Another volley fol-
lowed, and then a furious clattering fire that lasted but a minute.
lowed, and then a furious clattering fire that lasted but a minute.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v19 - Oli to Phi
It was thirty-six feet long and about twenty
feet wide, framed with strong sapling poles planted in the earth
to form the sides, with the ends bent into an arch for the roof,—
the whole lashed firmly together, braced with cross-poles, and
closely covered with overlapping sheets of bark. Without, the
structure was strictly Indian; but within, the priests, with the
aid of their tools, made innovations which were the astonishment
of all the country. They divided their dwelling by transverse
partitions into three apartments, each with its wooden door,— a
wondrous novelty in the eyes of their visitors. The first served
as a hall, an ante-room, and a place of storage for corn, beans,
and dried fish. The second- the largest of the three-was at
once kitchen, workshop, dining-room, drawing-room, school-room,
and bed-chamber. The third was the chapel. Here they made.
their altar, and here were their images, pictures, and sacred ves-
sels. Their fire was on the ground, in the middle of the second
apartment, the smoke escaping by a hole in the roof. At the
sides were placed two wide platforms, after the Huron fashion,
four feet from the earthen floor. On these were chests in which
they kept their clothing and vestments, and beneath them they
slept, reclining on sheets of bark, and covered with skins and the
## p. 11104 (#320) ##########################################
FRANCIS PARKMAN
11104
garments they wore by day. Rude stools, a hand-mill, a large
Indian mortar of wood for crushing corn, and a clock, completed
the furniture of the room.
There was no lack of visitors, for the house of the black-
robes contained marvels the fame of which was noised abroad to
the uttermost confines of the Huron nation. Chief among them
was the clock. The guests would sit in expectant silence by the
hour, squatted on the ground, waiting to hear it strike. They
thought it was alive, and asked what it ate. As the last stroke
sounded, one of the Frenchmen would cry "Stop! "-and to the
admiration of the company, the obedient clock was silent. The
mill was another wonder, and they were never tired of turning
it. Besides these, there was a prism and a magnet; also a mag-
nifying glass wherein a flea was transformed to a frightful mon-
ster, and a multiplying lens which showed them the same object
eleven times repeated. "All this," says Brébeuf, "serves to gain
their affection, and make them more docile in respect to the
admirable and incomprehensible mysteries of our Faith; for the
opinion they have of our genius and capacity makes them believe
whatever we tell them. "
"What does the Captain say? " was the frequent question; for
by this title of honor they designated the clock.
"When he strikes twelve times, he says, 'Hang on the ket-
tle;' and when he strikes four times, he says, 'Get up and go
home.
> >>
Both interpretations were well remembered. At noon, visitors
were never wanting, to share the fathers' sagamite; but at the
stroke of four, all rose and departed, leaving the missionaries for
a time in peace. Now the door was barred; and gathering around
the fire, they discussed the prospects of the mission, compared
their several experiences, and took counsel for the future. But
the standing topic of their evening talk was the Huron language.
Concerning this each had some new discovery to relate, some
new suggestion to offer; and in the task of analyzing its construc-
tion and deducing its hidden laws, these intelligent and highly
cultivated minds found a congenial employment.
But while zealously laboring to perfect their knowledge of the
language, they spared no pains to turn their present acquirements
to account. Was man, woman, or child sick or suffering, they
were always at hand with assistance and relief,— adding, as they
saw opportunity, explanations of Christian doctrine, pictures of
## p. 11105 (#321) ##########################################
FRANCIS PARKMAN
11105
heaven and hell, and exhortations to embrace the Faith. Their
friendly offices did not cease here, but included matters widely
different. The Hurons lived in constant fear of the Iroquois.
At times the whole village population would fly to the woods for
concealment, or take refuge in one of the neighboring fortified.
towns, on the rumor of an approaching war-party. The Jesuits
promised them the aid of the four Frenchmen armed with arque-
buses, who had come with them from Three Rivers. They ad-
vised the Hurons to make their palisade forts, not as hitherto in
a circular form, but rectangular, with small flanking towers at the
corners for the arquebuse-men. The Indians at once saw the
value of the advice, and soon after began to act on it in the case
of their great town of Ossossané, or Rochelle.
At every opportunity, the missionaries gathered together the
children of the village at their house. On these occasions, Bré-
beuf, for greater solemnity, put on a surplice, and the close
angular cap worn by Jesuits in their convents. First he chanted
the Pater Noster, translated by Father Daniel into Huron rhymes,
-the children chanting in their turn. Next he taught them the
sign of the cross; made them repeat the Ave, the Credo, and the
Commandments; questioned them as to past instructions; gave
them briefly a few new ones; and dismissed them with a present
of two or three beads, raisins, or prunes. A great emulation was
kindled among this small fry of heathendom. The priests, with
amusement and delight, saw them gathered in groups about the
village, vying with each other in making the sign of the cross, or
in repeating the rhymes they had learned.
At times the elders of the people, the repositories of its
ancient traditions, were induced to assemble at the house of the
Jesuits, who explained to them the principal points of their doc-
trine, and invited them to a discussion. The auditors proved
pliant to a fault, responding "Good," or "That is true," to every
proposition; but when urged to adopt the faith which so readily
met their approval, they had always the same reply: "It is good
for the French; but we are another people, with different cus-
toms. " On one occasion, Brébeuf appeared before the chiefs and
elders at a solemn national council, described heaven and hell
with images suited to their comprehension, asked to which they
preferred to go after death, and then, in accordance with the
invariable Huron custom in affairs of importance, presented a
large and valuable belt of wampum, as an invitation to take the
path to Paradise.
XIX-695
"
## p. 11106 (#322) ##########################################
11106
FRANCIS PARKMAN
Notwithstanding all their exhortations, the Jesuits, for the
present, baptized but few. Indeed, during the first year or more,
they baptized no adults except those apparently at the point of
death; for, with excellent reason, they feared backsliding and
recantation. They found especial pleasure in the baptism of
dying infants, rescuing them from the flames of perdition, and
changing them, to borrow Le Jeune's phrase, "from little Indians.
into little angels. "
The fathers' slumbers were brief and broken. Winter was
the season of Huron festivity; and as they lay stretched on their
hard couch, suffocating with smoke and tormented by an inevita-
ble multitude of fleas, the thumping of the drum resounded all
night long from a neighboring house, mingled with the sound of
the tortoise-shell rattle, the stamping of moccasined feet, and the
cadence of voices keeping time with the dancers. Again, some
ambitious villager would give a feast, and invite all the warriors.
of the neighboring towns; or some grand wager of gambling,
with its attendant drumming, singing, and outcries, filled the
night with discord.
But these were light annoyances compared with the insane
rites to cure the sick, prescribed by the "medicine-men," or
ordained by the eccentric inspiration of dreams. In one case, a
young sorcerer, by alternate gorging and fasting,- both in the
interest of his profession,- joined with excessive exertion in
singing to the spirits, contracted a disorder of the brain, which
caused him in midwinter to run naked about the village, howl-
ing like a wolf. The whole population bestirred itself to effect a
cure. The patient had, or pretended to have, a dream, in which
the conditions of his recovery were revealed to him. These were
equally ridiculous and difficult; but the elders met in council, and
all the villagers lent their aid, till every requisition was fulfilled,
and the incongruous mass of gifts which the madman's dream
had demanded were all bestowed upon him. This cure failing,
a
"medicine-feast" was tried; then several dances in succession.
As the patient remained as crazy as before, preparations were
begun for a grand dance, more potent than all the rest. Bré-
beuf says that except the masquerades of the Carnival among
Christians, he never saw a folly equal to it. "Some," he adds,
"had sacks over their heads, with two holes for the eyes. Sonne
were as naked as your hand, with horns or feathers on their
heads, their bodies painted white, and their faces black as devills.
Others were daubed with red, black, and white. In short, every
## p. 11107 (#323) ##########################################
FRANCIS PARKMAN
11107
>>>
one decked himself as extravagantly as he could, to dance in this
ballet, and contribute something towards the health of the sick
man. This remedy also failing, a crowning effort of the medi-
cal art was essayed. Brébeuf does not describe it,-for fear, as
he says, of being tedious; but for the time, the village was a
pandemonium. This, with other ceremonies, was supposed to be
ordered by a certain image like a doll, which a sorcerer placed
in his tobacco-pouch, whence it uttered its oracles, at the same
time moving as if alive. "Truly," writes Brébeuf, "here is non-
sense enough; but I greatly fear there is something more dark
and mysterious in it. "
But all these ceremonies were outdone by the grand festival
of the Ononhara, or Dream Feast,-esteemed the most powerful
remedy in cases of sickness, or when a village was infested with
evil spirits. The time and manner of holding it were determined
at a solemn council. This scene of madness began at night. Men,
women, and children, all pretending to have lost their senses,
rushed shrieking and howling from house to house, upsetting
everything in their way, throwing fire-brands, beating those they
met or drenching them with water, and availing themselves of
this time of license to take a safe revenge on any who had ever
offended them. This scene of frenzy continued till daybreak.
No corner of the village was secure from the maniac crew. In
the morning there was a change. They ran from house to house,
accosting the inmates by name, and demanding of each the satis-
faction of some secret want, revealed to the pretended madman
in a dream, but of the nature of which he gave no hint what-
ever. The person addressed thereupon threw to him at random
any article at hand, as a hatchet, a kettle, or a pipe; and the
applicant continued his rounds till the desired gift was hit upon,
when he gave an outcry of delight, echoed by gratulatory cries
from all present. If, after all his efforts, he failed in obtaining
the object of his dream, he fell into a deep dejection, convinced
that some disaster was in store for him.
The approach of summer brought with it a comparative peace.
Many of the villagers dispersed,- some to their fishing, some
to expeditions of trade, and some to distant lodges by their
detached cornfields. The priests availed themselves of the res-
pite to engage in those exercises of private devotion which the
rule of St. Ignatius enjoins. About midsummer, however, their
quiet was suddenly broken. The crops were withering under a
severe drought, a calamity which the sandy nature of the soil
## p. 11108 (#324) ##########################################
11108
FRANCIS PARKMAN
made doubly serious. The sorcerers put forth their utmost power,
and from the tops of the houses yelled incessant invocations to
the spirits. All was in vain: the pitiless sky was cloudless
There was thunder in the east and thunder in the west; but
over Ihonatiria all was serene. A renowned "rain-maker," see-
ing his reputation tottering under his repeated failures, bethought
him of accusing the Jesuits, and gave out that the red color
of the cross which stood before their house scared the bird of
thunder, and caused him to fly another way. On this a clamor
arose. The popular ire turned against the priests, and the ob-
noxious cross was condemned to be hewn down. Aghast at the
threatened sacrilege, they attempted to reason away the storm,
assuring the crowd that the lightning was not a bird, but certain
hot and fiery exhalations, which, being imprisoned, darted this
way and that, trying to escape. As this philosophy failed to con-
vince the hearers, the missionaries changed their line of defense.
"You say that the red color of the cross frightens the bird of
thunder. Then paint the cross white, and see if the thunder will
come. "
This was accordingly done; but the clouds still kept aloof.
The Jesuits followed up their advantage.
"Your spirits cannot help you, and your sorcerers have de-
ceived you with lies. Now ask the aid of Him who made the
world, and perhaps he will listen to your prayers. " And they
added that if the Indians would renounce their sins and obey
the true God, they would make a procession daily to implore
his favor towards them.
There was no want of promises. The processions were begun,
as were also nine masses to St. Joseph; and as heavy rains
occurred soon after, the Indians conceived a high idea of the
efficacy of the French "medicine. "
In spite of the hostility of the sorcerers, and the transient
commotion raised by the red cross, the Jesuits had gained the
confidence and good-will of the Huron population. Their patience,
their kindness, their intrepidity, their manifest disinterestedness,
the blamelessness of their lives, and the tact which, in the utmost
fervors of their zeal, never failed them, had won the hearts of
these wayward savages; and chiefs of distant villages came to
urge that they would make their abode with them. As yet, the
results of the mission had been faint and few; but the priests
toiled on courageously, high in hope that an abundant harvest of
souls would one day reward their labors.
## p. 11109 (#325) ##########################################
FRANCIS PARKMAN
11109
THE BATTLE OF THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM
Re-
From Montcalm and Wolfe. ' Copyright 1884, by Francis Parkman.
printed by permission of the Parkman Estate, and of Little, Brown
& Co. , publishers.
THE
HE day broke in clouds and threatening rain. Wolfe's bat-
talions were drawn up along the crest of the heights. No
enemy was in sight, though a body of Canadians had sallied
from the town and moved along the strand towards the landing-
place, whence they were quickly driven back. He had achieved
the most critical part of his enterprise; yet the success that he
coveted placed him in imminent danger. On one side was the
garrison of Quebec and the army of Beauport, and Bougainville
was on the other. Wolfe's alternative was victory or ruin; for if
he should be overwhelmed by a combined attack, retreat would
be hopeless. His feelings no man can know; but it would be
safe to say that hesitation or doubt had no part in them.
He went to reconnoitre the ground, and soon came to the
Plains of Abraham; so called from Abraham Martin, a pilot
known as Maître Abraham, who had owned a piece of land here
in the early times of the colony. The Plains were a tract of
grass, tolerably level in most parts, patched here and there with
cornfields, studded with clumps of bushes, and forming a part of
the high plateau at the eastern end of which Quebec stood. On
the south it was bounded by the declivities along the St. Law.
rence; on the north, by those along the St. Charles, or rather
along the meadows through which that lazy stream crawled like
a writhing snake. At the place that Wolfe chose for his battle-
field the plateau was less than a mile wide.
Montcalm had passed a troubled night. Through all the
evening the cannon bellowed from the ships of Saunders, and
the boats of the fleet hovered in the dusk off the Beauport
shore, threatening every moment to land. Troops lined the in-
trenchments till day, while the General walked the field that
adjoined his headquarters till one in the morning, accompanied
by the Chevalier Johnstone and Colonel Poulariez.
says that he was in great agitation, and took no rest all night.
At daybreak he heard the sound of cannon above the town.
It was the battery at Samos firing on the English ships. He
had sent an officer to the quarters of Vaudreuil, which were
much nearer Quebec, with orders to bring him word at once
Johnstone
•
## p. 11110 (#326) ##########################################
III10
FRANCIS PARKMAN
should anything unusual happen. But no word came, and about
six o'clock he mounted and rode thither with Johnstone. As
they advanced, the country behind the town opened more and
more upon their sight; till at length, when opposite Vaudreuil's
house, they saw across the St. Charles, some two miles away,
the red ranks of British soldiers on the heights beyond.
"This is a serious business," Montcalm said; and sent off
Johnstone at full gallop to bring up the troops from the centre
and left of the camp. Those of the right were in motion already,
doubtless by the governor's order. Vaudreuil came out of the
house. Montcalm stopped for a few words with him; then set
spurs to his horse, and rode over the bridge of the St. Charles
to the scene of danger. He rode with a fixed look, uttering not
a word.
The army followed in such order as it might, crossed the
bridge in hot haste, passed under the northern rampart of Que-
bec, entered at the Palace Gate, and pressed on in headlong
march along the quaint narrow streets of the warlike town:
troops of Indians in scalp-locks and war-paint, a savage glitter in
their deep-set eyes; bands of Canadians whose all was at stake,
faith, country, and home; the colony regulars; the battalions of
Old France, a torrent of white uniforms and gleaming bayonets,
-La Sarre, Languedoc, Roussillon, Béarn,-victors of Oswego,
William Henry, and Ticonderoga. So they swept on, poured out
upon the plain, some by the gate of St. Louis and some by that
of St. John, and hurried, breathless, to where the banners of
Guienne still fluttered on the ridge.
-
Montcalm was amazed at what he saw. He had expected a
detachment, and he found an army. Full in sight before him
stretched the lines of Wolfe: the close ranks of the English
infantry, a silent wall of red, and the wild array of the High-
landers, with their waving tartans, and bagpipes screaming defi-
ance. Vaudreuil had not come; but not the less was felt the
evil of a divided authority and the jealousy of the rival chiefs.
Montcalm waited long for the forces he had ordered to join
him from the left wing of the army. He waited in vain. It
is said that the governor had detained them, lest the English
should attack the Beauport shore. Even if they did so, and suc-
ceeded, the French might defy them, could they but put Wolfe
to rout on the Plains of Abraham. Neither did the garrison of
Quebec come to the aid of Montcalm.
He sent to Ramesay, its
## p. 11111 (#327) ##########################################
FRANCIS PARKMAN
IIIII
•
commander, for twenty-five field-pieces which were on the Pal-
ace battery. Ramesay would give him only three, saying that
he wanted them for his own defense. There were orders and
counter-orders; misunderstanding, haste, delay, perplexity.
Montcalm and his chief officers held a council of war. It is
said that he and they alike were for immediate attack. His ene-
mies declare that he was afraid lest Vaudreuil should arrive
and take command; but the governor was not a man to assume
responsibility at such a crisis. Others say that his impetuosity
overcame his better judgment; and of this charge it is hard to
acquit him. Bougainville was but a few miles distant, and some
of his troops were much nearer; a messenger sent by way of Old
Lorette could have reached him in an hour and a half at most,
and a combined attack in front and rear might have been con-
certed with him. If, moreover, Montcalm could have come to an
understanding with Vaudreuil, his own force might have been
strengthened by two or three thousand additional men from the
town and the camp of Beauport; but he felt that there was no
time to lose: for he imagined that Wolfe would soon be rein-
forced - which was impossible; and he believed that the English
were fortifying themselves which was no less an error. He has
been blamed not only for fighting too soon, but for fighting at
all. In this he could not choose. Fight he must, for Wolfe was
now in a position to cut off all his supplies. His men were full
of ardor, and he resolved to attack before their ardor cooled. He
spoke a few words to them in his keen, vehement way. << I
remember very well how he looked," one of the Canadians, then
a boy of eighteen, used to say in his old age: "he rode a black
or dark-bay horse along the front of our lines, brandishing his
sword, as if to excite us to do our duty. He wore a coat with
wide sleeves, which fell back as he raised his arm, and showed
the white linen of the wristband. "
-
The English waited the result with a composure which if
not quite real, was at least well feigned. The three field-pieces
sent by Ramesay plied them with canister-shot, and fifteen hun-
dred Canadians and Indians fusilladed them in front and flank.
Over all the plain, from behind bushes and knolls and the edge
of cornfields, puffs of smoke sprang incessantly from the guns of
these hidden marksmen. Skirmishers were thrown out before the
lines to hold them in check, and the soldiers were ordered to lie
on the grass to avoid the shot. The firing was liveliest on the
## p. 11112 (#328) ##########################################
11112
FRANCIS PARKMAN
English left, where bands of sharpshooters got under the edge of
the declivity, among thickets, and behind scattered houses, whence
they killed and wounded a considerable number of Townshend's
men. The light infantry were called up from the rear. The
houses were taken and retaken, and one or more of them was
burned.
Wolfe was everywhere. How cool he was, and why his fol-
lowers loved him, is shown by an incident that happened in the
course of the morning. One of his captains was shot through
the lungs; and on recovering consciousness he saw the General
standing at his side. Wolfe pressed his hand, told him not to
despair, praised his services, promised him early promotion, and
sent an aide-de-camp to Monckton to beg that officer to keep the
promise if he himself should fall.
It was towards ten o'clock when, from the high ground on
the right of the line, Wolfe saw that the crisis was near. The
French on the ridge had formed themselves into three bodies,
regulars in the centre, regulars and Canadians on right and left.
Two field-pieces, which had been dragged up the heights at Anse
du Foulon, fired on them with grape-shot, and the troops, rising
from the ground, prepared to receive them. In a few moments
more they were in motion. They came on rapidly, uttering loud
shouts, and firing as soon as they were within range. Their
ranks, ill ordered at the best, were further confused by a number
of Canadians who had been mixed among the regulars, and who,
after hastily firing, threw themselves on the ground to reload.
The British advanced a few rods; then halted and stood still.
When the French were within forty paces the word of command
rang out, and a crash of musketry answered all along the line.
The volley was delivered with remarkable precision. In the bat-
talions of the centre, which had suffered least from the enemy's
bullets, the simultaneous explosion was afterwards said by French
officers to have sounded like a cannon-shot.
Another volley fol-
lowed, and then a furious clattering fire that lasted but a minute.
or two. When the smoke rose, a miserable sight was revealed:
the ground cumbered with dead and wounded, the advancing
masses stopped short and turned into a frantic mob, shouting,
cursing, gesticulating.
The order was given to charge. Then
over the field rose the British cheer, mixed with the fierce yell
of the Highland slogan. Some of the corps pushed forward with
the bayonet; some advanced firing. The clansmen drew their
## p. 11113 (#329) ##########################################
FRANCIS PARKMAN
11113
He
broadswords and dashed on, keen and swift as bloodhounds. At
the English right, though the attacking column was broken to
pieces, a fire was still kept up, chiefly, it seems, by sharpshooters
from the bushes and cornfields, where they had lain for an hour
or more. Here Wolfe himself led the charge, at the head of the
Louisbourg grenadiers. A shot shattered his wrist. He wrapped
his handkerchief about it and kept on. Another shot struck him,
and he still advanced, when a third lodged in his breast.
staggered, and sat on the ground. Lieutenant Brown of the
grenadiers, one Henderson, a volunteer in the same company, and
a private soldier, aided by an officer of artillery who ran to join
them, carried him in their arms to the rear. He begged them to
lay him down. They did so, and asked if he would have a sur-
geon. There's no need," he answered: "it's all over with me. "
A moment after, one of them cried out, "They run; see how
they run! " "Who run? " Wolfe demanded, like a man roused
from sleep. The enemy, sir. Egad, they give way everywhere! "
"Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton," returned the dying man;
"tell him to march Webb's regiment down to Charles River, to
cut off their retreat from the bridge. " Then, turning on his
side, he murmured, "Now, God be praised, I will die in peace! "
and in a few moments his gallant soul had fled.
«<
«<
Montcalm, still on horseback, was borne with the tide of fugi-
tives towards the town. As he approached the walls a shot
passed through his body. He kept his seat; two soldiers sup-
ported him, one on each side, and led his horse through the
St. Louis Gate. On the open space within, among the excited
crowd, were several women, drawn, no doubt, by eagerness to
know the result of the fight. One of them recognized him,
saw the streaming blood, and shrieked, "O mon Dieu! mon Dieu!
Le Marquise est tué! " "It's nothing, it's nothing," replied the
death-stricken man: "don't be troubled for me, my good friends. "
("Ce n'est rien, ce n'est rien: ne vous affligez pas pour moi, mes
bonnes amies. ")
## p. 11114 (#330) ##########################################
11114
PARMENIDES
(520? -450? B. C. )
Sear
ARMENIDES, son of Pyrrhes, and the most famous of the Eleatic
philosophers, was born at Elea, in Southern Italy, about 520
B. C. Of his personal history little is known: merely that
he took an active part in the politics of his native city, drawing up
for it a code of laws to which the Eleans every year swore to con-
form; and that late in life, about 454 B. C. , he made a visit to Athens
in company with his pupil Zeno, and there made the acquaintance
of Socrates, then a very young man (see Plato, 'Parmenides,' 127,
A, B; 'Sophist,' 217, C; 'Theætetus, 183, E). He seems to have been
acquainted with the thought of the Ionian philosophers, especially
of Anaximander and Heraclitus, but to have been more deeply in-
fluenced by Pythagoras and Xenophanes. He numbered among his
friends Empedocles and Leucippus, and taught Melissus and Zeno.
His only written work was a poem 'On Nature,' of which consider-
able fragments remain. These have several times been collected.
The best editions of them are those by Karsten (1835), and by Stein
in 'Symbola Philologorum Bonnensium' (1864-7), pages 763-806. There
is a complete English translation of them in hexameters by Thomas
Davidson in Vol. iv. of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, pages
1-16.
With the exception of Heraclitus, Parmenides is the greatest of
the pre-Socratic Greek thinkers. His importance consists chiefly in
the fact that he was the first person to distinguish between the Ideal
and the Real; between Being, eternal, unchangeable, and the subject
of science, and Becoming, transient, changeable, and mere matter of
opinion. Being he identifies with thought; and Becoming with sensa-
tion. He is thus the prime author of that dualism which runs through
all subsequent Greek thinking, and which logically leads to asceticism.
in life and absolutism in politics. The resemblance of his philosophy
to certain Hindu systems has induced some writers-e. g. , Gladisch
in his 'Die Eleaten und die Indier' (Posen, 1844)—to connect it with
these; but it is in fact due to a combination of the Pythagorean
principle of number with the Ionic notion of process. It led the way
to the universal subjectivism of the Sophists.
## p. 11115 (#331) ##########################################
PARMENIDES
INTRODUCTION OF THE POEM ON NATURE
11115
SOON
SOON as the coursers that bear me and draw me as far as extend-
eth
Impulse, guided and threw me aloft in the glorious pathway,
Up to the goddess that guideth through all things man that is con-
scious,
There was I carried along, for there did the coursers sagacious,
Drawing the chariot, bear me, and virgins preceded to guide them-
Daughters of Helios, leaving behind them the mansions of darkness —
Into the light, with their strong hands forcing asunder the night-
shrouds,
While in its sockets the axle emitted the sound of a syrinx,
Glowing, for still it was urged by a couple of wheels well-rounded,
One upon this side, one upon that, when it hastened its motion.
There were the gates of the paths of the Night and the paths of the
Day-time.
Under the gates is a threshold of stone, and above is a lintel.
These too are closed in the ether with great doors guarded by Just-
ice-
Justice the mighty avenger, that keepeth the keys of requital.
Her did the virgins address, and with soft words deftly persuaded,
Swiftly for them to withdraw from the gates the bolts and its fast-
ener.
Opening wide, they uncovered the yawning expanse of the portal,
Backward rolling successive the hinges of brass their sockets,-
Hinges constructed with nails and with clasps; then onward the vir-
gins
Straightway guided their steeds and their chariot over the highway.
Then did the goddess receive me with gladness, and taking my right
hand
Into her own, thus uttered a word and kindly bespake me:-
"Youth that art mated with charioteers and companions immortal,
Coming to us on the coursers that bear thee, to visit our mansion,
Hail! for it is not an evil Award that hath guided thee hither
Into this path,— for, I ween, it is far from the pathway of mortals,-
Nay, it is Justice and Right. Thou needs must have knowledge of
all things:
First of the Truth's unwavering heart that is fraught with conviction,
Then of the notions of mortals, where no true conviction abideth;
But thou shalt surely be taught this too,- that every opinion
Needs must pass through the ALL, and vanquish the test with approval. "
Translation of Thomas Davidson.
## p. 11116 (#332) ##########################################
11116
PARMENIDES
THOUGHT AND EXISTENCE
ONE
NE and the same are thought and that whereby there is think-
ing;
Never apart from existence, wherein it receiveth expression,
Shalt thou discover the action of thinking; for naught is or shall be
Other besides or beyond the Existent; for Fate hath determined
That to be lonely and moveless, which all things are but a name
for,-
Things that men have set up for themselves, believing as real,-
Birth and decay, becoming and ceasing, to be and to not-be,
Movement from place to place, and change from color to color.
But since the uttermost limit of Being is ended and perfect,
Then it is like to the bulk of a sphere well rounded on all sides,
Everywhere distant alike from the centre: for never there can be
Anything greater or anything less, on this side or that side;
Yea, there is neither a non-existent to bar it from coming
Into equality, neither can Being be different from Being,
More of it here, less there, for the All is inviolate ever.
Therefore, I ween, it lies equally stretched in its limits on all sides.
Translation of Thomas Davidson.
KOSMOS
TH
HEN thou shalt know the ethereal nature and each of its tokens
Each of the signs in the ether, and all the invisible workings
Wrought by the blemishless sun's pure lamp, and whence they
have risen;
Then thou shalt hear of the orb-eyed moon's circumambient work-
ings,
And of her nature, and likewise discern the heaven that surrounds
them,
Whence it arose, and how by her sway Necessity bound it
Firm, to encircle the bounds of the stars.
Translation of Thomas Davidson.
[These three passages are reprinted by permission from the Journal of
Speculative Philosophy, Vol. iv. ]
## p. 11117 (#333) ##########################################
11117
-
THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS
(1819-1892)
HE poetry of Thomas W. Parsons has in its best examples a
classic perfection conjoined with a deep feeling, which gives
it distinction. He was a scholar who worked with a cer-
tain austerity and aloofness, yet with an underlying perception of
humor which saved his work from flatness or turgidity even when it
did not appear on the surface. Dr. Parsons was thoroughly impreg-
nated with Dante and the influence of Italian literature. Literature
indeed, in this aspect of it, was to him a vocation and a passion.
He served the Muse with a full sense of the sacredness of song.
He was born in Boston, August 18th, 1819; was the son of a physi-
cian of that city, and was destined for the same profession,— taking
a degree at the Harvard Medical School, and for some time prac-
ticing dentistry. Boston was his home when he was in the United
States; but he traveled and resided much abroad. In his leisure
hours he wrote his verses and worked on his English renderings of
the master poet of Italy. So early as 1843 he published a translation
of the first ten cantos of the 'Inferno,' and a revision with seven
more cantos followed in 1867. He made a version of the great epic
a life labor, the translation in its final form appearing in 1893.
(
Dr. Parsons was never eager for publication, and some of his vol-
umes of verse were printed privately for circulation among friends.
Several collections of his poems were published: one entitled 'Ghetto
di Roma' in 1854, The Magnolia' in 1867, The Shadow of the Obe-
lisk' in 1872, Circum Præcorda' in 1892; and a final selection in
1893, after his death. This last book contains-excepting his trans-
lation of Dante- the bulk of the work his admirers would wish to
see preserved. There are lyrics in this volume as perfect in their
kind as anything done by a contemporaneous poet.
The opening
poem, On a Bust of Dante,' is as noble a tribute as the Italian has
received in our tongue. Many lines and passages in the different
lyrics have a quotableness which means fine thought married to fit
expression. In the tribute to Daniel Webster, for example, occurs the
stanza:
"Kings have their dynasties, but not the mind:
Cæsars leave other Cæsars to succeed;
But Wisdom dying, leaves no heir behind. "
## p. 11118 (#334) ##########################################
11118
THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS
And the poem closes with these lovely words:-
"We have no high cathedral for his rest,
Dim with proud banners and the dust of years;
All we can give him is New England's breast
To lay his head on- and his country's tears. "
There is something inevitable in the perfection of this, from 'The
Birthday of Robert Burns': —
"For flowers will grow, and showers will fall,
And clouds will travel o'er the sky;
And the great God who cares for all,
He will not let his darlings die. "
The man who can strike out things like these - and he wrote
whole poems which keep this level-deserves, and doubtless will get,
permanent recognition as a lyric singer. Parsons's range is not wide,
nor is his accomplishment varied. But in his individual way and
within his compass, he struck a very pure, fine note, which will give
lasting pleasure.
Dr. Parsons died at Scituate, Massachusetts, September 3d, 1892.
[The following selections are all made from the 'Poems of Thomas William
Parsons. Copyright 1893, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. ]
MARY BOOTH
shall we do now, Mary being dead,
Or say or write that shall express the half?
What can we do but pillow that fair head,
And let the Springtime write her epitaph? —
WHAT
As it will soon, in snowdrop, violet,
Wind-flower and columbine and maiden's-tear;
Each letter of that pretty alphabet
That spells in flowers the pageant of the year.
She was a maiden for a man to love;
She was a woman for a husband's life;
One that has learned to value, far above
The name of love, the sacred name of wife.
Her little life-dream, rounded so with sleep,
Had all there is of life, except gray hairs:
Hope, love, trust, passion and devotion deep;
And that mysterious tie a mother bears.
## p. 11119 (#335) ##########################################
THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS
11119
She hath fulfilled her promise and hath passed:
Set her down gently at the iron door!
Eyes look on that loved image for the last:
Now cover it in earth- her earth no more.
A DIRGE
LOWLY tread and gently bear
One that comes across the wave,
From the oppression of his care,
To the freedom of the grave;
S
From the merciless disease,
Wearing body, wasting brain,
To the rest beneath the trees,-
The forgetting of all pain;
From the delicate eye and ear,
To the rest that shall not see
To the sleep that shall not hear
Nor feel, the world's vulgarity.
Bear him, in his leaden shroud,
In his pall of foreign oak,
To the uncomplaining crowd
Where ill word was never spoke.
from life's broken sleep-
Dreams of pleasure, dreams of pain,
Hopes that tremble, joys that weep,
Loves that perish, visions vain
Bear
To the beautiful repose
Where he was before his birth;
With the ruby, with the rose,
With the harvest, earth in earth!
Bring him to the body's rest,
After battle, sorely spent,
Wounded, but a welcome guest
In the Chief's triumphal tent.
## p. 11120 (#336) ##########################################
11120
THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS
EPITAPH ON A CHILD
HIS little seed of life and love
Just lent us for a day,
Came like a blessing from above,—
Passed like a dream away.
THIS
And when we garnered in the earth
The foison that was ours,
We felt that burial was but birth
To spirits, as to flowers.
And still that benediction stays,
Although its angel passed;
Dear God! thy ways, if bitter ways,
We learn to love at last.
But for the dream,-it broke indeed,
Yet still great comfort gives:
What was a dream is now our creed,-
We know our darling lives.
S
TO FRANCESCA
ING Waller's lay,
"Go, lovely rose," or some old song,
That should I play
Feebly, thy voice may make me strong
With loving memories cherished long.
Sing "Drink to me,"
Or "Take, oh take those lips away;'
Some strain to be-
When I am gone and thou art gray-
Remembered of a happier day.
-
A solemn air,
A melody not loud but low,
Suits whitening hair;
And when the pulse is beating slow,
The music's measure should move so.
The song most sweet
Is that which lulls, not thrills, the ear;
So, love, repeat
For one who counteth silence dear,
That which to silence is most near.
## p. 11121 (#337) ##########################################
THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS
III2I
XIX-696
PILGRIM'S ISLE
HERE fell a charm upon the deep,
A spell upon the silent shore;
The boats, like lily-pads asleep,
Lay round me upon ocean's floor.
THE
O weary world of noise and strife!
O cities full of gold and guile!
How small a part ye make of life
To one that walks on Pilgrim's Isle!
I watched the Gurnet's double star,
Like Jove and Venus side by side,
And on the smooth waves gleaming far
Beheld its long reflection ride.
My days of youth are almost flown,
And yet, upon a night like this,
Love will not let my heart alone;
Back comes the well-remembered bliss.
Oft in thy golden locks a gleam
Of other days illumes my brain,
And in thy hand's soft touch I seem
To feel my boyhood born again.
Ah, dearest, all will soon be o'er!
I see my sunset in thy smile;
It lingers longest on the shore,
Th' enchanted shore, of Pilgrim's Isle.
PARADISI GLORIA
"O frate mio! ciascuna e cittadina
D'una vera città — »
THE
HERE is a city, builded by no hand,
And unapproachable by sea or shore,
And unassailable by any band
Of storming soldiery for evermore.
There we no longer shall divide our time
By acts or pleasures,― doing petty things
Of work or warfare, merchandise or rhyme;
But we shall sit beside the silver springs
## p. 11122 (#338) ##########################################
III22
THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS
That flow from God's own footstool, and behold
Sages and martyrs, and those blessed few
Who loved us once and were beloved of old,
To dwell with them and walk with them anew,
In alternations of sublime repose,
Musical motion, the perpetual play
Of every faculty that Heaven bestows,
Through the bright, busy, and eternal day.
## p. 11123 (#339) ##########################################
11123
JAMES PARTON
(1822-1891)
AMES PARTON, though in thought and feeling an American of
the Americans, was born in Canterbury, England, February
9th, 1822; coming to New York with his widowed mother
when he was about five years old. He went to a classical school in
Westchester County, New York, passed some years in Europe, and
then set up a school of his own in Philadelphia. He had a passion.
for Greek, and when he was a lad urged his mother to let him be-
come a barber, that he might have time enough between customers
to study the language: but Willis, whom he
knew, had set the fashion of being liter-
ary, and Parton followed it by contribut-
ing to the Home Journal; becoming in time
assistant editor of that paper, and marry-
ing "Fanny Fern" (Sara Payson Willis
Eldridge), Willis's sister.
JAMES PARTON
His first book, a 'Life of Horace Gree-
ley,' appeared in 1855. He had spent infi-
nite pains upon it, and had chosen a typical
American for his subject, with the result of
producing the portrait of a living man; not
a eulogy nor an invective, but a picture,
vivid, entertaining, abounding in anecdote.
The book made, as Greeley described it,
"mighty interesting reading," and it sold at the rate of thirty thou-
sand copies in the first year or two. After this we hear no more
of Greek. In a few years Parton had become one of the best-known
writers in America; the most eminent example, perhaps, of what can
be attained in letters with an innate love of literature, adaptability,
inexhaustible industry, and a painter's eye to effect. Always a de-
scriptive writer rather than a deep-searching historian, he could draw
most impressive pictures, brilliant in coloring and dramatic in set-
ting, while no man better knew the journalist's business of striking
while the iron was hot; sending in his lives and biographies when
the public demanded them. At the same time he had, in common
with Hazlitt and De Quincey, the fashion of defending the under
dog, who never wanted a friend when Parton was present: not for
## p. 11124 (#340) ##########################################
11124
JAMES PARTON
the reason that incited Hazlitt, because he was combative, but from
a love of fair play and a natural independence; and perhaps because
the advocate was first of all a journalist, inspired with the journal-
ist's curiosity to see both sides.
He held the theory that it is the good in a man that goes astray,
and that ought to alarm and warn his fellows; and that vice, after
all, is an excess of a virtue. With none of the pugnacity of a parti-
san, he shows a certain adroitness in confessing the weaknesses of
his heroes, that makes a direct appeal to the generosity of the reader.
Moreover, by taking the stand that all religions are of human origin,
and that the religion of the future will be founded on the love of
man for man, without regard to prevailing theologic conceptions of
the Deity, he wrote in a comfortable and tolerant state of philosophic
skepticism. With these qualities and characteristics, with enormous
powers of industry and application, he sent out from his study a long
list of books, which became the most popular series of biographies in
America.
The life of Greeley was followed three years later by that of
Aaron Burr. In this book Parton chose the period most interesting
in the history of the United States,-that after the Revolution. Old
things had passed away; the conquering Democratic party had arisen;
the States had become America, and the strange contradictory figure
who had helped to make them so had passed by, rising in glory and
setting in mysterious gloom. This life of Burr, vivid, picturesque,
and swift-moving, is as entertaining to-day as when it appeared in
1858.
His 'Jefferson' and 'Andrew Jackson' are in a way quite as inter-
esting, although the task of writing them was perhaps not so congen-
ial; for Parton, heart and soul a Democrat, had no occasion to use
therein that peculiar talent for defense which is so conspicuous in
his lives of Burr and Voltaire. Both the 'Jefferson' and 'Jackson,'
though pieces of special pleading, have the picturesqueness and event-
fulness of well-constructed fiction, while they are never consciously
untrue to fact. Their chief value, however, lies less perhaps in
their literary quality, or in their erudition, than in their contribution
of much curious information and personal anecdote gathered from
out-of-the-way sources, and put before the reader in an entertaining
form. No man was ever freer from what Macaulay calls the "disease
of admiration"; but on the other hand, none knew better how not to
belittle great deeds and noble aspirations. His respect for success
never chilled his sympathy with failure, and he had an instinct for
discerning the causes of both failure and success.
In 1877 appeared his 'Caricature and other Comic Art,' a book
showing much study, keen humor, and the historic sense. Indeed, the
## p. 11125 (#341) ##########################################
JAMES PARTON
11125
book, though seeming to exhibit a deviation from his familiar path,
is really a contribution to political history.
In 1881 appeared Parton's life of Voltaire, on which he had spent
more than twenty years of study. His admiration for his hero was
unbounded; and his accumulation of facts, anecdotes, and letters
throwing light upon the time is amazing. It is true that Parton
had reasoned out no philosophy of history that prompted him to
portray a system of morals or politics. He did not concern himself
with theories of objective or subjective influences. Yet whatever this
biography may lack, it remains, as an eminent English critic has
declared, a genuine life of Voltaire, and not a critique upon his
life and character like the works of Strauss and Morley. It is a
life which makes the English and American public for the first time
acquainted with the great Frenchman, somewhat in the same sense
in which they have long been acquainted with Johnson or Scott.
This book, a labor of love, was Parton's last serious production, though
his busy pen was never laid aside during his lifetime; and his name
appears on the title-page of several compilations, collections of brief
biographies, and essays. He died at Newburyport, Massachusetts,
October 16th, 1891.
FROM THE LIFE OF ANDREW JACKSON ›
Copyright 1860, by Mason Brothers. Reprinted here with the approval of
Houghton, Mifflin and Co. , publishers
HERE are certain historical facts which puzzle and disgust
those whose knowledge of life and men has been chiefly
derived from books. To such it can with difficulty be made
clear that the award is just which assigns to George Washington
a higher place than Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson,-
higher honor to the executing hand than to the conceiving head.
If they were asked to mention the greatest Englishman of this
age, it would never occur to them to name the Duke of Well-
ington, a man of an understanding so limited as to be the nat-
ural foe of everything liberal and progressive. Yet the Duke of
Wellington was the only Englishman of his generation to whom
every Englishman took off his hat. And these men of books
contemplate with mere wonder the fact that during a period
when Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Wirt, and Preston were on the
public stage, Andrew Jackson should have been so much the idol
## p. 11126 (#342) ##########################################
11126
JAMES PARTON
of the American people, that all those eminent men united could
not prevail against him in a single instance.
It is pleasant to justify the ways of man to man. The in-
stinctive preferences of the people must be right. That is to
say, the man preferred by the people must have more in him of
what the people most want than any other of his generation.
The more intimately we know the men who surrounded General
Washington, the clearer to us does his intrinsic superiority be-
come, and the more clearly we perceive his utter indispensable-
ness. Washington was the only man of the Revolution who did
for the Revolution what no other man could have done. And if
ever the time comes when the eminent contemporaries of Andrew
Jackson shall be as intimately known to the people as Andrew
Jackson now is, the invincible preference of the people for him
will be far less astonishing than it now appears.
feet wide, framed with strong sapling poles planted in the earth
to form the sides, with the ends bent into an arch for the roof,—
the whole lashed firmly together, braced with cross-poles, and
closely covered with overlapping sheets of bark. Without, the
structure was strictly Indian; but within, the priests, with the
aid of their tools, made innovations which were the astonishment
of all the country. They divided their dwelling by transverse
partitions into three apartments, each with its wooden door,— a
wondrous novelty in the eyes of their visitors. The first served
as a hall, an ante-room, and a place of storage for corn, beans,
and dried fish. The second- the largest of the three-was at
once kitchen, workshop, dining-room, drawing-room, school-room,
and bed-chamber. The third was the chapel. Here they made.
their altar, and here were their images, pictures, and sacred ves-
sels. Their fire was on the ground, in the middle of the second
apartment, the smoke escaping by a hole in the roof. At the
sides were placed two wide platforms, after the Huron fashion,
four feet from the earthen floor. On these were chests in which
they kept their clothing and vestments, and beneath them they
slept, reclining on sheets of bark, and covered with skins and the
## p. 11104 (#320) ##########################################
FRANCIS PARKMAN
11104
garments they wore by day. Rude stools, a hand-mill, a large
Indian mortar of wood for crushing corn, and a clock, completed
the furniture of the room.
There was no lack of visitors, for the house of the black-
robes contained marvels the fame of which was noised abroad to
the uttermost confines of the Huron nation. Chief among them
was the clock. The guests would sit in expectant silence by the
hour, squatted on the ground, waiting to hear it strike. They
thought it was alive, and asked what it ate. As the last stroke
sounded, one of the Frenchmen would cry "Stop! "-and to the
admiration of the company, the obedient clock was silent. The
mill was another wonder, and they were never tired of turning
it. Besides these, there was a prism and a magnet; also a mag-
nifying glass wherein a flea was transformed to a frightful mon-
ster, and a multiplying lens which showed them the same object
eleven times repeated. "All this," says Brébeuf, "serves to gain
their affection, and make them more docile in respect to the
admirable and incomprehensible mysteries of our Faith; for the
opinion they have of our genius and capacity makes them believe
whatever we tell them. "
"What does the Captain say? " was the frequent question; for
by this title of honor they designated the clock.
"When he strikes twelve times, he says, 'Hang on the ket-
tle;' and when he strikes four times, he says, 'Get up and go
home.
> >>
Both interpretations were well remembered. At noon, visitors
were never wanting, to share the fathers' sagamite; but at the
stroke of four, all rose and departed, leaving the missionaries for
a time in peace. Now the door was barred; and gathering around
the fire, they discussed the prospects of the mission, compared
their several experiences, and took counsel for the future. But
the standing topic of their evening talk was the Huron language.
Concerning this each had some new discovery to relate, some
new suggestion to offer; and in the task of analyzing its construc-
tion and deducing its hidden laws, these intelligent and highly
cultivated minds found a congenial employment.
But while zealously laboring to perfect their knowledge of the
language, they spared no pains to turn their present acquirements
to account. Was man, woman, or child sick or suffering, they
were always at hand with assistance and relief,— adding, as they
saw opportunity, explanations of Christian doctrine, pictures of
## p. 11105 (#321) ##########################################
FRANCIS PARKMAN
11105
heaven and hell, and exhortations to embrace the Faith. Their
friendly offices did not cease here, but included matters widely
different. The Hurons lived in constant fear of the Iroquois.
At times the whole village population would fly to the woods for
concealment, or take refuge in one of the neighboring fortified.
towns, on the rumor of an approaching war-party. The Jesuits
promised them the aid of the four Frenchmen armed with arque-
buses, who had come with them from Three Rivers. They ad-
vised the Hurons to make their palisade forts, not as hitherto in
a circular form, but rectangular, with small flanking towers at the
corners for the arquebuse-men. The Indians at once saw the
value of the advice, and soon after began to act on it in the case
of their great town of Ossossané, or Rochelle.
At every opportunity, the missionaries gathered together the
children of the village at their house. On these occasions, Bré-
beuf, for greater solemnity, put on a surplice, and the close
angular cap worn by Jesuits in their convents. First he chanted
the Pater Noster, translated by Father Daniel into Huron rhymes,
-the children chanting in their turn. Next he taught them the
sign of the cross; made them repeat the Ave, the Credo, and the
Commandments; questioned them as to past instructions; gave
them briefly a few new ones; and dismissed them with a present
of two or three beads, raisins, or prunes. A great emulation was
kindled among this small fry of heathendom. The priests, with
amusement and delight, saw them gathered in groups about the
village, vying with each other in making the sign of the cross, or
in repeating the rhymes they had learned.
At times the elders of the people, the repositories of its
ancient traditions, were induced to assemble at the house of the
Jesuits, who explained to them the principal points of their doc-
trine, and invited them to a discussion. The auditors proved
pliant to a fault, responding "Good," or "That is true," to every
proposition; but when urged to adopt the faith which so readily
met their approval, they had always the same reply: "It is good
for the French; but we are another people, with different cus-
toms. " On one occasion, Brébeuf appeared before the chiefs and
elders at a solemn national council, described heaven and hell
with images suited to their comprehension, asked to which they
preferred to go after death, and then, in accordance with the
invariable Huron custom in affairs of importance, presented a
large and valuable belt of wampum, as an invitation to take the
path to Paradise.
XIX-695
"
## p. 11106 (#322) ##########################################
11106
FRANCIS PARKMAN
Notwithstanding all their exhortations, the Jesuits, for the
present, baptized but few. Indeed, during the first year or more,
they baptized no adults except those apparently at the point of
death; for, with excellent reason, they feared backsliding and
recantation. They found especial pleasure in the baptism of
dying infants, rescuing them from the flames of perdition, and
changing them, to borrow Le Jeune's phrase, "from little Indians.
into little angels. "
The fathers' slumbers were brief and broken. Winter was
the season of Huron festivity; and as they lay stretched on their
hard couch, suffocating with smoke and tormented by an inevita-
ble multitude of fleas, the thumping of the drum resounded all
night long from a neighboring house, mingled with the sound of
the tortoise-shell rattle, the stamping of moccasined feet, and the
cadence of voices keeping time with the dancers. Again, some
ambitious villager would give a feast, and invite all the warriors.
of the neighboring towns; or some grand wager of gambling,
with its attendant drumming, singing, and outcries, filled the
night with discord.
But these were light annoyances compared with the insane
rites to cure the sick, prescribed by the "medicine-men," or
ordained by the eccentric inspiration of dreams. In one case, a
young sorcerer, by alternate gorging and fasting,- both in the
interest of his profession,- joined with excessive exertion in
singing to the spirits, contracted a disorder of the brain, which
caused him in midwinter to run naked about the village, howl-
ing like a wolf. The whole population bestirred itself to effect a
cure. The patient had, or pretended to have, a dream, in which
the conditions of his recovery were revealed to him. These were
equally ridiculous and difficult; but the elders met in council, and
all the villagers lent their aid, till every requisition was fulfilled,
and the incongruous mass of gifts which the madman's dream
had demanded were all bestowed upon him. This cure failing,
a
"medicine-feast" was tried; then several dances in succession.
As the patient remained as crazy as before, preparations were
begun for a grand dance, more potent than all the rest. Bré-
beuf says that except the masquerades of the Carnival among
Christians, he never saw a folly equal to it. "Some," he adds,
"had sacks over their heads, with two holes for the eyes. Sonne
were as naked as your hand, with horns or feathers on their
heads, their bodies painted white, and their faces black as devills.
Others were daubed with red, black, and white. In short, every
## p. 11107 (#323) ##########################################
FRANCIS PARKMAN
11107
>>>
one decked himself as extravagantly as he could, to dance in this
ballet, and contribute something towards the health of the sick
man. This remedy also failing, a crowning effort of the medi-
cal art was essayed. Brébeuf does not describe it,-for fear, as
he says, of being tedious; but for the time, the village was a
pandemonium. This, with other ceremonies, was supposed to be
ordered by a certain image like a doll, which a sorcerer placed
in his tobacco-pouch, whence it uttered its oracles, at the same
time moving as if alive. "Truly," writes Brébeuf, "here is non-
sense enough; but I greatly fear there is something more dark
and mysterious in it. "
But all these ceremonies were outdone by the grand festival
of the Ononhara, or Dream Feast,-esteemed the most powerful
remedy in cases of sickness, or when a village was infested with
evil spirits. The time and manner of holding it were determined
at a solemn council. This scene of madness began at night. Men,
women, and children, all pretending to have lost their senses,
rushed shrieking and howling from house to house, upsetting
everything in their way, throwing fire-brands, beating those they
met or drenching them with water, and availing themselves of
this time of license to take a safe revenge on any who had ever
offended them. This scene of frenzy continued till daybreak.
No corner of the village was secure from the maniac crew. In
the morning there was a change. They ran from house to house,
accosting the inmates by name, and demanding of each the satis-
faction of some secret want, revealed to the pretended madman
in a dream, but of the nature of which he gave no hint what-
ever. The person addressed thereupon threw to him at random
any article at hand, as a hatchet, a kettle, or a pipe; and the
applicant continued his rounds till the desired gift was hit upon,
when he gave an outcry of delight, echoed by gratulatory cries
from all present. If, after all his efforts, he failed in obtaining
the object of his dream, he fell into a deep dejection, convinced
that some disaster was in store for him.
The approach of summer brought with it a comparative peace.
Many of the villagers dispersed,- some to their fishing, some
to expeditions of trade, and some to distant lodges by their
detached cornfields. The priests availed themselves of the res-
pite to engage in those exercises of private devotion which the
rule of St. Ignatius enjoins. About midsummer, however, their
quiet was suddenly broken. The crops were withering under a
severe drought, a calamity which the sandy nature of the soil
## p. 11108 (#324) ##########################################
11108
FRANCIS PARKMAN
made doubly serious. The sorcerers put forth their utmost power,
and from the tops of the houses yelled incessant invocations to
the spirits. All was in vain: the pitiless sky was cloudless
There was thunder in the east and thunder in the west; but
over Ihonatiria all was serene. A renowned "rain-maker," see-
ing his reputation tottering under his repeated failures, bethought
him of accusing the Jesuits, and gave out that the red color
of the cross which stood before their house scared the bird of
thunder, and caused him to fly another way. On this a clamor
arose. The popular ire turned against the priests, and the ob-
noxious cross was condemned to be hewn down. Aghast at the
threatened sacrilege, they attempted to reason away the storm,
assuring the crowd that the lightning was not a bird, but certain
hot and fiery exhalations, which, being imprisoned, darted this
way and that, trying to escape. As this philosophy failed to con-
vince the hearers, the missionaries changed their line of defense.
"You say that the red color of the cross frightens the bird of
thunder. Then paint the cross white, and see if the thunder will
come. "
This was accordingly done; but the clouds still kept aloof.
The Jesuits followed up their advantage.
"Your spirits cannot help you, and your sorcerers have de-
ceived you with lies. Now ask the aid of Him who made the
world, and perhaps he will listen to your prayers. " And they
added that if the Indians would renounce their sins and obey
the true God, they would make a procession daily to implore
his favor towards them.
There was no want of promises. The processions were begun,
as were also nine masses to St. Joseph; and as heavy rains
occurred soon after, the Indians conceived a high idea of the
efficacy of the French "medicine. "
In spite of the hostility of the sorcerers, and the transient
commotion raised by the red cross, the Jesuits had gained the
confidence and good-will of the Huron population. Their patience,
their kindness, their intrepidity, their manifest disinterestedness,
the blamelessness of their lives, and the tact which, in the utmost
fervors of their zeal, never failed them, had won the hearts of
these wayward savages; and chiefs of distant villages came to
urge that they would make their abode with them. As yet, the
results of the mission had been faint and few; but the priests
toiled on courageously, high in hope that an abundant harvest of
souls would one day reward their labors.
## p. 11109 (#325) ##########################################
FRANCIS PARKMAN
11109
THE BATTLE OF THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM
Re-
From Montcalm and Wolfe. ' Copyright 1884, by Francis Parkman.
printed by permission of the Parkman Estate, and of Little, Brown
& Co. , publishers.
THE
HE day broke in clouds and threatening rain. Wolfe's bat-
talions were drawn up along the crest of the heights. No
enemy was in sight, though a body of Canadians had sallied
from the town and moved along the strand towards the landing-
place, whence they were quickly driven back. He had achieved
the most critical part of his enterprise; yet the success that he
coveted placed him in imminent danger. On one side was the
garrison of Quebec and the army of Beauport, and Bougainville
was on the other. Wolfe's alternative was victory or ruin; for if
he should be overwhelmed by a combined attack, retreat would
be hopeless. His feelings no man can know; but it would be
safe to say that hesitation or doubt had no part in them.
He went to reconnoitre the ground, and soon came to the
Plains of Abraham; so called from Abraham Martin, a pilot
known as Maître Abraham, who had owned a piece of land here
in the early times of the colony. The Plains were a tract of
grass, tolerably level in most parts, patched here and there with
cornfields, studded with clumps of bushes, and forming a part of
the high plateau at the eastern end of which Quebec stood. On
the south it was bounded by the declivities along the St. Law.
rence; on the north, by those along the St. Charles, or rather
along the meadows through which that lazy stream crawled like
a writhing snake. At the place that Wolfe chose for his battle-
field the plateau was less than a mile wide.
Montcalm had passed a troubled night. Through all the
evening the cannon bellowed from the ships of Saunders, and
the boats of the fleet hovered in the dusk off the Beauport
shore, threatening every moment to land. Troops lined the in-
trenchments till day, while the General walked the field that
adjoined his headquarters till one in the morning, accompanied
by the Chevalier Johnstone and Colonel Poulariez.
says that he was in great agitation, and took no rest all night.
At daybreak he heard the sound of cannon above the town.
It was the battery at Samos firing on the English ships. He
had sent an officer to the quarters of Vaudreuil, which were
much nearer Quebec, with orders to bring him word at once
Johnstone
•
## p. 11110 (#326) ##########################################
III10
FRANCIS PARKMAN
should anything unusual happen. But no word came, and about
six o'clock he mounted and rode thither with Johnstone. As
they advanced, the country behind the town opened more and
more upon their sight; till at length, when opposite Vaudreuil's
house, they saw across the St. Charles, some two miles away,
the red ranks of British soldiers on the heights beyond.
"This is a serious business," Montcalm said; and sent off
Johnstone at full gallop to bring up the troops from the centre
and left of the camp. Those of the right were in motion already,
doubtless by the governor's order. Vaudreuil came out of the
house. Montcalm stopped for a few words with him; then set
spurs to his horse, and rode over the bridge of the St. Charles
to the scene of danger. He rode with a fixed look, uttering not
a word.
The army followed in such order as it might, crossed the
bridge in hot haste, passed under the northern rampart of Que-
bec, entered at the Palace Gate, and pressed on in headlong
march along the quaint narrow streets of the warlike town:
troops of Indians in scalp-locks and war-paint, a savage glitter in
their deep-set eyes; bands of Canadians whose all was at stake,
faith, country, and home; the colony regulars; the battalions of
Old France, a torrent of white uniforms and gleaming bayonets,
-La Sarre, Languedoc, Roussillon, Béarn,-victors of Oswego,
William Henry, and Ticonderoga. So they swept on, poured out
upon the plain, some by the gate of St. Louis and some by that
of St. John, and hurried, breathless, to where the banners of
Guienne still fluttered on the ridge.
-
Montcalm was amazed at what he saw. He had expected a
detachment, and he found an army. Full in sight before him
stretched the lines of Wolfe: the close ranks of the English
infantry, a silent wall of red, and the wild array of the High-
landers, with their waving tartans, and bagpipes screaming defi-
ance. Vaudreuil had not come; but not the less was felt the
evil of a divided authority and the jealousy of the rival chiefs.
Montcalm waited long for the forces he had ordered to join
him from the left wing of the army. He waited in vain. It
is said that the governor had detained them, lest the English
should attack the Beauport shore. Even if they did so, and suc-
ceeded, the French might defy them, could they but put Wolfe
to rout on the Plains of Abraham. Neither did the garrison of
Quebec come to the aid of Montcalm.
He sent to Ramesay, its
## p. 11111 (#327) ##########################################
FRANCIS PARKMAN
IIIII
•
commander, for twenty-five field-pieces which were on the Pal-
ace battery. Ramesay would give him only three, saying that
he wanted them for his own defense. There were orders and
counter-orders; misunderstanding, haste, delay, perplexity.
Montcalm and his chief officers held a council of war. It is
said that he and they alike were for immediate attack. His ene-
mies declare that he was afraid lest Vaudreuil should arrive
and take command; but the governor was not a man to assume
responsibility at such a crisis. Others say that his impetuosity
overcame his better judgment; and of this charge it is hard to
acquit him. Bougainville was but a few miles distant, and some
of his troops were much nearer; a messenger sent by way of Old
Lorette could have reached him in an hour and a half at most,
and a combined attack in front and rear might have been con-
certed with him. If, moreover, Montcalm could have come to an
understanding with Vaudreuil, his own force might have been
strengthened by two or three thousand additional men from the
town and the camp of Beauport; but he felt that there was no
time to lose: for he imagined that Wolfe would soon be rein-
forced - which was impossible; and he believed that the English
were fortifying themselves which was no less an error. He has
been blamed not only for fighting too soon, but for fighting at
all. In this he could not choose. Fight he must, for Wolfe was
now in a position to cut off all his supplies. His men were full
of ardor, and he resolved to attack before their ardor cooled. He
spoke a few words to them in his keen, vehement way. << I
remember very well how he looked," one of the Canadians, then
a boy of eighteen, used to say in his old age: "he rode a black
or dark-bay horse along the front of our lines, brandishing his
sword, as if to excite us to do our duty. He wore a coat with
wide sleeves, which fell back as he raised his arm, and showed
the white linen of the wristband. "
-
The English waited the result with a composure which if
not quite real, was at least well feigned. The three field-pieces
sent by Ramesay plied them with canister-shot, and fifteen hun-
dred Canadians and Indians fusilladed them in front and flank.
Over all the plain, from behind bushes and knolls and the edge
of cornfields, puffs of smoke sprang incessantly from the guns of
these hidden marksmen. Skirmishers were thrown out before the
lines to hold them in check, and the soldiers were ordered to lie
on the grass to avoid the shot. The firing was liveliest on the
## p. 11112 (#328) ##########################################
11112
FRANCIS PARKMAN
English left, where bands of sharpshooters got under the edge of
the declivity, among thickets, and behind scattered houses, whence
they killed and wounded a considerable number of Townshend's
men. The light infantry were called up from the rear. The
houses were taken and retaken, and one or more of them was
burned.
Wolfe was everywhere. How cool he was, and why his fol-
lowers loved him, is shown by an incident that happened in the
course of the morning. One of his captains was shot through
the lungs; and on recovering consciousness he saw the General
standing at his side. Wolfe pressed his hand, told him not to
despair, praised his services, promised him early promotion, and
sent an aide-de-camp to Monckton to beg that officer to keep the
promise if he himself should fall.
It was towards ten o'clock when, from the high ground on
the right of the line, Wolfe saw that the crisis was near. The
French on the ridge had formed themselves into three bodies,
regulars in the centre, regulars and Canadians on right and left.
Two field-pieces, which had been dragged up the heights at Anse
du Foulon, fired on them with grape-shot, and the troops, rising
from the ground, prepared to receive them. In a few moments
more they were in motion. They came on rapidly, uttering loud
shouts, and firing as soon as they were within range. Their
ranks, ill ordered at the best, were further confused by a number
of Canadians who had been mixed among the regulars, and who,
after hastily firing, threw themselves on the ground to reload.
The British advanced a few rods; then halted and stood still.
When the French were within forty paces the word of command
rang out, and a crash of musketry answered all along the line.
The volley was delivered with remarkable precision. In the bat-
talions of the centre, which had suffered least from the enemy's
bullets, the simultaneous explosion was afterwards said by French
officers to have sounded like a cannon-shot.
Another volley fol-
lowed, and then a furious clattering fire that lasted but a minute.
or two. When the smoke rose, a miserable sight was revealed:
the ground cumbered with dead and wounded, the advancing
masses stopped short and turned into a frantic mob, shouting,
cursing, gesticulating.
The order was given to charge. Then
over the field rose the British cheer, mixed with the fierce yell
of the Highland slogan. Some of the corps pushed forward with
the bayonet; some advanced firing. The clansmen drew their
## p. 11113 (#329) ##########################################
FRANCIS PARKMAN
11113
He
broadswords and dashed on, keen and swift as bloodhounds. At
the English right, though the attacking column was broken to
pieces, a fire was still kept up, chiefly, it seems, by sharpshooters
from the bushes and cornfields, where they had lain for an hour
or more. Here Wolfe himself led the charge, at the head of the
Louisbourg grenadiers. A shot shattered his wrist. He wrapped
his handkerchief about it and kept on. Another shot struck him,
and he still advanced, when a third lodged in his breast.
staggered, and sat on the ground. Lieutenant Brown of the
grenadiers, one Henderson, a volunteer in the same company, and
a private soldier, aided by an officer of artillery who ran to join
them, carried him in their arms to the rear. He begged them to
lay him down. They did so, and asked if he would have a sur-
geon. There's no need," he answered: "it's all over with me. "
A moment after, one of them cried out, "They run; see how
they run! " "Who run? " Wolfe demanded, like a man roused
from sleep. The enemy, sir. Egad, they give way everywhere! "
"Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton," returned the dying man;
"tell him to march Webb's regiment down to Charles River, to
cut off their retreat from the bridge. " Then, turning on his
side, he murmured, "Now, God be praised, I will die in peace! "
and in a few moments his gallant soul had fled.
«<
«<
Montcalm, still on horseback, was borne with the tide of fugi-
tives towards the town. As he approached the walls a shot
passed through his body. He kept his seat; two soldiers sup-
ported him, one on each side, and led his horse through the
St. Louis Gate. On the open space within, among the excited
crowd, were several women, drawn, no doubt, by eagerness to
know the result of the fight. One of them recognized him,
saw the streaming blood, and shrieked, "O mon Dieu! mon Dieu!
Le Marquise est tué! " "It's nothing, it's nothing," replied the
death-stricken man: "don't be troubled for me, my good friends. "
("Ce n'est rien, ce n'est rien: ne vous affligez pas pour moi, mes
bonnes amies. ")
## p. 11114 (#330) ##########################################
11114
PARMENIDES
(520? -450? B. C. )
Sear
ARMENIDES, son of Pyrrhes, and the most famous of the Eleatic
philosophers, was born at Elea, in Southern Italy, about 520
B. C. Of his personal history little is known: merely that
he took an active part in the politics of his native city, drawing up
for it a code of laws to which the Eleans every year swore to con-
form; and that late in life, about 454 B. C. , he made a visit to Athens
in company with his pupil Zeno, and there made the acquaintance
of Socrates, then a very young man (see Plato, 'Parmenides,' 127,
A, B; 'Sophist,' 217, C; 'Theætetus, 183, E). He seems to have been
acquainted with the thought of the Ionian philosophers, especially
of Anaximander and Heraclitus, but to have been more deeply in-
fluenced by Pythagoras and Xenophanes. He numbered among his
friends Empedocles and Leucippus, and taught Melissus and Zeno.
His only written work was a poem 'On Nature,' of which consider-
able fragments remain. These have several times been collected.
The best editions of them are those by Karsten (1835), and by Stein
in 'Symbola Philologorum Bonnensium' (1864-7), pages 763-806. There
is a complete English translation of them in hexameters by Thomas
Davidson in Vol. iv. of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, pages
1-16.
With the exception of Heraclitus, Parmenides is the greatest of
the pre-Socratic Greek thinkers. His importance consists chiefly in
the fact that he was the first person to distinguish between the Ideal
and the Real; between Being, eternal, unchangeable, and the subject
of science, and Becoming, transient, changeable, and mere matter of
opinion. Being he identifies with thought; and Becoming with sensa-
tion. He is thus the prime author of that dualism which runs through
all subsequent Greek thinking, and which logically leads to asceticism.
in life and absolutism in politics. The resemblance of his philosophy
to certain Hindu systems has induced some writers-e. g. , Gladisch
in his 'Die Eleaten und die Indier' (Posen, 1844)—to connect it with
these; but it is in fact due to a combination of the Pythagorean
principle of number with the Ionic notion of process. It led the way
to the universal subjectivism of the Sophists.
## p. 11115 (#331) ##########################################
PARMENIDES
INTRODUCTION OF THE POEM ON NATURE
11115
SOON
SOON as the coursers that bear me and draw me as far as extend-
eth
Impulse, guided and threw me aloft in the glorious pathway,
Up to the goddess that guideth through all things man that is con-
scious,
There was I carried along, for there did the coursers sagacious,
Drawing the chariot, bear me, and virgins preceded to guide them-
Daughters of Helios, leaving behind them the mansions of darkness —
Into the light, with their strong hands forcing asunder the night-
shrouds,
While in its sockets the axle emitted the sound of a syrinx,
Glowing, for still it was urged by a couple of wheels well-rounded,
One upon this side, one upon that, when it hastened its motion.
There were the gates of the paths of the Night and the paths of the
Day-time.
Under the gates is a threshold of stone, and above is a lintel.
These too are closed in the ether with great doors guarded by Just-
ice-
Justice the mighty avenger, that keepeth the keys of requital.
Her did the virgins address, and with soft words deftly persuaded,
Swiftly for them to withdraw from the gates the bolts and its fast-
ener.
Opening wide, they uncovered the yawning expanse of the portal,
Backward rolling successive the hinges of brass their sockets,-
Hinges constructed with nails and with clasps; then onward the vir-
gins
Straightway guided their steeds and their chariot over the highway.
Then did the goddess receive me with gladness, and taking my right
hand
Into her own, thus uttered a word and kindly bespake me:-
"Youth that art mated with charioteers and companions immortal,
Coming to us on the coursers that bear thee, to visit our mansion,
Hail! for it is not an evil Award that hath guided thee hither
Into this path,— for, I ween, it is far from the pathway of mortals,-
Nay, it is Justice and Right. Thou needs must have knowledge of
all things:
First of the Truth's unwavering heart that is fraught with conviction,
Then of the notions of mortals, where no true conviction abideth;
But thou shalt surely be taught this too,- that every opinion
Needs must pass through the ALL, and vanquish the test with approval. "
Translation of Thomas Davidson.
## p. 11116 (#332) ##########################################
11116
PARMENIDES
THOUGHT AND EXISTENCE
ONE
NE and the same are thought and that whereby there is think-
ing;
Never apart from existence, wherein it receiveth expression,
Shalt thou discover the action of thinking; for naught is or shall be
Other besides or beyond the Existent; for Fate hath determined
That to be lonely and moveless, which all things are but a name
for,-
Things that men have set up for themselves, believing as real,-
Birth and decay, becoming and ceasing, to be and to not-be,
Movement from place to place, and change from color to color.
But since the uttermost limit of Being is ended and perfect,
Then it is like to the bulk of a sphere well rounded on all sides,
Everywhere distant alike from the centre: for never there can be
Anything greater or anything less, on this side or that side;
Yea, there is neither a non-existent to bar it from coming
Into equality, neither can Being be different from Being,
More of it here, less there, for the All is inviolate ever.
Therefore, I ween, it lies equally stretched in its limits on all sides.
Translation of Thomas Davidson.
KOSMOS
TH
HEN thou shalt know the ethereal nature and each of its tokens
Each of the signs in the ether, and all the invisible workings
Wrought by the blemishless sun's pure lamp, and whence they
have risen;
Then thou shalt hear of the orb-eyed moon's circumambient work-
ings,
And of her nature, and likewise discern the heaven that surrounds
them,
Whence it arose, and how by her sway Necessity bound it
Firm, to encircle the bounds of the stars.
Translation of Thomas Davidson.
[These three passages are reprinted by permission from the Journal of
Speculative Philosophy, Vol. iv. ]
## p. 11117 (#333) ##########################################
11117
-
THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS
(1819-1892)
HE poetry of Thomas W. Parsons has in its best examples a
classic perfection conjoined with a deep feeling, which gives
it distinction. He was a scholar who worked with a cer-
tain austerity and aloofness, yet with an underlying perception of
humor which saved his work from flatness or turgidity even when it
did not appear on the surface. Dr. Parsons was thoroughly impreg-
nated with Dante and the influence of Italian literature. Literature
indeed, in this aspect of it, was to him a vocation and a passion.
He served the Muse with a full sense of the sacredness of song.
He was born in Boston, August 18th, 1819; was the son of a physi-
cian of that city, and was destined for the same profession,— taking
a degree at the Harvard Medical School, and for some time prac-
ticing dentistry. Boston was his home when he was in the United
States; but he traveled and resided much abroad. In his leisure
hours he wrote his verses and worked on his English renderings of
the master poet of Italy. So early as 1843 he published a translation
of the first ten cantos of the 'Inferno,' and a revision with seven
more cantos followed in 1867. He made a version of the great epic
a life labor, the translation in its final form appearing in 1893.
(
Dr. Parsons was never eager for publication, and some of his vol-
umes of verse were printed privately for circulation among friends.
Several collections of his poems were published: one entitled 'Ghetto
di Roma' in 1854, The Magnolia' in 1867, The Shadow of the Obe-
lisk' in 1872, Circum Præcorda' in 1892; and a final selection in
1893, after his death. This last book contains-excepting his trans-
lation of Dante- the bulk of the work his admirers would wish to
see preserved. There are lyrics in this volume as perfect in their
kind as anything done by a contemporaneous poet.
The opening
poem, On a Bust of Dante,' is as noble a tribute as the Italian has
received in our tongue. Many lines and passages in the different
lyrics have a quotableness which means fine thought married to fit
expression. In the tribute to Daniel Webster, for example, occurs the
stanza:
"Kings have their dynasties, but not the mind:
Cæsars leave other Cæsars to succeed;
But Wisdom dying, leaves no heir behind. "
## p. 11118 (#334) ##########################################
11118
THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS
And the poem closes with these lovely words:-
"We have no high cathedral for his rest,
Dim with proud banners and the dust of years;
All we can give him is New England's breast
To lay his head on- and his country's tears. "
There is something inevitable in the perfection of this, from 'The
Birthday of Robert Burns': —
"For flowers will grow, and showers will fall,
And clouds will travel o'er the sky;
And the great God who cares for all,
He will not let his darlings die. "
The man who can strike out things like these - and he wrote
whole poems which keep this level-deserves, and doubtless will get,
permanent recognition as a lyric singer. Parsons's range is not wide,
nor is his accomplishment varied. But in his individual way and
within his compass, he struck a very pure, fine note, which will give
lasting pleasure.
Dr. Parsons died at Scituate, Massachusetts, September 3d, 1892.
[The following selections are all made from the 'Poems of Thomas William
Parsons. Copyright 1893, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. ]
MARY BOOTH
shall we do now, Mary being dead,
Or say or write that shall express the half?
What can we do but pillow that fair head,
And let the Springtime write her epitaph? —
WHAT
As it will soon, in snowdrop, violet,
Wind-flower and columbine and maiden's-tear;
Each letter of that pretty alphabet
That spells in flowers the pageant of the year.
She was a maiden for a man to love;
She was a woman for a husband's life;
One that has learned to value, far above
The name of love, the sacred name of wife.
Her little life-dream, rounded so with sleep,
Had all there is of life, except gray hairs:
Hope, love, trust, passion and devotion deep;
And that mysterious tie a mother bears.
## p. 11119 (#335) ##########################################
THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS
11119
She hath fulfilled her promise and hath passed:
Set her down gently at the iron door!
Eyes look on that loved image for the last:
Now cover it in earth- her earth no more.
A DIRGE
LOWLY tread and gently bear
One that comes across the wave,
From the oppression of his care,
To the freedom of the grave;
S
From the merciless disease,
Wearing body, wasting brain,
To the rest beneath the trees,-
The forgetting of all pain;
From the delicate eye and ear,
To the rest that shall not see
To the sleep that shall not hear
Nor feel, the world's vulgarity.
Bear him, in his leaden shroud,
In his pall of foreign oak,
To the uncomplaining crowd
Where ill word was never spoke.
from life's broken sleep-
Dreams of pleasure, dreams of pain,
Hopes that tremble, joys that weep,
Loves that perish, visions vain
Bear
To the beautiful repose
Where he was before his birth;
With the ruby, with the rose,
With the harvest, earth in earth!
Bring him to the body's rest,
After battle, sorely spent,
Wounded, but a welcome guest
In the Chief's triumphal tent.
## p. 11120 (#336) ##########################################
11120
THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS
EPITAPH ON A CHILD
HIS little seed of life and love
Just lent us for a day,
Came like a blessing from above,—
Passed like a dream away.
THIS
And when we garnered in the earth
The foison that was ours,
We felt that burial was but birth
To spirits, as to flowers.
And still that benediction stays,
Although its angel passed;
Dear God! thy ways, if bitter ways,
We learn to love at last.
But for the dream,-it broke indeed,
Yet still great comfort gives:
What was a dream is now our creed,-
We know our darling lives.
S
TO FRANCESCA
ING Waller's lay,
"Go, lovely rose," or some old song,
That should I play
Feebly, thy voice may make me strong
With loving memories cherished long.
Sing "Drink to me,"
Or "Take, oh take those lips away;'
Some strain to be-
When I am gone and thou art gray-
Remembered of a happier day.
-
A solemn air,
A melody not loud but low,
Suits whitening hair;
And when the pulse is beating slow,
The music's measure should move so.
The song most sweet
Is that which lulls, not thrills, the ear;
So, love, repeat
For one who counteth silence dear,
That which to silence is most near.
## p. 11121 (#337) ##########################################
THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS
III2I
XIX-696
PILGRIM'S ISLE
HERE fell a charm upon the deep,
A spell upon the silent shore;
The boats, like lily-pads asleep,
Lay round me upon ocean's floor.
THE
O weary world of noise and strife!
O cities full of gold and guile!
How small a part ye make of life
To one that walks on Pilgrim's Isle!
I watched the Gurnet's double star,
Like Jove and Venus side by side,
And on the smooth waves gleaming far
Beheld its long reflection ride.
My days of youth are almost flown,
And yet, upon a night like this,
Love will not let my heart alone;
Back comes the well-remembered bliss.
Oft in thy golden locks a gleam
Of other days illumes my brain,
And in thy hand's soft touch I seem
To feel my boyhood born again.
Ah, dearest, all will soon be o'er!
I see my sunset in thy smile;
It lingers longest on the shore,
Th' enchanted shore, of Pilgrim's Isle.
PARADISI GLORIA
"O frate mio! ciascuna e cittadina
D'una vera città — »
THE
HERE is a city, builded by no hand,
And unapproachable by sea or shore,
And unassailable by any band
Of storming soldiery for evermore.
There we no longer shall divide our time
By acts or pleasures,― doing petty things
Of work or warfare, merchandise or rhyme;
But we shall sit beside the silver springs
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III22
THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS
That flow from God's own footstool, and behold
Sages and martyrs, and those blessed few
Who loved us once and were beloved of old,
To dwell with them and walk with them anew,
In alternations of sublime repose,
Musical motion, the perpetual play
Of every faculty that Heaven bestows,
Through the bright, busy, and eternal day.
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11123
JAMES PARTON
(1822-1891)
AMES PARTON, though in thought and feeling an American of
the Americans, was born in Canterbury, England, February
9th, 1822; coming to New York with his widowed mother
when he was about five years old. He went to a classical school in
Westchester County, New York, passed some years in Europe, and
then set up a school of his own in Philadelphia. He had a passion.
for Greek, and when he was a lad urged his mother to let him be-
come a barber, that he might have time enough between customers
to study the language: but Willis, whom he
knew, had set the fashion of being liter-
ary, and Parton followed it by contribut-
ing to the Home Journal; becoming in time
assistant editor of that paper, and marry-
ing "Fanny Fern" (Sara Payson Willis
Eldridge), Willis's sister.
JAMES PARTON
His first book, a 'Life of Horace Gree-
ley,' appeared in 1855. He had spent infi-
nite pains upon it, and had chosen a typical
American for his subject, with the result of
producing the portrait of a living man; not
a eulogy nor an invective, but a picture,
vivid, entertaining, abounding in anecdote.
The book made, as Greeley described it,
"mighty interesting reading," and it sold at the rate of thirty thou-
sand copies in the first year or two. After this we hear no more
of Greek. In a few years Parton had become one of the best-known
writers in America; the most eminent example, perhaps, of what can
be attained in letters with an innate love of literature, adaptability,
inexhaustible industry, and a painter's eye to effect. Always a de-
scriptive writer rather than a deep-searching historian, he could draw
most impressive pictures, brilliant in coloring and dramatic in set-
ting, while no man better knew the journalist's business of striking
while the iron was hot; sending in his lives and biographies when
the public demanded them. At the same time he had, in common
with Hazlitt and De Quincey, the fashion of defending the under
dog, who never wanted a friend when Parton was present: not for
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11124
JAMES PARTON
the reason that incited Hazlitt, because he was combative, but from
a love of fair play and a natural independence; and perhaps because
the advocate was first of all a journalist, inspired with the journal-
ist's curiosity to see both sides.
He held the theory that it is the good in a man that goes astray,
and that ought to alarm and warn his fellows; and that vice, after
all, is an excess of a virtue. With none of the pugnacity of a parti-
san, he shows a certain adroitness in confessing the weaknesses of
his heroes, that makes a direct appeal to the generosity of the reader.
Moreover, by taking the stand that all religions are of human origin,
and that the religion of the future will be founded on the love of
man for man, without regard to prevailing theologic conceptions of
the Deity, he wrote in a comfortable and tolerant state of philosophic
skepticism. With these qualities and characteristics, with enormous
powers of industry and application, he sent out from his study a long
list of books, which became the most popular series of biographies in
America.
The life of Greeley was followed three years later by that of
Aaron Burr. In this book Parton chose the period most interesting
in the history of the United States,-that after the Revolution. Old
things had passed away; the conquering Democratic party had arisen;
the States had become America, and the strange contradictory figure
who had helped to make them so had passed by, rising in glory and
setting in mysterious gloom. This life of Burr, vivid, picturesque,
and swift-moving, is as entertaining to-day as when it appeared in
1858.
His 'Jefferson' and 'Andrew Jackson' are in a way quite as inter-
esting, although the task of writing them was perhaps not so congen-
ial; for Parton, heart and soul a Democrat, had no occasion to use
therein that peculiar talent for defense which is so conspicuous in
his lives of Burr and Voltaire. Both the 'Jefferson' and 'Jackson,'
though pieces of special pleading, have the picturesqueness and event-
fulness of well-constructed fiction, while they are never consciously
untrue to fact. Their chief value, however, lies less perhaps in
their literary quality, or in their erudition, than in their contribution
of much curious information and personal anecdote gathered from
out-of-the-way sources, and put before the reader in an entertaining
form. No man was ever freer from what Macaulay calls the "disease
of admiration"; but on the other hand, none knew better how not to
belittle great deeds and noble aspirations. His respect for success
never chilled his sympathy with failure, and he had an instinct for
discerning the causes of both failure and success.
In 1877 appeared his 'Caricature and other Comic Art,' a book
showing much study, keen humor, and the historic sense. Indeed, the
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JAMES PARTON
11125
book, though seeming to exhibit a deviation from his familiar path,
is really a contribution to political history.
In 1881 appeared Parton's life of Voltaire, on which he had spent
more than twenty years of study. His admiration for his hero was
unbounded; and his accumulation of facts, anecdotes, and letters
throwing light upon the time is amazing. It is true that Parton
had reasoned out no philosophy of history that prompted him to
portray a system of morals or politics. He did not concern himself
with theories of objective or subjective influences. Yet whatever this
biography may lack, it remains, as an eminent English critic has
declared, a genuine life of Voltaire, and not a critique upon his
life and character like the works of Strauss and Morley. It is a
life which makes the English and American public for the first time
acquainted with the great Frenchman, somewhat in the same sense
in which they have long been acquainted with Johnson or Scott.
This book, a labor of love, was Parton's last serious production, though
his busy pen was never laid aside during his lifetime; and his name
appears on the title-page of several compilations, collections of brief
biographies, and essays. He died at Newburyport, Massachusetts,
October 16th, 1891.
FROM THE LIFE OF ANDREW JACKSON ›
Copyright 1860, by Mason Brothers. Reprinted here with the approval of
Houghton, Mifflin and Co. , publishers
HERE are certain historical facts which puzzle and disgust
those whose knowledge of life and men has been chiefly
derived from books. To such it can with difficulty be made
clear that the award is just which assigns to George Washington
a higher place than Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson,-
higher honor to the executing hand than to the conceiving head.
If they were asked to mention the greatest Englishman of this
age, it would never occur to them to name the Duke of Well-
ington, a man of an understanding so limited as to be the nat-
ural foe of everything liberal and progressive. Yet the Duke of
Wellington was the only Englishman of his generation to whom
every Englishman took off his hat. And these men of books
contemplate with mere wonder the fact that during a period
when Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Wirt, and Preston were on the
public stage, Andrew Jackson should have been so much the idol
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JAMES PARTON
of the American people, that all those eminent men united could
not prevail against him in a single instance.
It is pleasant to justify the ways of man to man. The in-
stinctive preferences of the people must be right. That is to
say, the man preferred by the people must have more in him of
what the people most want than any other of his generation.
The more intimately we know the men who surrounded General
Washington, the clearer to us does his intrinsic superiority be-
come, and the more clearly we perceive his utter indispensable-
ness. Washington was the only man of the Revolution who did
for the Revolution what no other man could have done. And if
ever the time comes when the eminent contemporaries of Andrew
Jackson shall be as intimately known to the people as Andrew
Jackson now is, the invincible preference of the people for him
will be far less astonishing than it now appears.
