xxii OBITUARY NOTICES OF MEMBERS DECEASED. 



Then in the evening he began again and worked until eleven. And 

 this occurred seven days in the week. 



He began a new subject by copying, translating, tabulating and 

 summarizing his sources, in his own clear handwriting, on sheets of 

 paper, with such comments and cross references as occurred to him 

 in the course of his work. Great stacks of such sheets he took away 

 with him to the seashore in summer, and classified, combined and 

 re-read them there. He made it a practice never to begin to write 

 a book until he had all the material he intended to use in it collected 

 and classified. Thus in some cases he spent literally years in gath- 

 ering material before he had written a word of his book in its final 

 form; and when he came to write he wrote almost entirely from this 

 highly organized material. Similarly he never sent any part of his 

 work to the printer until the whole book was completed and revised 

 in manuscript form. H this patient, systematic, ' self-controlled 

 method of work is compared with the restless, hurried, confused 

 and broken way in which most of our production is carried on, it is 

 not hard to solve the riddle of his great accomplishment. 



He obtained singularly little help from others. In his early years he 

 had, as has been seen, a first rate general education and good literary 

 training. But when he once entered upon the difficult road of his- 

 torical investigation, he traveled alone. He overcame its difficulties 

 with native genius but with much tribulation. His search for the 

 bibliography of his subject was a hard one. He learned new lan- 

 guages as he felt the necessity for them. He has himself left a 

 record of his regret "that there were no scholars here to whom he 

 could look for guidance in the paths which he desired to follow," 

 and that " as a solitary student he was obliged to collect around him 

 the necessary material." This detachment from other scholars 

 working in the same line had distinct disadvantages. The editions 

 of the sources which he used were in many cases not the best, or 

 those that gave the most help, and he did not obtain assistance that 

 lay at hand in journals devoted to the investigation of mediaeval 

 history and in modern works in allied subjects. On the other hand, 

 this same independence in his work gave a distinction and an indi- 

 viduality to his thought and writing that added immensely to its 

 effectiveness. He saved much time from controversy, and he studied 



