Francis Parkman 231 



thronged with appropriate actors, than in any other 

 passage of our history. It was not until some 

 years later that I enlarged the plan to include the 

 whole course of the American conflict between 

 France and England, or, in other words, the 

 history of the American forest ; for this was the 

 light in which I regarded it. My theme fascinated 

 me, and I was haunted with wilderness images day 

 and night." The way in which true genius works 

 could not be more happily described. 



When the great scheme first took shape in Mr. 

 Parkman's mind, he reckoned that it would take 

 about twenty years to complete the task. How 

 he entered upon it may best be told in his own 

 words : 



" The time allowed was ample ; but here he fell 

 into a fatal error, entering on this long pilgrimage 

 with all the vehemence of one starting on a mile 

 heat. His reliance, however, was less on books 

 than on such personal experience as should in 

 some sense identify him with his theme. His nat- 

 ural inclinations urged him in the same direction, 

 for his thoughts were always in the forest, whose 

 features, not unmixed with softer images, possessed 

 his waking and sleeping dreams, filling him with 

 vague cravings impossible to satisfy. As fond of 

 hardships as he was vain of enduring them, cherish- 



