Francis Parkman 201 



shimmer of unreality about the whole story. It is 

 like bringing in ghosts or goblins among live men 

 and women : it instantly converts sober narrative 

 into fairy tale ; the two worlds will no more mix 

 than oil and water. Tfte ancient and mediaeval 

 minds did not find it so, as the numberless his 

 tories encumbered with the supernatural testify ; 

 but the modern mind does find it so. The mod 

 ern mind has taken a little draught, the prelude 

 to deeper draughts, at the healing and purifying 

 well of science ; and it has begun to be dissatis 

 fied with anything short of exact truth. When 

 any unsound element enters into a narrative, the 

 taint is quickly tasted, and its flavour spoils the 

 whole. 



We are then brought, I say, to the secret of 

 Parkman s power. His Indians are true to the 

 life. In his pages Pontiac is a man of warm flesh 

 and blood, as much so as Montcalm or Israel Put 

 nam. This solid reality in the Indians makes 

 the whole work real and convincing. Here is the 

 great contrast between Parkman s work and that 

 of Prescott, in so far as the latter dealt with 

 American themes. In reading Prescott s account 

 of the conquest of Mexico, one feels one s self 

 in the world of the &quot; Arabian Nights ; &quot; indeed, 

 the author himself, in occasional comments, lets us 



