the important localities, indeed well-nigh all the localities, that form
the scenery of his story, and study them with the patience of a surveyor
and the discerning eye of a landscape painter. His strong love of nature
added keen zest to this sort of work. From boyhood he was a trapper and
hunter; in later years he became eminent as a horticulturist,
originating new varieties of flowers. To sleep under the open sky was
his delight. His books fairly reek with the fragrance of pine woods. I
open one of them at random, and my eye falls upon such a sentence as
this: "There is softness in the mellow air, the warm sunshine, and the
budding leaves of spring; and in the forest flower, which, more delicate
than the pampered offspring of gardens, lifts its tender head through
the refuse and decay of the wilderness." Looking at the context, I find
that this sentence comes in a remarkable passage suggested by Colonel
Henry Bouquet's western expedition of 1764, when he compelled the
Indians to set free so many French and English prisoners. Some of these
captives were unwilling to leave the society of the red men; some
positively refused to accept the boon of what was called freedom. In
this strange conduct, exclaims Parkman, there was no unaccountable
perversity; and he breaks out with two pages of noble dithyrambics in
praise of savage life. "To him who has once tasted the reckless
independence, the haughty self-reliance, the sense of irresponsible
freedom, which the forest life engenders, civilization thenceforth seems
flat and stale.... The entrapped wanderer grows fierce and restless, and
pants for breathing room. His path, it is true, was choked with
difficulties, but his body and soul were hardened to meet them; it was
beset with dangers, but these were the very spice of his life,
gladdening his heart with exulting self-confidence, and sending the
blood through his veins with a livelier current. The wilderness, rough,
harsh, and inexorable, has charms more potent in their seductive
influence than all the lures of luxury and sloth. And often he on whom
it has cast its magic finds no heart to dissolve the spell, and remains
a wanderer and an Ishmaelite to the hour of his death."[26]
No one can doubt that the man who could write like this had the kind of
temperament that could look into the Indian's mind and portray him
correctly. But for this inborn temperament all his microscopic industry
would have availed him but little. To use his own words: "Faithfulness
to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however
patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed
with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole,
may be unmeaning or untrue." These are golden words for the student of
the historical art to ponder. To make a truthful record of a vanished
age patient scholarship is needed, and something more. Into the making
of a historian there should enter something of the philosopher,
something of the naturalist, 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 of
such a union.
There is one thing which lends to Parkman's work a peculiar interest,
and will be sure to make it grow in fame with the ages. Not only has he
left the truthful record of a vanished age so complete and final that
the work will never need to be done again, but if any one should in
future attempt to do it again he cannot approach the task with quite
such equipment as Parkman. In an important sense, the age of Pontiac is
far more remote from us than the age of Clovis or the age of Agamemnon.
When barbaric society is overwhelmed by advancing waves of civilization,
its vanishing is final; the thread of tradition is cut off forever with
the shears of Fate. Where are Montezuma's Aztecs? Their physical
offspring still dwell on the table-land of Mexico, and their ancient
speech is still heard in the streets, but that old society is as extinct
as the trilobites, and has to be painfully studied in fossil fragments
of custom and tradition. So with the red men of the North: it is not
true that they are dying out physically, as many people suppose, but
their stage of society is fast disappearing, and soon it will have
vanished forever. Soon their race will be swallowed up and forgotten,
just as we overlook and ignore to-day the existence of five thousand
Iroquois farmers in the state of New York.
Now the study of comparative ethnology has begun to teach us that the
red Indian is one of the most interesting of men. He represents a stage
of evolution through which civilized men have once passed,--a stage far
more ancient and primitive than that which is depicted in the Odyssey or
in the Book of Genesis. When Champlain and Frontenac met the feathered
chieftains of the St. Lawrence, they talked with men of the Stone Age
face to face. Phases of life that had vanished from Europe long before
Rome was built survived in America long enough to be seen and studied by
modern men. Behind Mr. Parkman's picturesqueness, therefore, there lies
a significance far more profound than one at first would suspect. He has
portrayed for us a wondrous and forever fascinating stage in the
evolution of humanity. We may well thank Heaven for sending us such a
scholar, such an artist, such a genius, before it was too late. As we
look at the changes wrought in the last fifty years, we realize that
already the opportunities by which he profited in youth are in large
measure lost. He came not a moment too soon to catch the fleeting light
and fix it upon his immortal canvas.
Thus Parkman is to be regarded as first of all the historian of
Primitive Society. No other great historian has dealt intelligently and
consecutively with such phases of barbarism as he describes with such
loving minuteness. To the older historians all races of men very far
below the European grade of culture seemed alike; all were ignorantly
grouped together as "savages." Mr. Lewis Morgan first showed the wide
difference between true savages, such as the Apaches and Bannocks on the
one hand, and barbarians with developed village life, like the Five
Nations and the Cherokees. The latter tribes in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries exhibited social phenomena such as were probably
witnessed about the shores of the Mediterranean some seven or eight
thousand years earlier. If we carry our thoughts back to the time that
saw the building of the Great Pyramid, and imagine civilized Egypt
looking northward and eastward upon tribes of white men with social and
political ideas not much more advanced than those of Frontenac's red
men, our picture will be in its most essential features a correct one.
What would we not give for a historian who, with a pen like that of
Herodotus, could bring before us the scenes of that primeval Greek world
before the cyclopean works at Tiryns were built, when the ancestors of
Solon and Aristides did not yet dwell in neatly joinered houses and
fasten their door-latches with a thong, when the sacred city-state was
still unknown, and the countryman had not yet become a bucolic or
"tender of cows," and butter and cheese were still in the future! No
written records can ever take us back to that time in that place; for
there, as everywhere in the eastern hemisphere, the art of writing came
many years later than the domestication of animals, and some ages later
than the first building of towns. But in spite of the lack of written
records, the comparative study of institutions, especially comparative
jurisprudence, throws back upon those prehistoric times a light that is
often dim, but sometimes wonderfully suggestive and instructive. It is a
light that reveals among primeval Greeks ideas and customs essentially
similar to those of the Iroquois. It is a light that grows steadier and
brighter as it leads us to the conclusion that five or six thousand
years before Christ white men around the Ægean Sea had advanced about as
far as the red men in the Mohawk Valley two centuries ago. The one phase
of this primitive society illuminates the other, though extreme caution
is necessary in drawing our inferences. Now Parkman's minute and vivid
description of primitive society among red men is full of lessons that
may be applied with profit to the study of preclassic antiquity in the
Old World. No other historian has brought us into such close and
familiar contact with human life in such ancient stages of its progress.
In Parkman's great book we have a record of vanished conditions such as
hardly exists anywhere else in literature.
I say his great book, using the singular number; for, with the exception
of that breezy bit of autobiography, "The Oregon Trail," all Parkman's
books are the closely related volumes of a single comprehensive work.
From the adventures of "The Pioneers of France" a consecutive story is
developed through "The Jesuits in North America" and "The Discovery of
the Great West." In "The Old Régime in Canada" it is continued with a
masterly analysis of French methods of colonization in this their
greatest colony, and then from "Frontenac and New France under Louis
XIV." we are led through "A Half-Century of Conflict" to the grand
climax in the volumes on "Montcalm and Wolfe," after which "The
Conspiracy of Pontiac" brings the long narrative to a noble and
brilliant close. In the first volume we see the men of the Stone Age at
that brief moment when they were disposed to adore the bearded newcomers
as Children of the Sun; in the last we read the bloody story of their
last and most desperate concerted effort to loosen the iron grasp with
which these palefaces had seized and were holding the continent. It is a
well-rounded tale, and as complete as anything in real history, where
completeness and finality are things unknown.
Between the beginning and the end of this well-rounded tale a mighty
drama is wrought out in all its scenes. The struggle between France and
England for the soil of North America was one of the great critical
moments in the career of mankind,--no less important than the struggle
between Greece and Persia, or between Rome and Carthage. Out of the long
and complicated interaction between Roman and Teutonic institutions
which made up the history of the Middle Ages, two strongly contrasted
forms of political society had grown up and acquired aggressive strength
when in the course of the sixteenth century a New World beyond the sea
was laid open for colonization. The maritime nations of Europe were
naturally the ones to be attracted to this new arena of enterprise; and
Spain, Portugal, France, England, and Holland each played its
interesting and characteristic part. Spain at first claimed the whole,
excepting only that Brazilian coast which Borgia's decree gave to
Portugal. But Spain's methods, as well as her early failure of strength,
prevented her from making good her claim. Spain's methods were limited
to stepping into the place formerly occupied by the conquering races of
half-civilized Indians. She made aboriginal tribes work for her, just as
the Aztec Confederacy and the Inca dynasty had done. Where she was
brought into direct contact with American barbarism without the
intermediation of half-civilized native races, she made little or no
headway. Her early failure of strength, on the other hand, was due to
her total absorption in the fight against civil and religious liberty in
Europe. The failure became apparent as soon as the absorption had begun
to be complete. Spain's last aggressive effort in the New World was the
destruction of the little Huguenot colony in Florida in 1565, and it is
at that point that Parkman's great work appropriately begins. From that
moment Spain simply beat her strength to pieces against the rocks of
Netherland courage and resourcefulness. As for the Netherlands, their
energies were so far absorbed in taking over and managing the great
Eastern empire of the Portuguese that their work in the New World was
confined to seizing upon the most imperial geographical position, and
planting a cosmopolitan colony there that, in the absence of adequate
support, was sure to fall into the hands of one or the other of the
competitors more actively engaged upon the scene.
The two competitors thus more actively engaged were France and England,
and from an early period it was felt between the two to be a combat in
which no quarter was to be given or accepted. These two strongly
contrasted forms of political society had each its distinct ideal, and
that ideal was to be made to prevail, to the utter exclusion and
destruction of the other. Probably the French perceived this somewhat
earlier than the English; they felt it to be necessary to stamp out the
English before the latter had more than realized the necessity of
defending themselves against the French. For the type of political
society represented by Louis XIV. was preëminently militant, as the
English type was preëminently industrial. The aggressiveness of the
former was more distinctly conscious of its own narrower aims, and was
more deliberately set at work to attain them, while the English, on the
other hand, rather drifted into a tremendous world fight without
distinct consciousness of their purpose. Yet after the final issue had
been joined, the refrain _Carthago delenda est_ was heard from the
English side, and it came fraught with impending doom from the lips of
Pitt as in days of old from the lips of Cato.
The French idea, had it prevailed in the strife, would not have been
capable of building up a pacific union of partially independent states,
covering this vast continent from ocean to ocean. Within that rigid and
rigorous bureaucratic system there was no room for spontaneous
individuality, no room for local self-government, and no chance for a
flexible federalism to grow up. A well-known phrase of Louis XIV. was,
"The state is myself." That phrase represented his ideal. It was
approximately true in Old France, realized as far as sundry adverse
conditions would allow. The Grand Monarch intended that in New France it
should be absolutely true. Upon that fresh soil was to be built up a
pure monarchy without concession to human weaknesses and limitations. It
was a pet scheme of Louis XIV., and never did a philanthropic
world-mender contemplate his grotesque phalanstery or pantarchy with
greater pleasure than this master of kingcraft looked forward to the
construction of a perfect Christian state in America.
The pages of our great historian are full of examples which prove that
if the French idea failed of realization, and the state it founded was
overwhelmed, it was not from any lack of lofty qualities in individual
Frenchmen. In all the history of the American continent no names stand
higher than some of the French names. For courage, for fortitude and
high resolve, for sagacious leadership, statesmanlike wisdom, unswerving
integrity, devoted loyalty, for all the qualities which make life
heroic, we may learn lessons innumerable from the noble Frenchmen who
throng in Parkman's pages. The difficulty was not in the individuals,
but in the system; not in the units, but in the way they were put
together. For while it is true--though many people do not know it--that
by no imaginable artifice can you make a society that is better than the
human units you put into it, it is also true that nothing is easier than
to make a society that is worse than its units. So it was with the
colony of New France.
Nowhere can we find a description of despotic government more careful
and thoughtful, or more graphic and lifelike, than Parkman has given us
in his volume on "The Old Régime in Canada." Seldom, too, will one find
a book fuller of political wisdom. The author never preaches like
Carlyle, nor does he hurl huge generalizations at our heads like Buckle;
he simply describes a state of society that has been. But I hardly need
say that his description is not--like the Dryasdust descriptions we are
sometimes asked to accept as history--a mere mass of pigments flung at
random upon a canvas. It is a picture painted with consummate art; and
in this instance the art consists in so handling the relations of cause
and effect as to make them speak for themselves. These pages are alive
with political philosophy, and teem with object lessons of extraordinary
value. It would be hard to point to any book where History more fully
discharges her high function of gathering friendly lessons of caution
from the errors of the past.
Of all the societies that have been composed of European men, probably
none was ever so despotically organized as New France, unless it may
have been the later Byzantine Empire, which it resembled in the
minuteness of elaborate supervision over all the pettiest details of
life. In Canada the protective, paternal, socialistic, or nationalistic
theory of government--it is the same old cloven hoof, under whatever
specious name you introduce it--was more fully carried into operation
than in any other community known to history except ancient Peru. No
room was left for individual initiative or enterprise. All undertakings
were nationalized. Government looked after every man's interests in this
world and the next: baptized and schooled him; married him and paid the
bride's dowry; gave him a bounty with every child that was born to him;
stocked his cupboard with garden seeds and compelled him to plant them;
prescribed the size of his house and the number of horses and cattle he
might keep, and the exact percentages of profit he might be allowed to
make, and how his chimneys should be swept, and how many servants he
might employ, and what theological doctrine he might believe, and what
sort of bread the bakers might bake, and where goods might be bought and
how much might be paid for them; and if in a society so well cared for
it were possible to find indigent persons, such paupers were duly
relieved, from a fund established by government. Unmitigated benevolence
was the theory of Louis XIV.'s Canadian colony, and heartless political
economy had no place there. Nor was there any room for free thinkers;
when the King after 1685 sent out word that no mercy must be shown to
heretics, the governor, Denonville, with a pious ejaculation, replied
that not so much as a single heretic could be found in all Canada.
Such was the community whose career our historian has delineated with
perfect soundness of judgment and wealth of knowledge. The fate of this
nationalistic experiment, set on foot by one of the most absolute of
monarchs and fostered by one of the most devoted and powerful of
religious organizations, is traced to the operation of causes inherent
in its very nature. The hopeless paralysis, the woeful corruption, the
moral torpor, resulting from the suppression of individualism, are
vividly portrayed; yet there is no discursive generalizing, and from
moment to moment the development of the story proceeds from within
itself. It is the whole national life of New France that is displayed
before us. Historians of ordinary calibre exhibit their subject in
fragments, or they show us some phases of life and neglect others. Some
have no eyes save for events that are startling, such as battles and
sieges; or decorative, such as coronations and court balls. Others give
abundant details of manners and customs; others have their attention
absorbed by economics; others again feel such interest in the history of
ideas as to lose sight of mere material incidents. Parkman, on the other
hand, conceives and presents his subject as a whole. He forgets nothing,
overlooks nothing; but whether it is a bloody battle, or a theological
pamphlet, or an exploring journey though the forest, or a code for the
discipline of nunneries, each event grows out of its context as a
feature in the total development that is going on before our eyes. 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
Parkman's volumes afford.
The struggle between the machine-like socialistic despotism of New
France and the free and spontaneous political vitality of New England is
one of the most instructive object lessons with which the experience of
mankind has furnished us. The depth of its significance is equalled by
the vastness of its consequences. Never did Destiny preside over a more
fateful contest; for it determined which kind of political seed should
be sown all over the widest and richest political garden plot left
untilled in the world. Free industrial England pitted against despotic
militant France for the possession of an ancient continent reserved for
this decisive struggle, and dragging into the conflict the belated
barbarism of the Stone Age,--such is the wonderful theme which Parkman
has treated. When the vividly contrasted modern ideas and personages are
set off against the romantic though lurid background of Indian life, the
artistic effect becomes simply magnificent. Never has historian grappled
with another such epic theme, save when Herodotus told the story of
Greece and Persia, or when Gibbon's pages resounded with the solemn
tread of marshalled hosts through a thousand years of change.
The story of Mr. Parkman's life can be briefly told. He was born in
Boston, in what is now known as Allston Street, September 16, 1823. His
ancestors had for several generations been honourably known in
Massachusetts. His great-grandfather, Rev. Ebenezer Parkman, a graduate
of Harvard in 1741, was minister of the Congregational church in
Westborough for nearly sixty years; he was a man of learning and
eloquence, whose attention was not all given to Calvinistic theology,
for he devoted much of it to the study of history. A son of this
clergyman, at the age of seventeen, served as private in a Massachusetts
regiment in that greatest of modern wars which was decided on the
Heights of Abraham. How little did this gallant youth dream of the glory
that was by and by to be shed on the scenes and characters passing
before his eyes by the genius of one of his own race and name! Another
son of Ebenezer Parkman returned to Boston and became a successful
merchant, engaged in that foreign traffic which played so important and
liberalizing a part in American life in the days before the Enemy of
mankind had invented forty per cent tariffs. The home of this merchant,
Samuel Parkman, on the corner of Green and Chardon streets, was long
famous for its beautiful flower garden, indicating perhaps the kind of
taste and skill so conspicuous afterwards in his grandson. In Samuel the
clerical profession skipped one generation, to be taken up again by his
son, Rev. Francis Parkman, a graduate of Harvard in 1807, and for many
years after 1813 the eminent and beloved pastor of the New North Church.
Dr. Parkman was noted for his public spirit and benevolence. Bishop
Huntington, who knew him well, says of him: "Every aspect of suffering
touched him tenderly. There was no hard spot in his breast. His house
was the centre of countless mercies to various forms of want; and there
were few solicitors of alms, local or itinerant, and whether for private
necessity or public benefactions, that his doors did not welcome and
send away satisfied.... For many years he was widely known and esteemed
for his efficient interest in some of our most conspicuous and useful
institutions of philanthropy. Among these may be especially mentioned
the Massachusetts Bible Society, the Society for Propagating the Gospel,
the Orphan Asylum, the Humane Society, the Medical Dispensary, the
Society for the Relief of Aged and Destitute Clergymen, and the
Congregational Charitable Society." He also took an active interest in
Harvard University, of which he was an Overseer. In 1829 he founded
there the professorship of "Pulpit Eloquence and the Pastoral Care,"
familiarly known as the Parkman Professorship. A pupil and friend of
Channing, he was noted among Unitarians for a broadly tolerant
disposition. His wealth of practical wisdom was enlivened by touches of
mirth, so that it was said that you could not "meet Dr. Parkman in the
street, and stop a minute to exchange words with him, without carrying
away with you some phrase or turn of thought so exquisite in its mingled
sagacity and humour that it touched the inmost sense of the ludicrous,
and made the heart smile as well as the lips." Such was the father of
our historian.