"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.