FRANCIS PARKMAN
FRANCIS PARKMAN
IN JAMAICA PLAIN AND IN BOSTON
The surroundings and experiences of Francis Parkman were, in some respects, very happily in accord with his aims and achievements, and in other respects as unfortunate as one could imagine. His home in childhood was near the forest of the Middlesex Fells, Massachusetts; and his wanderings and shootings in those woods early developed the two leading interests of his youth—the woods and the Indian. When his literary taste and ambition were aroused, in Harvard, he chose as his topic the French and Indian or Seven Years’ War, because it dealt with these favorite subjects, and, moreover, appealed to his strong sense of the picturesque. The die was thus cast; and thereafter, through college, through the law school, indeed through life, it molded his existence. For some years his reading, study, and vacation journeys all had a bearing on that particular subject. On leaving college he was troubled with an abnormal sensibility of the retina, which restricted the use of his eyes within very narrow limits. As it was apparent, therefore, that he could not then collect the vast body of materials required for the history of that war, he concluded to take up, as a preparatory work in the same direction, the conspiracy of Pontiac. In accordance with his plan pursued in studying all of his topics, he visited the localities concerned, and, where it was possible, saw the descendants of the people to be described. Not content with seeing the semi-civilized Indians, he went to the Rocky Mountains, in 1846, lived a while with the Ogallalla Sioux, visited some other tribes, and studied the character, manners, customs and traditions of the wildest of the Indians. But he bought this invaluable experience at a dear price; for while with these tribes on the hunt and the war-path he was attacked by an acute disorder, and being unable to rest and cure himself, his constitution was nearly ruined as well as his eyesight. However, he returned safe if not sound from his perilous journey, and wrote “The Oregon Trail” (1847) and “The Conspiracy of Pontiac” (1851) by the help of readers and an amanuensis. He had now to settle himself in the prospect of years of ill-health and perhaps blindness.
In 1854 he bought a property on the edge of Jamaica Pond, and established himself and his family there in the woods and on the shore of a beautiful sheet of water—surroundings congenial to his fancy and his restrained ambition. About ten years of his life, in periods of two or three years, passed as a blank in literary labor; and during the remainder of the time, frequent and long interruptions broke the line of his efforts. Such an experience at the opening of his career would have been unendurable without some absorbing pursuit; and having a favorable site for gardening and an unfailing love of nature, he took up the study of horticulture. By 1859 it had become his chief occupation—one that filled happily several years, and to the last occupied more or less time according to the amount of literary work he could do. His labors were made fruitful to the public in a professorship at the Bussey Institution, the publication of “The Book of Roses” in 1866, the presidency of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and in careful experiments extending over ten or twelve years in the hybridization of lilies and other flowers. Among the most noted of his floral creations is the magnificent lilium Parkmanni, named by the English horticulturist who purchased the stock. Mr. Parkman’s summer home, at the Pond, was a plain but sunny and cheerful house, in the midst of a garden sloping down to the water; his study window looked to the north, the light least trying to sensitive eyes. The charming site, the landscapes about, the greenhouse and grounds in summer full of rare flowers, were the chief interests of the place; for his library and principal workshop were in Boston. As much exercise was necessary to him, he was a familiar figure in this pretty suburb of the city, either riding on horseback, rowing on the pond, or walking in the fields and woods.
But in the midst of all these discouraging delays and extraneous occupations, his literary aims were not forgotten; he pushed on, when he could, his investigations and composition by the help of readers and an amanuensis. Those who are unacquainted with the labor of historic research can scarcely imagine the difficulty, extent, and tedium of his investigations. The reader can glance over a book and pick out the needle he seeks in the haystack; but he who uses another’s eyes must examine carefully the entire stack in order not to miss a possible needle. Mr. Parkman’s ground has been won inch by inch. On finishing “The Conspiracy of Pontiac,” he had extended his first plan of writing the Seven Years’ War, and determined to take up the entire subject of French colonization in North America; and instead of making a continuous history, to write a series of connected narratives. He therefore continued, and extended, his journeys for investigation, in this country, in Canada, and in Europe; and by the help of readers and copyists he selected and acquired the necessary documents. But even with all the aid possible, the preparation of the first volume of the series consumed fourteen years. “The Pioneers of France in the New World” appeared in 1865, “The Jesuits in North America” in 1867, “La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West” in 1869, “The Old Régime in Canada” in 1874, “Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV.” in 1877, “Montcalm and Wolfe” in 1884.
Mr. Parkman’s winter home, where he did the most of his work, was in the house of his sister, Miss Parkman, at 50 Chestnut Street, Boston—a quiet locality on the western slope of Beacon Hill. His study was a plain, comfortable, front room at the top of the house, with an open fire, a small writing-table beside the window, and shelves of books covering the walls. The most valuable of his treasures were manuscript copies of both public and private documents. For the sake of greater safety and more general usefulness he parted with some of these manuscripts—gave a lot of fac-simile maps to Harvard College, and a collection of thirty-five large volumes to the Massachusetts Historical Society. The latter embrace eight volumes of documents from the Archives of Marine and Colonies and other archives of France, relating to Canada, from 1670 to 1700; twelve volumes from the same sources, from 1748 to 1763; four volumes from the Public Record Office of London, from 1750 to 1760; one volume from the National Archives of Paris, from 1759 to 1766; one volume from the British Museum, from 1751 to 1761; one volume of diverse letters to Bourlamaque by various officers in Canada during the war of 1755-63; one volume of letters to the same by Montcalm while in Canada (Montcalm had requested Bourlamaque to burn them, but Mr. Parkman, fifteen years before he could find them, believed in their existence, and finally discovered them in a private collection of manuscripts); one volume of Montcalm’s private letters to his wife and his mother, written while he was in America—obtained from the present Marquis de Montcalm; and one volume of Washington’s letters to Colonel Bouquet, from the British Museum. The most recent publication, “Montcalm and Wolfe,” takes in twenty-six of these volumes, besides a large lot of printed matter and notes made at the sources of information. The above collection constitutes about half of Mr. Parkman’s manuscripts. A considerable part of them cannot be estimated by pages and volumes, being unbound notes and references representing a vast amount of research. Two sets of copyists sent him from France and England copies of the papers he designated.
Mr. Parkman’s experience offers a valuable and encouraging example in the history of literature. On the one side he had poor health and poor sight for a vast amount of labor; on the other he had money, time, capacity, a tough, sinewy, physique, a resistant, calm, cheerful temper, and an indomitable perseverance and ambition. As in some other cases, his disabilities seem to have been negative advantages, if we may judge by his productions; for his frequent illnesses, by retarding his labors, increased his years and experience before production, and forced the growth of departments of knowledge generally neglected by students. He was led to give equal attention to observing nature, studying men, and digesting evidence. His studies and manual labors in horticulture and his practical familiarity with forest life and frontier life quickened his sympathy with nature. His extensive travels gave him a wide knowledge of life, manners, and customs, from the wigwam to the palace. Far from being a recluse, he was, until his death in 1893, a man of the world, often locked out of his closet and led into practical and public interests (for six years he was President of the St. Botolph Club of Boston, and for ten years one of the seven members of the Corporation of Harvard University). He was naturally a student of men, and a keen observer of character and motives. His discouraging interruptions from literary work, while not often stopping the above studies, forced upon him time for reflection, for weighing the evidence he collected, and for perfecting the form of his works. Doubtless human achievements do proceed from sources more interior than exterior; but the circumstances of Mr. Parkman’s life must have conduced to the realism, strength, and picturesqueness of his descriptions; to the distinctness of his characters, their motives and actions; to the thoroughness of his investigations; and to the impartiality of judgment and the truth of perspective in his histories.
C. H. Farnham.
GOLDWIN SMITH