Part 2

Mr. Parkman's death occurred Nov. 8, 1893, a little more than a year after the completion of his work. It is a matter of congratulation that not only did he live to finish his undertaking, but that he was able to revise or rewrite such of his earlier works as required it because of the discovery of new material.

At a special meeting held shortly after Mr. Parkman's death by the Massachusetts Historical Society, to which he gave his manuscripts and autobiography, the latter afterwards printed in The Harvard Graduates' Magazine, the following minute was adopted:--

"The members of the Massachusetts Historical Society would relieve the sadness with which they enter upon their records the loss by death of their honored and eminent associate, Francis Parkman, by assigning to him the highest awards of ability, fidelity, and signal success as an American historian. He had won at home and abroad that place of chiefest honor. The work which he has wrought was one of freshness, reserved, because it had been seeking and waiting for him. And it came to him with all its attractions and exactions, finding in him the most rare and richly combined qualities of genius, aptitude, taste, and unique sympathetic fitness, to turn its romances, heroisms, and enterprises, with the enrichments of character and grace, into history. Nor would we fail to express our respectful and admiring estimate of the impressiveness of his character, of his noble manliness, his gentle mien and ways, and the patient perseverance of his spirit in its triumphing over physical infirmities."

At the memorial services held at Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, Dec. 7, 1893, President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University spoke as follows:--

"How remarkable is his work when we consider that he had only a few moments each day that he could devote to study! We draw from his life the same lesson as from that of Darwin. Not more than twenty minutes at a time could Darwin devote himself to his work, and rarely more than twice each day; yet see the store of knowledge he has opened up to us. With Parkman it was the same. Rarely could he study over half an hour at a time, yet left us a great monument.

"His ideal manhood was the highest and purest. It was this that made the tone of his writing so ennobling and uplifting. Above all things he abhorred fanaticism and intolerance, and very naturally, after depicting the physical and moral sufferings in the new world.

"His life was a noble lesson to students, particularly in the steadfast sticking to duty to the very last. He never appeared in public. He did not love prominence. His influence was quiet and subtle. But his name will remain long in human memory."

Among the speakers was Dr. John Fiske, who said,--

"Some thirty years ago, there appeared a history of Pontiac. It at once attracted attention because it made real men of the Indians and gave a true insight into their real character and importance in history. It was because Parkman showed a full knowledge of them that he first got hold of the world. He was more powerful than Prescott because he was true to life.

"He was a great historian because coupled with his knowledge were a philosophic insight and a poetic instinct. We can be thankful to heaven for sending us such a scholar, artist, and genius before it was too late.

"Parkman is the most American of all our historians because he deals with purely American history, but at the same time he is a historian for all mankind and all time, one of the greatest that ever lived."

The Harvard Graduates' Magazine, March, 1894, contained an appreciative article on Francis Parkman by James Schouler, the prominent law-writer, and author of "A Constitutional History of the United States." Mr. Schouler said,--

"The illustrious scholar and historian whose death we have deplored so recently, found physical drawbacks to his work to hinder and discourage. But all the greater is his meed of success because he surmounted them. His life was, on the whole, a happy one, and rounded out in rare conformity to its appointed task; he passed the Psalmist's full limit of years, as few of our English-speaking historians have done; and, however slow or painful might have been his progress, he completed in his riper years the great enterprise which he had projected in early life. Like one of those fair roses which in hours of recreation he so fondly cultivated, his literary reputation has lingered in full blossom, dispersing its delicate fragrance and beauty among all beholders."

The following tribute is from the pen of E. Irenæus Stevenson, in Harper's Weekly:--

"In Parkman's hand, history charms us as only the finer fiction can charm. Clear, sober, and elegant in his style, a natural artist in his diction, he gave picturesqueness, life, movement, to what he wished to set before his reader. The child and adult reader alike find him acceptable. He sacrificed nothing to mere literary effect,--sincerity was of his essence. Passages in his books linger in one's memory like chords of grave music; but not as if the lamp and premeditation had enabled them to be put into the page. To Americans his works are of thoroughly high interest and importance; and even in view of the impermanency of so much that is delightful, useful, and distinguished in the world's literature, it is not easy to fancy that they can be superseded."

The extracts given below are from a long review of Parkman's Life and Works, in The Nation:--

"The passing away of Francis Parkman leaves vacant the first place among American writers of history. His title to this pre-eminence has been increasingly recognized with every new contribution to the fascinating series of volumes which bear his name.... The historical reputation of Mr. Parkman--in a considerable degree contrasted with that of Prescott and Motley, and very strikingly in contrast with that of Bancroft--is seen to be one which steadily grows with more intimate acquaintance with his work. That this is the case is due not so much to the dignity of his theme and its aptitude for splendid workmanship upon it, though his theme lacks nothing in this regard, as to the personal qualities which Mr. Parkman himself brought to his undertaking,--his absolute sincerity, his painstaking perseverance, his fine moral sense, his judicial equipoise, his wholesome, uncloistered sympathy with nature and with outdoor things, his self-repression, and his chaste, unexaggerating, conscientious literary taste and skill. The result is that we have in the volumes of Mr. Parkman the most graphic and most truthful of all our American historical writings, and the ones likely longest to retain a place not alone on library shelves, but in living contact with the eyes and hearts of men."

Critics and reviewers of Parkman's works have been fond of pointing out that they read like romances, and are more fascinating than novels, and readers have not found such phrases misplaced. It may be added that Parkman has influenced writers of fiction and inclined several to select themes from his own chosen field. One of the novelists who have paid tribute to the great historian is Mary Hartwell Catherwood, author of "The Story of Tonty," "The Lady of Fort St. John," etc. She says: "The humble disciple of a great man has always some timidity in approaching him or claiming any share of his attention. I have often wished I lived in the neighborhood of Francis Parkman, and might carry a flower to his door every day and ask about his health, and once in a while let loose upon him all that flood of questions which constantly rises in the mind of a student. The prime fascination of his books, beyond their lucid style, their compact form, their glow and breadth of forest life, their presentation of transplanted Latin men and aboriginal savage as each existed, is their reliability. When you have sifted a dozen contradictory records, you may turn to him and find that he has been through much more labor before you, and long ago from just conclusions wrested the truth. There is scarcely a day in one's life when his histories are not turned to as handbooks. What a loss if he had never written them!"

In his preface to "The Refugees," the author, Dr. Conan Doyle, says: "No man can, without flagrant injustice, write upon the end of the seventeenth century at the French Court, without acknowledging his indebtedness to Miss Julia Pardoe, nor can he treat American history of the same date without owing much to Mr. Francis Parkman."

And the popular writer of boys' books, G. A. Henty, in his preface to "With Wolfe in Canada," names as one of the two sources from which he derived "all the historical details of the war," "the excellent work entitled 'Montcalm and Wolfe,' by Mr. Francis Parkman."

It has been frequently suggested that the best and most enduring memorial to the great historian would be an adequately illustrated edition of the noble works the preparation of which occupied almost his entire life. The suggestions have been warmly seconded, and have met with favor everywhere, and it is understood that the publication of such an edition will be begun in the near future.

All of Parkman's works are published by Messrs. Little, Brown & Co., Boston.

The Works of Francis Parkman

The Oregon Trail (1849) The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after the (1851) Conquest of Canada Revised (1870) Part France and England in North America 1 Pioneers of France in the New World (1865) 1 Revised (1885) 2 The Jesuits in North America in the seventeenth century (1867) 3 The Discovery of the West (1869) 3 La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West ¹ (1879) 4 The Old Régime in Canada (1874) 4 Revised ² (1894) 5 Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV. (1877) 6 A Half Century of Conflict (1892) 6 Volume 1 6 Volume 2 7 Montcalm and Wolfe (1884) Others Vassall Morton (1856) The Book of Roses (1866) Historic Handbook of the Northern Tour (1885)

Footnotes 1. The article cites the release of the revised third part of France and England in North America as 1878. However, the Tenth Edition of The Discovery of the West, published 1878, is based on the original edition. The Eleventh Edition, published 1879, is the revised edition.

2. The article cites the release of the revised fourth part of France and England in North America as 1893. There was no edition of Part Four released in 1893. The twenty-sixth edition, released in 1892, is based on the original edition of Part Four. The earliest revised edition was released in 1894. The Edition released in 1894 says "Revised, with Additions." The only copyright date in the 1894 edition is 1874. The 1895 edition added Copyright, 1893 to the copyright page.

Transcriber's Notes

Introduction

Welcome to Project Gutenberg's production of this biographical sketch and list of the works of Francis Parkman. Little, Brown, and Company published this informational pamphlet in 1896 to promote their latest releases of Francis Parkman's work.

Scanned pages of the original pamphlet may be found on the Hathitrust web site. We used the copy courtesy of the University of California for this transcription.

The table of The Works of Francis Parkman was added by this transcriber.