674 JOHN FISKE. 



Mr. Scudder says that the impulse toward American history was given 

 by the pi-eparation for the first course of Old South lectures, which were 

 concerned especially with the Colonial period. When Fiske settled 

 down deliberately to his life-work, he found that he could make the 

 lectures subservient to his publications. He describes his method of 

 doing this as follows : " I look it up or investigate it and then write an 

 essay or lecture on the subject. That serves as a preliminary statement 

 either of a large subject or of special points. It is a help to me to try 

 to state the case. I never publish anything after this first statement, 

 but generally keep it with me for, it may be, some years, and possibly 

 return to it several times." While the general proposition is undoubtedly 

 true that the preparation of historical work in tentative form, and the 

 frequent recurrence to it under the stimulus of new studies and varying 

 conditions of mind are of great assistance to the historian, still it must 

 have been true that the great draft upon Mr. Fiske's time and strength 

 occasioned by his lecture tours seriously affected the character of his 

 work. " Fiske's lectures were a drag upon him,*' says Professor Hart, 

 "because they were so good. Even big men have a limited stock of 

 vitality, and he put into his lectures a power which ought to have gone 

 into investigation. For years together, he appeared as a lecturer, more 

 than a hundred times annually, besides numerous lectures abroad. So 

 far as this work was a needed support for a man with a rising family, it 

 was simply a misfortune; so far as it took the place of equally well 

 paid literary work it was a mistake." 



If we turn to the prefaces of his several publications we can there see 

 how much of his time was occupied with these lectures, and we can also 

 learn from the same source how familiar his form must have become to 

 the lecture-going people of the entire country. Yet while his time was 

 thus occupied, the old topics with which his name was associated earlier 

 in life asserted their control over him, and found vent in essays or 

 addresses upon occasions. In 1900 he published a volume entitled "A 

 Century of Science ; " following this came " Through Nature to God." 

 The last address which he delivered, " Life Everlasting," was issued by 

 his publishers after his death. This was made possible because Fiske 

 rarely changed a word after he had once put his thoughts on paper. 



His great fondness for music was not only evident to those who knew 

 him well, but crops out in his books. He enjoyed the skilful perform- 

 ance of a symphony by an orchestra, and was also capable of interpreting 

 it. To him there was not only harmony aud rhythm and melody and 

 the perfection of mechanical execution in the rendering of the music, 



