the huge buttressed trunks of the southern cypress, the gray
Spanish moss drooping from every bough and twig, wrap-
ping its victims like a drapery of tattered cobwebs, and
slowly draining away their life ; for even plants devour each
other, and play their silent parts in the universal tragedy of
nature." — "Here the self -exiled company were soon besieged
by the rigors of the Canadian winter. The rocks, the shores,
the pine trees, the solid floor of the frozen river, all alike
were blanketed in snow, beneath the keen cold rays of the
dazzling sun." — "They glided calmly down the tranquil
stream. At night, the bivouac, — the canoes inverted on
the bank, the flickering fire, the meal of bison flesh or veni-
son, the evening pipes, and slumber beneath the stars; and
when in the morning they embarked again, the mist hung
on the river like a bridal veil ; then melted before the sun,
till the glassy water and the languid woods basked breathless
in the sultry glare."
To the study of human character and motives, Parkman was drawn from his youth, and his pages are filled with sketches and portraits, into the composition of which went not only general knowledge of human nature, but intimate knowledge of the individual obtained by entering into his life and looking out upon the world with his eyes. That he achieved high success in delineating types of character and ideals far different from his own is evinced by the number of French Canadian scholars and Catholics that he numbered among his friends and admirers. Not that they were wholly satisfied with the story of the long effort to plant a new France in North America, orthodox and loyal, that came from the clear-headed New Englander, the Puritan rational- ist and aristocratic republican, for types of men so divergent cannot write each other's history altogether acceptably ; but to win each other's respect and to spur each other on in the noble race for truth was no mean achievement.
In England Parkman is not infrequently accorded the first place among American historical writers for his rare combi- nation of exact research with a narrative style so full of life
