Harry Thurston Peck

“ The discovery of America and the opening of new lands teeming with treasures for their conquerors roused and stimulated the consciousness of the lower orders. Before long, the man-at-arms, the musketeer, and the artilleryman attained a consequence which the ordinary fighting man had never had before. After these had gone forth as adventurers into the New World, they brought back with them not only riches wrested from the helpless natives whom they had subdued, but a spirit of freedom verging even upon lawlessness, which leavened the whole stagnant life of Europe. ”

“ His brother Edward had died shortly before, and this double affliction affected very deeply so sensitive a nature as Prescott's. To his father, indeed, he owed more than he could ever express. The two had been true comrades, and had treated one another with an affectionate familiarity which, between father and son, was as rare in those days as it was beautiful. Judge Prescott's generosity had made it possible for the younger man to break through all the barriers of physical infirmity, and not only to win fame but also the happiness which comes from a creative activity. ”

“ The fault is not the fault of the writer. It is inherent in the subject. Nowhere has Prescott written with greater skill. It is only that no display of literary art can give dignity and distinction to that which in itself is unheroic and sometimes even sordid. The one passage which stands out from all the rest is that which sets before us the famous incident at Panama, when Pizarro, at the head of his little band of followers, mutinous, famished, and half-naked, still boldly scorns all thought of a return. ”

“ The author of Walden seemed, indeed, to single out Prescott for special animadversion in this respect, and his rather rasping sentences contain the only jarring notes that were sounded by any contemporary of the historian. Thoreau, writing of the colonial historians of Massachusetts, such as Josselyn, remarked with a sort of perverse appreciation: "They give you one piece of nature at any rate, and that is themselves, smacking their lips like a coach-whip,—none of those emasculated modern histories, such as Prescott's, cursed with a style." ”

“ And when we compare the native period of Roman literature with the early years of New England's literary history, the parallel becomes more striking still. In New England, as in Rome, beneath all the forms of a self-governing and republican State, there existed a genuine aristocracy whose prestige was based on public service of some sort; and in New England, as in Rome, public service had in it a theocratic element. In civil life, the most honourable occupation for a free citizen was to share in this public service. ”

“ Prescott's eulogists have so studiously ignored his weaknesses as to leave us with no clear-cut impression of the actual man. They have unwisely smoothed away so much and have extenuated so much in their halting and ambiguous phrases, as to create a picture of which the outlines are far too faint. Apparently, they wish to draw the likeness of a perfect being, and to that extent they have made the subject of their encomiums appear unreal. One cannot understand how truly lovable the actual Prescott was, without reconstructing him in such a way as to let his faults appear beside his virtues. ”

“ Charles Brockden Brown first blazed the way in American fiction with six novels, amid whose turgid sentences and strange imaginings one may here and there detect a touch of genuine power and a striving after form. Washington Irving, with his genial humour and well-bred ease, was the very embodiment of the spirit of New York. Even Professor Barrett Wendell, whose critical bias is wholly in favour of New England, declares that Irving was the first of American men of letters, as he was certainly the first American writer to win a hearing outside of his own country. ”

“ In the second place, he wished to make a number of final alterations and corrections; and every writer of experience is aware that the last subtle touches can be given to a book only when it is actually in type, for only then can he see the workmanship as it really is, with its very soul exposed to view, seen as the public will see it, divested of the partial nebulosity which obscures the vision while it still remains in manuscript. ”

“ Guatemozin's fierce patriotism, his hatred of the Spaniards, his ferocity in battle, and his stubborn unwillingness to yield are displayed with consummate art, yet in such a way as to win one's sympathy for him without estranging it from those who conquered him. A touch of sentiment is delicately infused into the whole narrative of the Conquest by the manner in which Prescott has treated the relations of Cortés and the Indian girl, Marina. ”

“ His widely recognised ability brought him wealth, so that he lived in liberal fashion, in a home whose generous appointments and cultivated ease created an atmosphere that was rare indeed in those early days, when narrow means and a crude provincialism combined to make New England life unlovely. Prescott was not only an able lawyer, the worthy compeer of Dexter, Otis, and Webster—he was a scholar by instinct, widely read, thoughtful, and liberal-minded in the best sense of the word. ”

“ Although Ford's characterisation of Prescott's style had some basis of truth, it was, of course, grossly exaggerated. Throughout the whole of the Ferdinand and Isabella, one is conscious of a strong tendency toward simplicity of expression. Many passages are as easy and unaffected as any that we find in an historical writer of to-day. Reading the pages over now, one can see the true Prescott under all the starch and stiffness which at the time he mistakenly regarded as essential to the dignity of historical writing. ”

“ The labour of research, the comparison of authorities, the long months of hard reading and steady note-taking, were not congenial to his nature. He moved less freely in the heavy armour of the historian than in the easy-fitting modern garb of the essayist and story-teller. The best that one can say of the style of his Granada, his Columbus, and his Washington is that it is smooth, well-worded, and correct. ”

“ When we compare these easy-going methods with the scientific thoroughness of Prescott, his ransacking, by agents, of every important library in Europe, his great collection of original documents, the many years which he gave to the study of them, and the conscientious judgment with which he weighed and balanced them, we cannot fail to see how much the world has gained by Irving's act of generous self-abnegation. ”

“ Unlike Prescott, he understands the philosophy of history and delves beneath the surface to search out and reveal the hidden causes of events. Yet first and last and all the time, he is a partisan. He is pleading for a cause far more than he is seeking for impartial truth. In this respect he resembles Mommsen, whose Römische Geschichte is likewise in its later books a splendid piece of partisanship. Motley is an American and a Protestant, and therefore he is eloquent for liberty and harsh toward what he views as superstition. ”

“ This is a bit of very accurate criticism; and the plan which Prescott formed was executed in a manner absolutely faultless. Never for a moment is there a break in the continuity of its narrative. Never for a moment do we lose sight of the central and inspiring figure of Cortés fighting his way, as it were, single-handed against the intrigues of his own countrymen, the half-heartedness of his followers, the obstacles of nature, and the overwhelming forces of his Indian foes, to a superb and almost incredible success. Everything in the narrative is subordinated to this. ”

“ Indeed, Ferdinand and Isabella and Philip II. can better stand the test of searching criticism than Motley's Dutch Republic.
Motley is, indeed, the most "literary" of all the so-called "literary historians". In the glow and fervour of his narrative he is unsurpassed. He feels all the passion of the times whereof he writes, and he makes the reader feel it too. He has, moreover, a power of drawing character which Prescott seldom shows and which, when he shows it, he shows in less degree. Motley writes with the magnetism of a great pleader and with something also of the imagination of a poet. ”

“ As a girl, and indeed all through her long and happy life, she was the very spirit of healthful, normal womanhood,—full of an irrepressible and infectious gayety, a miracle of buoyant life, charming in manner, unselfish, helpful, and showing in her every act and thought the promptings of a beautiful and spotless soul.
It was of this admirably mated pair that William Hickling Prescott, their second son, was born, at Salem, on the 4th of May, 1796. The elder Prescott had not yet acquired the ample fortune which he afterward possessed ”

“ It is not unfair, however, to assume that, for a time, Prescott's diversions were such as even a lenient moralist would think it necessary to condemn. The fondness for wine, which remained with him throughout his life, makes it likely that convival excess was one of his undergraduate follies; while the flutter of a petticoat may at times have stirred his senses. No doubt many a young man in his college days has plunged far deeper into dissipation than ever Prescott did and has emerged unscathed to lead a useful life. ”

“ Prescott's whole religious creed was, in fact, summed up by himself in these words: "To do well and act justly, to fear and to love God, and to love our neighbour as ourselves—in these is the essence of religion. For what we can believe, we are not responsible, supposing we examine candidly and patiently. ”

“ In Prescott's treatment of this theme we find displayed the conscious skill of the born artist who subordinates everything to the dramatic development of the central motive. The style is Prescott's at its best,—not terse and pointed like Macaulay's, nor yet so intimately persuasive as that of Parkman, but nevertheless free, flowing, and often stately—the fit instrument of expression for a sensitive and noble mind. Finally, in this book Prescott shows a power of depicting character that is far beyond his wont, so that his heroes are not lay figures but living men. ”

“ A man's style to be worth anything should be the natural expression of his mental character.... The best undoubtedly for every writer is the form of expression best suited to his peculiar turn of thinking, even at some hazard of violating the conventional tone of the most chaste and careful writers. It is this alone which can give full force to his thoughts. Franklin's style would have borne more ornament—Washington Irving could have done with less—Johnson and Gibbon might have had much less formality, and Hume and Goldsmith have occasionally pointed their sentences with more effect. ”

“ Under the circumstances, it is not to be wondered at if his college life was marked by a pleasant, well-bred hedonism rather than by the austerity of the true New England temperament. The Prescotts as a family had some time before slipped away from the clutch of Puritanism and had accepted the mild and elastic creed of Channing, which, in its tolerant view of life, had more than a passing likeness to Episcopalianism. Prescott was still running over with youthful spirits, his position was an assured one, his means were ample, and his love of pleasure very much in evidence. ”

“ Time alone was needed to bring tolerance and intellectual freedom, and with them a freer choice of literary themes and moods. The New England temper remained, and still remains, a serious one; yet ultimately it was to find expression in forms no longer harsh and rigid, but modelled upon the finer lines of truth and beauty. ”