, he was very seldom in volved in quarrels. Once or twice, indeed, his quiet good-nature had been mistaken and pre sumed upon, but the consequences of the error were such that no one was ever known to repeat it. No better evidence of the intrepidity of his temper could be asked than the common report that he had killed more than thirty grizzly bears. I have never, in the city or in the wilderness, met a better man than my true-hearted friend, Henry Chatillon. After a few days of varied discomforts, chief of which were insects and thunderstorms, they came to the Big Blue River, which they crossed on a raft, and then they struck the regular trail of the Oregon emigrants. Soon they came upon a party of them. These were the first emigrants that we had overtaken, although we had found abundant and melancholy traces of their progress throughout the course of the journey. Sometimes we passed 152 FRANCIS PARKMAN the grave of one who had sickened and died on the way. The earth was usually torn up, and covered thickly with wolf -tracks. Some had es caped this violation. One morning a piece of plank, standing upright on the summit of a grassy hill, attracted our notice, and riding up to it, we found the following words very roughly traced upon it, apparently with a red-hot iron : MARY ELLIS Died May 7th, 1845. Aged two mouths. Such tokens were of common occurrence. Here a small emigrant train was invited by the Englishmen to join company with them, much to the disgust of Parkman and Shaw, as the emigrant wagons drawn by oxen must ne cessarily hinder their progress. The emigrants themselves, however, were good fellows, and all journeyed on in amity ; in one respect the addi tion was an advantage, for every night two men mounted guard, and with a greater number each man s turn came round less frequently. Park man rather enjoyed his watches in spite of loss of sleep and rest. A few days journey brought them to the top of some sand-hills, from which they could see the valley of the Platte. We all drew rein, and sat joyfully looking down upon the prospect. It was right welcome, strange, too, and striking to the imagination ; OFF ON THE OREGON TRAIL 153 and yet it had not one picturesque or beauti ful feature ; nor had it any of the features of grandeur, other than its vast extent, its soli tude, and its wildness. For league after league a plain as level as a lake was outspread beneath us ; here and there the Platte, divided into a dozen thread-like sluices, was traversing it, and an occasional clump of wood, rising in the midst like a shadowy island, relieved the monotony of the waste. No living thing was moving through out the vast landscape, except the lizards that darted over the sand and through the rank grass and prickly pears at our feet. [From here their course lay westward through a long, narrow, sandy plain, flanked by two lines of sand-hills, and stretching nearly to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Before and behind them the plain spread level to the horizon.] Sometimes it glared in the sun, an expanse of hot bare sand ; some times it was veiled by long coarse grass. Skulls and whitening bones of buffalo were scattered everywhere ; the ground was tracked by myriads of them. . . . The naked landscape is, of itself, dreary and monotonous enough; and yet the wild beasts and wild men that frequent the val ley of the Platte make it a scene of interest and excitement to the traveler. Of those who have journeyed there, scarcely one, perhaps, fails to look back with fond regret to his horse and his rifle. [Here they made acquaintance with the Pawnee Indians, an idle, thieving tribe. Many stories of their depredations were current, and the travelers kept careful watch. The weather was most fitful.] This very morning, for in- 154 FRANCIS PARKMAN stance, was close and sultry, the sun rising with a faint oppressive heat ; when suddenly darkness gathered in the west, and a furious blast of sleet and hail drove full in our faces, icy cold, and urged with such demoniac vehemence that it felt like a storm of needles. It was curious to see the horses ; they faced about in extreme dis pleasure, holding their tails like whipped dogs, and shivering as the angry gusts, howling louder than a concert of wolves, swept over us. Wright s [the Englishmen s muleteer] long train of mules came sweeping round before the storm, like a flight of snow-birds driven by a winter tempest. . . . The thing was too good to last long ; and the instant the puffs of wind subsided we pitched our tents, and remained in camp for the rest of a gloomy and lowering day. [The even tenor of the journey was soon broken by the presence of buffalo. Their tracks had been frequent for some days, and a few stray bulls had been shot, but before this no herd had been seen.] One day somebody cried, " Buffalo, buffalo ! " It was but a grim old bull, roaming the prairie by himself in misanthropic seclusion ; but there might be more behind the hills. Dread ing the monotony and languor of the camp, Shaw and I saddled our horses, buckled our holsters in their places, and set out with Henry Chatillon in search of the game. Henry, not intending to take part in the chase, but merely conducting us, carried his rifle with him, while we left ours behind as incumbrances. We rode for some five or six miles, and saw no living thing but wolves, snakes, and prairie-dogs. . . . The ground was OFF ON THE OREGON TRAIL 155 none of the best for a race, and grew worse as we proceeded ; indeed, it soon became desperately bad, consisting of abrupt hills and deep hol lows, cut by frequent ravines not easy to pass. At length, a mile in advance, we saw a band of bulls. Some were scattered grazing over a green declivity, while the rest were crowded together in the wide hollow below. Making a circuit, to keep out of sight, we rode towards them, until we ascended a hill within a furlong of them, be yond which nothing intervened that could pos sibly screen us from their view. We dismounted behind the ridge, just out of sight, drew our saddle-girths, examined our pistols, and mount ing again, rode over the hill and descended at a canter towards them, bending close to our horses necks. Instantly they took the alarm ; those on the hill descended, those below gathered into a mass, and the whole got into motion, shouldering each other along at a clumsy gallop. We fol lowed, spurring our horses to full speed ; and as the herd rushed, crowding and trampling in ter ror through an opening in the hills, we were close at their heels, half suffocated by the clouds of dust. But as we drew near, their alarm and speed increased ; our horses, being new to the work, showed signs of the utmost fear, bounding vio lently aside as we approached, and refusing to enter among the herd. The buffalo now broke into several small bodies, scampering over the hills in different directions, and I lost sight of Shaw ; neither of us knew where the other had gone. Old Pontiac [Parkman s horse] ran like a frantic elephant uphill and down hill, his pon- 156 FRANCIS PARKMAN derous hoofs striking the prairies like sledge hammers. He showed a curious mixture of eagerness and terror, straining to overtake the panic-stricken herd, but constantly recoiling in dismay as we drew near. The fugitives, indeed, offered no very attractive spectacle, with their shaggy manes and the tattered remnants of their last winter s hair covering their backs in irregu lar shreds and patches, and flying off in the wind as they ran. At length I urged my horse close behind a bull, and after trying in vain by blows and spurring to bring him alongside, I fired from this disadvantageous position. At the report Pontiac swerved so much that I was again thrown a little behind the game. The bullet, entering too much in the rear, failed to disable the bull, for a buffalo requires to be shot at par ticular points or he will certainly escape. The herd ran up a hill, and I followed in pursuit. As Pontiac rushed headlong down on the other side, I saw Shaw and Henry descending the hollow on the right at a leisurely gallop ; and in front the buffalo were just disappearing behind the crest of the next hill, their short tails erect, and their hoofs twinkling through a cloud of dust. At that moment I heard Shaw and Henry shout ing to me ; but the muscles of a stronger arm than mine could not have checked at once the furious course of Pontiac, whose mouth was as insensible as leather. Added to this, I rode him that morn ing with a snaffle, having the day before, for the benefit of my other horse, unbuckled from my bri dle the curb which I commonly used. A stronger OFF ON THE OREGON TRAIL 157 and hardier brute never trod the prairie ; but the novel sight of the buffalo filled him with terror, and when at full speed he was almost incontrol- lable. Gaining the top of the ridge, I saw nothing of the buffalo ; they had all vanished amid the intricacies of the hills and hollows. Reloading my pistols in the best way I could, I galloped on until I saw them again scuttling along at the base of the hill, their panic somewhat abated. Down went old Pontiac among them, scattering them to the right and left ; and then we had another long chase. About a dozen bulls were before us scouring over the hills, rushing down the decliv ities with tremendous weight and impetuosity, and then laboring with a weary gallop upward. Still Pontiac, in spite of spurring and beating, would not close with them. One bull at length fell a little behind the rest, and by dint of much effort I urged my horse within six or eight yards of his side. His back was darkened with sweat ; he was panting heavily, while his tongue lolled out a foot from his jaws. Gradually I came up abreast of him, urging Pontiac with leg and rein nearer to his side, when suddenly he did what buffalo in such circumstances will always do, he slackened his gallop, and turning towards us, with an aspect of mingled rage and distress, low ered his huge, shaggy head for a charge. Pontiac, with a snort, leaped aside in terror, nearly throw ing me to the ground, as I was wholly unprepared for such an evolution. I raised my pistol in a passion to strike him in the head, but think ing better of it, fired the bullet after the bull, who had resumed his flight ; then drew rein, and 158 FRANCIS PARKMAN determined to join my companions. It was high time. The breath blew hard from Pontiac s nos trils, and the sweat rolled in big drops down his sides ; I felt myself as if drenched in warm water. ... I looked about for some indications to show me where I was, and what course I ought to pur sue. I might as well have looked for landmarks in the midst of the ocean. How many miles I had run, or in what direction, I had no idea ; and around me the prairie was rolling in steep swells and pitches, without a single distinctive feature to guide me. I had a little compass hung at my neck ; and ignorant that the Platte at this point diverged considerably from its east erly course, I thought that by keeping to the northward I should certainly reach it. So I turned and rode about two hours in that direc tion. The prairie changed as I advanced, soften ing away into easier undulations, but nothing like the Platte appeared, nor any sign of a human being : the same wild, endless expanse lay around me still ; and to all appearance I was as far from my object as ever. I began now to think myself in danger of being lost, and, rein ing in my horse, summoned the scanty share of woodcraft that I possessed (if that term be appli cable on the prairie) to extricate me. It occurred to me that the buffalo might prove my best guides. I soon found one of the paths made by them in their passage to the river ; it ran nearly at right angles to my course ; but turning my horse s head in the direction it indicated, his freer gait and erected ears assured me that I was right. . . . Being now free from anxiety, I was at leisure OFF ON THE OREGON TRAIL 159 to observe minutely the objects around me ; and here for the first time I noticed insects wholly different from any of the varieties found far ther eastward. Gaudy butterflies fluttered about my horse s head ; strangely formed beetles, glit tering with metallic lustre, were crawling upon plants that I had never seen before ; multitudes of lizards, too, were darting like lightning over the sand. He followed the buffalo path until at last he came in sight of the river, and then with the aid of Pontiac he found the emigrant trail, and see ing that his party had not passed he turned to meet them. Having been slightly ill on leaving camp in the morning, six or seven hours of rough riding had fatigued me extremely. I soon stopped, there fore, flung my saddle on the ground, and with my head resting on it, and my horse s trail-rope tied loosely to my arm, lay waiting the arrival of the party, speculating meanwhile on the extent of the injuries Pontiac had received. Soon afterwards Shaw and the mule-team came up, and the party resumed their way. CHAPTER XV THE OGILLALLAH ON June 8th the party forded the South Fork of the Platte. Here they parted from their com panions. The Englishmen affected authority to decide when and where they should encamp, and were domineering in their bearing ; so Parkman and Shaw, careless of the security afforded by numbers, took a somewhat abrupt leave, and, having less baggage, soon left the others behind. They pushed on along the North Fork of the Platte without adventures, beyond meeting a Da kota village wandering along in rude procession under the command of Old Smoke, and crossed what is now the boundary between Nebraska and Wyoming. They forded Laramie Creek, the southern of two streams that unite just east of Fort Laramie to form the North Fork of the Platte, and, a short distance beyond, arrived at the fort. This post was occupied, not by a gar rison of United States troops, as the name might suggest, for in fact the nearest soldiers were seven hundred miles to the east, but by servants THE OGILLALLAH 161 of the American Fur Company, who bought skins and furs of the trappers and Indians. The scene was like that in a French fort on the fron tier a hundred years before. The fort itself, built of bricks dried in the sun, was oblong in shape. Its walls were about fifteen feet high, and were fortified at two of the corners by blockhouses built of clay. Within, the area was divided by a partition ; on one side was a court surrounded by storerooms, offices, and bed rooms ; on the other side was an inclosure where the horses and mules were shut in at night. The inhabitants were a motley crew. There were the servants of the company, men of French Ca nadian blood, in breeding and education not much above their friends the Indians, who loafed about with solemn faces in white buffalo robes, or dozed in the sunshine. There were gayly painted squaws in large numbers, a troop of mongrel children tumbling about, and half-breed trappers, who had either just come back from a trapping expedition or were about to start. Parkman and Shaw were hospitably received. The chamber, ordinarily occupied by the bour geois [the " boss "] of the post, who was absent, was put at their disposal. Its furniture was a bare bedstead, two chairs, a chest of drawers, and a pail ; buffalo robes were stretched on the floor for beds, as the bedstead was only an orna- 162 FRANCIS PARKMAN ment. On the wall, side by side, hung a crucifix and a fresh scalp. The food consisted of dried buffalo meat, " an excellent thing for strength ening the teeth," and cakes of bread. Here they stayed several days, observing the ways and cus toms of their hosts and of the Indians. Old Smoke s village had encamped near by, and they used to go there and spend most of their even ings. Parkman was very glad to observe the Indian at home, but he desired with greater eagerness to study him on the warpath ; for this an op portunity seemed to be at hand. The son of an Ogillallah chief, The Whirlwind, had been killed by the Snake Indians; and in revenge The Whirlwind had roused all the Dakota villages within three hundred miles to take part in a campaign against the Snakes. The Ogillallah In dians belong to the Dakota or Sioux tribe, and their kith and kin, having also grievances of their own against the Snakes, acknowledged their duty to punish the injury, and many villages, making altogether five thousand persons or more, were already on the march to the appointed meeting ground on the river Platte. There they were to celebrate the solemn rites which in In dian usage precede a campaign, and then the war riors, one thousand strong, were to start on the warpath. " I was greatly rejoiced to hear of it. I THE OGILLALLAH 163 had come into the country chiefly with a view of observing the Indian character. To accomplish my purpose it was necessary to live in the midst of them, and become, as it were, one of them. I proposed to join a village, and make myself an inmate of one of their lodges." The first plan had been to join Old Smoke s village, but Henry Chatillon, the guide, was very anxious to go to The Whirlwind s village to see his squaw, who belonged to that village, and was there very ill, so Parkman changed his plan to accord with Chatillon s desire. Parkman was not well he says : - I had been slightly ill for several weeks, but on the third night after reaching Fort Laramie a violent pain awoke me, and I found myself attacked by the same disorder that occasioned such heavy losses to the army on the Rio Grande [Mexican war]. In a day and a half I was re duced to extreme weakness, so that I could not walk without pain and effort. Having no medi cal adviser, nor any choice of diet, I resolved to throw myself upon Providence for recovery, using, without regard to the disorder, any por tion of strength that might remain to me. So on the twentieth of June we set out from Fort Laramie to meet The Whirlwind s village. Though aided by the high-bowed " mountain- saddle," I could scarcely keep my seat on horse back. They halted at a spot on Laramie Creek which 164 FRANCIS PARKMAN The Whirlwind must necessarily pass on his way to the meeting place, and there pitched their camp to await his coming. Days went by, but the dilatory Whirlwind did not come. If our camp was not altogether safe [a troop of hostile Indians had passed within rifle-shot, but had missed them on account of a heavy mist], still it was comfortable enough ; at least it was so to Shaw, for I was tormented with illness and vexed by the delay in the accomplishment of my designs. When a respite in my disorder gave me some returning strength, I rode out well armed upon the prairie, or bathed with Shaw in the stream, or waged a petty warfare with the inhabitants of a neighboring prairie-dog village. Around our fire at night we employed ourselves in inveighing against the fickleness and inconstancy of Indians, and execrating The Whirlwind and all his crew. Parkman s impatience could brook the delay no longer, so he rode back to the fort, which was about eighteen miles distant, to learn what news he could of the war. At the fort, to his surprise, he found The Whirlwind, whom the traders, in their zeal to prevent any detriment to trade, were urging to abandon the warpath. The Whirlwind was fickle, and it seemed likely that the traders would persuade him. Parkman returned to his camp in great vexation, for his philanthropy, as he said, was no match for his curiosity to sec the Indian on the warpath ; but he tried with poor THE OGILLALLAH 165 success to console himself with the thought that he avoided a very fair chance of being plun dered, and perhaps stabbed or shot into the bargain. In a few days, however, they were cheered by the arrival of a young chief from The Whirlwind s village, who stated that The Whirl wind had not been persuaded to abandon the war path, and was on his way to the meeting place, and would arrive at the spot where Parkman was encamped in two days ; and so it came to pass. Parties of Indians arrived by twos and threes, and then the main village in disorderly array straggled to the camping ground, and pitched their lodges, above one hundred and fifty in num ber. Here they lingered for several days ; Park- man made friends with the warriors and learned their several histories. After tarrying at this place long enough to allow a proper period for vacillation, The Whirl wind made up his mind not to repair to the meet ing place of the war-party, but to cross the Black Hills and proceed to the hunting grounds be yond, so that his people might secure enough buffalo meat for the coming season, and fresh skins for their lodges. When that should have been done, The Whirlwind proposed to send a band of warriors against the enemy. Parkman and Shaw held a council together whether to go to the meeting place in the hope of finding other 166 FRANCIS PARKMAN bands of Dakota there, or to abide with The Whirlwind s village and share its fortunes. They chose the latter course, and started on July first with the Indians, but before they had ridden many miles a message came from a fur trader, Bisonette, whom they had met at the fort, saying that he was going to the meeting place and urging them to go, too ; so they changed their minds, parted company with The Whirlwind, who was westward bound, and turned their horses heads to the north. On the third day they reached the appointed place, but found neither Indians nor Bisonette. They dismounted and relieved their indignation with tobacco and criti cism of the whole aboriginal race in America. For myself, I was vexed beyond measure ; as I well knew that a slight aggravation of my dis order would render this false step irrevocable, and make it impossible to accomplish effectually the object which had led me an arduous journey of between three and four thousand miles. . . . After supper that evening, as we sat round the fire, I proposed to Shaw to wait one day longer, in hopes of Bisonette s arrival, and if he should not come, to send the [muleteer] with the cart and baggage back to Fort Laramie, while we ourselves followed The Whirlwind s village, and attempted to over take it as it passed the mountains. Shaw, not having the same motive for hunting Indians that I had, was averse to the plan ; I therefore re solved to go alone. This design I adopted very THE OGILLALLAH 167 unwillingly, for I knew that in the present state of my health the attempt would be painful and hazardous. I hoped that Bisonette would appear in the course of the following day, and bring us some information by which to direct our course. But Bisonette did not come, though Shaw took a day s ride to find him, and the next morning Parkman made ready to start. He had exchanged Pontiac for a fleet little mare, Pauline, and all his baggage was tied by leather thongs to her saddle. In front of the black, high-bowed moun tain-saddle were fastened holsters with heavy pistols. A pair of saddle-bags, a blanket tightly rolled, a small parcel of Indian presents tied up in buffalo skin, a leather bag of flour, and a smaller one of tea, were all secured behind, and a long trail-rope was wound round her neck. Raymond had a strong black mule equipped in a similar manner. They crammed their powder- horns to the throat and mounted. Eaymond was a French Canadian trapper hired as guide the week before. " I will meet you at Fort Laramie on the first of August," said Parkman to Shaw. So they parted ; Parkman and Raymond rode off in the direction taken by The Whirlwind s village, and Shaw after some misadventures re turned, under the compulsion of ivy-poison, to the fort. CHAPTER XVI A ROUGH JOURNEY PARKMAN S way led across wide plains and rough ridges of hills, all cracked and split with fissure and ravine, and dazzling white under the burn ing sun ; no trees cheered the waste, except a stray pine here and there. But at sunset they came upon a line of thick bushes which clothed the banks of a little stream ; here they dis mounted, made their fire, and, wrapped in their blankets, fell fast asleep, in complete disregard of howling wolves. In the early morning the animals were grazing and Raymond had gone for a shot at an antelope, when on a sudden Pauline broke her hobbles and galloped off, and the mule bounded after her as best he could on his hobbled legs. Raymond, still near enough to hear Parkman s call, ran in pursuit, and soon all three were out of sight, leaving Parkman, too weak to join in the chase, to his meditations. It seemed scarcely possible that the animals could be recovered. If they were not, my situa tion was one of serious difficulty. Shaw, when I A ROUGH JOURNEY 109 left him, had decided to move that morning, but whither he had not determined. To look for him would be a vain attempt. Fort Laramie was forty miles distant, and I could not walk a mile without great effort. Not then having learned the philosophy of yielding to disproportionate obstacles, I resolved, come what would, to con tinue the pursuit of the Indians. Only one plan occurred to me : this was, to send Raymond to the fort with an order for more horses, while I remained on the spot, awaiting his return, which might take place within three days. But to re main stationary and alone for three days in a country full of dangerous Indians was not the most flattering of prospects. Resolving these matters, I grew hungry; and as our stock of provisions, except four or five pounds of flour, was by this time exhausted, I left the camp to see what game I could find. A further danger was that Raymond might catch the animals and not return. But Raymond was faithful ; after a chase of ten miles and more, he caught the fugitives, and Parkman was able to start again upon his westward course in the afternoon, but they were not destined to make much progress that day. A tremendous storm deluged them. After a time a blue rift appeared in the clouds, and, growing larger, made room for a rainbow ; the sun shone warm on the plain, and revealed a belt of woods in front, which proffered a good place for camp. 170 FRANCIS PARKMAN Raymond kindled a fire with great difficulty. The animals turned eagerly to feed on the soft rich grass, while I, wrapping myself in my blanket, lay down and gazed on the evening landscape. The mountains, whose stern features had frowned upon us so gloomily, seemed lighted up with a benignant smile, and the green, wav ing undulations of the plain were gladdened with warm sunshine. Wet, ill, and wearied as I was, my heart grew lighter at the view, and I drew from it an augury of good. The next day they struck Laramie Creek, and following the stream found marks of the Indians at the point where they had forded the river. Delighted to find the trail, Parkman and Ray mond dined on haunch of antelope, and in high spirits made ready to follow ; but as Parkman was saddling the exhausted Pauline, she stag gered and fell. With an effort she regained her feet, and was able to carry her master at a slow pace. The trail was clear at one spot where ant hills held the dint of trailing lodge-poles, at another it disappeared on flinty ground ; then it became visible again where the leaves of the prickly pear showed bruises. Towards evening they lost the trail completely, but far away, a little to their right, in a black valley at the foot of Mount Laramie, which rose in purple dark ness above its fellow peaks, they could see volumes of smoke curling upward. At first they were A ROUGH JOURNEY 171 inclined to ride thither, but reflection dissuaded them, and they afterward had reason to believe that the smoke was raised as a decoy by hostile Crows. That night they lay beside Laramie Creek, and at daybreak Parkman plunged in, and for the moment felt the tingling of health ; but the sensation was momentary ; as soon as he was in the saddle, he says, " I hung as usual in my seat, scarcely able to hold myself erect." From where they were they could see a pass in the mountain wall, which gave cause to think that the Indians had gone through it. We reached the gap, which was like a deep notch cut into the mountain ridge, and here we soon found an ant-hill furrowed with the mark of a lodge-pole. This was quite enough ; there could be no doubt now. As we rode on, the open ing growing narrower, the Indians had been com pelled to march in closer order, and the traces became numerous and distinct. The gap termi nated in a rocky gateway, leading into a rough and steep defile, between two precipitous moun tains. Here grass and weeds were bruised to frag ments by the throng that had passed through. We moved slowly over the rocks, up the passage, and in this toilsome manner advanced for an hour or two, bare precipices, hundreds of feet high, shooting up on either hand. Raymond, with his hardy mule, was a few rods before me when we came to the foot of an ascent steeper than the rest, and which I trusted might be the highest 172 FRANCIS PARKMAN point of the defile. Pauline strained upward for a few yards, moaning and stumbling, and then came to a dead stop, unable to proceed farther. I dismounted, and attempted to lead her ; but my own exhausted strength soon gave out, so I loosened the trail-rope from her neck, and tying it round my arm, crawled up on my hands and knees. I gained the top, totally spent, the sweat- drops trickling from my forehead. Pauline stood like a statue by my side, her shadow falling upon the scorching rock ; and in this shade, for there was no other, I lay for some time, scarcely able to move a limb. All around, the black crags, sharp as needles at the top, stood baking in the sun, without tree or bush or blade of grass to cover their nakedness. The whole scene seemed parched with a pitiless, insufferable heat. [After a pause Parkman was able to mount again, and they descended the defile on the farther side ; here they were cheered by a clump of trees, a fringe of grass, and a little icy brook. At the foot of the mountains lay a plain, a half dozen miles across and bad riding, and beyond the plain there were thick woods and more moun tains ; through these a rocky passage wound among gigantic cliffs and led into a second plain. Here they stopped to eat.] When we had finished our meal Raymond struck fire, and lighting his pipe, sat down at the foot of a tree to smoke. For some time I observed him puffing away with a face of unusual solemnity. Then slowly taking the pipe from his lips, he iooked up and remarked that we had better not go any farther. " Why not ? " asked I. He said that the A ROUGH JOURNEY 173 country was become very dangerous, that we were entering the range of the Snakes, Arapa- hoes, and Gros-ventre Blackfeet, and that if any of their wandering parties should meet us, it would cost us our lives ; but he added, with blunt fidelity, that he would go anywhere I wished. I told him to bring up the animals, and mounting them we proceeded again. I con fess that, as we moved forward, the prospect seemed but a doubtful one. I would have given the world for my ordinary elasticity of body and mind, and for a horse of such strength and spirit as the journey required. Closer and closer the rocks gathered round us, growing taller and steeper, and pressing more and more upon our path. We entered at length a defile which, in its way, I never have seen rivaled. The moun tain-was cracked from top to bottom, and we were creeping along the bottom of the fissure, in dampness and gloom, with the clink of hoofs on the loose shingly rocks, and the hoarse murmur ing of a petulant brook which kept us company. . . . Looking up, we could see a narrow ribbon of bright blue sky between the dark edges of the opposing cliffs. This did not last long. The pas sage soon widened, and sunbeams found their way down, flashing upon the black waters. The defile would spread to many rods in width ; then we would be moving again in darkness. The passage seemed about four miles long, and before we reached the end of it the unshod hoofs of our animals were broken, and their legs cut by the sharp stones. Issuing from the mountain, we found another plain. All around it stood a 174 FRANCIS PARKMAN circle of precipices that seemed the impersona tion of Silence and Solitude. From this amphitheatre there was but one outlet, over a low hill, and beyond that the prairie spread wide and desolate. Here they dismounted for the night and dined on their last bit of antelope steak. Parkman was about to shoot a rabbit, in order to replenish their larder, but Raymond out of not unnecessary caution stopped him, for fear lest the report might attract visitors. That night for the first time we considered that the danger to which we were exposed was of a somewhat serious character ; and to those who are unacquainted with Indians it may seem strange that our chief apprehensions arose from the supposed proximity of the people whom we intended to visit. Had any straggling party of these faithful friends caught sight of us from the hilltop, they would probably have returned in the night to plunder us of our horses, and perhaps of our scalps. But the prairie is unfa vorable to nervousness ; and I presume that neither Raymond nor I thought twice of the matter that evening. [The next day they lost the trail again on a broad flat plain, with no thing in front but a long line of hills. Raymond became discouraged.] " Now," said he, " we had better turn round." But as Raymond s bourgeois thought otherwise, we descended the hill and be gan to cross the plain. We had come so far that A ROUGH JOURNEY 175 neither Pauline s limbs nor my own could carry me back to Fort Laramie. I considered that the lines of expediency and inclination tallied exactly, and that the most prudent course was to keep forward. On they went, and drearily climbed the far- off hills ; from the top Parkman discerned a few dark spots moving, which he took to be buffalo, but Raymond shouted " Horses ! " and galloped on, lashing his mule to its best pace, and in a few minutes, standing in a circle, they saw the lodges of the Ogillallah. " Never, says Parkman, "did the heart of wanderer more gladden at the sight of home than did mine at the sight of that Indian camp." There, after the customary ceremony of shak ing hands with everybody, the first business was to choose a host, and after inquiry Parkman de cided to partake of Big Crow s hospitality. So Raymond and I rode up to the entrance of Big Crow s lodge. A squaw came out imme diately and took our horses. I put aside the leather flap that- covered the low opening, and, stooping, entered the Big Crow s dwelling. There I could see the chief in the dim light, seated at one side, on a pile of buffalo robes. He greeted me with a guttural " How, cola ! " I requested Reynal [a Canadian acquaintance hunting with the Indians] to tell him that Raymond and I were come to live with him. The Big Crow gave an- 176 FRANCIS PARKMAN other low exclamation. The announcement may seem intrusive, but, in fact, every Indian in the village would have deemed himself honored that white men should give such preference to his hos pitality. The squaw spread a buffalo robe for us in the guest s place at the head of the lod<. Our saddles were brought in, and scarcely were we seated upon them before the place was thronged with Indians, crowding in to see us. The Big Crow produced his pipe and filled it with the mixture of tobacco and shongsasha, or red willow bark. Round and round it passed, and a lively conversation went forward. Meanwhile a squaw placed before the two guests a wooden bowl of boiled buffalo-meat ; but unhappily this was not the only banquet destined to be inflicted on us. One after another, boys and young squaws thrust their heads in at the opening, to invite us to various feasts in different parts of the village. For half an hour and more we were actively en gaged in passing from lodge to lodge, tasting in each of the bowl of meat set before us, and inhal ing a whiff or two from our entertainer s pipe. The Whirlwind was not there ; he had not come, rumor said, from fear of going so far into the enemy s country, for the. village was now encamped on the Snake hunting ground ; the main body of the community had disregarded his authority, and were on their way to hunt the buffalo. The next day brought with it a return of hos pitality. A ROUGH JOURNEY 177 I intended that day to give the Indians a feast, by way of conveying a favorable impres sion of my character and dignity ; and a white dog is the dish which the customs of the Dakota prescribe for all occasions of formality and im portance. I consulted Reynal : he soon discovered that an old woman in the next lodge was owner of the white dog [a big dog on which Parkman had cast his eye]. I took a gaudy cotton hand kerchief, and, laying it on the ground, arranged some vermilion, beads, and other trinkets upon it. Then the old squaw was summoned. I pointed to the dog and to the handkerchief. She gave a scream of delight, snatched up the prize, and van ished with it into her lodge. For a few more trifles, I engaged the services of two other squaws, each of whom took the white dog by one of his paws, and led him away behind the lodges. Having killed him they threw him into a fire to singe ; then chopped him up and put him into two large kettles to boil. Meanwhile I told Raymond to fry in buffalo-fat what little flour we had left, and also to make a kettle of tea as an additional luxury. The Big Crow s squaw was briskly at work sweeping out the lodge for the approaching festivity. I confided to my host himself the task of inviting the guests, thinking that I might thereby shift from my own shoulders the odium of neglect and oversight. When feasting is in question one hour of the day serves an Indian as well as another. My entertainment came off at about eleven o clock. At that hour Reynal and Raymond walked across the area of the village, to the admiration of the inhabitants, carrying the 178 FRANCIS PARKMAN two kettles of dog meat slung on a pole between them. These they placed in the centre of the lodge, and then went back for the bread and the tea. Meanwhile I had put on a pair of brilliant moccasins, and substituted for my old buckskin frock a coat which I had brought with me in view of such public occasions. I also made careful use of the razor, an operation which no man will neg lect who desires to gain the good opinion of In dians. Thus attired, I seated myself between Rey- n al and Raymond at the head of the lodge. Only a few minutes elapsed before all the guests had come in and were seated on the ground, wedged together in a close circle. Each brought with him a wooden bowl to hold his share of the repast. When all were assembled, two of the officials, called " soldiers " by the white men, came for ward with ladles made of the horn of the Rocky Mountain sheep, and began to distribute the feast, assigning a double share to the old men and chiefs. The dog vanished with astonishing celerity, and each guest turned his dish bottom upward to show that all was gone. Then the bread was distributed in its turn, and finally the tea. As the "soldiers" poured it out into the same wooden bowls that had served for the substantial part of the meal, I thought it had a particularly curious and uninviting color. " Oh," said Reynal, " there was not tea enough, so I stirred some soot in the kettle, to make it look strong ! " Fortu nately an Indian s palate is not very discriminat ing. The tea was well sweetened, and that was all they cared for. Now, the feast being over, the time for speechmaking was come. The Big Crow A ROUGH JOURNEY 179 produced a flat piece of wood, on which he cut up tobacco and shongsasha, and mixed them in due proportions. The pipes were filled and passed from hand to hand around the company. Then I began my speech, each sentence being inter preted by Reynal as I went on, and echoed by the whole audience with the usual exclamations of assent and approval. As nearly as I can recol lect, it was as follows : " I had come," I told them, " from a country so far distant that at the rate they travel, they could not reach it in a year." " How ! How ! " - " There the Meneaska (white men) were more numerous than the blades of grass on the prairie. The squaws were far more beautiful than any they had ever seen, and all the men were brave warriors." " How ! How ! How ! " I was assailed by twinges of conscience as I uttered these last words. But I recovered myself and began again. " While I was living in the Meneaska lodges, I had heard of the Ogil- lallah, how great and brave a nation they were, how they loved the whites, and how well they could hunt the buffalo and strike their enemies. I resolved to come and see if all that I heard was true." -"How! How! How!" -"As I had come on horseback through the mountains, I had been able to bring them only a few presents." " How ! " " But I had enough tobacco to give them all a small piece. They might smoke it, and see how much better it was than the tobacco which they got from the traders." " How ! How ! How ! " " I had plenty of powder, lead, knives, and tobacco at Fort Laramie. These I was anx ious to give them, and if any of them should come 180 FRANCIS PARKMAN to the fort before I went away, I would make them handsome presents ! " " How ! How ! How ! How ! " Raymond then cut up and distri buted among them two or three pounds of tobacco, and old Mene-Seela [the principal chief] began to make a reply. It was long, but the following was the pith of it. " He had always loved the whites. They were the wisest people on earth. He be lieved they could do anything, and he was always glad when any of them came to live in the Ogil- lallah lodges. It was true I had not made them many presents, but the reason of it was plain. It was clear that I liked them, or I never should have come so far to find their village ! " Other speeches were made. A short silence followed, and then the old man (Mene-Seela) struck up a discordant chant, which I was told was a song of thanks for the entertainment I had given them. " Now," said he, " let us go, and give the white men a chance to breathe." So the company all dispersed into the open air, and for some time the old chief was walking round the village, singing his song in praise of the feast, after the custom of the nation. CHAPTEK XVII LIFE IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE AFTER some indecision, for the village was with out a leader, even The Whirlwind when he was present had no authority, the Indians set for ward again for the hunting fields. The line of march was always highly picturesque, painted warriors riding gayly, iron-tipped lances glitter ing in the sun, packhorses heavily laden with bundles and babies, or dragging lodge poles, po nies ridden by grinning young squaws, old men on foot wrapped in white buffalo robes, slim boys and girls, barking dogs, all apparently led by the genius of confusion. It was always as good as a play to Parkman, though he was hardly in fit state of body to enjoy a pageant. At our encampment that afternoon I was at tacked anew by my old disorder. In half an hour the strength that I had been gaining for a week past had vanished again, and I became like a man in a dream. But at sunset I lay down in the Big Crow s lodge and slept, totally uncon scious till the morning. The first thing that 182 FRANCIS PARKMAN awakened me was a hoarse flapping over my head, and a sudden light that poured in upon me. The camp was breaking up, and the squaws were moving the covering from the lodge. I arose and shook off my blanket with the feeling of perfect health ; but scarcely had I gained my feet when a sense of my helpless condition was once more forced upon me, and I found myself scarcely able to stand. Raymond had brought up Pauline and the mule, and I stooped to raise my saddle from the ground. My strength was unequal to the task. " You must saddle her," said I to Raymond as I sat down again on a pile of buffalo robes. He did so, and with a painful effort I mounted. As we were passing over a great plain surrounded by long broken ridges, I rode slowly in advance of the Indians, with thoughts that wandered far from the time and the place. Suddenly the sky darkened, and thun der began to mutter. Clouds were rising over the hills, as dark as the first forebodings of an approaching calamity ; and in a moment all around was wrapped in shadow. I looked be hind. The Indians had stopped to prepare for the approaching storm, and the dense mass of savages stretched far to the right and left. Since the first attack of my disorder the effects of rain upon me had usually been injurious in the ex treme. I had no strength to spare, having at that moment scarcely enough to keep my seat on horseback. Then, for the first time, it pressed upon me as a strong probability that I might never leave those deserts. " Well," thought I to myself, " the prairie makes quick and sharp LIFE IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE 183 work. Better to die here, in the saddle to the last, than to stifle in the hot air of a sick cham ber ; and a thousand times better than to drag out life, as many have done, in the helpless inaction of lingering disease." So, drawing the buffalo robe on which I sat over my head, I waited till the storm should come. It broke at last with a sudden burst of fury, and passing away as rap idly as it came, left the sky clear again. My re flections served me no other purpose than to look back upon as a piece of curious experience ; for the rain did not produce the ill effects that I had expected. The Indians, being in enemy s country, were anxious to lose no time, and pushed on westward ; in a day or two their scouts reported herds of buffalo marching slowly over the hills in the dis tance. The lodges were pitched, and things got ready for the hunt. Early in the morning the huntsmen were off. I had taken no food, and not being at all ambitious of further abstinence, I went into my host s lodge, which his squaws had set up with wonderful dispatch, and sat down in the centre, as a gentle hint that I was hungry. A wooden bowl was soon set before me, filled with the nu tritious preparation of dried meat called pem- mican by the northern voyagers and wasna by the Dakota. Taking a handful to break my fast upon, I left the lodge just in time to see the last band of hunters disappear over the ridge of the neighboring hill. I mounted Pauline and gal- 184 FRANCIS PARKMAN loped in pursuit, riding rather by the balance than by any muscular strength that remained to me. ... I left camp that morning with a philo sophic resolution. Neither I nor my horse were at that time fit for such sport, and I had deter mined to remain a quiet spectator ; but amid the rush of horses and buffalo, the uproar and the dust, I found it impossible to sit still ; and as four or five buffalo ran past me in a line, I lashed Pauline in pursuit. We went plunging through the water and the quicksands, and clambering the bank, chased them through the wild sage bushes that covered the rising ground beyond. But neither her native spirit nor the blows of the knotted bull-hide could supply the place of poor Pauline s exhausted strength. We could not gain an inch upon the fugitives. After a shot, which hit but did not maim the cow he was chasing, Parkman turned back and rode slowly to camp. In this place they remained five days, the braves hunting every day and killing great num bers of buffaloes. The hides were skinned, scraped, and rubbed, the meat was cut up and hung to dry in the sun. Parkman, and also Pauline, were too tired to take further part in the hunting, so he strolled over the prairie for an occasional shot at an antelope, and watched his hosts and their squaws at their various occu pations. His repose at night was not all that weary limbs might wish. In the next lodge LIFE IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE 185 gambling would be going on, fast and furious ; ornaments, horses, garments, and weapons were staked upon the chances of the game to the ac companiment of yells, chants, and the thumping of an Indian drum. In Parkmau s own lodge Big Crow would rouse himself every night at twelve o clock and sing a doleful dirge to ap pease the spirits ; and the children, who were al lowed to eat too much during the day and were petted and generally spoiled, had a habit of crawling about the lodge over Parkman and every other object, and sometimes they cuddled under his blanket. He was obliged to keep a short stick at hand and punch their heads some five times during the night. On the twenty -fifth the camp broke up, and the return journey was begun. . . . The lodges were pitched early, and the chiefs sat in a circle smoking and chaffing one another. When the first pipe was smoked out, I rose and withdrew to the lodge of my host. Here I was stooping, in the act of taking off my powder- horn and bullet-pouch, when suddenly, and close at hand, pealing loud and shrill, and in right good earnest, came the terrific yell of the war- whoop. Kongra-Tonga s [Black Crow] squaw snatched up her youngest child and ran out of the lodge. I followed, and found the whole vil lage in confusion, resounding with cries and yells. The circle of old men in the centre had 186 FRANCIS PAIIKMAN vanished. The warriors, with glittering eyes, came darting, weapons in hand, out of the low openings of the lodges, and running with wild yells towards the farther end of the village. Ad vancing a few rods in that direction, I saw a crowd in furious agitation. Just then I distin guished the voice of Reynal [a French Canadian living with the Indians] shouting to me from a distance ; he was calling to me to come over and join him [on the farther side of a little stream]. This was clearly the wisest course, un less we wished to involve ourselves in the fray ; so I turned to go, but just then a pair of eyes, gleaming like a snake s, and an aged familiar countenance was thrust from the opening of a neighboring lodge, and out bolted old Mene- Seela, full of fight, clutching his bow and arrows in one hand and his knife in the other. . . . The women with loud screams were hurrying with their children in their arms to place them out of danger, and I observed some hastening to prevent mischief by carrying away all the wea pons they could lay hands on. On a rising ground close to the camp stood a line of old women sing ing a medicine-song to allay the tumult. As I approached the side of the brook, I heard gun shots behind me, and turning back saw the crowd had separated into two long lines of naked war riors confronting each other at a respectful dis tance, and yelling and jumping about to dodge the shots of their adversaries, while they dis charged bullets and arrows against each other. At the same time certain sharp, humming sounds in the air over my head, like the flight of beetles LIFE IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE 187 on a summer evening, warned me that the danger was not wholly confined to the immediate scene of the fray. So, wading through the brook, I joined Reynal and Raymond, and we sat down on the grass, in the posture of an armed neu trality, to watch the result. Happily it may be for ourselves, though contrary to our expectation, the disturbance was quelled almost as soon as it began. When I looked again, the combatants were once more mingled together in a mass. Though yells sbunded occasionally from the throng, the firing had entirely ceased, and I ob served five or six persons moving busily about, as if acting the part of peacemakers. One of the village heralds or criers proclaimed in a loud voice something which my two companions were too much engrossed in their own observations to translate for me. The crowd began to disperse, though many a deep-set black eye still glittered with an unnatural lustre, as the warriors slowly withdrew to their lodges. This fortunate sup pression of the disturbance was owing to a few of the old men, less pugnacious than Mene-Seela, who boldly ran in between the combatants, and, aided by some of the " soldiers," or Indian police, succeeded in effecting their object. It was contrary to etiquette to inquire into the cause of the brawl, and Parkman only learned it some time afterwards. Mad Wolf had presented Tall Bear with a horse, expecting, according to the well-understood custom, to receive another gift of equal value in return. Tall Bear, how- 188 FRANCIS PARKMAN ever, made no reciprocal gift, whereupon Mad Wolf strode up to Tall Bear s lodge, untied the horse he had given, and started to lead it home ; Tall Bear leapt from his lodge and stabbed the horse dead. Mad Wolf, quick as a flash, drew an arrow to the head against Tall Bear s breast, but the other stood impassive as a statue, and Mad Wolf lowered his bow. Partisans rallied to each, and the fray began, but no one was killed, thanks to the vigorous intervention of the old chiefs and of the "soldiers," a species of con stabulary appointed in council and charged with the duty of preserving the peace. The next step in the Indian preparation for winter was to cut lodge poles. For these, which could only be cut from tall straight saplings, it was necessary to go to the Black Hills. So they traveled eastward for two days and arrived at the foot of the gloomy ridges ; here, after trav ersing a long ravine between precipitous cliffs and masses of rock, they came upon the desired groves. The Indians cut their poles, while Park- man cultivated the friendship of Mene-Seela, and persuaded Black Crow, the White Eagle, and the Panther, his more intimate comrades, to spin yarns of their adventures. Most of the Indians Parkman did not trust, and did not like. They were thorough savages. Neither their manners nor their ideas were in the slightest LIFE IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE 189 degree modified by contact with civilization. They knew nothing of the power and real char acter of the white men, and their children would scream in terror when they [first] saw me. Their religion, superstitions, and prejudices were those handed down to them from immemorial time. They fought with the weapons that their fathers fought with, and wore the same garments of skins. They were living representatives of the " stone age ; " for though their lances and arrows were tipped with iron procured from the traders, they still used the rude stone mallet of the prime val world. . . . For the most part, a civilized white man can discover very few points of sym pathy between his own nature and that of an Indian. With every disposition to do justice to their good qualities, he must be conscious that an impassable gulf lies between him and his red brethren. No, so alien to himself do they appear that, after breathing the air of the prairie for a few months or weeks, he begins to look upon them as a troublesome and dangerous species of wild beast. Yet, in the countenance of the Pan ther (. . . who, unless his face greatly belied him, was free from the jealousy, suspicion, and malignant cunning of his people), I gladly read that there were at least some points of sympathy between him and me. As they approached Fort Laramie Parkman became eager to make haste, for August 1st, the day on which he had promised to meet Shaw, had already come ; so, when the buttes, near which he had encamped while waiting for the 190 FRANCIS PARKMAN unpunctual Whirlwind, lifted their rough cones above the horizon, he rode away from his savage hosts in company with Raymond and one Indian who was bound for the fort. Several of the In dians proffered him their horses as parting pre sents, for the sake of receiving Pauline in return, but their offers were promptly declined ; Park- man shook hands with Reynal, but in deference to aboriginal custom, took no leave of the In dians, and with mixed feelings of regret and pleasure parted with them forever. That night they encamped near their old site. " First, however, our wide-mouthed friend [the Indian] had taken the precaution of carefully examining the neighborhood. He reported that eight men, counting them on his fingers, had been encamped there not long before, Bisonette, Paul Dorion, Antoine Le Rouge, Richardson, and four others whose names he could not tell. All this proved strictly correct. By what instinct he had arrived at such accurate conclusions, I am utterly at a loss to divine. Parkman s impatience got them up long be fore sunrise, and they reached the fort well before noon ; there they found Shaw, Chatillon, and Deslauriers the muleteer, and had a banquet on biscuit, coffee, and salt pork, which they ate and drank with all the ostentation of plates, knives, forks, and cups, sitting on stools before a wooden structure politely called a table. Shaw LIFE IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE 191 then produced his library, Shakespeare, Byron, and the Old Testament. I chose the worst of the three, and for the greater part of that day I lay on the buffalo robes, fairly reveling in the creations of that resplendent genius which has achieved no more signal triumph than that of half beguiling us to forget the unmanly character of its possessor. The young men bade good-by to their compan ions, especially to Chatillon, with much regret, left the fort, and turned their faces eastward. They had made great friends with Chatillon, and thereafter friendly letters and gifts passed between them. Once they made the mistake of offering payment for rich gifts from him, and hurt his feelings. Chatillon prospered in a worldly sense, and years afterwards Parkman saw him at St. Louis, an owner of houses, dressed in the discomforts of white shirt, urban coat, and trousers. The returning journey was made without much ill luck. From Westport they went by boat to St. Louis, which they reached in the beginning of October, and the young men made haste to give their friends news of themselves. ST. Louis, Oct. 7th, 46. MY DEAR MOTHER, ... Everybody here speaks of the intense heat of the past summer. We, Q. and I, may congratulate ourselves on hav- 192 FRANCIS PARKMAN ing escaped it, besides gaining a great deal of sport, and a cartload of practical experience. I feel about ten years older than I did five months ago. To-day, for the first time, I have mounted the white shirt, tight dress coat, etc. . . . My temperament is bilious, and a meat diet, I sup pose, acts unfavorably on it ; and hence the particularly uncomfortable state to which I was reduced when in the Indian country ; but in spite of this, they tell me here that I look better than when I set out for the mountains. ... I shall go by stage, as the rivers are low, to Chicago, thence by railroad to Detroit, and thence to Buffalo. Ask Carrie to write, as I want very much to hear from her. You will hear from me often, and meanwhile believe me, dear mother, respectfully, your affectionate FRANK. On his return he felt that he had qualified himself by practical experience to write the his tory of the Indian and French wars, and grate ful that so loose a rein had been given to his inclination, he was ready to do his duty towards his father and the law. CHAPTER XVIII UNDER DK. ELLIOTT S CAKE FKANK had come back with a great store of in formation and experience ; he had garnered the grain and was ready to begin to grind. But vio lent exertion, exposure, bad food, wet clothes, and all evil attendants of physical hardship, began to exact their scot, and the chief burden of their exaction fell on his weakest member, his eyes. No sooner had he got home than he was obliged to be off again to New York to put himself under the care of Dr. Elliott, a famous oculist, whose skill had already wrought a cure for his sister Caroline, who had suffered with her eyes. From this time his physical life as sumes the grim and strained attitude of one long wrestle with ill health. At first there was hope that two months would suffice to make the weak eyes strong and undo the hurt that the Oregon journey had done ; but though his eyes sometimes got better and sometimes got worse, the two months lengthened out, and at the end of the second year his eyes were worse, much 194 FRANCIS PARKMAN worse. In this wrestling-match with fate there were recesses, pauses, breathing spaces, but from this fatal year his body was but a ragged fort in which the spirit was incessantly beleaguered. In his brief autobiographical letters he has told the story in a soldier s way; it reads like the journal of a fighting regiment. Those pages tell of hardships ; these are intended to chronicle the happier intervals between bouts of pain, to record recollections and the careless gossip of letters which show the tender love of his family, the proud affection of his friends, and to relate the gradual progress of his work. CAROLINE TO FRANK. BOSTON, Dec. 17th, 1846. It is a great while since I have written to you, for I do not get time to do half what I want to. . . . The historical lectures take a great deal of time, and if I read half of the books he [the teacher] recommends I should be able to do no thing else. They are very interesting and edify ing. How glad I am that your eyes are improv ing so much and what a comfort to be able to read so long. Don t you occasionally turn your thoughts homeward and remember that the two months are almost gone ? I fear that when they are gone, the Dr. will think that it would be bet ter to stay a little longer. I wish you were at home to go with me to Aunt Shaw s party next Tuesday. ... I must say the party has no great UNDER DR. ELLIOTT S CARE 195 attractions for me ... if you were here I should like it much better. ... I hope I shall have a letter from you soon, but don t write unless you can without the least difficulty. Mother and all send their love. . . . Good-by, my dear brother. Jan. 11, 1847. Let me in the first place wish you a happy New Year, though ten days of it has gone, but there is enough left beside. We had a most re markable day here as to weather : it was oppres sively warm with winter clothes. . . . Did you make many calls? There were some families here who received their friends, but I should not care about its becoming a general custom ; there seems no satisfaction in such visits, and it must be a real hard day s work for gentlemen. . . . We heard from Aunt Mary yesterday. She is at Providence now, as I suppose you know, but is not much better than she has been since the summer. . . . She writes in pretty good spirits though, and wants to know particularly about you, and sends her love. We are going this evening to see the " Viennoises Danseuses " (I am quite willing to write it, but would n t think of pronouncing it). Father saw them in Dublin, and was so delighted with them that he is willing to be seen at the theatre in such a cause, custom notwithstanding. I think it will be quite an inducement in itself to go, just for the sake of seeing him sitting in one of the boxes ! 196 FRANCIS PARKMAN Tuesday, Feb. 23d, 1847. ... I believe that father told you in his last letter that Dr. Elliott gave "encouraging ac counts " of you when he was here ; but he mis understood me, for I was the only one of the family that the Dr. saw, and all that he said was that yours was a difficult case, that he had no doubt of his curing you finally, but that after you had been with him a few weeks he found there were peculiarities of the system that at first he could not discover. He said that your nervous system was a good deal deranged, which made it difficult to affect you by medicine, or something to that purpose ; if I have not represented it as it was told, do not think he made out a better statement just to please us, for all he said to encourage was that it was a curable case, and that he should do all he could to enable you to come home as soon as possible, as father de sired. . . . Last week I had a miniature party, and wish you had been here, for it was very pleasant. . . . They came to tea, and it was a very sociable little soiree. We had music of the first order, for they are a very musical set, and Matilda Abbot sings remarkably well. . . . Now Frank, my dear, I have heard that you have written some account of your journey in the " Knickerbocker," and how brotherly it would be if you would send us the number which con tains it, for I suppose you have it, or at least you might have told us that it was to be seen there, for you know how much interested I should be in everything you write, and all that you do. Only think how long it is since you UNDER DR. ELLIOTT S CARE 197 have lived at home, almost a year. Sometimes I feel that you know so much more, and that we are so different in mind and in our feelings about some things that we might not be so near to each other as is my sincerest wish ; but this feel ing, perhaps, is quite unnecessary, and I hope that our love will be just as strong as if I did not feel there was any difference. I never could have told you this, it is so much easier to write one s secret feelings than to speak them, but I am glad to let you know them. . . . Write to us soon, and I hope you will have better ac counts to give. Mother sends her love, and with much love from your sister CAKRIE. Tuesday, March 2d, 1847. Your letter reached us yesterday, and I can not tell you how badly we feel on account of your health. It is a hard trial, I am sure, not to be able at least to use your mind while you are shut out from reading. I do hope that this state will not continue long. ... I hope that next summer you will feel inclined to loafe round at Phillips beach with us. For we have the pros pect of the same pleasant family that we had last year, and you would be able to have quite a variety in your occupations too, . . . and there are beautiful rides and walks all around there, and perhaps we might renew our horseback ex peditions, which are very popular there, espe cially the ride to Nahant over the beach, and when you get there you would find many of your friends, Mary Eliot among others. Is n t that a pleasant prospect ? It would be so plea- 198 FRANCIS PARKMAN sant to have you there with us, you don t know how we used to long for you last summer. . . . I go to history in a few minutes, so I am in a hurry. . . . Mother and all the rest send their love and wish you were with us that we might do something for you. I hope it will not be long before we can see you. Maria Eldredge is going to N. Y. in a few weeks to stay. I should like to go with her to stay with you. Suppose I should not be admitted to Delmonico s, though. . . . Friday, March 19th, 1847. We were very glad to hear from you yester day, and I hope you will feel the good effects of the new system, but if it is much more severe than that which the Dr. generally uses, I should think you would be in torture. ... 1 cannot tell you how delighted Elly [his brother John Eliot] was with the book you sent him, and you could not have chosen a better time to send it. . . . He is quite overcome by your thinking of him and is going to write you a letter next week. Father sends his love. Mother and the girls send love also. . . . BOSTON, May 14th, [1847]. . . . We were very glad to receive a letter from you this morning, and hope you will feel that your eyes are continuing to improve with out any more drawbacks. . . . Mary gets on very well with the copying; it is about finished now. ... I hope you will be able to read this yourself, and out of compassion for your eyes I will not inflict more, but believe me, dear Frank, that nothing would make me happier than to UNDER DR. ELLIOTT S CARE 199 feel that I could do something to make your un occupied time pass pleasantly. ... I hope we shall hear very soon. With much love, CARRIE. In the course of nature a father, as the purse- holder, has relations and correspondence with a son which differ a little in tenor from those which mother and sister have, and as the Park- man family did not differ in any marked partic ular from other families, we find traces of that eternal dialogue between the purse-holder and the purse-emptier, which commonly fills so much larger a part in the correspondence between father and son. BOSTON, March 2, [1847]. MY DEAR SON, We have read your letter to Carrie with no little regret and disappoint ment. I am pained by what you write of your general state of health as well as of your eyes. And I hardly know what course it will be best for you to pursue. . . . You write in a short postscript that you are in want of money. I am most happy, as you well know, to supply it. But I confess, my dear son, that I am somewhat surprised by the fre quency of your calls. Since I was in New York, when I gave you fifty dollars in addition to twenty or thirty you then had, I sent you sev enty dollars, in anticipation, as I thought, of your needs for the present. I take it for granted that it was ample for the bills at Delmonico sj 200 FRANCIS PARKMAN etc., for the month just ended, and that those bills are paid. I request that instead of a short post script thro Caroline [mark the full complement of syllables] you would let me know more par ticularly of the amount of your expenses, and what is necessary for a month. All that is proper for your comfort and gratification shall always and most readily be supplied. But for the four months you have been in New York you have received $400, or at the rate of $1200 a year. ... I wish you would write to me partic ularly if your eyes permit. Your mother sends her love, and we earnestly hope, my dear son, that you will find yourself better soon. I am your affectionate father, FRANCIS PARKMAN. Then those honest friends, great peace makers, that knit up the raveled sleave of a father s care, exact accounts, served their good offices. Item . . . Bootblack . . .10 " .. Ale ... .12 " . . . Breakfast . . .37 Umbrella . .75 "... Chocolate, etc. . .18 " .. Ale ... .12 "... Breakfast . . .25 " . . Dinner . . .75 "... Tea . . . .25 " . . Waiter . . .25 "... Carriage . . .50 " . . Books . 1.50, etc. In the next letter their service is recognized. UNDER DR. ELLIOTT S CARE 201 Monday, March 8, 1847. MY DEAR SON, Your statement of your expenses at Delmonico s is altogether satisfac tory. . . . I am at present at a loss what to advise as to your remaining from home. It seems to me very desirable that you should have more of domestic comfort than you can possibly have as you are. . . . Think over the matter in your own mind, and at your leisure give me your ideas. We are all well. Your affectionate father, F. PARKMAN. Frank, however, was obliged to stay away all the spring and all the summer too. In the mean time " The Oregon Trail " had begun its slow publication in the "Knicker bocker Magazine." Frank had kept a full note book of his expedition and adventures, and soon after his return, from these notes and from his admirable memory, had dictated the book to his friend and comrade, Shaw. The first chap ters appeared in February. Frank, in his mod est, reserved, self-sufficient way, deigned to tell neither his family nor his friends. His sister found it out by chance, so did his friends. It was put out into the world to stand on its own feet, and like a waif win what success it might in the estimation of the impartial, cold-hearted sub scribers to the " Knickerbocker." If it deserved success, Frank wished it to succeed ; if not, why 202 FRANCIS PARKMAN let it go and keep company with mediocrity and failure, as it deserved. The book was not as successful, not as pop ular with the public, as might well have been expected even by a young man much less cool and self-contained than Frank. It was more than twenty years since the " Last of the Mohicans " had been published, and it was reasonable to anticipate an eager reception for a fresh tale of the wild life of the West. The editor of the " Knickerbocker," however, justly appreciated its worth ; so did others. DOBB, HIS CROSSING, Woden, his day, Aug. 30, [ 47]. MY DEAR PARKMAN, Your next " Trail " has the place of honor in the " Knickerbocker," that is, the one for October. They are excellent papers. Washington Irving told me to-day that he read them with great pleasure as I always do. I hope you find them as correctly printed as you could expect, under the circumstances. I read them carefully ; but the manuscript is some times very obscured. How are your eyes? I long much to hear that they are getting well. . . . Will you let me say how much I am, and truly, yours, L. GAYLORD CLARK. REV. F. PARKMAN TO SAME. Monday Morning 1 , Aug. 7th, [ 47]. MY DEAR SON, ... Though I wrote to you something of a long letter on Friday, yet I can not help " taking pen in hand," just to tell you UNDER DR. ELLIOTT S CARE 203 of a little incident which, as it gave pleasure to your mother and me, will not, I think, be other wise than agreeable to you. Last week Elly came into town, and having a half day s leisure, strolled over to the Navy Yard at Charlestown. As he was looking round, as boys love to look, an officer met him and asked him his name; and finding it Parkman, he asked him, further, if he was any relation to the gentleman who wrote articles in the " Knick erbocker." Elly told him that he was his brother, which, as you know, was no more than true. The officer then said, " Come with me, and I will show you all there is to see ; for I am glad to know a brother of the writer of those pieces. He writes well, and I read 4 The Oregon Trail with great pleasure." He then took Elly all over the yard, and when he had shown him fully all there was to be seen he invited him into his own room, and among many other things showed him the numbers of the "Knickerbocker" which he said had given him so much pleasure. I confess, my dear Frank, I was much grati fied by this ; but I should not be studious to write it out at length, did I not feel that under your trials and inability to do as much as you desire, you are entitled to know that what you have done, and still can do, is fully appreciated. It is a consolation, when some of our plans are interrupted, to know that others have so well succeeded. And I congratulate you on having accomplished so much and so successfully amidst great discouragements. . . . Mother sends her love ; and I am your affectionate father, F. PAKKMAN. 204 FRANCIS PARKMAN SAME TO SAME. BOSTON, Friday, Sept. 3, [1847]. MY DEAR SON, ... I have received for you a diploma as Honorary Member of the New York Historical Society. I hear frequently of your " Oregon Trail," and of the success of your lucubrations. . . . With sincere affection, I am yours, F. PARKMAN. By this time, finding that his eyes had not improved, Frank had gone to Brattleboro, Ver mont, to try the water-cure, somewhat fash ionable in those days. But the success of this experiment, though he repeated it several times, was slight, and he went back again to Dr. El liott s care. CHAPTER XIX ILL HEALTH, 1848-1850 BEFOEE the " Oregon Trail " had run its slow course in the " Knickerbocker Magazine," Park- man had been busying himself in putting into narrative the varied mass of information which he had been gathering during the previous six or seven years. It was not easy to make one straight-away story of it, there was such lack of unity in the subject. Pontiac was but the most conspicuous chief in a long line of border war that encircled the English settlements from Maine to Carolina. There was need of art, of grouping and arrangement, of dragging certain events and actors into the foreground, of pushing others back, of exalting here and abasing there; in short, of the infinite pains that only can over come an unwieldly narrative. Parkman himself says in the preface that lack of eyesight, which forced him to long periods of darkness and medi tation, during which he thought out the sequence of his story, was really of service to him. It is a generous instance of giving the devil his due. I 206 FRANCIS PARKMAN quote his autobiography l for an account of this period of composition. In the spring of 1848, the condition indicated being then at its worst, the writer resolved to attempt the composition of the history of the conspiracy of Pontiac, of which the material had been for some time collected and the ground pre pared. The difficulty was so near to the impossi ble that the line of distinction often disappeared, while medical prescience condemned the plan as a short road to dire calamities. His motive, how ever, was in part a sanitary one, growing out of a conviction that nothing could be more deadly to his bodily and mental health than the entire absence of a purpose and an object. The diffi culties were threefold : an extreme weakness of sight, disabling him even from writing his name, except with eyes closed ; a condition of the brain prohibiting fixed attention, except at occasional brief intervals ; and an exhaustion and total de rangement of the nervous system, producing of necessity a mood of mind most unfavorable to effort. To be made with impunity, the attempt must be made with the most watchful caution. He caused a wooden frame to be constructed of the size and shape of a sheet of letter paper. Stout wires were fixed horizontally across it, half an inch apart, and a movable back of thick paste board fitted behind them. The paper for writing was placed between the pasteboard and the wires, guided by which, and using a black lead crayon, he could write not illegibly with closed eyes. He 1 Life ofParkman, pp. 325-327. ILL HEALTH, 1848-1850 207 was at the time absent from home, on Staten Island, where, and in the neighboring city of New York, he had friends who willingly offered their aid. It is needless to say to which half of humanity nearly all these kind assistants be longed. He chose for a beginning that part of the work which offered fewest difficulties, and with the subject of which he was most familiar, namely, the Siege of Detroit. The books and documents, already partially arranged, were pro cured from Boston, and read to him at such times as he could listen to them ; the length of each reading never, without injury, much exceeding half an hour, and periods of several days fre quently occurring during which he could not lis ten at all. Notes were made by him with closed eyes, and afterwards deciphered and read to him till he had mastered them. For the first half year the rate of composition averaged about six lines a day. The portion of the book thus com posed was afterwards partially rewritten. His health improved under the process, and the re mainder of the volume in other words, nearly the whole of it was composed in Boston, while pacing in the twilight of a large garret [5 Bow- doin Square], the only exercise which the sen sitive condition of his sight permitted him in an unclouded day while the sun was above the horizon. It was afterwards written down from dictation by relatives under the same roof, to whom he was also indebted for the preparatory readings. His progress was much less tedious than at the outset, and the history was complete in about two years and a half. 206 FRANCIS PARKMAN This story was given to the world after his death ; in life Parkman concealed his disabilities from his acquaintances under a cool reserve. Once a friend, coming from a distance, entered the room where Parkman sat in the dark with curtains drawn and eyes bandaged ; surprised by sympathy, he betrayed his pity. The tone of Parkman s voice made him think for an instant that his own eyes had deceived him, and that he was in the presence of a perfectly well, untroubled man. Nevertheless, Parkman s intimates knew what odds he struggled with, and having in their minds the young man who had spent his time crying " words of manage to his bounding steed," leaping on and off while at full gallop, one of them has said that on horseback, with his face grim and resolute, he looked like Colleoni, they could not wholly forbear to express their sympathy. Mr. Edmund D wight was a classmate and dear friend. EDMUND DWIGHT TO PARKMAN. BOSTON, April 23d, 48. MY DEAR FRANK, I received your most wel come note three days ago. Thank you for it. . . . Your account of yourself is perhaps as good as could have been expected. I wish that it had been a great deal better, but still it is enough for us to build our hopes upon that all ILL HEALTH, 1848-1850 209 will yet be well. I believe I have told you how certain I consider your final success to be if your health is spared. So keep up your spirits, dear Frank. No one ever did so more thoroughly and bravely than you have done. Your reward is as certain as any future event can be. . . . Pray let nie hear from you soon, and believe me, dear Frank, faithfully and warmly, your friend. BOSTON, April 30th, 1848. I saw Quincy Shaw last night, who told me he heard indirectly that you were getting on pretty well, which is very good news so far as it goes. Charlie Norton will bring more minute intelli gence, and I hope soon to get a word having your own authority for it. ... I have read " The Oregon Trail " for April and admire it exceedingly, though I think they would be still more interesting if read without a month s intermission between the chapters. ... If you have not already made up your mind to collect and publish what has been portioned out to us, I hope you will for your friends sake as well as your own. I will not give you the opinions which I hear expressed unless you prove intractable ; if you do I have that which will bring you round. . . . BOSTON, May 18, 1848. I was heartily glad to receive a line from you on Sunday, giving so encouraging account of your condition and prospects. You know that if my good wishes could do you any good, you would have had the full benefit of them long ago. . . . 210 FRANCIS PARKMAN BOSTON, June 10, 1848. I received your letter of the 9th upon my re turn from Springfield to-day. No words can tell you, dear Frank, how deep my sympathy is for you in all your terrible sufferings, nor how ar dent my admiration for the noble fortitude with which you bear them. Nor is my faith that in this world you will find at last that happiness which you are so faithfully earning less deep than my sympathy and sorrow for your misfor tunes. The postscript, of your letter adds a f round of belief and opens a prospect of success, t cannot, it will not be that you shall be disap pointed and foiled at last. No, dear Frank, it will all be well with you before long, and your reward will be as great as the difficulties you have overcome. The darkest cloud has a silver lining, and that will soon be turned toward you, and all these storm clouds pass away. I know how truly religious you are amidst all this dread ful trial. Only recollect that " hope " is ranked next to " faith " among the Christian virtues. Heaven bless the Doctor who gives you such good grounds for belief in the place of hope, and with one skillful Dr. for your eyes and another for your nerves all will be well before long. . . . Farewell, my dear friend. Heaven be with you and send you bright days quickly. July 19, 1848. I was very glad indeed to receive your let ter two days ago confirming the impression I had received when with you that you were grow ing better. The progress may be, or rather, I suppose, must be, slow, and changes for the ILL HEALTH, 1848-1850 211 worse will occur ; still, so long as the direction is the right one, there is a certainty of coming out right at last. . . . July 22d. The returned volunteers parade the streets to day, and the city is full of gaping countrymen to see the warriors. Do you still hold to your old notions about the glory of a soldier and the high qualities that are required to make a man fight well? Because if you do I should like to argue the point with you. A good officer is a noble fellow, and so is any other good man in active business. I m getting a contempt for men who only preach and theorize. If a man does keep straight through the bad influences of such a life it says a vast deal for him. Good-by. Keep up your spirits, and believe me, dear Frank, yours sincerely, EDMUND DWTGHT, JR. In some of the letters there are references to politics which seem to imply that Dwight and Parkman shared the views prevailing in well-to- do Boston, dislike of the ad valorem clauses in the tariff, indignation with the South, disap proval of the Mexican war. But Parkinan s world had shrunk to the four walls of a dark ened room, and his thoughts were too closely concentred on his work to wander far afield. He valued his friends, and always kept the letters that bore witness to the affection they felt for him. 212 FRANCIS PARKMAN C. E. NORTON TO PARKMAN. Sunday, June 18, 1848. MY DEAR FRANK, I have long meant to write to you, and should have done so before now had I supposed my letter would have given you pleasure. But as Ned Dwight told me last week that you spoke in your last letter to him of not being so well, except as regards your eyes, I determined to write to you, if for no other reason than to assure you of my continued and sincere sympathy with you. You have, my dear friend, one great source of support and comfort in your sufferings, the consciousness that they have not been sent to you as the retri bution for your past life, but that they have come in accordance with the inscrutable design of God, and will finally work out their own re sult by bringing you nearer to him. Let me quote from Miss Barrett two or three lines : " With earnest prayers Fasten your soul so high that constantly The smile of your heroic cheer may float Above all floods of earthly agonies." All this is, I know, very familiar to you, and for the last year or two you have given proof to every one who has known you that you carry your principles, which so few of us do, into daily action ; and in the midst of suffering you may have the encouragement of knowing that your example is one which we shall always cherish as inciting us to manliness and patience and faith. . . . Good-by. Write to me if you can. With kindest remembrances from the whole family. ILL HEALTH, 1848-1850 213 BOSTON, Sept. 4th, 1848. I have just got and looked over the worthless number of the " Knickerbocker " for this month. Where is the " Oregon Trail " ? Have you quar reled with the editor, or he with you? Or was the manuscript lost ? Or is Clark, knowing that there are but three numbers more, keeping it back that he may have a number or two for his new volume, so as to retain his subscribers who subscribe for the sake of that alone? It is not good policy in an editor of a magazine to have one contributor who so far excels the rest. Pray write to me to tell me about the missing chapter and about yourself. I hope you still keep to your intention of publishing the " Trail " in a volume this autumn. The time is drawing near when it should be out. Do begin to print, and either make arrangements with some New York pub lisher, or let me make them with some publisher here. At any rate, let me do as much for you in looking over the proofs, or in any other way, as I can. . . . NEW YORK, Febr y 25th, 1849. It seemed almost as if I were going to meet you, when yesterday morning I went down to Putnam s to see him about your book. ... I found Putnam, and learned from him that the "Oregon and California Trail" would be out in about ten days some time in next week. He said that so far as he knew there had not been the least difficulty in making out the corrections in the copy you had sent him, that he had re ceived the last proof that morning, that the en gravings were so nearly finished that he thought 214 FRANCIS PARKMAN he could give me copies of them to send on to you to-morrow, and that he could have six copies bound and sent to you early. I selected a neat and handsome style in which to have them bound, and told Putnam s clerk to be careful to have the matter attended to. ... MILAN, April 18th, 1850. I have owed you a letter for a long time. It has not been from any want of frequent remem brance that I have not written if I did not know that you would believe in that, I should certainly have written before. Your last letter came to me at Alexandria. I was very glad to receive it, as it contained good accounts of your self. I hope that you could have written in the same way all the winter. . . . During this last January I was traveling from Agra to Bombay, and during the journey, which was a solitary one, I often thought over and with constant pleasure the mornings of the January of the year before spent with you. I trust you will have a very long manuscript for me to read a year hence, when I am once more at home. . . . Ever your very faithful friend, CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. E. George Squier, another friend, was an anti quarian interested in Central America, a man of scholarly tastes and archa3ological learning, full of energy and exuberant vigor. ILL HEALTH, 1848-1850 215 PABKMAN TO SQUiER [dictated]. BOSTON, Oct. 15th, 1849. MY DEAR SQUIER, ... As for me I am rather inclined to envy you less for your success and your prospects, enviable as they are, than for your power of activity. From a complete and ample experience of both, I can bear witness that no amount of physical pain is so intolerable as the position of being stranded and doomed to lie rotting for year after year. However, I have not yet abandoned any plan which I have ever formed, and I have no intention of abandoning any until I am made cold meat of. At present I am much better in health than when you last saw me, and do not suffer from that constant sense of oppres sion on the brain which then at times annoyed me almost beyond endurance. I find myself able to work a little, although my eyes are in a to tally useless state and excessively sensitive. The eyes are nothing to the other infernal thing, which now seems inclined to let me alone, good riddance to it ; so I continue to dig slowly along by the aid of other people s eyes, doing the work more thoroughly, no doubt, and digesting my ma terials better than if I used my own. I have just obtained the papers that were wanting to com plete my collection for the illustrative work on the Indians which I told you about. The manu scripts amount to several thousand pages. I am inclined to think that the labor of collecting them might have been better bestowed, but I was a boy when I began it, and at all events the job will be done thoroughly. . . . If I can serve you 216 FRANCIS PARKMAN in the way of writing or otherwise, I wish you would let me know, and I shall be very glad to do anything in my power. By some practice I have caught the knack of dictating and find it as easy as lying. Believe me, with much regard, very truly yours, [F. PARKMAN.] In May, 1850, he married Miss Catherine Scollay Bigelow, a daughter of Dr. Jacob Bige- low, at that time a distinguished physician in Boston. CHAPTER XX LIFE AND LITERATURE, 1850-1856 PARKMAN S married life was very happy, espe cially in these first years before the devil of lameness clutched him. He and his wife were rarely suited to each other ; she was a spiritu ally-minded and an intellectual woman, religious, fond of poetry, dearly loved by those who knew her best. She was endowed by nature with a sweet, joyful disposition, with humor and flashes of wit, and with the high courage requisite to tend unfalteringly the pain and suffering of the man she loved. She, too, was calm outwardly and ardent underneath, and in self-abnegation and devotion bore her great sorrows. She put aside everything to minister to him, became his eyesight and his health, and lived his life in all ways possible. The death of her little son, Francis, broke her heart, and it never healed ; after that she went about like one who belonged in another world. In the last year of her life she was called upon to bear her husband s worst illness ; but the first years of married life were 218 FRANCIS PARKMAN gay and happy. They were poor, with not much more than six hundred dollars a year to begin housekeeping : Sie batten nichts und doch genug In the winter they lived part of the time at his father s house, and part at Dr. Bigelow s ; one summer they spent at Milton, the next at Brook- line. Some letters to Mr. Norton, who was at that time in Europe, written soon after their marriage, reveal their interests and their happi ness. PARKMAN TO NORTON [dictated]. MII/TON, June 15, [1850]. MY DEAR CHARLEY, ... I have a place near Milton Hill, small, snug, and comfortable, where I can offer entertainment for man and beast, of which I hope you and your steed will one day avail yourselves. We have woods about us dark enough for an owl to hide in, very fair society, not too near to bore us, and, what is quite as much to the purpose, a railroad to place us within arm s reach of town. This kind of life has one or two drawbacks, such as the necessity of paying bills, and the manifold responsibilities of a householder, an impending visit from the tax-gatherer, and petitions for the furtherance of charitable enterprises which, as I am informed, the son of my father will not fail to promote. . . . I have a reader for an hour or two, and when it is not too bright play the amateur farmer, to the great benefit of my corporeal man. Kate LIFE AND LITERATURE, 1850-1856 219 [Mrs. Parkman] is generally my amanuensis, as perhaps you may see by this handwriting. Pontiac is about three quarters through, and I hope will see the light within a year. I cal culated at starting it would take four years to finish it, which, at the pace I was then writing, was about a straight calculation, for I was then handsomely used up, soul and body on the rack, and with no external means or appliances to help ine on. You may judge whether my present condition is a more favorable one. I detest be ing spooney or an approximation to it, so I say nothing, but if you want to understand the thing, take a jump out of hell-fire to the opposite ex treme, such a one, in short, as Satan made when he broke bounds and paid his visit to our first parents. . . . With the greatest regard, very truly yours, F. PARKMAN, JR. SAME TO SAME [dictated]. MILTON, Sept. 22d, 1850. MY DEAR CHARLEY, It is a fortnight since your letter came to hand, and I have been too busy to answer it; rather a new condition of things for me, but the fact is all the time which I could prudently give to work has been taken up in carrying forward my book so as to be ready for publication next spring. I see that you are a true-hearted American, and have too much sense to be bitten by the John Bull mania, which is the prevailing disease of Boston in high places and in low. A disgusting malady it is, and I pray Heaven to deliver us from its influence. 220 FRANCIS PARKMAN We can afford to stand on our own feet and travel our own course without aid or guidance ; and ray maxim is, that it is about as well to go wrong on one s own hook as to go right by slav ishly tagging at the heels of another. But in the present case the thing is reversed. It is we that are going right, and John Bull may go to the devil. Fine Yankee brag, is n t it ? In spite of Taylor s [President Taylor] death we have come out right at last. There is no danger, thank God, of the Union breaking up at present, in spite of all the efforts of Garrison and his coad jutors. I wish with all my heart that you could be here, as you kindly wish, at the forthcoming of my book ; but a copy shall be put by for you. I find it seriously no easy job to accomplish all the details of dates, citations, notes, etc., with out the use of eyes. Prescott could see a little confound him, he could even look over his proofs, but I am no better off than an owl in the sunlight. The ugliest job of the whole is getting up a map. I have a draught made in the first place on a very large scale. Then I direct how to fill it in with the names of forts, Indian villages, etc., all of which I have pretty clearly in my memory from the reading of count less journals, letters, etc., and former travels over the whole ground. Then I examine the map inch by inch, taking about half a minute for each examination, and also have it com pared by competent eyes with ancient maps and draughts ; then I have the big map reduced to a proper size. I have got to the end of the book LIFE AND LITERATURE, 1850-1856 221 and killed off Pontiac. The opening chapters, however, are not yet complete. I have just finished an introductory chapter on the Indian tribes, which my wife pronounces uncommonly stupid. Never mind, nobody need read it who don t want to, ... I shall stereotype it myself and take the risk. . . . I remain, my dear Charley, ever faithfully yours, F. PARKMAN, JR. Another extract from this correspondence shall be the last. SAME TO SAME [dictated]. Nov. 10th, 1850. . . . Just now we are on the eve of an elec tion a great row about the Fugitive Slave Law, and an infinity of nonsense talked and acted upon the subject. A great union party is forming in opposition to the abolitionists and the Southern fanatics. For my part, I would see every slave knocked on the head before I would see the Union go to pieces, and would include ,in the sacrifice as many abolitionists as could be conveniently brought together. . . . All his life Parkman liked common sense. He was irritated by sentimentality, by fanati cism, by transcendentalism, by eccentricity of thought ; and he was wont to relieve his mind by a little emphatic language, which he was pleased to enhance with a certain extravagance, half in jest, half in relief of his humors. 222 FRANCIS PARKMAN The " Conspiracy of Pontiac," was published in 1851, but it had been ready for more than a twelve-month. Mr. Jared Sparks read a portion of the manuscript in March, 1850. " It affords," he says, " a striking picture of the influence of war and religious bigotry upon savage and semi- barbarous minds." But the old pedagogical his torian of the earlier American generation, miss ing in the young historian of a new school a proper predilection for moral lessons, so ready to hand, could not find it in his heart to stop there. Referring to the massacre by the Paxton Boys, 1 he writes : " The provocation and sur rounding circumstances afford no ground of miti gation of so inhuman a crime. It is one of the great lessons of history, showing what passion is capable of doing when it defies reason and tramples on the sensibilities of nature, to say nothing of the high injunctions of Christianity. Although you relate events in the true spirit of calmness and justice, yet I am not sure but a word or two of indignation now and then, at such unnatural and inhuman developments of the inner man, would be expected of a historian, who enters deeply into the merits of his sub jects." But Parkman preferred to state facts as he believed them to be, and to let his readers make their own philosophical deductions and 1 Conspiracy of Pontiac, chap. xadv. LIFE AND LITERATURE, 1850-1856 223 ejaculate their own exclamations of indignation or content. Negotiations for publication began in the sum mer, when the manuscript was submitted to Messrs. Harper & Brother by a friend. Park- man would have preferred to have the book pub lished in two volumes, in appearance similar to Prescott s " Conquest of Mexico," but the pre cise form was indifferent to him " provided the book appear in a decent and scholar-like dress." The title caused him some perplexity. He sug gested the following name, " which, however, I don t greatly admire," it certainly is open to criticism from a bookbinder who should wish to stamp the name on the back, "A History of the War with Pontiac and the Indian Tribes of North America in their combined attack upon the British Colonies after the Conquest of Can ada," or " A History of the Conspiracy of Pon tiac and the Struggle of the North American Indians against the British Colonies after the Conquest of Canada ; " and again, " The War with Pontiac (or Pontiac s War), a History of the Outbreak of the Indian Tribes of America against the British Colonies after the Conquest of Canada." The difficulty for the outside of the book was the same as for the inside ; the far- spread border war resisted the attempt to crib and confine it within the circle of unity. 224 FRANCIS PARKMAN The prudent Harpers, scared perhaps by these titles, submitted the MS. to their reader, and wrote back : " Our Reader [the capital R served both to show how Rhadamanthine that gentleman was, and to soften the Rejection] has just returned to us Mr. Parkman s MS. His opinion, as regards the literary execution of the work, etc., is very favorable, but he is apprehensive that the work, highly respectable as it is, will not meet with a very rapid or extensive sale," etc., etc. " Our Reader" had said : The subject is handled with very considerable ability in a manner highly creditable to the industry, intelligence, and literary skill of the author. The narrative is lively and often grace ful, the rules of historical perspective are well observed, and the whole effect of the picture is pleasing and impressive. It will worthily fill a notch among the standard works of American history. At the same time, I do not anticipate for it a remarkably brilliant reception. This is forbidden both by the subject and the style. . . . It will require a good deal of effort to push it into general circulation among the people. Therefore the Harpers, in the self-respecting phraseology of the old-fashioned counting-room, advised that Parkman should stereotype the work at his own cost, and then submit the plate proofs to various publishers, and find where he could get the best terms. LIFE AND LITERATURE, 1850-1856 225 Parkman followed this advice and had the book stereotyped, having learned what terms to make by borrowing from the " confounded " Prescott the latter s contract with a printer for stereotyping the " Conquest of Mexico/ The book was published by Messrs. Little & Brown. " Our Reader " was sagacious ; the book was not a popular success. But those who read it admired and enjoyed it. Mr. Jared Sparks may speak for the students of American history : CAMBRIDGE, June 4, 1850. I have been intimately acquainted with ye progress of Mr. Parkman s historical studies several years. On ye subject of our Indian His tory, subsequent to ye French War, he has taken unwearied pains to collect materials, and has procured copies of many original manuscripts and papers both in this country and from ye public offices in London. I doubt if any writer has bestowed more thorough research, or has more completely investigated his subject. I have read one chapter of his work, wh. appeared to me to be written in a spirited style, and with good judgment and discrimination in ye selec tion of facts. Other readers wrote their feelings, perhaps none of them are entitled to speak for anybody but themselves. Mr. Gr. R. Russell, however, a relation, expressed a common opinion in a letter to Parkman : 226 FRANCIS PARKMAN I have just finished reading your " History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac." I have read the work with great care, going over parts of it twice, not for purposes of criticism, but to enjoy the really beautiful descriptions, which place scenes before the reader as distinctly conspicuous as though he gazed at them wrought out on canvas by the hand of a master. Particular reasons for enjoyment are unimpor tant matters of personal taste which the reader must determine for himself ; but the young man, the middle-aged man, or the graybeard, is not to be envied who, even now, fifty years after its publication, cannot sit up half the night over the pages of " Pontiac " and read about the bloody scalpings, skirmishes, forays, and battles which arouse that central government of our being, the aboriginal savage in us. John Fiske says that the secret of Parkman s power is that his Indians are true to the life, that Pontiac is a man of warm flesh and blood. The book was also published in London by Richard Bentley at the time of the publication of the American edition. Mr. Bentley took a more hopeful view than the Reader for the Harpers, but that keen-scented gentleman, with his daintier sense of the reading public s appetites, was the more accurate. At the end of a year the English publisher s account carried a deficit of 53 2, and his ledger showed that of the five hundred LIFE AND LITERATURE, 1850-1856 227 copies printed, but one hundred and fifty-three had been sold. Parkman, however, never fell before the tempta tion to dally over that which had been done, stopping neither to regret this nor to wish that changed ; he ever pressed onward to the things that were before. No sooner was " Pontiac " pub lished than he strained in his leash to get after his great quarry, the English-French contest. But the devils of ill health leaped upon him. In the autumn of 1851 an effusion of water on the left knee lamed him ; a partial recovery was followed by a relapse, which came to a crisis in 1853 and shut him up in the house for two years. An odd consequence was that all the irritability of his nervous system centred in his head, causing him great pain. When he tried to fix his attention, he felt as if he had an iron band clamped around his head, like an old instrument of torture ; at other times his thoughts swooped through his brain like an infernal blast, with a horrid con fusion of tossing pains. In the train of these furies followed sleepless nights. Work upon his history was impossible. Afterwards, when the rage of the crisis was spent, he betook himself to writing reviews of historical books, and in 1856 he published a novel, " Vassall Morton." Perhaps in writing the novel he wished to occupy time which he could not use in graver work, per- 228 FRANCIS PARKMAN haps he desired to prove himself in a new field. The novel was not a success. To most readers to-day, merely seeking selfish amusement, the book does not appear to have deserved success. Parkman himself rated it at its worth, or proba bly at less than its worth ; he never spoke of it, and did not include it in his collected works. Its i real interest is in the self-revelation of the au thor ; for Vassall Morton, the hero, is undoubt edly in great measure drawn from Parkman s own imagination of himself. The generation of that day, however, had its own appetite in novels, and people of taste here and there liked it. George William Curtis, in " Putnam s Monthly," said that "Vassall Morton" was far the best of late American novels, but that it was sketchy, as if tossed off in intervals of severer study, and not equal to what was to be expected from Parkman s position in literature. CHAPTER XXI 1858-1865 THE following years brought the great sorrows of his life ; in 1857 his little boy died, the next year his wife died, leaving him with two little girls, Grace and Katharine, and as if to prove him, body and soul at once, another fierce attack of his malady fell upon him. Some friend senti mentally assumed that he had nothing more to live for, but his blunt answer intimated that Francis Parkman was not born to hoist the white flag. This attack of illness was so bad that the doc tor hardly expected him to live, but Parkman meant to make a fight for life, and went to Paris to consult the famous physician, Brown-Sequard. On the steamer he met Professor Child. The fol lowing letters show somewhat of his condition : PROFESSOR F. J. CHILD TO PARKMAN. GENOA, 21 January, [1859]. MY DEAK FRIEND, ... I must not ask about you because I know you cannot answer 230 FRANCIS PARKMAN me by pen and ink. You will believe that though I have not written I have thought a great deal of you. I wish that you may have found at least some alleviation to your great sufferings in Paris, or if not there in the mountains, and I wish that we could meet every now and then, and go back in the same ship. My dear fellow, you can not even read much, and so you must believe that there is a great deal in these last lines when I say that I shall never forget your magnanimous fortitude, that I felt an intense sympathy for you that I could not express when we were to gether, and that I shall often pray God to help you, as I have constant occasion to do for other friends. NICE, 23 February, [1859]. ... I begin faintly to realize what I have often supposed I thoroughly comprehended, but did not, that happiness in this world is par dessus le marche. I don t mean to talk like a philosopher. Your experience, given with such profound feeling and conviction in our first con versation on board ship, ought never to be lost sight of by me. My dear fellow, I hope you get some comfort from heaven, if none on earth. Remember me kindly. I received your message. God bless you ever. Your affectionate friend, F. CHILD. This letter confirms what his closest friends knew, that, where Parkman met a man like Child, endowed by nature with ten talents for tenderness, he laid aside the grim aspect of his 1858-1865 231 reserve and showed his sensitiveness to affec tion. Parkman stayed in Paris for several months. He wrote home some scraps of information about his health, in answer to a loving appeal from his sisters, " Do not write the best of it to us, write the whole ; " they were ready, as he knew, " to give their health to him," if only nature had allowed love to make the sacrifice. PARKMAN TO HIS SISTER. PAKIS, Dec. 22, 58. MY DEAK MOLLY, I got y r letter yester day with Grace s remarkable designs. I was very glad to hear from home. ... I am well lodged, Hotel de France, 239 Rue St. Honore have felt much better since arriving. I find abundant occupation for the winter. I often see Anna Greene, and have been at Howland s and Mrs. Wharton s. For the rest, I shun Americans like the pest. I have not even given my address to my bankers, Hottinguer & Co., to whom please direct. I tell them to send my letters to Wm. Greene. I passed the Empress day be fore yesterday, in the Bois de Boulogne ; I re ceived a gracious bow in return of my salute. On the previous day, the heir of the Empress, about 3 years old, was walking with his gou- vernante and servants in the garden of the Tui- leries, while a line of Zouave sentinels kept the crowd at a safe distance. Paris is greatly changed since I was here 14 years ago. The 232 FRANCIS PARKMAN Emperor has made great improvements in many parts and added vastly to the beauty of the city. Tell Jack [his brother] I cannot advise him to come, as the cigars are very bad. Give my love to Grace [daughter], mother, Lizzie [sister], and all. Y rs affect ly, F. SAME TO SAME. PARIS, Jan. 13, 1859. MY DEAR MOLL, I got y r letter yesterday and Lizzy s some time ago. By this time all mine will have come. I wrote Dr. B. [Bigelow] that I was floored with lameness. It still con tinues, but seems mending, so that I get about drive all day (chiefly on omnibuses ! !), dine at 6, and commonly spend the evening at the cafes. I have seen Dr. Brown-Sequard, who fixed Sumner s head. He says he can soon cure the lameness, but that the head is quite another matter. He says, however, that it will not kill me, and at some remote period may possibly be come better. He has 2 other cases of the kind but says they are very rare. I am still unable to walk more than 5 minutes at a time. . . . I am greatly obliged to Uncle C. [Chardon] for his remembrance, and hope the youngster will do honor to the name. He should be brought up to some respectable calling, and not allowed to become a minister. . . . [He had a high regard for many of the clergy, but liked to chaff them as a body.] Love to Jack. Ditto to Grace, to whom I would send a little doll, if it would go into the letter. With love to mo ther and Lizzy, Y rs aff ly, F. 1858-1865 233 PARKMAN TO HIS SISTER. PAKIS, Jan. 19, 1859. MY DEAR Liz, My knees are somewhat better, and I am about all day, sleep well, etc. So much for my corporeal state. I mean to stay here some time, as I am better off than else where. ... I see Anna Greene almost daily. Greene is a capital fellow, and nothing of a par son. X wrote me a long letter in which she advises me to leave Paris, as the contrast be tween outward gayety and inward sin must grate dreadfully on my feelings! I used to think her a woman of sense and understanding. What the devil are your sex made of ? Also that I should leave my hotel and live at a boarding- house kept by a female friend of hers, where I should be surrounded by such kind people ! I shall stop off that sort of thing. Y rs affec ly, F. PARKMAN TO HIS SISTER. PARIS, Feb. 30, 1859. MY DEAR MOLLY, I got y r letter of Feb. 8 about a week ago. I am a little less lame. I get on well enough. The omnibuses of Paris of which there are about 700 are made with rail ings, etc., in such a way that with a little science I can swing myself to the top with the arms alone, and here I usually spend the better part of the day smoking cigarettes and surveying the crowds below. I have formed an extensive acquaintance among omnibus cads and the like, whom I find to be first-rate fellows in their way also have 234 FRANCIS PARKMAN learned pretty thoroughly the streets of Paris, where much may be seen from the top of an omnibus. When hungry or thirsty, I descend to any restaurant, cafe, or " buffet " that happens to be near, whether of low or high degree, if only clean. In fine weather, an hour or two may always be spent pleasantly enough, between 2 and 5 o clock, in the open air under the porches of the cafes on the Boulevards, where all Paris passes by. 1 In one respect I have gained greatly from Brown-Sequard s treatment. The muscles, which ever since my first lameness have been very much reduced and weakened, are restored wholly to their natural size and strength, so that when the neuralgic pain subsides I shall be in a much better condition than before. . . . Y rs aff ly, R His health, however, made but little gain, and he went home after the winter was over. From this time he lived with his mother and sisters, at their house in town in the winter, at his house hard by Jamaica Pond in the summer. His daughters had gone to live with their aunt, Miss Bigelow, for he was unable to take the charge of them. This little country-place on Jamaica Pond was one of the great pleasures in his life. He had bought the cottage, with three acres of garden about it, after his father s death, in 1852, and there he lived, in warm weather, all his life. 1 Life of Francis Parkman, pp. 101, 102. 1858-1865 235 It was on the border of Jamaica Pond that Parkman revealed a versatility of spirit which, in a man whose indomitable will was clinched upon a work of history, the dream of his boy hood, may well quicken the most sluggish admi ration. Balked in his course, pulled off from his chosen work, another man would have felt justi fied in despair, at least in idleness ; not so he. His wife had given him the suggestion, " Frank, with all your getting, get roses." Up he got and made a garden of roses. He had three acres, his man Michael, such enrichment of the soil as a horse, a cow, and a pig could supply, a few garden implements, and a wheeled chair, or in happy seasons a cane ; with these he grew his beautiful roses, " Madame Henriette, rosy pink, very large and beautiful," " ^Etna, brilliant crim son tinted with purple," " Mariquita, white, lightly shaded, beautiful," " Marechal Niel, beau tiful, deep yellow, large, full, and of globular form, very sweet, the shoots well clothed with large shining leaves," " Euphrosyne, creamy buff, very sweet and good," and a thousand more. Suc cess led to a head-gardener, spadesman, and hoe- man, to greenhouse, hotbeds, hybrids, horticul tural shows, medals, and all the pomp that Flora showers on her successful bedesmen. He loved what he calls " that gracious art which through all time has been the companion and symbol of 236 FRANCIS PARKMAN peace ; an art joined in the closest ties with Na ture, and her helper in the daily miracle by which she works beauty out of foulness and life out of corruption ; an art so tranquillizing and so benign ; so rich in consolations and plea sures." He turned to Nature like a lover, and with the industry and will of a man who meant to be " a jolly thriving wooer." His character was his art. In " The Book of Roses " he says : One point cannot be too often urged in re spect to horticultural pursuits. Never attempt to do anything which you are not prepared to do thoroughly. A little done well is far more satis factory than a great deal done carelessly and superficially. . . . The amateur who has made himself a thorough master of the cultivation of a single species or variety has, of necessity, ac quired a knowledge and skill which, with very little pains, he may apply to numberless other forms of culture. This is the way he went to work for a bed of roses. He took a plot some sixty feet long by forty wide, his gardener dug it, turned it, spaded it, and hoed it two feet and a half deep. Then a layer of manure was spread at a depth of eighteen inches ; on top of that a spaded mix ture of native yellow loam nicely intermin gled with black surface soil was shoveled in ; then, this time nine inches deep, a second layer of manure, and again on top of that a shoveling 1858-1865 237 of the nicely intermingled dirt. On top of the bed he spread a third layer of manure, with a goodly supply of sandy road-scrapings. Each act was performed with sacerdotal exactness. The manure was not home-got, for he had " found no enriching material so good as the sweepings from the floor of a horseshoer, in which manure is mixed with the shavings of hoofs," - it was light and porous, and altogether deserving of commendation. Sometimes in his wheeled chair he would pro pel himself from tuft to tuft, armed with trowel or sickle, but he liked best to superintend some delicate manoauvre, as of sowing the seeds of roses ; there he sat, one hand on a wheel, to revolve himself along the edge of the bed, carefully made of loam, old manure, leaf -mould, and sand, and with the other hand scattered broadcast and thick over the expectant ground seeds born of some marriage of horticultural con- venance contrived by himself. Thus he came to love stocks, stalks, runners, creepers, corollas, pistils, stamens ; and, love of science mingling with his love of beauty, he gradually devoted himself almost exclusively to the hybridization of lilies and the cultivation of roses. Thus forced to leave library and desk, and the long lists of catalogued and ticketed manuscripts, he betook himself to the business of growing and selling 238 FRANCIS PARKMAN flowers. He was better at growing than at sell ing, and took a partner for a season. PARKMAN TO MRS. SAM. PARKMAN. JAMAICA PLAIN, Ap. 4, 1862. MY DEAR MARY, ... I am daily here in Jamaica Plain and am at last really busy, hav ing formed a partnership with Spooner [a florist] which will absorb all the working faculties 1 have left. So you find me a man of business. I am content with the move, and resolved to give the thing a fair trial, and, by one end of the horn or the other, work a way out of a condi tion of helplessness. At all events, this is my best chance, and I will give it a trial. Spooner wants me to go to England and France in the fall, to look up new plants. The thing has dif ficulties and risks, not a few under any circum stances ; but is attractive, and doubly so as it gives me a prospect of meeting you. So I cherish it, as probably an illusion, but still a very pleas ing one. Turning tradesman has agreed with me so far. Several bushels of historical MSS. and fragments of abortive chapters have been packed under lock and key, to bide their time. Affecly y rs, F. P. The firm did not make money, and dissolved within a year. Parkman continued to labor in his garden. He became member, and finally president, of the Massachusetts Horticultural So ciety, and in due course won hundreds of prizes at the flower shows. His experiments in hybridi- 1858-1865 239 zation of lilies were most careful, and (so Pro fessor Goodale says) there are no better lessons on this subject for the botanical student than Parkman s own narrative of what he did. He wished to combine two Japanese lilies, that they should not " live unwooed and unrespected fade," the Lily Beautiful, with lancet leaves, and the Lily Golden ; the former was to be the bride. Four or five varieties, in color from pure white to deep red, were tended in pots under glass, for the Lily Beautiful will not ripen its seed un- coaxed in New England air. When the flowers were on the point of opening, Parkman took a forceps and removed all the anthers from the expanding buds, the pollen at that period was still wholly unripe, and self-impregnation was impossible. He then applied the pollen of the Lily Golden to the pistils of the Lily Beautiful as soon as they were in a condition to receive it. Conception took place, the pods swelled, and the seed ripened ; though the pods looked full, they held less seeds than chaff, and these seeds were rough and wrinkled, not like the smooth seeds of the Lily Beautiful when left to itself. Fifty seedlings were got, their stems all mottled like the father plant ; " the infant bulbs were pricked out into a cold frame " and left there three or four years ; then they were planted in a bed for blooming. One bud at last opened, and 240 FRANCIS PARKMAN spread its flower nine and a half inches in di ameter, resembling its father in fragrance and form, its mother in color ; the next year the bulb produced a flower whose extended petals mea sured twelve inches from tip to tip, and taken to England it produced other flowers fourteen inches across. This was the famous Lilium Parkmanni. 1 The other forty-nine hybrids all put forth flowers like their mother s. In 1866 he published " The Book of Roses," in which he told the various processes of culti vation, training, and propagation, both in open ground and in pots, and gave accounts of the various families and groups, with descrip tions of the best varieties. Among other fruits of this book was this letter : ESTEEMED SIR, Allow one of your most ar dent admirers to address you, for the purpose of obtaining from you a floral sentiment and your autograph. I am a great lover of flowers and the beauties of nature in general, and being well aware of the fact that you are a great floricul- tural historian, I take the liberty to address you. May I kindly ask if you will favor me with a quotation from your " Book of Roses " or else some sublime floral sentiment which may occur to your mind. I am the fortunate possessor of floral senti ments from the pen of such celebrated botanists, 1 Sold at last to an English florist for a thousand dollars. 1858-1865 241 floriculturists, and pomologists as ... [the quick and the dead]. I assure you, sir, that such a contribution from you will be highly valued and appreciated, and long after you shall have gone to join that grand and immortal army of floral writers this contribution will be sacred to me. My object is only to possess letters or quotations dwelling on floriculture. If you cannot think of anything appropriate, will you kindly write for me those exquisite words of the late Solon Rob inson, " A love of flowers is a love of the beauti ful, and a love of the beautiful is a love of the good," from his "Facts for Farmers" (1864), p. 500. Whether Mr. Parkman gave a floricultural or a pomological sentiment, or none, is not known. Outdoor occupation did him good, but per haps the tenderness of the flowers comforters who comfort and ask neither thanks nor confi dence in return did him more good still. The whole garden was delightful, the best of phy sicians, the best of friends. Sometimes in the richness of the blossoming time the colors were too heavily laid on by the horticultural hand ; The fayre grassy grownd Mantled with green, and goodly beautifide With all the ornaments of Floraes pride, Wherewith her mother Art, as halfe in scorn Of niggard Nature, like a pompous bride Did decke her, and too lavishly adorne was too red and pink and yellow. The azaleas, 242 FRANCIS PARKMAN rhododendrons, magnolias, syringas, lilacs,, and the big scarlet Parkman poppies were too bold for a less scientific eye, and overshadowed the columbine, foxglove, larkspur, violet, even the Japanese iris, whose seeds had been fetched from the Mikado s garden, and all the wee, modest flowers; but people would drive thither many miles to see the splendor of the blossoms. The garden was of modest dimensions and sloped down sharply to the shore, so that the lit tle walk from the house to the dock on the pond s edge ran past all the vegetable friends, trees, shrubs, and plants. There were a tall, wide- spreading beech, elms sixty feet high, a big chest nut, a tulip, a plane-tree, two white oaks, a sassafras, Scottish maples and scarlet maples, lindens, willows, pines, and hemlocks ; and hold ing themselves a little aloof, as befitted their rarity and breeding, a Kentucky coffee-tree, a gingko, the magnolia acuminata, and the Park man crab, first of its kind in New England, radiant with its bright-colored flowers. Parkman always lived comfortably but sim ply, for though he had inherited a competence from his father, his books brought him in little, even in his first days of fame he received hardly more, as he said, than the wages of a day-laborer, and his researches were very ex pensive, and horticulture paid little. At the 1858-1865 243 time of the partnership he was troubled by the thought that for the firm s benefit it might be his duty to sell the garden ; but he was not obliged to make that sacrifice. His purse gradually be came somewhat heavier, so that in 1874 he was able to build a pleasant house in place of the original cottage. I have not finished the list of Parkman s ills. He was forced to endure anew the poison of in action when the Civil War broke out, and the "hand that should have grasped the sword " an itching palm could hold nothing but the trowel or the pen. He, with his heart and soul in the Union cause, and believing in the enforce ment of right by might, was compelled to sit and hear the President s call for troops, to sit and read Governor Andrew s proclamation, to sit and see his friends and kinsmen ride away to the front, and in a wheeled chair or darkened room to receive the news of battle, of defeat, of victory. This was bitterer than any pain. As he himself said : Who can ever forget the day when from spires and domes, windows and housetops, the stars and stripes were flung to the wind, in token that the land was roused at last from deadly torpor. They were the signals of a new life ; portentous of storm and battle, yet radiant with hope. Our flag was never so glorious. On that day it be- 244 FRANCIS PARKMAN came the emblem of truth and right and justice. Through it a mighty people proclaimed a new faith that peace, wealth, ease, material pro gress were not the sum and substance of all good. Loyalty to it became loyalty to humanity and God. The shackles of generations were thrown off. We were a people disenthralled, rising from abasement abject and insupportable. There is not a chapter in his books which does not show that the bent of his spirit was to fight by day in the forest, and bivouac by night under the stars ; and yet while a million men were under arms he was not able to take any part, even the very least. This was his purgatory ; he sat with outward calm and inward wrath in his town house or on the banks of Jamaica Pond and wrote " The Book of Roses," and put together page by page " The Pioneers of New France." He was a stoic, and believed the stoic s creed, that the ills of life should be accepted at the hands of fate without petulance, without spleen, with no word, not merely not complaining, but not demanding sympathy, not telling even friendly ears. He believed in the virtue of silent forti tude. This rule he deliberately put aside for once. Before the close of the war he wrote the brief autobiographical letter published in Mr. Farnham s Life, which shows how much (in his uncertainty of life and of strength to labor) he wished the world to know that while his friends 1858-1865 245 were dying for a great cause, he was not un worthy of their friendship, and that but for hos tile fate he too would have accomplished no un worthy thing. This letter, indorsed " Not to be used during my life," was sent to Dr. George E. Ellis in 1868, with a note saying : MY DEAR FRIEND, Running my eye over this paper, I am more than ever struck with its egoism, which makes it totally unfit for any eye but that of one in close personal relations with me. It resulted from a desire natural, per haps, but which may just as well be suppressed to make known the extreme difficulties which have reduced to very small proportions what might otherwise have been a good measure of achievement. Having once begun it, I went on with it, though convinced that it was wholly un- suited to see the light. Physiologically consid ered, the case is rather curious. ... If I had my life to live over again, I would follow exactly the same course again, only with less vehemence. Very cordially, F. PARKMAN. He wrote a very similar, almost identical, let ter in 1886 to Mr. Martin Brimmer, which is printed in the appendix. Both letters were kept secret till after Parkman s death, in accordance with his instructions. CHAPTER XXII HISTORY AND FAME THE first volume of the great series on France and England in North America was not pub lished till 1865. In the preface he writes : To those who have aided him with information and documents, the extreme slowness in the pro gress of the work will naturally have caused sur prise. This slowness was unavoidable. During the past eighteen years, the state of his health has exacted throughout an extreme caution in regard to mental application, reducing it at best within narrow and precarious limits, and often precluding it. Indeed, for two periods, each of several years, any attempt at bookish occupation would have been merely suicidal. A condition of sight arising from kindred sources has also re tarded the work, since it has never permitted reading or writing continuously for much more than five minutes, and often has not permitted them at all. Thus, so far as concerns his history, the record of these laborious years, doing " day labor, light denied," is chiefly a chronicle of the spirit domi nating continuous insurrections of the body. It HISTORY AND FAME 247 is the story of a prize-fight a bout, a respite, again a toeing of the line, again blows hard and heavy, and Parkman again and again coming back to the scratch, on guard, teeth set, and reso lute " never to submit or yield." The cause of all these ills was the subject of great disagree ment among physicians ; Dr. George M. Gould, of Philadelphia, has written a very interesting monograph to prove that unsymmetric astigma tism and anisometropia were the prime devils in his body. Sed non nobis Procul, prof am! Enough of this, as he himself would have said. At the time he published " The Pioneers of France in the New World " he had written parts of later volumes, near a third of " The Jesuits," a half of " La Salle ; " also the material for " Frontenac " was partially arranged for compo sition, and most of the material for the whole series had been collected and was within reach. "The Pioneers" could not fail of flattering criticism from the newspapers ; the episode of Menendez and Dominique de Gourgues, the story of Champlain, have all the spirit of the " Trois Mousquetaires " and all the accuracy of Agassiz. The "Tribune" ventured to say to New Yorkers that " in vigor and pointedness of description, Mr. Parkman may be counted supe rior to Irving; " and the "Nation " said, " This book will add his name to the list of those his- 248 FRANCIS PARKMAN torians who have done Bonor to American liter ature." The other volumes followed with louder and louder choruses of applause, " The Jesuits in North America" in 1867, "La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West" in 1869, the " Old Rdgiine " in 1874, " Frontenac " in 1877, " Montcalin and Wolfe " in 1884, for here he broke the sequence of his story in order that he might run no risk, but complete while yet time served the last great scene of the play. After wards, in 1892, he published the " Half Century of Conflict," and the long day s work was done. The careless, pleasure-loving reader, who skips prefaces and notes, might rashly conclude that what is so delightful to read is not to be classed with " profitable " books of research, which commonly have the charm of a law book and read like a dictionary ; to such readers a page or two must be addressed. In the preface to the " Pioneers " Parkman says : Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. . . . The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote ; in the char acter, habits, and manners of those who took part in them. . . . With respect to that spe cial research which, if inadequate, is still in the HISTORY AND FAME 249 most emphatic sense indispensable, it has been the writer s aim to exhaust the existing material of every subject treated. . . . With respect to the general preparation, ... he has long been too fond of this theme to neglect any means within his reach of making his conception of it distinct and true. For the second volume, " The Jesuits in North America," there was a mass of materials, as " nearly every prominent actor left his own re cord of events," and all the documents connected with the Jesuits had to be studied and compared. For " La Salle " he had to examine volumes of manuscript drawn from the public archives of France. For the " Old Regime " the story is very much the same. For " Montcalm and Wolfe," be sides books, pamphlets, brochures, memoirs, re ports, documents, and all the multitudinous forms of print, brevier, long primer, small pica, not to forget Borgis, nonpareille, Garmond, and Cicero, and all the other outlandish types of foreign lands, six thousand folio pages of manuscript had been copied from the Archives de la Marine et des Colonies, the Archives de la Guerre, and the Archives Nationales at Paris ; ten volumes of copies had been made from the Public Record Office and the British Museum in London ; and on the heels of these he had to listen to the slow deciphering of cramped writing, crabbed writing, hasty, blotted, blurred writing, faded writing, 250 FRANCIS PARKMAN unpunctuated writing, all sorts of writing, ab breviated by caprice and the waywardest fancy, naturally bad, worsened by time, by the corrup tions of moth and dust, and all the foes of his tory. So, too, it was for the " Half Century of Conflict." In the upper hall of the house of the Massa chusetts Historical Society stands a large wooden press, a bookcase with doors ; over the top is carved Parkman s name. Within are his manu scripts, given by him to the Society. They not only tell of all the work he did, but they talk about him, and boast of the proud and affec tionate interest he took in them. There the vol umes of MSS. stand bound in their bindings, differing in degree according to size and dig nity. There are the early -gathered " Pontiac Miscellanies " in big, red, shiny leather, with gilt lettered backs, standing eighteen inches high and near two inches thick, neat copies of docu ments ; one volume of them, of less elegant cal ligraphy, in Parkman s own hand, copied from records in the Maryland Historical Society in 1845. Next them come the letters of Pedro Me- nendez, the cruel Spaniard ; and following him more great big red books, copied for Francis Parkman, Esq., by Ben : Perley Poore, Historical Agent of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as the frontispiece recounts in pied letters of great HISTORY AND FAME 251 brilliancy. Very creditable calligraphy they are. Then follow volumes in rows, volumes of " Correspondance Officiate," 1621-1679 ; vol umes on Acadia, Isle Royale, Canada ; volumes of documents copied from the Public Record Office in London ; volumes of Dinwiddie s let ters, these last in green leather, in self -satisfied distinction from their fellows. Then other vol umes, English and French, of which none is more interesting than the " Voyage dans le Gulfe de Mexique," written by La Salle s brother, an old manuscript bought at a sale in London in 1857 for $48.50, as the fly-leaf says. It begins : MONSEIGNEUR, Voicy la Relation du voy age que mon f rere entreprit pour decouvrir dans le golfe du mexique, Fembouchure du fleuve de missisippy, une mort inopinee et tragique 1 ayant empeche de le parachever et d en rendre Conte a votre grandeur, j espere quelle agreera que je suplee a son defaut. In the days of Louis XIV even death was a poor excuse for not fulfilling the punctilios due the king. Following these big books come little note books of Parkman s own keeping, loose sheets, letters, journals, little parcels of papers neatly tied with ribbon, the MSS. of one or two of the histories, and a guerilla band of those enemies of peace and order, " Sundry documents." 252 FRANCIS PARKMAN His printed books, several thousands, were kept in his study on the third story of No. 50 Chestnut Street ; so were the MSS. before they were given to the Historical Society. Up in that study he used to sit all the winter months, in the company of his books and manuscripts, while the fire from the open stove flickered sal utations to the shelves opposite, and the books stared back at trophies got forty years before on the Oregon trail, bow, arrows, shield, pipe of peace, hanging tamely on the wall ; the little bronze cats on the mantelpiece played undis mayed beside the couchant Barye lioness, em bodiment of the eternal struggle, the triumph of the strong, the ruin of the weak ; and Sir Jeffrey Amherst, out from his engraving after Reynolds s portrait, his head resting pensively on one hand, careless of baton and helmet, gazed ruminatingly at his fellow pictures, prints of the " Catterskills," of the ruins of Ticonderoga, of Lake George. From other walls Sir Walter Scott, a lion, and a cat looked gravely at Colonel Shaw, Colleoni, Diirer s Knight (a favorite), and at the facade of Notre Dame ; but pictures had no great liberty of place, for the bookshelves spread themselves over most of the room. Parkman used to sit in a simple easy-chair, his feet near the stove, while his sister, at a little table beside the window, wrote at his dictation. HISTORY AND FAME 253 But when his work was over, as the short win ter twilights hurried away, his thoughts often must have wandered back over the forty years spent in the wilderness of physical ills, and with his jaw set firm, but with his kind heart un strung, he must have remembered the old days of boyhood, of health, of promise, when Nature, too, was young and beautiful and savage, and perhaps he repeated the words of his youth : Thus to look back with a fond longing to inhos pitable deserts, where men, beasts, and Nature herself, seem arrayed in arms, and where ease, security, and all that civilization reckons among the goods of life, are alike cut off, may appear to argue some strange perversity, and yet such has been the experience of many a sound and healthful mind. To him who has once tasted the reckless independence, the haughty self-reli ance, the sense of irresponsible freedom, which the forest life engenders, civilization thenceforth seems flat and stale. Its pleasures are insipid, its pursuits wearisome, its conventionalities, du ties, and mutual dependence, alike tedious and disgusting. . . . The wilderness, rough, harsh, and inexorable, has charms more potent in their seductive influence than all the lures of luxury and sloth. There is a chord in the hearts of most men, prompt to answer loudly or faintly, as the case may be, to such rude appeals. But there is influence of another sort, strongest with minds of the finest texture, yet sometimes hold ing a controlling power over those who neither 254 FRANCIS PARKMAN acknowledge nor suspect its workings. There are so few imbruted by vice, so perverted by art and luxury, as to dwell in the closest presence of Nature, deaf to her voice of melody and power, untouched by the ennobling influences which mould and penetrate the heart that has not hardened itself against them. Into the spirit of such an one the mountain wind breathes its own freshness, and the midsummer tempest, as it rends the forest, pours its own fierce energy. ... It is the grand and heroic in the hearts of men which finds its worthiest symbol and noblest aspiration amid these desert realms in the mountain and in the interminable forest. 1 So spake the lover at twenty-three, in the lux uriant exuberance of love and youth ; so thought the old man, thinking of his mistress whom he had not seen for forty years. Perhaps to his thin determined lips and firm-set jaw, up from his modest heart, came the ancient benedic tion, Blessed of the Lord be his land, For the precious things of heaven, for the dew, And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, And for the precious things of the lasting hills, And for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof, And for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush. As I have said, his reputation increased as the series advanced, and on the publication of " Montcalm and Wolfe " he reached the height 1 Pontiac, vol. ii. pp. 237-239. HISTORY AND FAME 255 of his fame; this book he and the world re garded as his best. He could then feel that, even should he not fill in the intervening half century between Frontenac and Montcalm, his work had been in substance done, that his en durance had overcome its enemies. He enjoyed applause, not so much that of the public for he had a smack of Coriolanus s opinion on the " raskell many " as that of men whose judg ment was trained and instructed, and whose speech was measured. MR. HENRY ADAMS TO PARKMAN. [WASHINGTON], 21 December, 1884. MY DEAR PARKMAN, Your two volumes on Montcalm and Wolfe deserve much more care ful study than I am competent to give them, and so far as I can see, you have so thoroughly exhausted your sources as to leave little or nothing new to be said. The book puts you in the front rank of living English historians, and I regret only that the field is self-limited so that you can cultivate it no further. Your book is a model of thorough and impartial study and clear statement. Of its style and narrative the highest praise is that they are on a level with its thoroughness of study. Taken as a whole, your works are now dignified by proportions and com pleteness which can be hardly paralleled by the " literary baggage " of any other historical writer in the language known to me to-day. . . . Ever truly y rs, HENRY ADAMS. 256 FRANCIS PARKMAN MR. E. L. GODKIN TO PARKMAN. [NEW YORK], Dec. 14, 1885. MY DEAR PARKMAN, I have just finished your u Wolfe and Montcalm," and I cannot help doing what I have never done before write to tell the author with what delight I read it. I do not think I have ever been so much enchained by a historical book, although I was passionately fond of history in rny boyhood. Wolfe, too, was one of my earliest heroes, and although I have been familiar for over forty years with his story, I became almost tremulous with anxiety about the result of the night attack when reading your account of the final preparations, a few evenings ago. What became of Montcalm s family ? Has he any descendants now? What a pathetic tale his is ! . . . Thank you most sincerely for a great pleasure. Yours very sincerely, E. L. GODKIN. A later letter, 1887, characteristically says : "I hope you are well and busy. No one else does nearly as much for American literature. This is i gospel truth. " MR. HEXRY JAMES TO PARKMAN. DOVER, [ENGLAND], August 24th, [1885]. MY DEAR PARKMAN, This is only three lines, because I cannot hold my hand from tell ing you, as other people must have done to your final weariness, with what high appreciation and genuine gratitude I have been reading your HISTORY AND FAME 257 " Wolfe and Montcalm." (You see I am still so overturned by my emotion that I can t even write the name straight.) I have found the right time to read it only during the last fortnight, and it has fascinated me from the first page to the last. You know, of course, much better than any one else how good it is, but it may not be absolutely intolerable to you to learn how good still another reader thinks it. The manner in which you have treated the prodigious theme is worthy of the theme itself, and that says every thing. It is truly a noble book, my dear Park- man, and you must let me congratulate you, with the heartiest friendliness, on having given it to the world. So be as proud as possible of being the author of it, and let your friends be almost as proud of possessing his acquaintance. Reading it here by the summer smooth channel with the gleaming French coast, from my win dows, looking on some clear days only five miles distant, and the guns of old England pointed sea ward, from the rambling, historic castle, perched above me upon the downs ; reading it, I say, among these influences, it has stirred all sorts of feelings none of them, however, incompat ible with a great satisfaction that the American land should have the credit of a production so solid and so artistic. . . . Believe in the per sonal gratitude of yours, ever very faithfully, H. JAMES. MB. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL TO PARKMAN. 31, LOWNDES SQUARE, [LONDON], S. W., 8th Deer., 1884. DEAR PARKMAN, I have just done reading your book, and write a line to thank you for 258 FRANCIS PARKMAN what has been so great a pleasure. It went as delightfully as floating down one of the forest streams where your scene is laid. You have done nothing better, and you know how I liked the others. Faithfully yours, J. R. LOWELL. MB. GEORGE BANCROFT TO PARKMAN. WASHINGTON, D. C., 28 Nov., 1884. DEAR MR. PARKMAN, I am delighted at receiving from you under your own hand these two new volumes with which you delight your friends and instruct readers in both worlds. You belong so thoroughly to the same course of life which I have chosen that I follow your career as a fellow soldier, striving to promote the noblest ends, and I take delight in your honors as much or more than I should my own. You have just everything which go to make an historian persistency in collecting materials, indefatigable industry in using them, swift dis cernment of the truth, integrity and intrepidity in giving utterance to truth, a kindly human ity which is essential to the true historian, and which gives the key to all hearts, and a clear and graceful and glowing manner of narration. I claim like yourself to have been employed ear nestly, and pray you to hold me to be in all sin cerity and affectionate regard, Your fellow laborer and friend, GEO. BANCROFT. Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge dedicated his " His torical and Political Essays " to Parkman, - HISTORY AND FAME 259 "To Francis Parkman, in token of admiration for his great work as an American historian and for his character as a man " and at the time wrote this letter : Nov. llth, [1892]. DEAR MR. PARKMAN, I send herewith a little volume of essays, which I have taken the liberty and given myself the great pleasure of dedicating to you. ... I should have liked to have had time to write an article on the com pletion of your history, but politics have so en grossed me of late that literature has gone to the wall. But I wished in some public fashion to express the great admiration I feel for your writings and for your services to American his tory, and also for the character, courage, and will which have enabled you to do such work despite the obstacles with which you contended and which you have so entirely overcome. May I add that I also wished to express my very strong personal regard for you. The dedication cannot possibly give you the pleasure that it gives me, but I venture to hope that you will accept it. Sincerely y rs, H. C. LODGE. Mr. Theodore Roosevelt dedicated " The Win ning of the West " to Parkman, having first writ ten this letter to ask permission : OYSTER BAY, LONG ISLAND, N. Y., April 23d, 88. MY DEAR SIR, I suppose that every Ameri can who cares at all for the history of his own 260 FRANCIS PARKMAN country feels a certain personal pride in your work it is as if Motley had written about American instead of European subjects, and so was doubly our own ; but those of us who have a taste for history, and yet have spent much of our time on the frontier, perhaps realize even more keenly than our fellows that your works stand alone, and that they must be models for all historical treatment of the founding of new communities and the growth of the frontier here in the wilderness. This even more than the many pleasant hours I owe you must be my excuse for writing. I am engaged on a work of which the first part treats of the extension of our frontier west ward and southwestward during the twenty odd years from 1774 to 1796. . . . This first part I have promised the Putnams for some time in 1889 ; it will be in two volumes, with some such title as " The Winning of the West and South west." . . . I should like to dedicate this to you. Of course I know that you would not wish your name to be connected, in even the most indirect way, with any but good work ; and I can only say, that I will do my best to make the work creditable. . . . Yours very truly, THEODORE ROOSEVELT. MR. JUSTIN WINSOR TO PARKMAN. CAMBRIDGE, May 23, 92. DEAR PARKMAN, ... I read your " Pon- tiac" when I was in college, and I have not failed to read each succeeding work of yours upon its HISTORY AND FAME 261 publication. In the last ten years I have seldom had them off my study table, for work I have been upon has often almost constantly taken me to them ; and always with increasing admira tion. Believe me faithfully yours, JUSTIN WINSOR. Just before his death he was invited to at tend the World s Congress of Historians, at the World s Fair, in Chicago, as " The Nestor and most beloved of American Historians." I cite these letters because scholars say that " no one who has not prosecuted some original re search on the same lines can have an idea of the extreme care with which he [Parkman] worked, or of the almost petty detail which he was at pains to master, not necessarily to use, but sim ply to inform himself thoroughly of the circum stances or of the man [of which or whom he was writing]." For though he always wished to make his books delightful to read, he never used his imagination except as a means to discover and to combine the jots and tittles of accurate detail. There were also tributes from persons less well known. HON. FRANCIS PARKMAN : Dear Sir, Hoping and begging, I write you asking you if you will be so very kind as to give me your " autograph " please may I have 262 FRANCIS PARKMAN it? I would feel most highly honored to receive and love dearly to possess your autograph. And if it is pleasing to you, Dear Sir ! to favor me with a line or favorite sentiment I will ever be most grateful for your exquisite kindness for it will be to me a " precious souvenir " of a " Divinely gifted and most illustrious . gen tleman" whose name is dearly familiar and whose " noble researches " and "grand and bril liant " Historical writings which ever charm and enlighten the world have endeared you to all hearts, as the most " famous and brilliantly gifted Historian of the world." . . . To HON. FRANCIS PARKMAN, " Author," " King of His torians." CHAPTER XXIII CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS PARKMAN S history is in substance a history of Canada, and in that country aroused great inter est and admiration and also some dissatisfaction and dissent. Canadians almost unanimously ac knowledged that Canada was greatly indebted to him for fame and honor : for, before Parkman wrote, on the south side of the border there was little information and much prejudice in regard to the past of our northern neighbor ; in Eng land there were but hazy ideas of an uninterest ing agricultural province, momentarily illumi nated by the exploit of an Englishman on the Plains of Abraham ; and in France, Canada was but a vague and mortifying memory. English- speakers did not read the books of French Cana dians, and for them Parkman put the history of Canada on a level of interest and importance equal to that, as statesmen say, of the most favored nation ; before him, there was a history in English by William Smith, and the extent to which Mr. William Smith s history failed to 264 FRANCIS PARKMAN dispel the general darkness of ignorance holds out a measure by which we can judge what Parkman did for Canada. The criticism which he received, sometimes bitter, came from French Canadians, not wholly able to forget that they represented a fallen cause ; they had remained loyal to that cause, with the loyalty that forgets defects and enhances virtues. The lost cause was not only that of a nation, charming even to those whose birth and breeding cut them off from full appreciation, but also that of a church, sacred with all the affec tion that men cherish for their mothers. They could not enjoy the story which told how that nation and that church had been vanquished by their common foe, and, as the story was told, justly vanquished ; for the teller, despite gener ous and impartial sympathy, believed that the side upon which the right on the whole prepon derated had prevailed. That the victory had been deserved was, in Parkman s judgment, the verdict of history ; but what man is there, who belongs to the side which has lost, who can pa tiently endure to hear Rhadamanthus say, " You have received your deserts." Thus there was some feeling against Parkman, and when in 1878 some of the gentlemen of Laval Univer sity, the distinguished Catholic university at Quebec, wishing to honor him, even if in their CANADA AND CANADIAN FKIENDS 265 judgment sometimes astray, proposed that the university should confer the degree of Doctor of Letters upon him, there was warm opposition. Hot words were spoken, strong feelings were strongly expressed ; the conservatives carried the day, and the degree was denied. On the other hand, in the following year, the English univer sity at Montreal, McGill, gave him the degree of Doctor of Laws. He was also chosen hono rary member of the Literary and Historical So ciety of Quebec, and a corresponding member of the Royal Society of Canada. The opposition of adverse critics troubled Parkman very little. He took no position on a matter of history until he had studied it with great care, and with all the impartiality that was possible. On his visits to Canada Parkman naturally visited his friends and not his critics, and from them he always received the kindest hospitality. Quebec, as the historic centre of Canada, was his headquarters, and there he had very warm friends ; in earlier days Judge Black, Judge Stu art, and all his life Sir James M. Le Moine, the latter a man of letters and student of history, whose country-seat, Spencer Grange, is not far from the site where the gallant Levis routed Gen eral Murray. In the company of these gentle men Parkman would wander over the battlefields 266 FRANCIS PARKMAN from Cap Rouge on the west to the Falls of Montmorency on the east, examining the historic spots, such as Sillery, a little village on the north bank of the river, famous as possessing the oldest house in Canada, and in the brave days of old crowned with a French battery. Their friendly commerce was fittingly accompanied, following the best Hellenic traditions, by interchange of gifts. He had friendships, too, with several French Canadians, gentlemen of Quebec, who were interested in Canadian history. Such was M. Hubert La Rue, who always held out a warm welcome: "Rendez-vous tout droit a la maison, ou votre petite chambre du fonds vous attend avec impatience." He made a friendly acquaintance with M. Ferland, Abbe Laverdiere, Dr. J. C. Tache, and other scholars. M. N. E. Dionne, now librarian of the Parliamentary Library in the Province of Quebec, did some copying for Park- man in 1871, as he himself tells, in English so much better than much of our American-French, that I venture to quote it : " Being poor, I was glad to gain some dollars, but I was chiefly proud to accompany this well-known Boston ian through his peregrinations from the Seminary to the epis copal palace, from the registrar office to the Ter rier s office, compulsing together every document which he intended to use." Parkman was well pleased with the copies ; and M. Dionue, himself CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 267 a historian, is able to add, " So that I must say, and everybody can say so, that if I am something to-day, I owe this to Mr. Parkman." Among the Catholic clergy he had many friendly acquaintances. M. Audet, chaplain of the Couvent de Jesus et Marie de Sillery, intro duced him to a priest at Cape Breton in these terms, " This gentleman, in spite of the difference of faith, has shown in his writings great justice in his estimate of the deeds of Catholics in Can ada ; " and to another thus, " This gentleman, although he does not share our faith, has in all his writings taken pains to give the most just and favorable testimony to the work of Catholi cism in Canada." Parkman s chief correspondence and most fa miliar intercourse were with M. 1 Abbe H. R. Casgrain, the distinguished historian of Canada. The two were good friends for some twenty-eight years ; M. F Abbe, then a professor in the univer sity, was the chief combatant on Parkman s side in the battle royal over the Laval degree ; the friendship had begun by an interchange of let ters in 1866, for the Muse of History, taking each by the hand, had brought them together. Parkman wished to subscribe to a Canadian re view, "Le Foyer Canadien." Abbe Casgrain, secretary to the board of publication, hearing of this wish, presented him with all the back num- 268 FRANCIS PARKMAN bers, for, as the French know better than the rest of us, " little gifts make great friendships." The Abbe was a descendant of M. Baby, " a prominent habitant," who lived across the river from Detroit at the time of Pontiac s attack, and by his good offices rendered the hard-pressed gar rison great service ; l this ancestry made a natu ral tie between the two historians. They had another bond, for the Abbe was afflicted with a partial blindness that prevented him from reading or writing. Between them there was an interchange of maps and documents and of photographs. The little incidents of history, the tassels and ornaments of narrative, made their intercourse very agreeable. For example, Abbe Casgrain brought together careful documentary evidence that Cham plain s tomb had been erected on the spot now occupied by the post-office, near the Chateau Frontenac, a feat that aroused jealousy and disbelief in other antiquarians. On this occasion Parkman wrote, "A friend in Mon treal sent me a newspaper with a notice of your great discovery. I have long hoped that some thing might be brought to light on this point, and wait with interest to hear more." Then fol lows another letter, disputing the Abbe s opinion that Brebeuf the noble Jesuit should not have an accent on the first syllable of his name, 1 Pontiac, vol. i. p. 248. CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 269 ending, " I hope soon to hear that Champlain s bones are found." Then Parkman sends a copy of "The Jesuits in North America." BOSTON, Jan. 30, 1868. If you are not in Quebec, it will no doubt await your return. Remembering that I am a heretic, you will expect a good deal with which you will be very far from agreeing. The truth is, I am a little surprised that neither Catholics nor Pro testants have been very severe in their strictures on the book. I fully expected to be attacked by both that is by the Calvinistic portion of Pro testants. I believe both sides saw that I meant to give a candid view of my subject in the best light in which I could see it. SAME TO SAME. BOSTON, Feb. 13, 1868. MY DEAR ABBE, Many thanks for your most kind and welcome letter. I am truly glad that, as a man of letters and as a Catholic priest, you can find so much to approve in my book, and I set an especial value on your commenda tion. We are, as you say, at opposite poles of faith but my faith, such as it is, is strong and earnest, and I have the deepest respect for the heroic self-devotion, the true charity, of the early Jesuits of Canada. . . . Believe me ever, with great esteem, Your friend and servant, F. PARKMAN. 270 FRANCIS PARKMAN SAME TO SAME. 50 CHESTNUT ST., BOSTON, 10 April, 71. My DEAR ABBE, Many thanks for your most friendly and obliging letter, and for the books which accompanied it. I regret to hear that your eyes still give you so much trouble ; a mat ter in which I can wholly sympathize with you, my own having been useless for ten years or more, and even now permitting me to write or read only for a few minutes at one time. Soon after this the Abbe went to Boston and paid Parkman a visit at his country home by Jamaica Pond. The Abbe* says, " Les politesses exquises dont je fus 1 objet de sa part et de celle de sa famille ont laisse* en moi des souvenirs qui ne sont pas effaces ; " and Parkman wrote : " I recall your visit with the greatest pleasure, and congratulate myself that after so long an inter val I have at last the good fortune to know you personally." The visit was short, but Parkman took the Abbe to see Harvard College, Mr. Agassiz, and Mr. Longfellow, whose long white beard, falling over his chest, recalled to the Abbd the ancient seers and poets, " Ossian, Baruch, or Camoens." One consequence of this visit was the little book, " Francis Parkman, par 1 Abbe* H. R. Casgrain," published in 1872, which is full of admiration, of compliments, and yet speaks out frankly the author s divergent views. CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 271 We have enlarged as far as possible the place of praise, in order to accord to Truth all its rights, to criticism elbow-room. Let us say, without beating about the bush, . . . Mr. Parkman s work is the negation of all religious belief. The author rejects the Protestant theory as well as Catholic dogma ; he is an out-and-out rationalist. We perceive an upright soul, born for the truth, but lost without a compass on a boundless sea. Hence these aspirations towards the true, these flashes of acknowledgment, these words of hom age to the truth, followed, alas, by strange fall ings off, by fits of fanaticism that are astound ing. The Abbe* sent Parkman the proofs of this little book before publication. PARKMAN TO CASGRAIN. BOSTON, Jan. 26, 1872. MY DEAR FRIEND, The proofs came yester day. I think you know me too well to doubt that I accept your criticism as frankly as it is given, and that I always listen with interest and satis faction to the comments of so kind and generous an opponent. I only wonder that, in the oppo sition of our views on many points of profound importance, you can find so much to commend. When you credit me with loyalty and honor, you give me the praise that I value most of all. In all that you say of my books and of myself I recognize a warmth of personal regard which would lead me to distrust your praises but for the manifest candor and sincerity which pervade 272 FRANCIS PARKMAN your praise and blame alike. I need not say that I am extremely gratified by the one ; and as for the other, I gladly accept it. I know what your views are. You have spoken them openly, but very kindly. As a Catholic you could not have said less, and you might have said more. I wish you were not in error when you say that I am about finishing my present task. A very long road is still before me. The subject is complicated and difficult, and the time I can give to it each day is short, both from other deviations and the state of my health, which often makes study out of the question. According to the " medical faculty," as the newspapers say, the trouble comes from an abnormal state or partial paralysis of certain arteries of the brain. Whatever it is, it is a nuisance of the first order, and a school of patience by which Job himself might have profited. However, Providence per mitting, I will spite the devil yet. Very sincerely and cordially yours, F. PARKMAN. SAME TO SAME. BOSTON, 17 Nov., 72. I have just returned [from a trip to France]. I have brought home a large collection of doc uments. More are to follow, to the amount of about 2500 folio pages. So you see, I did not lose my time. Let me correct what seems a mistaken im pression. In your critique of Chauveau you speak of dures verites which you uttered in re gard to my books, and for which I thanked you CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 273 and still thank } r ou. But this is because I like frank and outspoken criticism, when kindly ut tered, not because I recognize as verites the strictures passed upon me. While esteeming my critic, I still believe myself in the right. [May 23, 1873.] Of one thing I beg you to be entirely assured, and that is that your article in the " Revue " [criticising Parkman] has not in the slightest degree affected the cordial regard which I enter tain for you. I knew that you wrote it with pain and regret, in obedience to a sense of duty ; and besides, I believe that when I feel confident in my position I am not very sensitive to criti cism. After this, Parkman made a return visit to the Abbe, at the Maison d Airvault, the latter s family place at Riviere Ouelle, a village on the south bank of the St. Lawrence, opposite the mouth of the Murray River. Here Parkman not merely had the pleasure of the society of his host and his host s family, but became familiar with a little village not so very different from what it had been when the fleur-de-lis floated over the citadel of Quebec. Correspondence was taken up again as before. M. FAbbe wrote a review of the " Old Regime," in which he found sundry expressions of opinion that did not co incide with his own. 274 FRANCIS PARKMAN PARKMAN TO CASGRAIN. JAMAICA PLAIN, 9 May, 1875. MON CHER AMI, I have read your article on the Old Regime with attention and inter est. It is very much what I had expected, know ing your views and the ardor with which you embrace them, as well as the warmth and kind liness of your feelings. I could take issue squarely on the principal points you make, but it would make this letter too long, and I do not care to enter into discussion with a personal friend on matters which he has so much at heart. Moreover, I wish to preserve an entirely judicial, and not controversial frame of mind on all that relates to Canadian matters. Let me set you right, however, on one or two points personal to myself. My acquaintance here would smile to hear me declared an advocate of democracy and a lover of the puritans. I have always declared openly my detestation of the unchecked rule of the masses, that is to say, of universal suffrage, and the corruption which is sure to follow in every large and heterogeneous community. I have also always declared a very cordial dislike of puritanism. I recognize some most respecta ble and valuable qualities in the settlers of New England, but do not think them or their system to be praised without great qualifications, and I would not spare criticism, if I had to write about them. Nor am I at all an enthusiast for the nine teenth century, many of the tendencies of which I deplore, while admiring much that it has ac complished. It is too democratic, and too much given to the pursuit of material interests at the CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 275 expense of intellectual and moral greatness, which I hold to be the true end, to which material progress should be but a means. My political faith lies between two vicious ex tremes, democracy and absolute authority, each of which I detest the more because it tends to react into the other. I do not object to a good constitutional monarchy, but prefer a conserva tive republic, where intelligence and character, and not numbers, hold the reins of power. I could also point out a good many other mis takes in your article. You say that I see Cana dian defects through a microscope, and merits through a diminishing glass. The truth is, I have suppressed a considerable number of statements and observations because I thought that while they would give pain, they were not absolutely necessary to the illustration of the subject ; but I have invariably given every favorable testimony I could find in any authentic quarter. . . . Very cordially yours, Y PARKMAN. SAME TO SAME. Nov. 2, 1878. Did you get an attack on the sovereign Demos, which I sent you ? It has drawn on me a great deal of barking and growling, and caused me to be branded as " audacious," a " foe to popular government " etc., so you see I am shot at from both sides of the line. The article in ques tion, however, has been very widely read, and has received a great deal of approval as well as denunciation. 276 FRANCIS PARKMAN The following extract relates to the degree which his friends sought to obtain for him from Laval University. Dec. 10, 1878. This outbreak is a very curious one. So far as I myself am concerned, I find it rather amus ing, and am not annoyed by it in the least. But I regret it extremely on account of the trouble it has given you and Mr. Le Moine ; and also on account of the embarrassing position in which I fear that it places the University and the excel lent ecclesiastics by whom it is directed. It was to me extremely gratifying that men like these, while differing profoundly from me and disap proving much that I have written, should recog nize the sincerity of my work by expressing their intention to honor me with a degree of Docteur es Lettres. It was this generous recognition which gave me particular pleasure ; and greatly as I should feel honored by a degree from Laval University, I prize still more the proofs of esteem which its directors have already given me. I trust that they will not feel themselves com mitted to any course which circumstances may have rendered inexpedient, and that they will be guided simply by the interests of the University. Thus the correspondence went along, touch ing on Parkman s gleanings in the archives of Paris, on the Abbess antiquarian discoveries, on history, on friends, on other matters unimportant, except in the respect most important of all, evi dence of good hearts and good friendship. Most CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 277 of the Abba s letters unfortunately have been lost or destroyed ; Parkman s continue "till the year before his death ; but the last of his that shall be quoted concerns his health, in answer to inquiries of affectionate interest. JAMAICA PLAIN, 12 May, 1889. MON CHER ABBE, For the past five years I have done very little historical work, not so much from laziness as from the effects of insom nia. Two or three hours of sleep in the 24 which have been until lately my average allow ance for long periods together are not enough to wind up the human machine, especially when exercise is abridged by hereditary gout mixed with rheumatism, produced, according to the doctors, by numerous drenchings in the forests of Maine when I was a collegian (e. g. on one occasion, rain without shelter for three days and nights, just after being wrecked in a rapid of the River Margalloway). Perhaps, however, the rheumatism is a stroke of retributive justice for writing " Montcalm and Wolfe." Though I have slept better in the past year, it is still an open question whether I shall ever manage to supply the missing link between that objectionable work and its predecessor " Count Frontenac." . . . Que Dieu vous aide Tout-a-vous. We cannot suppose that two historians of di vergent views corresponded on such hotspur top ics as the peasants of Acadia, the rival merits of 278 FRANCIS PARKMAN Montcalm and Le*vis, or the character of Vau- dreuil, not to mention nationality and religion, without one or the other catching fire and flam ing up till the " rash bavin " cause was burned out, and old friendship returned to its old ways. But certainly there was no trace of jangling towards the end ; the melody of friendship was altogether pleasant. CASGRAIN TO PARKMAN [translated]. QUEBEC, May 23d, 1892. MY DEAR HISTORIAN, I make haste to thank you for the present of your two handsome vol umes, " A Half Century of Conflict," which I have just received. Let me cordially congratu late you upon having set the crown on the great work to which you have consecrated all your life. No one values it more than I do. I am now going to forsake all other reading, in order to plunge headlong into your two volumes. For me they have a double attraction : because of the conscientious researches of which they are the fruit, and because they are written by a person who has always been the object of my admira tion, and for whom I feel an attachment that I cannot well express. . . . Je fais des voeux pour que votre chere sante s ameliore, et je vous prie de croire a une estime qui n a d egale que mon attachement. H. R. CASGRAIN. So they parted with French politeness on their lips and kind feelings in their hearts. " Croyez CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 279 toujours a ma sincere amitie : la votre m honore infiniment, Casgrain." " Que Dieu vous aide, tout-a-vous, Parkman." I must not close this correspondence without a passing allusion my ignorance will not suffer me to do more to two criticisms which the Abbe Casgrain has made upon Parkman s his tory. The first is that Parkman was unjust in his account of the poor peasants banished from Acadia by the English in 1755. 1 Parkman did make a mistake in his reliance upon certain doc uments officially published : " Selections from the Public Documents of the Province of Nova Sco tia ; " these were in fact badly garbled, as the Abbe proved by his diligent researches and dis coveries in the British Museum and the Record Office in London. The Abbe, relying on this fresh evidence, spoke very warmly in favor of the Acadians in his book "Un pelerinage au pays d Evangeline " (1886) ; but other scholars say that the case against the Acadian peasants is not upset by the new documents. The second criticism is that Parkman made Montcalm the French hero in the final drama at Quebec, whereas this honor should have been bestowed upon Levis. Several years after Park man s book was published, Count Raimond de Nicolay, great-grandson of Chevalier Levis, 1 Montcalm and Wolfe, chap. viii. 280 FRANCIS PARKMAN through the good offices of Abbe Casgrain, gave permission to the Province of Quebec to publish the journals and letters of his great-grandfather. To these valuable papers Parknian had not ac cess. They were published between 1889 and 1895 under the superintendence of the Abbe, and show that Levis was a very noble, spirited, and capable man, and, if they do not oust Mont- calm from his pedestal, prove that the French had a second hero as well. During all the years from the beginning of preparation until the " Half Century of Con flict" was sent to the printer, Parkman made from time to time frequent visits to Canada. As Sir James M. Le Moine says, he used to call Quebec his sunny, health-restoring, holiday home. No wonder the St. Lawrence was a river after his own heart, with its long ancestry of lakes, its great seaward flow, its shifting banks, high and low, soft and rugged, its little lines of white villages, and the romantic citadel of Quebec, at whose feet it flows with all the chiv alry proper to the prince of rivers. He would go about as always, with a little notebook in pocket, jotting down, not with the prodigality of old, but with a frugal pencil, notes and memo randa, so brief that one little book served for years. But the old love of detail is there. In Canada, too, after forty lean years of absti- CANADA AND CANADIAN FRIENDS 281 nence, he camped out for the last time ; on the banks of the Batiscan River, he spent a month with Mr. Farnham, his biographer. TO MISS PARKMAN. BATISCAN RIVER, 7 June, [1886]. MY DEAR L., I am well. Fishing good. Flies bad. Farnham very pleasant. Camp fin ished and comfortable. Excellent fare. Family consists of selves and our puppy. ... F. an ex cellent cook. F. P. Parkman could not do much, hobbled by his lame knee, but he was always interested, patient, and cheerful. He enjoyed the " feel " of a rifle once more, and a shot at a handy mark ; he tried fishing with a fly, the worm of his early days having crawled under the protection of fashion able contempt. He liked to get into his little canoe, in which he could mock his lame leg, and paddle down the river, gazing at the green banks, the high bluffs, the close thickets, all as it were seen in a magic mirror, for he could not enter. This was his last visit to the land he had done so much to honor. CHAPTER XXIV LATER LIFE THERE still remains the duty to chronicle the simple happenings in the life of the scholar in valid, during the thirty years from the war until his death ; they are uneventful, much too undra- matic for a reader, but such as they were they made up his life. Random extracts from his sis ter s diary show the ups and downs over which he passed : 1862, Jan. 29. F. went to the Baldwins last ev g to a small supper given to Mr. W. Hunt, and to-night was able to go to the Club for a short time. June 11. F. has seemed in very good spirits for a day or two. Sept. 9. F. is suffering from the most severe attack in his eyes he has had for years. He cannot attend to his gardening at all. Mo ther feels very anxious. 10th. F., if anything, worse. He seems in very low spirits. 15th. F. seems better. 1863, Jan. 24. F. is highly entertained by " Pick wick," as much as if he had never read it be fore. LATER LIFE 283 Feb. 11. F. is beginning to work upon his French History, though, as he says, at a snail s pace. His eyes are very troublesome now. June 27. Rose Show. Grace [his daughter] and I drove in with F. and arranged the flowers. 1st prize, Moss Roses ; 2d, June Roses ; 3d, Display. Sept. 20. F. has not slept for some nights, and his head is in a bad state. Oct. 1. F. still has very poor nights and seems miserably. 2d. F. had very little sleep ; head very bad. 1864, June 25. This is the day of the Rose Show. Grace and I went in to help Frank. We worked steadily for two hours, and barely had time to prepare the great quantity of roses. F. took four 1st prizes and a large " gratuity." 1865, June 6th. F. went to Washington this morning. 12th. Frank writes from Washington. He has seen the camps and means to go to Rich mond. 20th. Letter from F. at Richmond. He is de tained there to collect documents for the Bos ton Athenaeum. July 18th. Frank and I have been to a reception at the Lymans to meet Gen. Meade and Staff. Nov. 7. Frank came down to breakfast very lame ; thinks the old trouble is all coming back. 22d. The anxiety about Frank s knee is passing away. 1866, Aug. 10th. F. started for Quebec. 29. F. took the usual prizes at the Hort. 284 FRANCIS PARKMAN Nov. 16th. F. came in [town] to-day to live. 1867, April 20th. F. came in to spend Sunday. Grace came to tea. Enthusiasm over cats. July 10. Frank is going to the Mississippi River ; he is now writing history connected with its dis covery, and goes on that account. What a good summer he has had so far ; his book ["Jesuits"] out this spring and well received, and his flowers so successful, and he seems so well. Aug. 15. Frank arrived none the worse for the 5 weeks journey, though he has used head and eyes much. He has brought many photo s of Sioux Indians and of Mississippi scenery. [He saw Henry Chatillon at St. Louis.] 1868, June 30. Drove in with F. to the Rose Show. F. took 1st prizes. July 15. F. goes to Cambridge in all the heat. He is chosen overseer of the college. Aug. 1st. F. has gone to Rye to spend Sunday with the children. 10th. F. left this ev g to spend a fortnight in Canada. Sept. 25. Mother is 75 to-day. F. brought in white roses. Oct. 29. Frank s head is in a bad state, the first time for a long time. Nov. 1. F. s head is very bad, worse than for some time ; he says, years. Nov. 27. Frank has determined to go to Paris for the winter. His head seems a little better, but he cannot do much with it, and he would rather be idle there than here. He seems dis posed to go, and in good spirits, so we are very glad to have him, but it leaves a great gap. LATER LIFE 285 PARKMAN TO HIS SISTER. 21 BOULEVARD ST. MICHEL, PARIS, 15 Jan., 1869. MY DEAR LIZZIE, I have rec d your letter of 8 Dec., but not till a month after its date. . . . There is a little girl in the house, daughter of the concierge, who collects post-stamps, and would be delighted with five or six American and Ca nadian stamps. Will you inclose them in your next if convenient. I mean to leave here for England early in March, and thence home after a few days in London. . . . [Jan. 18.] ... I have just rec d all your letters. I am grieved more than I can tell you about mother s accident. Keep me well informed about it. ... Tell Grace that there are girls here who ride on velocipedes with two wheels in the streets, but that their conduct is not at all approved. . . . [28 Jan., 69.] If I do not hear good news soon I shall set out for home, but I trust that mother is getting bet ter. Remember me most affectionately to her and tell her that I think of her continually. I am doing very well indeed, and am far better in health than when I left Boston. ... I have a good many acquaintances, some of them very pleasant ones, though I refuse dinners, etc. [Feb. 1, 69.] I have just rec d yours of Jan. 16 with news that mother is better, which is an immense re lief. I am all right bating a cold in the head. 286 FRANCIS PARKMAN To-morrow I am going to St. Cloud to breakfast with Count Circourt, a friend of the Ticknors. I see Margry often. He was here the other night, and staid till twelve. ... I made a journey of 2 miles and more under Paris, through the sewers, partly in a boat, and partly in a sort of rail-ear. . . . Give my best love to mother and the chil dren, not forgetting Jack. [Feb. 24, 69.] Have been troubled with want of sleep for five or six nights, but otherwise all right. If I ac cepted invitations, which I do not, I should have the run of the Faubourg St. Germain. I have just declined an invitation from the Prince de feroglie to dine. Yesterday I saw the Marquis de Montcalm, great-grandson of Wolfe s antagonist, who was very civil. The post-stamps were very gratefully received. Don t let the doctor [Dr. Bigelow] think that I am doing anything but amuse myself, for I am not. I meet a few people incidentally, but am very stiff in declining over tures. The Marquis placed his family papers at my disposal. I have not read one of them, but employed a man to copy them, who is now at work. MISS PARKMAN S DIARY. 1869. March 27. F. arrived this ev g. He seems in very good spirits and health. April 12. Frank s head is almost as bad as be fore he went away. 1870. Feb. 17. F. has been very sleepless of late. He had his club last night at the Union Club rooms (mother being ill). LATER LIFE 287 March 24. F. is having sleepless nights, and suf fering very much. Sept. 16. F. s birthday. He got no sleep last night, and I never saw him more affected by it in health or spirits. It is a year since he has been sleepless, more or less. 23d. F. did not sleep at all last night. It is wonderful that he can do anything by day, and he does not do much. 24th. F. slept between 5 and 6 hours. It is such a relief. Yesterday it was mournful enough at breakfast, though he plays with the cats and the children and says nothing. 25th. Mother is 76 to-day. As I came down to breakfast I saw F. coming in with a bunch of roses already tied, and another of ribbons and daisies. He looked so well I knew he had slept, and found he had had a very good night. That alone made mother happy. 1871. March 12. Mother feels very happy that F. has just been chosen professor of Horticul ture in the new Bussey Institute of H. C. [Harvard College] . Frank himself likes the appointment, as he thinks he can do the work without giving more time than he can give, and the fact that he can take such a responsi bility is a delight as a proof of how much better he is. [He resigned as overseer of the college on the ground of inconsistency between the two positions.] April 2d. Flora s first kittens appeared, but had a brief existence. F. s interest was deep, and his disappointment also. June 8th. Mother moved out of town with great 288 FRANCIS PARKMAN difficulty (on account of her hip), but at last was safe in her room, rhododendrons and roses of Frank s gathering all about her. That summer their mother died, while Park- man was in Canada. It was a terrible blow to him, "poor fellow, how his face looked," and the brother and sister were left alone to go through life together, for their sister Caroline had married and their sister Mary had died sev eral years before, and their brother Jack John Eliot, once Elly died soon afterwards. In 1872 they went to Paris, as Parkman wished to relieve his insatiable appetite for more docu ments. Here they saw a good deal of Margry, a person who plays a part in the story of Parkman s difficulties in laying his hands on documents, even on those of which he had definite informa tion. Parkman had known this gentleman for several years, not without forming some opinion of him, as we see from certain phrases in the let ters of 1868 to Abbe Casgrain : As for Margry, I am fully of your mind con cerning him. I arn in the midst of La Salle s discoveries. ... I have a great deal that is new relating to his enterprises ; and but for M. Mar gry, should have still more. . . . Margry is very intractable, and I can get nothing from him. M. Pierre Athanase Margry, chef adjoint Archiviste au Ministere de la Marine (in later LATER LIFE 289 years en retraite) and Chevalier de la Legion d Honneur, had made an immense collection of documents about La Salle, which he had ferreted out of the Public Archives under his charge with great zeal and industry ; these he wished to pub lish himself, but he had not money enough, and was not willing that another should reap the har vest of his sowing, so he denied Parkman access to them. As these documents were of great in terest in the history of the United States, an attempt had been made a year or two before to induce Congress to make an appropriation for the cost of publication, but in vain. In this collection were La Salle s own letters, and these Parkman was most eager to see. This conduct of Margry s has been harshly blamed. Mr. Justin Winsor says : " The keeper of an important department of the French Archives had been so unfaithful to his trust as to reserve for his own private use some of its documentary proofs." Be the blame just or no, a lawyer might find something to say in behalf of a right of lien for labor spent in search and discovery, Parkman freely forgave him. Margry was a man with whom it would have been hard to remain angry, even for a much less generous person than Parkman ; he was a voluble Gallic, kindly, smiling, enthusiastic little person, lively, alert, " sensitive and distrustful," wearing his mustachios and goatee after the fashion of 290 FRANCIS PARKMAN the Second Empire. An amiable, infantile look of quizzical cunning on his face, with his silk hat, kid gloves, and loose pantaloons, effectually disqualified him as an object of indignation. He was very friendly, liked to come and sit and chat, and would stay till cockcrow if permitted ; he was full of friendly usages, and on this visit cele brated Parkman s birthday with a poem : 16. 7 bre - 1823-1872. A FRANCIS PARKMAN, AUTEUR DES FRANC.AIS EN AME"RIQUE. Dans le monde, ou vous etes ne* Vos Merits disent notre gloire; Nul n a, comme vous, honore Les beaux actes de notre histoire. Cependant presque inapergu Vous allez parcourant la France, Et c est par hasard que j ai su La date de votre naissance. Aussi je veux pour mon pays Feter ce jour, selon 1 usage, Par la meme pensde unis II m est cher de vous rendre hommage. The poem has ten stanzas, is annotated, and altogether breathes patriotism, hatred of Bis marck, and love of Parkman. The friendship thus fostered led to a plan, that Parkman should try to persuade some American bookseller to publish the collection, for Margry, in spite of poetry, firmly declined to sell the documents or LATER LIFE 291 the use of them ; but this plan came to nought, as the great fire in Boston made general econ omy necessary. Thereupon Parkmaii pricked on professors, and the professors stuck spurs into historical societies fire, fire, burn stick ; stick, stick, beat pig, and they, in turn, petitioned Congress to make the necessary appropriation of $10,000. Senator Hoar and General Garfield took the matter up ; the act was passed, and the 4 Decouvertes et Etablissements des Frangais, dans 1 Ouest et dans le Sud de FAmerique Sep- tentrionale (1614-1754), Memoires et Docu ments originaux," were published in Paris, and did good service for a later edition of " La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West." There were other friends in Paris, the Marquis de Montcalm, a nobleman completely indifferent to that ceremonious deportment which we like to think accompanies a coronet, but a kindly little man, always giving full performance in deeds to the pleasant " expression de ma parfaite auntie* et de mes sentiments les plus distingue*s ; " there was M. le Comte de Circourt, and other gentlemen acquainted with Canadian history, either through respect for their fighting ances tors, or, by a prodigious cosmopolitan effort, in teresting themselves in things outside of Paris. Parkmaii enjoyed the beautiful city, he was diverted by the happy bearing and gay polite- 292 FRANCIS PARKMAN ness of the people, and he liked to stroll, when he could, along the quais, and examine the rows of books, always seasonable bait for the foreign traveler, or see what could be seen from tops of omnibuses. There was but one intrusion of unpleasant ness into his French relations : a lady, Mme. la Comtesse de Clermont-Tonnerre, translated into French "The Pioneers," and "The Jesuits," but in such a garbled and wanton manner, as to suppress facts and opinions which in her judgment were not so complimentary to the church as the needs of pious edification required. Mr. Park- man was nettled, and expressed his opinion, but with much less asperity than the lady deserved. In contradistinction to this disagreeable im propriety, M. Geffrey delivered an intelligent speech before the Department of Moral and Po litical Sciences of the French Institute, on the occasion of presenting a copy of Parkman s works, and expressed appreciation of the even- handed justice which Parkman had dealt to so partisan a subject. After this visit to Paris in 1872, brother and sister returned to their old way of life, dividing the year between Jamaica Plain and 50 Chestnut Street. He had given up his professorship at the Bussey Institute, after one year of service, but he always maintained a deep affection for LATER LIFE 293 the college, and in 1875 was elected one of the Fellows of the Corporation. He served for thir teen years, and was regular and punctual in his attendance; sometimes the matters of business were too severe in their claims on his atten tion, and he would get up and walk about, or go out into the fresh air, and then come back to the business. In 1880 he made another trip to England and France. This time the archives and the books on the banks of the Seine were not his only mo tives for going ; his younger daughter had married Mr. John Templeman Coolidge, and was living in Paris with her husband. This journey was memorable for the discovery of the letters of Montcalm to his lieutenant Bourlamaque; these letters covered all the time from Montcalm s arrival in Canada to within a few "days before his death, and had long been hidden trealnre, suspected, sought, but undiscovered. For fifteen years Parkman had been on the scent, and now that he was approaching the time to publish "Montcalm and Wolfe," he was doubly eager. The letters had been traced to England; there the scent failed. At last they were found to be a part of a precious collection belonging to Sir Thomas Phillips, a great buyer of manuscripts in his day, and from him they had descended to the Rev. John E. A. Feuwick, and were hid in his 294 FRANCIS PARKMAN library at Thirlestaine House, Cheltenham. Let ters passed rapidly concerning the treasure trove, and it was agreed that Mr. Fenwick s son Fitz Roy, who was "fond of deciphering," should copy the MSS. wanted. The Rev. Mr. Fenwick was obliged to move about, and his travels to Redels- ton Hall, Derby, and the Crescent Hotel, Bux- ton, caused several little delays. Then the young gentleman had to hurry back to Oxford for a cram, as he was to be examined for his final " school," and a new copyist had to be found. A lady of Atherfield House, Miles Road, Clifton, could not serve. She, however, suggested two ladies of the Brooklands, Gloster Road, but that house was two miles and a half from Chel tenham ; finally Mr. Fenwick, a very kind and hospitable man, procured the services of a French lady, Miss Marie Ferret, who copied the rest of the documents, " Lettres de Vaudreuil, Lettres de Levis, Lettres Variarum," at the cost of 3d. for 72 words, as a neat little receipt in her hand writing records. These letters were especially valuable, because they were very intimate, full of frank remarks on Vaudreuil, Bigot, and others, with frequent "brulez cette lettre," - orders, like many others given by poor Montcalm, diso beyed. The expenses for copying were often very heavy ; the little notebooks record : LATER LIFE 295 Cost of copying, etc. Montcalm papers, leave to copy . . 20 Facsimile to map of Ticoiideroga . . 15s. Book, Conduct of Shirley 2 T. Fitzroy Fenwick, copying .... 13 2 6 J. E. A. Fenwick, copying (for Miss Ferret) 12 Montcalm picture, 60 francs. Wolfe " 10s. Imbry, copying 15 3 Mrs. Bullen, copying 15 1 These expenses obliged Parkman to practice economy, not on a petty scale, but after the man ner of a prudent, unostentatious gentleman. Perhaps it was on this visit that one day he was sitting upon a bench in St. James s Park, somewhat forlorn, missing unconsciously the care he always got at 50 Chestnut Street, .when up came friendly aid in the person of Mr. Henry James, who put him down at the Athenaeum Club, and gave him a pleasant sense of sym pathy, admiration, and fellowship, in the felici tous, evasive way that Parkman liked so much. Mr. James and the Athenaeum took off what for Parkman was a rather cold, raw edge in London atmosphere. There was another visit to Paris the next year; and at divers times there were journeys to Florida, to Acadia,to Canada, which interrupted for a few weeks at a stretch the peaceful life at 296 FRANCIS PARKMAN Jamaica Pond. His health continued as before, but the lack of sleep grew worse. PARKMAN TO DR. WEIR MITCHELL. JAMAICA PLAIN, 5 Nov., 1885. MY DEAR DR. MITCHELL, I regret to bother you again with my troubles, but as you have done more for me than anybody else, I am tempted to do so. For about two years I have observed an in creasing tendency to insomnia. This autumn, within about two months, it has become ex tremely troublesome. Sometimes I do not sleep at all. Often I sleep only from one to three hours. The week before last, the average for seven days was about two hours. Last night I heard every clock but those of eleven and twelve. The preceding night, however, I slept at in tervals and not continuously to the amount of more than five hours, which was rather rare good luck. Bromide, etc., produce no effect. . . . Bating sleeplessness and its effects, I have been better than before, with the exception of palpitation of the heart, which is sometimes very troublesome. Throbbing in the ear at night is also annoying at times. The old distress in the head continues, but has been less distressing within the last few years than before I took your advice. Within the last year I have done a very moderate amount of work, and recently none at all. . . . Muscu lar strength is not exhausted, but nerves are set on edge, and the condition of the head entirely precludes brain-work. I have occasionally had LATER LIFE 297 attacks as severe, or more so, once four suc cessive nights absolutely without sleep, but this is more persistent than any before, and is aggra vated by the palpitation of the heart, which I have reason to believe is not from organic causes. Yours very truly, F. PARKMAN. The skillful physician could do little or no thing. I must not let myself be betrayed into too much of malady and medicine. Parkman s body might be hampered and harassed; there was no sickness in his spirit. No one who ad mitted to himself that he was an invalid could have written so much like a man, belted and booted, with hand on saddle-bow, as he does in all his histories. Neither did he admit that he was cut off from indoor pleasures. He always enjoyed the meet ings of the " Saturday Club," a company of Bos ton gentlemen, some of great note, the most famous club of its kind in America. The club used to meet at the end of the month to dine to gether, and pronounce salvation or condemnation, it was said, upon the intellectual work of Boston. Parkman was always essentially a sociable per son ; a man with opinions interesting to hear ; a taker of sides ; a man full of likes and dislikes ; a lover of old ways, with delightful variety of expression between quiet, refined acquiescence 298 FRANCIS PARKMAN and heady opposition ; a charming companion, a distinguished presence. John Fiske, who was a member of the club, and a pretty constant attendant, never knew that he was an invalid ; always found him alert, extremely gentle ; and when he was absent, supposed that a prudence for digestion or early hours kept him away. " He never made the slightest allusion to his ill health ; he would probably have deemed it inconsistent with good breeding to intrude upon his friends with such topics, and his appearance was always most cheerful." His life had its pleasures, its happiness, its gay- etres, the tenderness of deep affection, the cheer of friendship, the amusement of little comic hap penings ; it was a good life, a hundred times worth the living, if it had been only for the plea sure of daily fight and daily victory ; but there were history, fame, roses, and a dozen things, each enough to make him hold life rich. All these found their way into his daily uneventful existence, and the years passed on far too quick. In July, 1886, after his experiment at camp ing out with Mr. Farnham, he went to the Range- ley Lakes in Maine, where he lived at Bemis Camps, "F. C. Barker, Prop r." He had not much to do there, and after a time ill health obliged him to give up even the moderate dis comforts of Mr. Barker s proprietorship. LATER LIFE 299 EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS TO MISS PARKMAN. [Aug., 1886.] As I am forbidden to take any but the feeblest exercise, and as the light is very strong here, my resources for passing the time are limited. . . . Aug. 26. Tell Mike I wrote to him to pot the chrysanthemums about Sept. 1, and to order what pots are wanted. ... I think a little of building a log cabin here, with two small rooms for you, if you should want to come for a week, month, or more. It will cost little, and be inde pendent of the rest. Board at Barker s. No servants needed. Barker will gladly do the job. How does it strike you? all my affair, of course. This was a delightful plan, and the log cabin was begun with the happiest expectations, but the grim hand of disease laid hold of him, and the log cabin, half built, was abandoned for ever. The next year he made a visit to Spain and France, in company with Dr. Algernon Coolidge. The trip was cut short by Parkman s ill health, and he went back to the flowers on the banks of Jamaica Pond, and to the winter life in Boston, where his attendance at the dinners of the Satur day Club, and at the meetings of the St. Botolph Club, became gradually less and less. In the last summers of his life he used to go to Little Harbour, near Portsmouth, to pay a visit 300 FRANCIS PARKMAN to his son and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge, and their children. Mr. Coolidge lived in the Wentworth mansion, which stands on a point of land where the Piscataqua runs into the sea. It is an old house, built in the reign of George II, with a rambling roof and a quaint, romantic aspect, telling stories of ancient days. Round the house are old lilac bushes ; on one side is one outlet of the river, on the other a creek, both at low tide almost dry, laying bare sandbank, mus sel-bed, seaweed, rocks, and glistening, gleam ing mud-flats, strangely beloved by delicate colors that come as soon as the sea goes and linger till it drives them off again. Here Park- man liked to go a-fishing, not with the fly of the Canadian camp, but with the homely worm or a vexed grasshopper ; on better days he got to the shore with a cane, on worse days with a crutch, but once safely in the little rowboat, he grasped the oars with the comfort of mastery, and rowed for hours at a smartish pace even when against the tide, or sometimes he would throw out his anchor and fish for cod and perch. He enjoyed his grandchildren very much, and his friends ; sometimes he had a chat with Mr. Bar rett Wendell over Cotton Mather, or with Mr. Howells over that more modern New Englander, Silas Lapham, or, perhaps, in default of other society, he would play with the cat. LATER LIFE 301 PARKMAN TO HIS SISTER EXTRACTS. Things are here as usual, all the worse for your absence; I row every day and fish occa sionally. The cat had a temporary seizure, in the nature of a mal de mer, in consequence of imprudent indulgence in lobster. The rest of the family are well. My eyes are less sensitive. Knees about as when I last wrote. I sometimes get to the wharf without the one horse shay ; but do not like to try it often. Have not slept well for two or three nights. Otherwise well enough. Want very much to see you. . . . Things go on here as usual. The afternoon of Tuesday was extremely hot, and the night still worse, so that sleep was out of the question. I made up for it last night. All well. I miss you extremely, though Katy [Mrs. Coolidge] has taken her lessons from you very well. . . . I have received from you a card, a note, and the bundle, of which the last two came yester day. All were most welcome. I should be a very discreet young man if I were as thoughtful for myself as you are for me. You are the beau ideal of sisterhood ; of which I am always affec tionately conscious, though I do not say much. I slept last night with the help of "pisen." Eyes better. Miriam [cat] has been suffering, as Molly [his granddaughter] conjectures, from the bite of a spider which she was munching in the grass ; but she seems convalescent. Rest of the family well. The shoes were as welcome as unexpected. . . . 302 FRANCIS PARKMAN It was a great disappointment to learn that you wer*e not coming. Can you not come after your stay with T. ? I took Molly out fishing on Monday. She caught a sculpin and a pollock, which last was served up at tea, and pronounced by her to be one of the best fish she ever tasted. She was delighted with her success. Sleep very uncertain. . . . After having been able to get about more than for several years past, I was suddenly attacked, three days ago, by a greatly increased lameness of the old knee, and to-day can scarcely get out of the house at all, especially as a severe lum bago is added, which makes my attempts at locomotion rather ridiculous. No cause that I can see. . . . All right here. The circus came off with eclat, and Molly was conspicuous in gymnastics. A goat race took place with applause. Louise [granddaughter] had a profusion of gifts, to which I made the contribution of an india rubber ball, chosen by her mother as of a safe nature. Things go as well here as the extreme heat will permit. I have got about more freely, and missing my crutches this morning, sent Molly to look for them. She found them in my room, as I had inadvertently come down without them, which causes me to pass for a bit of a humbug. Crock [a cat] has caused some moderated sor row ; but I cannot wear crape as my hat is not adapted to it. Visitors come and go constantly. I am reasonably well and very glad to hear from you. LATER LIFE 303 Thus the simple chronicle of the last years runs away. The " Half Century of Conflict " was published in the spring of 1892 ; and it is amusing to find the old difficulty about a name that had bothered him with " Pontiac." First he thought of the " Rivals," a dramatic name, then of the " Irrepressible Conflict," a political name, and then at last, the sister, upon whom he had gradually come to depend to a degree that even his strong, independent spirit at last understood, helped him with the happy solution. His work was then done ; there was no rea son why he should tarry. After his visit to the Wentworth mansion in the summer of 1893, he returned to Jamaica Plain ; he went rowing on a Sunday, came back to the house, felt sick, and went to bed. His life had run its course, and after a brief illness, borne, like all his ills, with dignity, gentleness, and serenity, he died on November 8, 1893. CHAPTER XXV CHARACTER AND OPINIONS A MAN in his innermost core may be a unity, a homogeneous something, which remains always the same ; or if it change, changes with a uni form movement, the whole being altering at once. Perhaps by " other eyes than ours " this inmost personality may be seen ; but in this world it is invisible, or else appears in such an endless variety of ways that we, guided by a practical philosophy, must face it in an agnostic attitude. Even the outer being shifts with the sun, with the air, with breakfast coffee, with this man s presence or that girl s absence, with hope, te dium, prosperity. A man appears to his acquaint ance this, to his neighbors that, to his friends thus and so, to his family different, and per haps to the woman whom he loves different still. Therefore a biographer but goes a-fishing, seek ing which of the many semblances appearing to one or another come in his judgment closer to that inmost self which, though the moving force within, he cannot touch. lie must catch, as best CHARACTER AND OPINIONS 305 he can, the traits, dispositions, manners, that have left their imprint here and there and put them together in some consistent fashion, so that they shall indicate, if possible, the move ments of what he believes is the mainspring within. This makeshift is likely, at best, to be a botch. An honest purpose is the only excuse. The Parkmans, though Boston bred, and an- cestored by masters in theology, hailed from Devon, and among their family possessions had what need never be inquired about too curiously, a coat-of-arms. On this there is a chevron, a field azure, a coronet, a helmet, and various heraldic appendages ; but for us the significant emblem lies in the crest, which depicts a " horse hurrant." Here we have the true device for Francis Parkman. Busy with little things, busy with big things, as a boy in Medford Fells and in his chemical laboratory, as a lad in the gym nasium and on the banks of the Margalloway, as a man in his flower-garden and in his library, in his quick opinions, in his vigorous speech, in his wheeled chair or limping on canes, always in his heart there galloped or chafed the "horse hurrant." At Paris, once, on one of the visits made in later years in pursuit of documents, his friend M. Margry came to dine with him and his sis ter. The fete was in honor of his birthday, 306 FRANCIS PARKMAN that memorable one crowned by the poem, for Margry had wished to celebrate it, and the readiest way to forestall his gay proposals was to invite him to the hotel. The voluble little Frenchman talked and stayed, stayed and talked, till Parkman had to betake himself, cane in hand, upstairs for a few minutes rest ; he dashed up stairs with his youthful ardor. Margry caught sight of him, and nicknamed him "le cerf- volant," which is, I take it, a graceful French rendering of " horse hurrant." Thus it was always. Park- man s ardor hurled him on, obstacles stuck spurs into him, difficulties whipped and stung him ; onward he dashed, the hot spirit always bullying the body, and the poor body always paying the scot. To his daughter he was a " passionate Puri tan," the phrase is just. Under his stoicism, under his reserve, under his gentleness, all cast in the Puritan mould, was this passionate spirit. Chi non arde non risplende, as the Umbrian proverb says. When he was lying on his sick bed, ill and helpless, a lady came to see him ; eager to be of comfort, she said, " Oh, think of what you have done." "Done!" he cried, his head rising from the pillow, " done ! there is much more still for me to do !" The Puritan inheritance mingles with its stead fastness a certain sternness not unbecoming a man. The soldier must be stern ; and there are CHARACTER AND OPINIONS 307 certain photographs of Parkman that throw into prominence his fine jaw, and reveal a latent sternness needful for a lifelong battle with phy sical ills, and by him well put to use in resistance to the unseen enemy that robbed him of his eyes, his legs, and the use of his brain. That stern ness was but his coat of mail ; when he came forth unarmed from his dark chamber, and was left at ease to enjoy his friends, then, even in later years when the gifts of youth had left him, women young and old found him charming, younger men admired his refined, scholarly face, his gentle manners, and recognized too his "boy ish freshness of feeling and nature." To men of his own age he was " a most entertaining com panion." When some gentlemen in Boston, in terested in art and letters, organized the St. Botolph Club, he was chosen president, not merely because he was a distinguished man of letters, but because he was a good fellow and delightful company. He belonged to the generation that in creed represented the reaction against Puritanism ; he could remember the pinch of the vanishing Pu ritan oppression, and was not born late enough to look at it with the eyes of the succeeding gen eration, those eyes to which that generation modestly ascribes such perfect vision. He was strongly averse to the Puritan creed, to their 308 FRANCIS PARKMAN theocracy, their narrowness, their injustice, and perhaps did not see how closely their virtues resembled his own, courage, fortitude, love of truth as they saw it, and a passionate ardor in pursuing their ends. Like them, he went un troubled by doubts ; he made up his mind and was indifferent to disagreement. Like them, he was immensely conservative: the inheritance from the past must be held to; the dreams of men, discontented with the lot meted to them and their fellows, dreams of new forms of society, new conceptions of social order, were to him delusions of vanity rigidly to be pushed away. He deemed New England of a generation or more ago " perhaps the most successful demo cracy on earth," but the growth and development of modern democracy filled him with detesta tion ; he beheld in it " organized ignorance, led by unscrupulous craft, and marching, amid the applause of fools, under the flag of equal rights." He felt strongly on new theories, just as his an cestors the Cottons, or their friends the Mathers, would have felt, and he spoke forcibly just as they would have done. " Out of the wholesome fruits of the earth, and the staff of life itself, the perverse chemistry of man distills delirious vapors, which, condensed and bottled, exalt his brain with glorious fantasies, and then leave him in the mud." So it is (for example), he CHARACTER AND OPINIONS 309 says, with those deluded people who are in favor of woman suffrage. Not that he did not admire and respect wo men, he did, for cause passing common, but he did not like the notion of woman suffrage. On a loose sheet shut into a notebook kept in Bemis Camps in 1886 is this entry : " The first and fundamental requisites of women, as of men, are physical, moral, and mental health. It is for men to rear the political superstructure ; it is for women to lay its foundation. God rules the world by fixed laws, moral and physical; and according as men and women observe or violate these laws will be the destinies of communities and individuals for this world and the next. The higher education is necessary to the higher order of women to the end that they may dis charge their function of civilizing agent ; but it should be cautiously limited to the methods and degree that consist with the discharge of their functions of maternity. Health of body and mind is the one great essential. In America men are belittled and cramped by the competition of business, from which women are, or ought to be, free. Hence they have opportunities of moral and mental growth better in some respects than those of men." There was a grim vigor in his speech on these distasteful subjects, that betrayed the Puritan 310 FRANCIS PARKMAN character. Perhaps this masculine vigor, this rude iinmalleability, make a special charm to a younger generation bred upon a somewhat milk and water skepticism for principles and theories, whether old or new. He was masculine in his outlook on life and on all its chief matters. He despised effeminacy, self-coddling, comfort-lov ing ; hardly less also he disliked the coddling of others, the " effusive humanitarianism " of New England " melting into sentimentality at a tale of woe," as he called it, that tended to concen trate interest and sympathy on the feeble rather than on the strong and self-sustaining. He liked a masculine judgment, readiness not un tempered by a heady vigor, but devoid of sentimental sur charge ; he could not tolerate fanaticism. There fore in the slavery days he was out of patience with the abolitionists of Massachusetts, men, as he thought, of a feminine intemperance, of un- masculine mawkishness, who neglected the real ideals of the country for the benefit of a few scattered fugitives of an inferior race, which had not the pluck to strike a blow for itself. It was this belief that men should be mascu line that led him to the natural corollary that women should be feminine. Like other men of a male temper, he enjoyed the distinctive fem inine traits, unreasoning sympathy, instinctive comprehension, absolute self-abnegation, delicate CHARACTER AND OPINIONS 311 sensibility. He took great pleasure in the soci ety of women, and in their company was wont to drop most freely the outer semblance of the warrior, that blending of sternness and determi nation, which others sometimes found in him. This wish always to keep the two types, mu tually complementary, separate and apart, lay at the bottom of his putting Washington so much higher than Lincoln as a hero ; for the womanly tenderness of Lincoln seemed to him out of place. He liked a man who could get angry in time of need, and vent his anger in blunt, rough words. By his creed and by his practice he belonged to the sect of the Stoics, a disciple worthy of the sect s happiest days ; his favorite virtue was fortitude, and of all men of philosophic mind, Marcus Aurelius was his accepted pattern. In his youth he jotted down in his private diary his resistance to the strongest temptation that assails the body ; and his manhood was a con stant obedience to self-restraint, in order that he might fulfill his work. In spirit he was always mindful of the noble emperor s words, "Take care always to remember that you are a man and a Roman ; and let every action be done with perfect and unaffected gravity, humanity, free dom, and justice." His friends bear witness that again and again he had to restrain his vehement 312 FRANCIS PARKMAN impulses to rash speech or action; again and a^ain with a calm exterior batten the hatches on O a mutinous mood. This antique Puritan, with fire fetched from Devon burning within him, took care to remember that he was a man and a gentleman, and bore himself with gentleness and justice. Perhaps his aristocratic bent helped him to self-control. In this bent there was no touch of vainglory, no trace of a willingness to live upon the good report of ancestors ; but a notion, in part begotten no doubt from the general social theories prevalent in the stately old house in Bowdoin Square, in part based on reasoning, and justified by his purpose to prove that his place was beside the best. We may perceive his views of men, when he speaks of the rose : Like all things living, in the world of mind or of matter, the rose is beautified, enlarged, and strengthened by a course of judicious and per severing culture, continued through successive generations. The art of horticulture is no lev- eler. Its triumphs are achieved by rigid systems of selection and rejection, founded always on the broad basis of intrinsic worth. The good culti vator propagates no plants but the best. He carefully chooses those marked out by conspicu ous merit ; protects them from the pollen of in ferior sorts; intermarries them, perhaps, with other varieties of equal vigor and beauty ; saves CHARACTER AND OPINIONS 313 their seed, and raises from it another generation. From the new plants thus obtained he again chooses the best, and repeats with them the same process. Thus the rose and other plants are brought slowly to their perfect development. It is in vain to look for much improvement by merely cultivating one individual. We cultivate the parent, and look for our reward in the off- Such was his theory, and if we meet with a little lift of the eyebrows, a little look askant, when he regards nouveaux riches, we know that the movement was due not to snobbery, but to what he deemed personal and inherited experi ence. In a notebook kept while he was overseer of Harvard College, there are memoranda of notes of opinions gathered from the older pro fessors ; and among other opinions is this, which evidently squared satisfactorily with his own conclusions, " The best class of students are those of families of inherited wealth or easy means, sons of nouveaux riches do not make scholars." But such a feeling never degener ated into a class spirit. Speaking on a subject in which he took a deep interest, he says : The public schools, moreover, are democratic institutions in the best sense of the words ; and, on a broader and more comprehensive scale, they produce the effects which are said to be the peculiar advantages of the great English en- 314 FRANCIS PARKMAN dowed schools. They bring together children of different walks in life, and weaken mutual pre judices by force of mutual contact, teach the rich to know the poor, and the poor to know the rich, and so sap the foundations of class jealousies and animosities. The common schools are cru cibles in which races, nationalities, and creeds are fused together till all alike become Ameri can. But his books reveal his character better than I can suggest it, not only by their obvious admi rations, but by their reticence. The historian never mentions himself except to point a foot note ; he wears the dignified ermine of historic impartiality, but a generous heart cannot hide itself. By his loves he shall be known. Nobody can read the pages on Champlain, on La Salle, Brebeuf, or Wolfe, and not know that these are the heroes whose high deeds quickened a kin dred soul. Yet the reader would not know, nor would an acquaintance in life have guessed, that this stu dious gentleman, with his firm jaw and his schol arly brow, of decided views and occasional bursts of vigorous speech, was tenderly sensitive to sym pathy. The show of unwarranted compassion or officious pity from some person outside the inner circle of those that loved him was coldly pushed aside ; but real sympathy, offered as one manly man may offer it to another, or tendered by a CHARACTER AND OPINIONS 315 woman who had the right to tender it, when ex pressed with reticence and restraint, or indicated in action rather than speech, went straight to his heart. It was more acceptable to him even than fame, and he was very ambitious. CHAPTER XXVI A MORE INTIMATE CHAPTER THE story of a scholar is uneventful ; it is made up of travels, rummagings, notes, dictation, and printing; it lies far from the madding crowd, remote from the bustle of politics and the creak ing machinery of national life. Parkman s infirm ities intensified this seclusion ; they forced him to sport his oak against all except extreme inti macy, and intimacy is shy of the chronicler ; but a biography with no allusion to intimacy is but a shell, a case, a cover, and lets the reader carry away an impression that the man had none of those close affections that reveal themselves in trifling commerce, in looks, in smiles, and silence. This intimacy of Parkman s needs a pen plucked u from an angel s wing," for his deepest feelings radiated from his presence, and no one could say just how they had been expressed ; and part of it should be told by Robin Goodfellow, for his playfulness, his fun, his fondness for nonsense, pass in the telling. He spent his life between the town house A MORE INTIMATE CHAPTER 317 his mother s during her life, then his sister s and his country house at Jamaica Plain; they were his guests in summer, he theirs in winter. At 50 Chestnut Street he had the top floor as his apartment, his bedroom to the south, his study to the north. The stairs that lead thither have a half-fulfilled inclination to wind ; in later years, a little elevator for his private use spared him the stairs he often could not climb. The study was his home, for illness prevented him from taking an ordinary part in family life. He came down to breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but was gen erally silent, and went up again directly after the meal was finished. In the study he spent his time, working when he could. One winter he employed a young woman, a public school teacher, as his amanuensis ; she was wholly ig norant of French, and read the copied archives with a pure Yankee pronunciation. But all the rest of the time, his sister or some member of his family wrote for him while he dictated. In somnia kept him awake at night, and during these wakeful hours, and also in the long periods of repose during the day, he would think of his writing, and put sentence to sentence and para graph to paragraph, so that when he began to dictate he proceeded in orderly progress as if he were reading from a book. Thus, barring the interruptions of illness, he proceeded day by day, 318 FRANCIS PARKMAN until chapter was added to chapter, volume to volume, and the whole at last finished. The " gridirons " were used in earlier years, at times from 1850 to 1860. There were three of these in all, very much alike, the later ones hav ing being made to improve on the earlier model. The last is a little metal frame twelve inches by eight, with wire bars running across like lines on ruled paper, some sixteen in all. Underneath this grill the sheet of paper was slipped in, with a metal back to write on. With this contrivance, following the wire by touch, he could write in the dark without looking. It is an eloquent wit ness, " Stone walls do not a prison make Nor iron bars a cage," nor blindness, nor pain, nor manifold privations to the man of heroic temper. In the evening Miss Parkman would read aloud to him books of various kinds, novels often. He liked a good, strong story, like "Monte Cristo " or " The Wandering Jew," or some Classic like Miss Austen s novels or " Evelina ; " just as in early days he had loved Cooper and Scott. Poetry he liked, but not all. Wordsworth he could not bear, Byron he enjoyed ; but he al most always had a volume of Shakespeare on his table, often open ; sometimes he was able to read a few lines, but commonly the silent presence was A MORE INTIMATE CHAPTER 319 enough. One of his last gifts to his wife was a fine copy of Milton. After his mother died, two nieces, the daugh ters of his sister Caroline, Mrs. Cordner, were frequent inmates of the house, and they, with Miss Parkman, were the only confidantes of his wilder nonsense. To his friends he passed as a man rather lacking in humor, rather inclined to take statements au pied de la lettre ; but in the summer time, the tap of the cane coming down stairs was the reveille for jokes and nonsense. The audience was on tiptoe with expectation, and the performance was always received with fullest appreciation ; and even if brother and sister were alone, the humor, if less boisterous, was gay. The cheer was no counterfeit, but born of an honest gratitude for the happy things in life ; it also served to hide his pain from the others, and even from himself, for he could not take part in ordinary conversation, and silence had a painful physical effect on him. As it was with his nonsense, so too it was with his intimate tenderness, only those who lived under the same roof with him realized it to the full. His daughters and his little nieces used to make him visits twice a year, two months in the spring and two in the autumn ; they used to be at that breakfast-table, giggling for the non sense to come, and they knew how to read the 320 FRANCIS PARKMAN tenderness in his eye, and did not need to wait for words, for they knew that the " horse hur- raut " had great difficulty with those most clumsy instruments for expressing tenderness English monosyllables. The visits were always at Jamaica Pond, and one of them would row with him in the boat, or go a-visiting the roses and the lilies ; or he would help them to disentangle the fish- line and bait the hook, or, it might be, arrange the aquatic flora and fauna in their little aqua rium ; or when they said good-by, he would go to the greenhouse to choose a plant for them ; and here they found that the language of flowers was also far better than that of the dictionary. These nieces, too, bear witness to his triumphant self-mastery ; during all the years from their childhood to womanhood, in town, when they were not staying in the same house, they lived across the street and ran in daily, during all these years they never once heard an impatient word fall from his lips, they never once saw an impatient look; they merely could divine that he would not let them be troubled by his pain. This is the triumph of stoicism, of the sweet stoicism of Marcus Aurelius, mingled in no small measure with the teachings of the Gali lean fisherman. Thus I come to the end of this uneventful story ; but there are a few more pages to com- A MORE INTIMATE CHAPTER 321 plete this little picture of his later life and its intimacies. At Jamaica Plain, in those latter days, when gardening and horticultural prizes were things of the past, every morning he and his sister went rowing. This pond is not very big, and does not afford a great variety of scene nor of incident, and the dreary repetition had to be enriched by art. Here Parkman gave loose rein to his boyish imagination. Every afternoon they went for a drive, with Michael, the gardener, known to his intimates as Mike, driving. Parkman had no natural love for a carriage ; the "horse hurrant" despised the slow and tedious monotony of the inevitable road, but his fancy filled the borders of the way with historic scenes, and would not permit his helplessness to darken their horizon. Parkman was very fond of cats, and though they were rigidly excluded from the library, in the evening there was always a cat Peter or Sarah or Molly who sat on his lap, or curled on the rug and purred its thoughts into a most sympathetic ear. He had always had a weakness for them. Once when Miss Parkman was in Paris, we find him writing, 1872, a year or two after the siege of Paris, " You are also to be congratulated on the discovery of two Angoras, which I trust were favorable specimens. There used to be a good one in the lodge of the con- 322 FRANCIS PARKMAN cierge at No. 123 Av. de Champs Elysees, but the accidents of war may have removed her from the sphere which she adorned and consigned her to the frying-pan." He makes a point of the Angora blood here, but that is an affectation ; good cats, bad cats, lean cats, fat cats, well-bred or wayfarers, ears torn, tailless, young and old, had some claim on his interest. He liked nothing better than to sit in summer time on the veranda festooned with wisteria, and stroke a little cat, and listen to its purring, and help it to make itself per fectly comfortable on his lap. Not only cats, but pictures of cats, photographs of cats, effigies of cats abounded. In especial there was one flannel likeness, whiskered with red silk, eyed with green beads, and featured pathetically with cotton thread, presented to him by his little granddaughter. When he went to Portsmouth to pay her his summer visit, he tucked this flan nel slander of a cat under his coat and brought it forth triumphantly, she believing that it had been cherished next his waistcoat all the winter. He had played the same comedy with the child s mother when she was a little girl. MY DEAR KATY, Me and Creem are wel. We send u our luv. We do not fite now. We have milk every day. One day, when i was play ing under the evergreens, Creem would not lap A MORE INTIMATE CHAPTER 323 her milk till she had come out and told me that it was reddy, and we both went and lapped it together. Papa holds me every night to keep me tame. . . . Yors till deth, FLORA, her m x ark [mark]. (I struggled so, my paw has not made a good mark.) P. S. Plese bring me a skulpin. P. P. S. Papa says to thank Grace for her letter, and he is glad she is having such a good time. N. B. This is a lok of my fer, with best luv of Yors in haste, Puss. [Lock of fur fastened on.] The cats returned his affection, and loved to curl their backs, and rub up against his legs. His own children, after their mother s death, had gone to live with their aunt, Miss Bigelow, who brought them up as if they had been her own, so that Parkman was spared the care he could not give and yet had the pleasure of see ing them constantly, for Dr. Bigelow s house was hard by. In the early summer and again in the autumn they made him a visit at Jamaica Plain. The elder daughter, Grace, took her chief plea sure in the pond and the boat, but the younger, Katy, liked the garden best, and every morn ing trudged after her father, basket in hand, as he walked down the paths with his campstool under his arm on the matinal expedition to cut 324 FRANCIS PARKMAN flowers for the house or to send to his friends. Whatever different occupations the three might find during the day, at dusk they met at his sofa in the " ante-room," where he narrated story after story with Grace sitting beside him, and Katy perched on the back of the sofa. He inspired them with deep respect, affection, and admira tion. In later years, after his daughters were mar ried, when on the whole he suffered less and had the sustaining sense that his work was substan tially finished, he enjoyed his grandchildren very much, letting them see, perhaps, more of his tender, playful side than he had been able to show to their parents. So his life went by, loved by his cats, his family, his friends, his kindred, and his fellow historians ; and it was cheered and brightened by kind and generous expressions of affection, on such occasions as when he re signed from the presidency of the St. Botolph Club, or attained his seventieth year. I am not sure that I have spoken enough of his gentleness, and I have said too little of his modesty. John Fiske was once delivering a lec ture on " America s Place in History," at Haw thorne Hall, in Boston; he alluded to Pontiac and his conspiracy, and said that it was memo rable as " the theme of one of the most brilliant and fascinating books that have ever been writ- A MORE INTIMATE CHAPTER 325 ten by any historian since the days of Herodotus." The words were hardly out of his mouth when he caught sight of Parkman in the audience. He says, " I shall never forget the sudden start which he gave, and the heightened color of his noble face, with its curious look of surprise and plea sure, an expression as honest and simple as one might witness in a rather shy schoolboy sud denly singled out for praise. I was so glad that I had said what I did without thinking of his hearing me." Parkman s memory is linked forever with the first great epoch in American history; and a memorial in stone is to be placed near the edge of Jamaica Pond hard by the dock from which he used to push his little boat when he and his sister went for their daily row around the pond. Two great monoliths will stand, one on each side of a stone seat ; in one the sculptor has carved the figure of an Indian, in the other an image of the Spirit of the Woods, the com rades of Parkman s boyhood. After this it was noised abroad that Mr. Val- iant-for- Truth was taken with a summons. . . . When he understood it, he called for his friends, and told them of it. Then said he, ..." though with great difficulty I have got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to 326 FRANCIS PARKMAN him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me." . . . When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the river-side, into which as he went he said, " Death, where is thy sting?" And as he went down deeper, he said, " Grave, where is thy victory ? " So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded on the other side. APPENDIX LETTER written to Mr. Martin Brimmer in 1886, with instructions to be kept until after Park- man s death, and then to be given to the Mas sachusetts Historical Society : MY DEAR BRIMMER, I once told you that I should give you some account of the circumstances under which my books were written. Here it is, with some preliminary pages to explain the rest. I am sorry there is so much of it : Causes antedating my birth gave me constitutional liabilities to which I largely ascribe the mischief that ensued. As a child I was sensitive and restless, rarely ill, but never robust. At eight years I was sent to a farm belonging to my maternal grandfather on the outskirts of the extensive tract of wild and rough woodland now called Middlesex Fells. I walked twice a day to a school of high but undeserved repu tation about a mile distant, in the town of Medford. Here I learned very little, and spent the intervals of schooling more profitably in collecting eggs, insects, and reptiles, trapping squirrels and woodchucks, and making persistent though rarely fortunate attempts 328 APPENDIX to kill birds with arrows. After four years of this rustication I was brought back to Boston, when I was unhappily seized with a mania for experiments in chemistry involving a lonely, confined, unwholesome sort of life, baneful to body and mind. This lasted till the critical age of fifteen, when a complete change came over me I renounced crucibles and retorts and took to books; read poetry and fancied for a while that I could write it ; conceived literary ambi tions, and, at the same time, began to despise a liter ary life and to become enamored of the backwoods. This new passion which proved permanent was no doubt traceable in part to fond recollections of the Middlesex Fells, as well as to one or two journeys which I was permitted to make into some of the wilder parts of New England. It soon got full pos session of me, and mixed itself with all my literary aspirations. In this state of mind I went to college, where I divided my time about equally between books and active exercises, of which last I grew inordinately fond, and in which I was ambitious beyond measure to excel. My favorite backwoods were always in my thoughts. At first I tried to persuade myself that I could woo this new mistress in verse ; then I came down to fic tion, and at last reached the sage though not flattering conclusion that if I wanted to build in her honor any monument that would stand, I must found on solid fact. Before the end of the sophomore year my vari ous schemes had crystallized into a plan of writing the story of what was thus known as the " Old French APPENDIX 329 War ; " that is, the war that ended in the conquest of Canada ; for here, as it seemed to me, the forest drama was more stirring and the forest stage more thronged with appropriate actors than in any other passage of our history. It was not till some years later that I enlarged the plan to include the whole course of the American conflict between France and England ; or, in other words, the history of the Amer ican forest ; for this was the light in which I regarded it. My theme fascinated me, and I was haunted with wilderness images day and night. From this time forward, two ideas possessed me. One was to paint the forest and its tenants in true and vivid colors ; the other was to realize a certain ideal of manhood, a little mediaeval, but nevertheless good. Feeling that I fell far short of it, I proceeded in extreme dissatisfaction to apply heroic remedies. I held the creed that the more hard knocks a man gets, whether in mind or body, the better for him, provided always that he takes them without flinching ; and as the means of forcing myself up to the required standard, I put my faith in persistent violence which I thought energy. I held that the true aim of life was not happiness but achievement ; had profound re spect for physical strength and hardihood when joined with corresponding qualities of character ; took plea sure in any moderate hardship, scorned invalidism of all kinds, and was full of the notion, common enough with boys of a certain sort, that the body will always harden and toughen with exercise and exposure. I remember to have had a special aversion for the Rev. 330 APPENDIX Dr. Charming, not for his heresies, ^>ut for his meager proportions, sedentary habits, environment of close air and female parishioners, and his preachments of the superiority of mind over matter ; for, while I had no disposition to gainsay his proposition in the ab stract, it was a cardinal point with me that while the mind remains a habitant of earth, it cannot dispense with a sound material basis, and that to neglect and decry the corporeal part in the imagined interest of the spiritual is proof of a nature either emasculate or fanatical. For my own part, instead of neglect ing, I fell to lashing and spurring it into vigor and prosperity. Meanwhile I diligently pursued my literary scheme. While not exaggerating the importance of my sub ject, I felt that it had a peculiar life of its own, of which I caught tantalizing glimpses, to me irresistibly attractive. I felt far from sure that I was equal to the task of rekindling it, calling out of the dust the soul and body of it and making it a breathing reality. I was like some smitten youth plagued with harrow ing doubts as to whether he can win the mistress of his fancy. I tried to gauge my own faculties, and was displeased with the result. Nevertheless, I resolved that if my steed was not a thoroughbred, I would at least get his best paces out of him, and I set myself to a strenuous course of training for the end in view. A prime condition of success was an unwearied delv ing into dusty books and papers, a kind of work which I detested ; and I came to the agreeable yet correct conclusion that the time for this drudgery was APPENDIX 331 not come ; that my present business was, so to speak, to impregnate myself with my theme, fill my mind with impressions from real life, range the woods, mix with Indians and frontiersmen, visit the scenes of the events I meant to describe, and so bring myself as near as might be to the times with which I was to deal. Accordingly, I spent all my summer vacations in the woods or in Canada, at the same time reading such books as I thought suited, in a general way, to help me towards my object. I pursued these lucubra tions with a pernicious intensity, keeping my plans and purposes to myself, while passing among my com panions as an outspoken fellow. The danger into which I was drifting rose from the excessive stimulus applied to nerves which had too much stimulus of their own. I was not, however, at all nervous in the sense in which that term is com monly understood, and I regarded nervous people with more pity than esteem. The mischief was work ing underground. If it had come to the surface, the effects would probably have been less injurious. I flattered myself I was living wisely because I avoided the more usual excesses, but I fell into others quite as baneful, riding my hobbies with unintermitting vehemence, and carrying bodily exercise to a point where it fatigues instead of strengthening. In short, I burned the candle at both ends. The first hint that my method of life was not to prove a success occurred in my junior year, in the shape of a serious disturbance in the action of the heart, of which the immediate cause was too violent a-52 APPENDIX exercise in the gymnasium. I was thereupon ordered to Europe, where I spent the greater part of a year, never losing sight of my plans and learning much that helped to forward them. Returning in time to graduate with my class, I was confronted with the inevitable question, What next ? The strong wish of my father that I should adopt one of the so-called regu lar professions determined me to enter the Harvard Law School. Here, while following the prescribed courses at a quiet pace, I entered in earnest on two other courses, one of general history, the other of Indian history and ethnology, and at the same time studied diligently the models of English style ; which various pursuits were far from excluding the pleasures of society. In the way of preparation and preliminary to my principal undertaking, I now resolved to write the history of the Indian War under Pontiac, as offering peculiar opportunities for exhibiting forest life and Indian character ; and to this end I began to collect mate rials by travel and correspondence. The labor was not slight, for the documents were widely scattered on both sides of the Atlantic ; but at the beginning of 1846 the collection was nearly complete. I had been conscious for some time of an over- stimulated condition of the brain. While constantly reminding myself that the task before me was a long one, that haste was folly, and that the slow way was the surer and better one, I felt myself spurred for ward irresistibly. It was like a rider whose horse has got the bit between his teeth, and who, while seeing APPENDIX 333 his danger, cannot stop. As the mischief gave no outward sign, nobody was aware of it but myself. At last, however, a weakness of the eyes, which was one of its symptoms, increased so fast that I was forced to work with the eyes of others. I now resolved to execute a scheme which I had long meditated. This was to visit the wild tribes of the far West, and live among them for a time, as a necessary part of train ing for my work. I hoped by exchanging books and documents for horse and rifle to gain three objects at once health, use of sight, and personal knowledge of savage life. The attempt did not prosper. I was attacked on the plains by a wasting and dangerous disorder, which had not ceased when I returned to the frontier five months later. In the interval I was for some weeks encamped with a roving band of Sioux at the Rocky Mountains, with one rough though not unfaithful attendant. It would have been suicidal to accept the part of an invalid, and I was sometimes all day in the saddle, when in civilized life complete rest would have been thought indispensable. I lived like my red companions, and sometimes joined them in their hunting, with the fatiguing necessity of being always armed and on the watch. To one often giddy with the exhaustion of disease, the strain on the sys tem was great. After going back to civilization, the malady gradually subsided, after setting in action a train of other disorders which continued its work. In a year or more I was brought to a state of nervous prostration that debarred all mental effort, and was attended with a weakness of sight that for a time 334 APPENDIX threatened blindness. Before reaching this pass I wrote the " Oregon Trail " by dictation. Complete repose, to me the most detestable of prescriptions, was enjoined upon me, and from intense activity I found myself doomed to helpless inaction. Such chance of success as was left lay in time, patience, and a studied tranquillity of spirit ; and I felt, with extreme disgust, that there was nothing for it but to renounce past maxims and habits and embrace others precisely the opposite. An impulse seized me to return to the Rocky Mountains, try a hair of the dog that bit me, and settle squarely the question to be or not to be. It was the time of the Mexican War, and I well remem ber with what envious bitterness I looked at a col ored print in a shop window, representing officers and men carrying a field battery into action at the battle of Buena Vista. I believe that I would will ingly have borne any amount of bodily pain, pro vided only I could have brought with it the power of action. After a while as anything was better than idle ness I resolved on cautiously attempting to make use of the documents already collected for the " Con spiracy of Pontiac." They were read to me by friends and relatives at times when the brain was least rebel lious, and I wrote without use of sight, by means of a sort of literary gridiron or frame of parallel wires, laid on the page to guide the hand. For some months the average rate of progress did not exceed three or four lines a day, and the chapters thus composed were afterwards rewritten. If, as I was told, brain work APPENDIX 335 was poison, the dose was homeopathic and the effect was good, for within a year I could generally work, with the eyes of others, two hours or more a day, and in about three years the book was finished. I then began to gather materials for the earlier volumes of the series of France and England in North America, though, as I was prevented from traveling by an extreme sensitiveness of the retina which made sunlight insupportable, the task of collection seemed hopeless. I began, however, an extensive correspond ence, and was flattering myself that I might succeed at last, when I was attacked with an effusion of water on the knee, which subsided in two or three months, then returned, kept me a prisoner for two years, and deprived me of necessary exercise for several years more. The consequence was that the devil which had been partially exorcised returned triumphant. The evil now centred in the head, producing cerebral symptoms of such a nature that, in 1853, the physi cian who attended me at the time, after cautious cir cumlocution, said in a low and solemn voice that his duty required him to warn me that death would prob ably follow within six months, and stood amazed at the smile of incredulity with which the announcement was received. I had known my enemy longer than he, and learned that its mission was not death, but only torment. Five years later another physician an eminent physiologist of Paris, where I then was tried during the whole winter to discover the par ticular manifestations of the insanity which he was convinced must needs attend the symptoms he had 336 APPENDIX observed, and told me at last what he had been about. " What conclusion have you reached ? " I asked. "That I never knew a saner man in my life." " But," said I, " what is the chance that this brain of mine will ever get into working order again ? " He shook his head and replied, " It is not impossible " with which I was forced to content myself. Between 1852 and 1860 this cerebral rebellion passed through great and seemingly capricious fluctu ations. It had its ebbs and floods. Slight and some times imperceptible causes would produce an access which sometimes lasted with little respite for months. When it was in its milder moods I used the opportu nity to collect material and prepare ground for future work, should work ever become practicable. When it was at its worst the condition was not enviable. I could neither listen to reading nor engage in conversation, even of the lightest. Sleep was difficult and was often banished entirely for one or two nights, during which the brain was apt to be in a state of abnormal activ ity, which had to be repressed at any cost, since thought produced the intensest torture. The effort required to keep the irritated organ quiet was so fa tiguing that I occasionally rose and spent hours in the open air, where I found distraction and relief in watching the policemen and the tramps on the malls of Boston Common, at the risk of passing for a tramp myself. Towards the end of the night this cerebral excitation would seem to tire itself out, and gave place to a condition of weight and oppression much easier to bear. APPENDIX 337 Having been inclined to look with slight esteem on invalidism, the plight in which I found myself was mortifying ; but I may fairly say that I never called on others to bear the burden of it, and always kept up a show of equanimity and good humor. The worst strain on these was when the Civil War broke out and I was doomed to sit an idle looker on. After it became clear that literary work must be indefinitely suspended, I found a substitute in horticul ture ; and am confident that I owe it in good measure to the kindly influence of that gracious pursuit that the demon in the brain was gradually soothed into comparative quiet. In 1861 I was able, with frequent interruptions, to take up my work again. At the same time there was such amendment as regards sight that I could bear the sunlight without blinking, and read for several minutes at once without stopping to rest the eyes, though my chief dependence was still in those of others. In 1865 " The Pioneers " was fin ished, and the capacity of work both of brain and eye had much increased. " The Jesuits " was finished in 1867 ; " The Discovery of the Great West," in 1869 ; " The Old Regime," in 1874 ; and " Frontenac," in 1877. " Montcalm and Wolfe," which involved more labor, was not ready till 1884. While engaged on these books I made many jour neys in the United States and Canada in search of material, and went four times to Europe with a simi lar object. The task of exploring archives and col lecting documents, to me repulsive at the best, was, under the circumstances, difficult, and would have 338 APPENDIX been impossible but for the aid of competent assistants working under my direction. Taking the last forty years as a whole, the capacity of literary work which during that time has fallen to my share has, I am confident, been considerably less than a fourth part of what it would have been under normal conditions. Whether the historical series in hand will ever be finished I do not know, but I shall finish it if I can. Yours faithfully, F. PARKMAN. JAMAICA PLAIN, 28 Oct., 1886. APPENDIX 339 POEM BY DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Read at the Special Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society in Memory of Francis Parkman, November 21, 1893. He rests from toil ; the portals of the tomb Close on the last of those unwearying hands That wove their pictured webs in History s loom, Rich with the memories of three mighty lands. One wrought the record of the Royal Pair Who saw the great Discoverer s sail unfurled, Happy his more than regal prize to share, The spoils, the wonders of the sunset world. There, too, he found his theme ; upreared anew, Our eyes beheld the vanished Aztec shrines, And all the silver splendors of Peru That lured the conqueror to her fatal mines. No less remembered he who told the tale Of empire wrested from the strangling sea ; Of Leyden s woe, that turned his readers pale, The price of unborn freedom yet to be ; Who taught the New World what the Old could teach ; Whose silent hero, peerless as our own, By deeds that mocked the feeble breath of speech Called up to life a State without a Throne. As year by year his tapestry unrolled, What varied wealth its growing length displayed ! What long processions flamed in cloth of gold ! What stately forms their flowing robes arrayed ! Not such the scenes our later craftsman drew ; Not such the shapes his darker pattern held ; 40 APPENDIX A deeper shadow lent its sober hue, A sadder tale his tragic task compelled. He told the red man s story ; far and wide He searched the unwritten records of his race ; He sat a listener at the Sachem s side, He tracked the hunter through his wildwood chase. High o er his head the soaring eagle screamed ; The wolf s long howl rang nightly ; through the vale Tramped the lone bear ; the panther s eyeballs gleamed ; The bison s gallop thundered on the gale. Soon o er the horizon rose the cloud of strife, Two proud, strong nations battling for the prize, Which swarming host should mould a nation s life ; Which royal banner flout the western skies. Long raged the conflict ; on the crimson sod Native and alien joined their hosts in vain ; The lilies withered where the Lion trod, Till Peace lay panting on the ravaged plain. A nobler task was theirs who strove to win The blood-stained heathen to the Christian fold, To free from Satan s clutch the slaves of sin ; Their labors, too, with loving grace he told. Halting with feeble step, or bending o er The sweet-breathed roses which he loved so well, While through long years his burdening cross he bore, From those firm lips no coward accents fell. A brave, bright memory ! his the stainless shield No shame defaces and no envy mars ! When our far future s record is unsealed, His name will shine among its morning stars. INDEX INDEX ABBOTSFORD, 114. Adams, Henry, letter to Parkman, 255. Angler, John, school of, 20, 21. Bancroft, George, letter to Park man, 258. Batiscan River, 281. Bentley, Richard, 226. Big Crow, Indian chief, 175 et seq. Bigelow, Catherine Scollay, 216. See also Parkman, Mrs. Book of Roses, 236, 240. Bowdoin Square, No. 5, 25. Brimmer, Martin, autobiographical letter to, 327-338. Brown-Se"quard, Dr., 232. . Canada, Parkman s first visit to, 42 ; second visit, 59 ; friends in, 263-280. Carver, Capt. Jonathan, nom de plume of Parkman, 133, 134. Cary, George B., letter from Park man, 130. Casgrain, Abbe", 267-280. Cats, Parkman s fondness for, 322. Chatillon, Henry, 150, 163. Chestnut St., No. 50, 252, 317. Child, F. J., letters to Parkman, 229, 230. Clark, L. Gaylord, editor of Knick erbocker Magazine, 133, 134, 202. Clermont-Tonnerre, Comtesse de, 292. Convent, Roman, 96-103. Coolidge, Dr. Algernon, 299. Coolidge, J. Templeman, 293, 300. Curtis, G. W., 228. Dionne, M. N. E., quoted, 266. Dwight, Edmund, letters to Park man, 208-211. Elliott, Dr. Samuel M., 193. Ellis, Dr. G. E., autobiographical letter to, 246. Farnham, C. H., 281. Fenwick, Rev. John E. A., 293,294. Fiske, John, 3, 4, 226, 298, 324. Fort William Henry, 34. Fourierites, 122. Frontenac and New France, 248. Garrison, William Lloyd, 220. Gibraltar, 69. Godkin, E. L., letter to Parkman, 256. Gould, Dr. G. M., 247. Hale, George S., 56 ; letters from Parkman, 126, 129, 135 ; letters to Parkman, 127, 128. Half Century of Conflict, 248, 278, 303. Hall, Nathaniel, 20, 21. Hansen, Mr., second mate of the Nautilus, 64 et seq. Harper & Brother, 223, 224. Hart, Albert Bushnell, 4. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, poem by, 339. Indians, 160-192. Italy, visit to, 75-108. Jamaica Pond, 234. James, Henry, 295 ; letter to Park man, 256. Japanese lilies, 239. Jesuits in North America, 248, 249. Keene, N. H., 56. Knickerbocker Magazine, 29, 134, 201. La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, 248, 249. Lake George, 32. Le Moine, Sir James M., 265, 280. Lilies, Parkman s experiments with, 239, 240. Lodge, Henry Cabot, letter to Park man, 259. 344 INDEX London, 110-113. Lowell, J. R., letter to Parkman, 257. Malta, 73. Margalloway River, 45-5T). Margry, P. A., 288-290, 305, 306. Massachusetts Historical Society, 250. Messina, 76. Middlesex Fells, school and play ground for Parkman, 21, 22, 28. Mitchell, Dr. Weir, letter from Parkman, 290. Montcalm and Wolfe, 248, 249, 254, 255. Montcalm s letters, 293-295. Naples, 90. Norton, C. E., letters to Parkman, 212-214 ; letters from Parkman, 218-221. Ogillallah Indians, 160. Old Regime, 248. Oregon visited by Parkman, 148- 159. Oregon Trail, The, 201-204, 213. Paris, 109, 231, 288. Parker, Theodore, 90, 92, 93. Parkman, Breck, 17. Parkman, Caroline (Mrs. Cordner), letters to Parkman, 13-17, 145, 146, 194-199. Parkman, Rev. Ebenezer, 12, 25 ; his diary, 282-2H4, 286-288. Parkman, Eliza W. 8., 19, 140, 233, 252, 282-2H8, 303. Parkman, Rev. Francis, 17, 18, 25 ; letters to Parkman, 199, 201, 202, 204. Parkman, Mrs. Francis, mother of Francis, 18, 19 ; her death, 288. Parkman, Francis, ancestry, 12 ; birth and boyhood, 20 ; school, 20, 25 ; college, 27 ; explorations, 32 ; Margalloway, 45 ; Keene, 56 ; voy age to Europe, 62 ; Gibraltar, 69; Malta, 73 ; Sicily, 75, 80, ft seq. ; Naples, 90; Rome, 93; Roman convent, 97; Florence, 105; Mi lan, 106 ; Paris, 109, 110 ; London, 110-113; Scotland, 113-115; Ab- botsford, 1 14 ; Berkshire County, 119; the law school, 125; social pleasures, 129, 130; The Knicker bocker Magazine, 29, 134; Capt. Jonathan Carver, 133, 134; The Hanger s Adventure, 132; The Scalp - Hunter, 132; travels to Pennsylvania, 136, 137 ; Detroit, 137 ; the Oregon trail, 148 ; the start, 148 ; emigrant train, 151 ; buffalo hunt, 154; The Whirlwind, 162; Fort Laramie, 160; the rough journey, 168 ; Indian life, 181 ; journey home, 191 ; Dr. Elliott s care, 193 ; preparation for Pon- tiac, 205 ; marriage, 216 ; publica tion of Pontiac, 222 ; life at Mil ton, 218; Vassall Morton, 227; death of sou, 229 ; death of wife, 229 ; trip to Paris, 229 ; Jamaica Pond, 234; gardening, 235-240; hybridization of lilies, 239 ; Book of Roses, 240 ; Civil War, 243 ; The Pioneers, 246 ; The Jesuits, 248 ; La Salle, 248 ; The Old Regime, 248 ; Frontenac, 248 ; Montcalm and Wolfe, 248 ; A Half Century of Conflict, 248; 50 "Chestnut Street, 252 ; letters of praise, 255- 261; Canada, 263-281; Quebec, 265, 206 ; Abbe Casgrain, 267-280 ; camping at Batiscan River, 281 ; trip to Paris, 288; M. Margry, 288- 290 ; Montcalm s letters to Bour- lamaque, 293 - 295 ; Wentworth mansion, 300 ; death, 303; his character, 304 el seq. ; his opin ions, 304 et seq. ; woman suffrage, 309 ; aristocrat, 312 ; intimacies, 316 ; nonsense, 319; love of cats, 322. Parkman, Francis, letters of: to George S. Hale, 126, 129, 135; to George B. Gary, 130 ; to his mother, 104, 136, 144 ; to E. Geo. Squier, 215; to C. E. Norton, 218, 219, 221 ; to Miss Mary Parkman, 231-233; to Miss Eliza Park man, 233, 285, 286, 299, 301, 302 ; to Mrs. Sam. Parkman, 238 ; to Dr. Weir Mitchell, 296, 297 ; to his daughter Katherine (Mrs. J. T. Coolidpe), 322, 323 ; to Martin Brimmer, 245, 327-338. Parkman, Mrs., wife of Francis, 217 ; her death, 229. Parkman, Grace, 323, 324. Parkman, John Eliot, 1!>, 203. Parkman, Katherine (Mrs. J. T. Coolidge). 300, 322-324. Parkman, Mary E., letters to, 231- 233. Parkman, Samuel, 17, 25. Parkman, William, 17. INDEX 345 Peabody, Joseph, 128, 129. Phillips, Sir Thomas, 293. Pioneers of France in the New , The, 246, World, 248. Pontiac, Conspiracy of, prepara tions for, 205 ; published, 222. Rome, 93-104. Roosevelt, Theodore, letter to Park- man, 259, 260. Roses, 235-237. Russell, G. R.,225. Russell, William, teacher of Park- man, 26. St. Botolph Club, 307. St. Paul s, London, 112. Salem, 128, 129. Saturday Club, 297. Scotland, 113-115. Shaw, J. Coolidge, letter to Park- man, 141, 142. Shaw, Quincy A., 143, 147-167, 190, 191. Sicily, 75, 80-89. Slade, Daniel Den i son, 29. Smith, Goldwin, 4. Smith, William, History of Canada, 263. Snow, Charles A. B., letter to Park- man, 61. Snow, Jonathan, of the barque Nau tilus, 64 et seq. Sparks, Jared, 222, 225. Squier, E. George, 214, 215. Stanstead, Canada, 43. Switzerland, 108, 109. Thayer, Gideon, teacher of Park- man, 25. Ticonderoga, 40. Vassall Morton, 227, 228. Wentworth mansion, 300. Whirlwind, The, Ogillallah chief, 162-167. White, Henry Orne, 32. Williams, Col. Ephraim, 34, 119. Winsor, Justin, letter to Parkman, 260 ; on M. Margry, 289. Woman suffrage, 309. Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Hmtghton & Co Cambridge, Mass., I? .9 A 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. DEC28J9SG4 LOAN DEPT. General Library University of California Berkeley J67