The historian’s health steadily declined. For years together his chief study was to keep himself alive. As a part of this study he took up floriculture, and soon found himself absorbed in it for its own sake. He became famous for his roses and lilies, and was the recipient of prizes innumerable from horticultural societies.[54] Yet at no time did he lose sight of his main object, the history of France in North America. Little by little his store of materials accumulated. Even when he was at his worst physically, some progress was made. It might be only a step, but the step had not to be retraced.
As his strength returned he began to travel. To renew his acquaintance with the Indians he went to Fort Snelling in 1867. He was repeatedly in Paris consulting archives and doctors. He visited Canada in 1873 and explored over and over again the region between Quebec and Lake George.
The great historical series to which its author gave the title of France and England in North America began to appear just at the close of the Civil War. The volumes in the order of their publication are: The Pioneers of France in the New World, 1865; The Jesuits in North America, 1867; The Discovery of the Great West, 1869;[55] The Old Régime, 1874; Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV, 1877; Montcalm and Wolfe, 1884; A Half-Century of Conflict, 1892.
The merits of this extraordinary series were recognized at once as many and varied. It is a question to which of three types of reader the books most appealed,—the scholar, who is bound to read critically whether he will or no, the utilitarian in search of facts chiefly, or the mere lover of literature. Each found what he was seeking in these narratives, and each paid homage to the author in his own way.
As is often true of historians far less notable than he, Parkman was the recipient of academic honors, and was made a member of numerous historical societies. The mere catalogue of these distinctions fills a page of printed text. His membership of the Massachusetts Historical Society and his degree of LL. D. from Harvard College (1889) will serve as illustrations. Parkman was influential in helping to found the Archæological Institute of America. He was one of the founders of the St. Botolph Club in Boston, and its president during the first six years of its existence.
The history of France and England in North America was completed the year before he died. Had time and strength been allowed him, he would have recast the material in the form of a continuous narrative. There might have been a gain in the new arrangement, as on the other hand there might have been a loss.
Parkman died at his home at Jamaica Plain, near Boston, on November 8, 1893.
II
PARKMAN’S CHARACTER
Parkman had prodigious will power and unequalled pertinacity. No barrier to the accomplishment of his object was allowed to stand in the way. He was beset by the demons of ill health, and their number was legion. Unable to rout them by impetuous onslaught, he tired them out, thinning their ranks, one by one. He was infinitely patient, full of devices for outwitting the enemy. Beaten again and again, he stubbornly renewed the fight. Threatened with blindness, he set himself to avoid it, and did. Threatened with insanity, he declined to become insane.
Nothing could be more admirable than the spirit in which he faced daily torment. He was that extraordinary being, a cheerful stoic. Four times in his life it was a question whether he would live or die. Parkman admitted that once, had he been seeking merely his comfort, he would have elected to die. That must have been the time when, in response to his physician’s encouraging remark that he had a strong constitution, Parkman said: ‘I’m afraid I have.’ In ordinary conditions of ill health he was bright, cheery, philosophical, but when he suffered most he was silent. At no time was he capable of complaining.