Part 15

"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 pasteboard 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 was at the time absent from home, on Staten Island, where, and in the neighbouring 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 belonged. 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 procured 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 frequently occurring during which he could not listen 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 composed was afterwards partially rewritten.

"His health improved under the process, and the remainder of the volume--in other words, nearly the whole of it--was composed in Boston, while pacing in the twilight of a large garret, the only exercise which the sensitive 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."

The book composed under such formidable difficulties was published in 1851. It did not at once meet with the reception which it deserved. The reading public did not expect to find entertainment in American history. In the New England of those days the general reader had heard a good deal about the Pilgrim Fathers and Salem Witchcraft, and remembered hazily the stories of Hannah Dustin and of Putnam and the wolf, but could not be counted on for much else before the Revolution. I remember once hearing it said that the story of the "Old French War" was something of no more interest or value for Americans of to-day than the cuneiform records of an insurrection in ancient Nineveh; and so slow are people in gaining a correct historical perspective that within the last ten years the mighty world struggle in which Pitt and Frederick were allied is treated in a book entitled "Minor Wars of the United States"! In 1851 the soil was not yet ready for the seed sown by Parkman, and he did not quickly or suddenly become popular. But after the publication of the "Pioneers of France" in 1865 his fame grew rapidly. In those days I took especial pleasure in praising his books, from the feeling that they were not so generally known as they ought to be, particularly in England, where he has since come to be recognized as foremost among American writers of history. In 1879 I had been giving a course of lectures at University College, London, on "America's Place in History," and shortly afterwards repeated this course at the little Hawthorne Hall, on Park Street, in Boston. One evening, having occasion to allude briefly to Pontiac and his conspiracy, I said, among other things, that it was memorable as "the theme of one of the most brilliant and fascinating books that have ever been written by any historian since the days of Herodotus." The words were scarcely out of my mouth when I happened to catch sight of Mr. Parkman in my audience. I had not observed him before, though he was seated quite near me. I shall never forget the sudden start which he gave, and the heightened colour of his noble face, with its curious look of surprise and pleasure,--an expression as honest and simple as one might witness in a rather shy schoolboy suddenly singled out for praise. I was so glad that I had said what I did without thinking of his hearing me.

In May, 1850, while at work upon this great book, Mr. Parkman married Catherine, daughter of Jacob Bigelow, an eminent physician of Boston. Of this marriage there were three children,--a son, who died while an infant, and two daughters, who still survive. Mrs. Parkman died in 1858, and her husband never married again.

During these years, when his complicated ailments for a time made historical work impossible even to this man of Titanic will, he assuaged his cravings for spiritual creation by writing a novel, "Vassall Morton." Of his books it is the only one that I have never seen, and I can speak of it only from hearsay. It is said to be not without signal merits, but it did not find a great many readers, and its author seems not to have cared much for it. The main current of his interest in life was too strong to allow of much diversion into side channels.

"Meanwhile," to cite his own words, "the Faculty of Medicine were not idle, displaying that exuberance of resource for which that remarkable profession is justly famed. The wisest, indeed, did nothing, commending his patient to time and faith; but the activity of his brethren made full amends for this masterly inaction. One was for tonics, another for a diet of milk; one counselled galvanism, another hydropathy; one scarred him behind the neck with nitric acid, another drew red-hot irons along his spine with a view of enlivening that organ. Opinion was divergent as practice. One assured him of recovery in six years; another thought that he would never recover. Another, with grave circumlocution, lest the patient should take fright, informed him that he was the victim of an organic disease of the brain which must needs dispatch him to another world within a twelvemonth; and he stood amazed at the smile of an auditor who neither cared for the announcement nor believed it. Another, an eminent physiologist of Paris, after an acquaintance of three months, one day told him that from the nature of the disorder he had at first supposed that it must, in accordance with precedent, be attended with insanity, and had ever since been studying him to discover under what form the supposed aberration declared itself; adding, with a somewhat humorous look, that his researches had not been rewarded with the smallest success."

Soon after his marriage Mr. Parkman became possessor of a small estate of three acres or so in Jamaica Plain, on the steep shore of the beautiful pond. It was a charming place, thoroughly English in its homelike simplicity and refined comfort. The house stood near the entrance, and on not far from the same level as the roadway; but from the side and rear the ground fell off rapidly, so that it was quite a sharp descent to the pretty little wharf or dock, where one might sit and gaze on the placid, dreamy water. It is with that lovely home that Parkman is chiefly associated in my mind. Twenty years ago, while I was acting as librarian at Harvard University, he was a member of the corporation, and I had frequent occasion to consult with him on matters of business. At such times I would drive over from Cambridge or take a street car to Jamaica Plain, sure of a cordial greeting and a pleasant chat, in which business always received its full measure of justice, and was then thrust aside for more inspiring themes. The memory of one day in particular will go with me through life,--an enchanted day in the season of apple blossoms, when I went in the morning for a brief errand, taking with me one of my little sons. The brief errand ended in spending the whole day and staying until late in the evening, while the world of thought was ransacked and some of its weightiest questions provisionally settled! Nor was either greenhouse or garden or pond neglected. At such times there was nothing in Parkman's looks or manner to suggest the invalid. He and I were members of a small club of a dozen or more congenial spirits who now for nearly thirty years have met once a month to dine together. When he came to the dinner he was always one of the most charming companions at the table; but ill health often prevented his coming, and in the latter years of his life he never came. I knew nothing of the serious nature of his troubles; and when I heard the cause of his absence alleged, I used to suppose that it was merely some need for taking care of digestion or avoiding late hours that kept him at home. What most impressed one, in talking with him, was the combination of power and alertness with extreme gentleness. Nervous irritability was the last thing of which I should have suspected him. 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 as always most cheerful. His friend (our common friend), the late Octavius Frothingham, says of him: "Again and again he had to restrain the impulse to say vehement things, or to do violent deeds without the least provocation; but he maintained so absolutely his moral self-control that none but the closest observer would notice any deviation from the most perfect calm and serenity." I can testify that until after Mr. Parkman's death I had never dreamed of the existence of any such deviation.

Garden and greenhouse formed a very important part of the home by Jamaica Pond. Mr. Parkman's love for Nature was in no way more conspicuously shown than in his diligence and skill in cultivating flowers. It is often observed that plants will grow for some persons, but not for others; one man's conservatory will be heavy with verdure, gorgeous in its colours, and redolent of sweet odours, while his neighbour's can show nothing but a forlorn assemblage of pots and sticks. The difference is due to the loving care which learns and humours the idiosyncrasies of each individual thing that grows, the keen observation of the naturalist supplemented by the watchful solicitude of the nurse. Among the indications of rare love and knowledge of Nature is marked success in inducing her to bring forth her most exquisite creations, the flowers. As an expert in horticulture Parkman achieved celebrity. His garden and greenhouse had extraordinary things to show. As he pointed out to me on my first visit to them, he followed Darwinian methods and originated new varieties of plants. The _Lilium Parkmani_ has long been famous among florists. He was also eminent in the culture of roses, and author of a work entitled "The Book of Roses," which was published in 1866. He was President of the Horticultural Society, and at one time Professor of Horticulture in Harvard University. There can be no doubt as to the beneficial effects of these pursuits. It is wholesome to be out of doors with spade and trowel and sprinkler; there is something tonic in the aroma of fresh damp loam; and nothing is more restful to the soul than daily sympathetic intercourse with flowering plants. It was surely here that Parkman found his best medicine.

When he entered, in 1851, upon his great work on "France and England in the New World," he had before him the task "of tracing out, collecting, indexing, arranging, and digesting a great mass of incongruous material scattered on both sides of the Atlantic." A considerable portion of this material was in manuscript, and involved much tedious exploration and the employment of trained copyists. It was necessary to study carefully the catalogues of many European libraries, and to open correspondence with such scholars and public officials in both hemispheres as might be able to point to the whereabouts of fresh sources of information. Work of this sort, as one bit of clue leads to another, is capable of arousing the emotion of pursuit to a very high degree; and I believe the effect of it upon Parkman's health must have been good, in spite of, or rather because of, its difficulties. The chase was carried on until his manuscript treasures had been brought to an extraordinary degree of completeness. These made his library quite remarkable. In printed books it was far less rich. He had not the tastes of a bibliophile, and did not feel it necessary, as Freeman did, to own all the books he used. His library of printed books, which at his death went to Harvard University, was a very small one for a scholar,--about twenty-five hundred volumes, including more or less of Greek and Latin literature and theology inherited from his father. His manuscripts, as I have already mentioned, went to the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

When the manuscripts had come into his hands, an arduous labour was begun. All had to be read to him and taken in slowly, bit by bit. The incapacity to keep steadily at work made it impossible to employ regular assistants profitably; and for readers he either depended upon members of his own family or called in pupils from the public schools. Once he speaks of having had a well-trained young man, who was an excellent linguist; on another occasion it was a schoolgirl "ignorant of any tongue but her own," and "the effect, though highly amusing to bystanders, was far from being so to the person endeavouring to follow the meaning of this singular jargon." The larger part of the documents used in preparing the earlier volumes were in seventeenth-century French, which, though far from being Old French, is enough unlike the nineteenth-century speech to have troubled Parkman's readers, and thus to have worried his ears.

As Frothingham describes his method, when the manuscripts were slowly read to him, "first the chief points were considered, then the details of the story were gone over carefully and minutely. As the reading went on he made notes, first of essential matters, then of non-essential. After this he welded everything together, made the narrative completely his own, infused into it his own fire, quickened it by his own imagination, and made it, as it were, a living experience, so that his books read like personal reminiscences. It was certainly a slow and painful process, but the result more than justified the labour."

In the fragment of autobiography already quoted, which Mr. Parkman left with Dr. Ellis in 1868, but which was apparently written in 1865, he says: "One year, four years, and numerous short intervals lasting from a day to a month represent the literary interruptions since the work in hand was begun. Under the most favourable conditions it was a slow and doubtful navigation, beset with reefs and breakers, demanding a constant lookout and a constant throwing of the lead. Of late years, however, the condition of the sight has so far improved as to permit reading, not exceeding on the average five minutes at one time. This modicum of power, though apparently trifling, proves of the greatest service, since by a cautious management its application may be extended. By reading for one minute, and then resting for an equal time, this alternate process may generally be continued for about half an hour. Then after a sufficient interval it may be repeated, often three or four times in the course of the day. By this means nearly the whole of the volume now offered ["Pioneers"] has been composed.... How far, by a process combining the slowness of the tortoise with the uncertainty of the hare, an undertaking of close and extended research can be advanced, is a question to solve which there is no aid from precedent, since it does not appear that an attempt under similar circumstances has hitherto been made. The writer looks, however, for a fair degree of success."

After 1865 the progress was certainly much more rapid than before. The next fourteen years witnessed the publication of "The Jesuits," "La Salle," "The Old Régime," and "Frontenac," and saw "Montcalm and Wolfe" well under way; while the "Half-Century of Conflict," intervening between "Frontenac" and "Montcalm and Wolfe," was reserved until the last-mentioned work should be done, for the same reason that led Herbert Spencer to postpone the completing of his "Sociology" until he should have finished his "Principles of Ethics." In view of life's vicissitudes, it was prudent to make sure of the crowning work, at all events leaving some connecting links to be inserted afterwards. As one obstacle after another was surmounted, as one grand division of the work after another became an accomplished fact, the effect upon Parkman's condition must have been bracing, and he seems to have acquired fresh impetus as he approached the goal.

For desultory work in the shape of magazine articles he had little leisure; but two essays of his, on "The Failure of Universal Suffrage" and on "The Reasons against Woman Suffrage," are very thoughtful, and worthy of serious consideration. In questions of political philosophy, his conclusions, which were reached from a very wide and impartial survey of essential facts, always seemed to me of the highest value.

When I look back upon Parkman's noble life, I think of Mendelssohn's chorus, "He that shall endure to the end," with its chaste and severely beautiful melody, and the calm, invincible faith which it expresses. After all the harrowing years of doubt and distress, the victory was such in its magnitude as has been granted to but few mortals to win. He lived to see his life's work done; the thought of his eighteenth year was realized in his sixty-ninth; and its greatness had come to be admitted throughout the civilized world. In September, 1893, his seventieth year was completed, and his autumn in the lovely home at Jamaica Plain was a pleasant one. On the first Sunday afternoon in November he rowed on the pond in his boat, but felt ill as he returned to the house, and on the next Wednesday, the 8th, he passed quietly away. Thus he departed from a world which will evermore be the richer and better for having once had him as its denizen. The memory of a life so strong and beautiful is a precious possession for us all.

As for the book on which he laboured with such marvellous heroism, a word may be said in conclusion. Great in his natural powers and great in the use he made of them, Parkman was no less great in his occasion and in his theme. Of all American historians he is the most deeply and peculiarly American, yet he is at the same time the broadest and most cosmopolitan. The book which depicts at once the social life of the Stone Age, and the victory of the English political ideal over the ideal which France inherited from imperial Rome, is a book for all mankind and for all time. The more adequately men's historic perspective gets adjusted, the greater will it seem. Strong in its individuality, and like to nothing else, it clearly belongs, I think, among the world's few masterpieces of the highest rank, along with the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Gibbon.

_February, 1897._

IX

EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN

The sudden death of Professor Freeman, last March [1892], was a great calamity to the world of letters. Although his achievements in the field of historical writing had been so varied and voluminous, yet some of his most important themes--some of those which had been slowly ripening and most richly developed in his mind--were still awaiting literary treatment at his hands, and at the time of his death he had just finished the third volume of a colossal work which was still in its earlier stages. His end was premature, and it is with a keen sense of bereavement that we take this occasion to pay a brief word of tribute to so dear and honoured a teacher.

Edward Augustus Freeman, son of John Freeman of Redmore Hall, in Worcestershire, was born at Harborne, Staffordshire, August 2, 1823. His life was always purely that of a scholar and teacher, and a chronicle of its events would consist chiefly of the record of books published and offices held at the University of Oxford. He was graduated at Trinity College in 1845, and remained there as a Fellow until 1847. In 1857, 1863, and 1873 he served as Examiner in Modern History. In 1880 he was chosen honorary Fellow of Trinity, and in 1884 Fellow of Oriel. In the latter year he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History, succeeding Bishop Stubbs in that position. It is not necessary to enumerate the honorary degrees which he received from Oxford and Cambridge, and from universities in various European countries. At the time of his death he was a member of learned societies in nearly all parts of the world. For many years he had been a Knight Commander of the Greek Order of the Saviour. He had also received honours of knighthood from Servia and Montenegro. In 1868 he was a candidate for Parliament, but failed of election; and that seems to have been his sole venture in the world of politics. His travels upon the continent of Europe were many and extensive. When at home he lived in rural seclusion,--"far from the madding crowd,"--upon his estate at Somerleaze, near Wells and its noble cathedral; only in these latter years he made a home for himself, during the Oxford terms, at St. Giles in that city.

From the very beginning Freeman's historical studies were characterized on the one hand by philosophical breadth of view, and on the other hand by extreme accuracy of statement, and such loving minuteness of detail as is apt to mark the local antiquary whose life has been spent in studying only one thing. It was to the combination of these two characteristics that the preëminent greatness of his historical work was due. We see the combination already prefigured, and to some extent realized, in his first book, "A History of Architecture," published in 1849, although this can hardly be called such a work of original research as the books of his maturer years. Two years afterward appeared the learned "Essay on the Origin and Development of Window Tracery in England," a work which I do not feel able to criticise, but which I am sure is very charming to read. I believe that this book was followed by at least three others in the same department, "Architectural Antiquities of Gower," "The Antiquities of St. David's," and "The Architecture of Llandaff Cathedral," but I have never seen them. In the preface to the essay on window tracery Mr. Freeman alludes to Rev. G. W. Cox as his "friend and coadjutor in many undertakings," and I have heard of a volume of poems "by G. W. C. and E. A. F." published in those days, but I know no more about it. It is to be hoped that these early works, which have become very scarce, will before long be collected and reprinted.