198 A Century of Science 



burn, and the fitful light is cast around on lord and 

 vassal and black-robed priest, mingled with wild 

 forms of savage warriors, knit in close fellowship 

 on the same stern errand. A boundless vision 

 grows upon us : an untamed continent ; vast wastes 

 of forest verdure; mountains silent in primeval 

 sleep ; river, lake, and glimmering pool ; wilder- 

 ness oceans mingling with the sky. Such was the 

 domain which France conquered for civilization. 

 Plumed helmets gleamed in the shade of its for- 

 ests, priestly vestments in its dens and fastnesses 

 of ancient barbarism. Men steeped in antique 

 learning, pale with the close breath of the cloister, 

 here spent the noon and evening of their lives, 

 ruled savage hordes with a mild parental sway, 

 and stood serene before the direst shapes of death, 

 Men of courtly nurture, heirs to the polish of a 

 far-reaching ancestry, here with their dauntless 

 hardihood put to shame the boldest sons of toil." 

 When a writer in sentences that are mere gen- 

 eralizations gives us such pictures as these, one 

 has much to expect from his detailed narrative, 

 glowing with sympathy and crowded with incident. 

 In Parkman's books such expectations are never 

 disappointed. What was an uncouth and howling 

 wilderness in the world of literature he has taken 

 for his own domain, and peopled it forever with 



