CHAPTER VIN MID CAREER

"I have worked lazily enough, or rather have been too busy to work at all. Ended the old year very badly.""I find it as hard to get under way, as a crazy hulk that has been boarded up for repairs."

"I have worked lazily enough, or rather have been too busy to work at all. Ended the old year very badly."

"I find it as hard to get under way, as a crazy hulk that has been boarded up for repairs."

How thoroughly he conquered this repugnance to hard work is illustrated by a pathetic incident which happened once when he was engaged upon a bit of writing that interested him, but when he was prevented by rheumatic pains from sitting upright. Prescott then placed his noctograph upon the floor and lay down flat beside it, writing in this attitude for many hours on nine consecutive days rather than give in.

He tried some curious devices to penalise himself for laziness. He used to persuade his friends to make bets with him that he would not complete certain portions of writing within a given time. This sort of thing was a good deal of a make-believe, for Prescott cared nothing about money and had plenty of it at his disposal; and when his friends lost, he never permitted them to pay. He did a like thing on a larger scale and in a somewhat different way by giving a bond to his secretary, Mr. English, binding himself to pay a thousand dollars if within one year from September, 1828, Prescott should not have written two hundred and fifty pages ofFerdinand and Isabella. This number of pages was specified, because Prescott dreaded his own instability of purpose, and felt that if he should once get so far as two hundred and fifty pages, he would be certain to go on and finish the entire history. Other wagers or bonds with Mr. English were made by Prescott from time to time, all with the purpose of counteracting his own disposition tofar niente.

His settled mode of life also compelled him in some measure to give up the delights of general social intercourse and the convivial pleasures of which he was naturally fond. There were, indeed, timeswhen he did let his work go and enjoyed a return to a freer life, as when in the country at Pepperell he romped and rollicked like a boy; or when in Boston, he was present at some of the jolly little suppers given by his friends and so much liked by him. But on the whole, neither his health nor the arduous researches which he had undertaken allowed him often to break the regularity of his way of living. Nothing, indeed, testifies more strikingly to his naturally buoyant disposition than the fact that years of unvarying routine were unable to make of Prescott a formalist or to render him less charming as a social favourite. In his study he was conspicuously the scholar, the investigator; elsewhere he was the genial companion, full of fun and jest, telling stories and manifesting that gift of personal attractiveness which compelled all within its range to feel wholly and completely at their ease. No writer was ever less given to literary posing. It is, indeed, an extraordinary fact that although Prescott was occupied for ten whole years in preparing hisFerdinand and Isabella, during all that time not more than three persons outside of his own family knew that he was writing a book. His friends supposed that his hours of seclusion were occupied in general reading and study. Only when a formal announcement of the history was made in theNorth American Reviewin 1837, did even his familiar associates begin to think of him as an author.

The death of Prescott's little daughter, Catherine, in February, 1829, did much to drive him to hard work as a relief from sorrow. She was his first-born child, and when she died, she was a few months over four years of age,—a winsome little creature, uponwhom her father had lavished an unstinted affection. She alone had the privilege of interrupting him during his hours of work. Often she used to climb up to his study and put an end to the most profound researches, greatly, it is recorded, to the delight of his secretary, who thus got a little moment of relief from the deciphering of almost undecipherable scrawls. Her death was sudden, and the shock of it was therefore all the greater. Years afterward, Prescott, in writing to a friend who had suffered a like bereavement, disclosed the depths of his own anguish: "I can never suffer again as I then did. It was my first heavy sorrow, and I suppose we cannot twice feel so bitterly." His labour now took on the character of a solace, and perhaps it was at this time that he formed the opinion which he set down long after: "I am convinced that intellectual occupation—steady, regular, literary occupation—is the true vocation for me, indispensable to my happiness."

And so his preparation forFerdinand and Isabellawent on apace. Prescott no longer thought it enough to master the historians who had already written of this reign. He went back of them to the veryQuellen, having learned that the true historical investigator can afford to slight no possible source of information,—that nothing, good, bad, or indifferent, can safely be neglected. The packets which now reached him from Spain and France grew bulkier and their contents more diversified. Not merely modern tomes, not merely printed books were there, but parchments in quaint and crabbed script, to be laboriously deciphered by his secretary, with masses of black-letter and copies of ancient archives, from which some precious factor chance corroboration might be drawn by inquisitive industry. The sifting out of all this rubbish-heap went on with infinite patience, until at last his notes and memoranda contained the substance of all that was essential.

Prescott had given a bond to Mr. English pledging himself to complete by September, 1829, two hundred and fifty printed pages of the book. Yet it was actually not until this month had ended that the first line was written. On October 6, 1829, after three months devoted to reviewing his notes for the opening chapter, he took his noctograph and scrawled the initial sentence. A whole month was consumed in finishing the chapter, and two months more in writing out the second and the third. From this time a sense of elation filled him, now that all his patient labour was taking concrete form, and there was no more question of putting his task aside. His progress might be, as he called it, "tortoise-like," but he had felt the joy of creation; and the work went on, always with a firmer grasp, a surer sense of form, and the clearer light which comes to an artist as his first vague impressions begin under his hand to take on actuality. There were times when, from illness, he had almost to cease from writing; there were other times when he turned aside from his special studies to accomplish some casual piece of literary work. But these interruptions, while they delayed the accomplishment of his purpose, did not break the current of his interest.

The casual pieces of writing, to which allusion has just been made, were oftenest contributions to theNorth American Review. One of them, however, was somewhat more ambitious than a magazine article.It was a life of Charles Brockden Brown, which Prescott undertook at the request of Jared Sparks, who was editing a series of American biographies. This was in 1834, and the book was written in two weeks at Nahant. It certainly did nothing for Prescott's reputation. What is true of this is true of everything that he wrote outside of his histories. In his essays, and especially in his literary criticisms, he seemed devoid of penetration and of a grasp upon the verities. His style, too, in all such work was formal and inert. He often showed the extent of his reading, but never an intimate feeling for character. He could not get down to the very core of his subject and weigh and judge with the freedom of an independent critic. His life of Brown will be found fully to bear out this view. In it Prescott chooses to condone the worst of Brown's defects, and he gives no intimation of the man's real power. Prescott himself felt that he had been too eulogistic, whereas his greatest fault was that the eulogy was misapplied. Sparks mildly criticised the book for its excess of generalities and its lack of concrete facts.

How thoroughly Prescott prepared himself for the writing of his book reviews may be seen in the fact that, having been asked for a notice of Condé'sHistory of the Arabs in Spain, he spent from three to four months in preliminary reading, and then occupied nearly three months more in writing out the article. In this particular case, however, he felt that the paper represented too much labour to be sent to theNorth American, and therefore it was set aside and ultimately made into a chapter of hisFerdinand and Isabella.

It was on the 25th of June, 1836, that his history was finished, and he at once began to consider the question of its publication. Three years before, he had had the text set up in type so far as it was then completed; and as the work went on, this private printing continued until, soon after he had reached the end, four copies of the book were in his hands. These printed copies had been prepared for several reasons. First of all, the sight of his labour thus taking concrete form was a continual stimulus to him. He was still, so far as the public was concerned, a young author, and he felt all of the young author's joy in contemplating the printed pages of his first real book. In the second place, he wished to make a number of final alterations and corrections; and every writer of experience is aware that the last subtle touches can be given to a book only when it is actually in type, for only then can he see the workmanship as it really is, with its very soul exposed to view, seen as the public will see it, divested of the partial nebulosity which obscures the vision while it still remains in manuscript. Finally, Prescott wished to have a printed copy for submission to the English publishers. It was his earnest hope to have the book appear simultaneously in England and America, since on the other side of the Atlantic, rather than in the United States, were to be found the most competent judges of its worth.

But the search for an English publisher was at first unsuccessful. Murray rejected it without even looking at it. The Longmans had it carefully examined, but decided against accepting it. Prescott was hurt by this rejection, the more so as he thought (quiteincorrectly, as he afterward discovered) that it was Southey who had advised the Longmans not to publish it. The fact was that both of the firms just mentioned had refused it because their lists were then too full to justify them in undertaking a three-volume history. Prescott, for a time, experienced some hesitation in bringing it out at all. He had written on the day of its completion: "I should feel not only no desire, but a reluctance to publish, and should probably keep it by me for emendations and additions, were it not for the belief that the ground would be more or less occupied in the meantime by abler writers." The allusion here is to a history of the Spanish Arabs announced by Southey. But what really spurred Prescott on to give his book to the world was a quiet remark of his father's, in which there was something of a challenge and a taunt. "The man," said he, "who writes a book which he is afraid to publish is a coward." "Coward" was a name which no true Prescott could endure; and so, after some months of negotiation and reflection, an arrangement was made to have the history appear with the imprint of a newly founded publishing house, the American Stationers' Company of Boston, with which Prescott signed a contract in April, 1837. By the terms of this contract Prescott was to furnish the plates and also the engravings for the book, of which the company was to print 1250 copies and to have five years in which to sell them—surely a very modest bargain. But Prescott cared little for financial profits, nor was he wholly sanguine of the book's success. On the day after signing the contract, he wrote: "I must confess I feel some disquietude at the prospect of coming in full bodily presence before the public." Andsomewhat earlier he had written with a curious though genuine humility:—

"What do I expect from it, now it is done? And may it not be all in vain and labour lost, after all? My expectations are not such, if I know myself, as to expose me to any serious disappointment. I do not flatter myself with the idea that I have achieved anything very profound, or, on the other hand, that will be very popular. I know myself too well to suppose the former for a moment. I know the public too well, and the subject I have chosen, to expect the latter. But I have made a book illustrating an unexplored and important period, from authentic materials, obtained with much difficulty, and probably in the possession of no one library, public or private, in Europe. As a plain, veracious record of facts, the work, therefore, till some one else shall be found to make a better one, will fill up a gap in literature which, I should hope, would give it a permanent value,—a value founded on its utility, though bringing no great fame or gain to its author."Come to the worst, and suppose the thing a dead failure, and the book born only to be damned. Still, it will not be all in vain, since it has encouraged me in forming systematic habits of intellectual occupation, and proved to me that my greatest happiness is to be the result of such. It is no little matter to be possessed of this conviction from experience."

"Come to the worst, and suppose the thing a dead failure, and the book born only to be damned. Still, it will not be all in vain, since it has encouraged me in forming systematic habits of intellectual occupation, and proved to me that my greatest happiness is to be the result of such. It is no little matter to be possessed of this conviction from experience."

But Prescott had received encouragement in his moods of doubt from Jared Sparks, at that time one of the most scientific American students of history. Sparks had read the book in one of the first printed copies, and had written to Prescott, in February, 1837: "The book will be successful—bought, read, and praised." And so finally, on Christmas Day of 1837,—though dated 1838 upon the title-page,—theHistory of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabellawas first offered for sale. It was in three volumes of about four hundred pages each, and was dedicated to his father.

Only five hundred copies of the book had been printed as a first edition, and of these only a small number had been bound in readiness for the day of publication. The demand for the book took both author and publishers by surprise. This demand came, first of all, and naturally enough, from Prescott's personal friends. One of these, a gentleman of convivial habits, and by no means given to reading, rose early on Christmas morning and waited outside of the bookshop in order to secure the first copy sold. Literary Boston, which was also fashionable Boston, adopted the book as its favourite New Year's present. The bookbinders could not work fast enough to supply the demand, and in a few months the whole of the 1250 copies, which it had been supposed would last for at least five years, had been sold. Other parts of the country followed Boston's lead. The book was praised by the newspapers and, after a little interval, by the more serious reviews,—theNorth American, theExaminer, and theDemocratic Review, the last of which published an elaborate appreciation by George Bancroft.

Meanwhile, Prescott had succeeded in finding a London publisher; for in May, Mr. Richard Bentley accepted the book, and it soon after appeared in England. To the English criticisms Prescott naturally looked forward with interest and something like anxiety. American approval he might well ascribe to national bias if not to personal friendship. Therefore, the uniformly favourable reviews in his own country could not be accepted by him as definitely fixing the value of what he had accomplished. In a letter to Ticknor, after recounting his first success, he said:—

"'Poor fellow!'—I hear you exclaim by this time,—'his wits are actually turned by this flurry in his native village,—the Yankee Athens.' Not a whit, I assure you. Am I not writing to two dear friends, to whom I can talk as freely and foolishly as to one of my own household, and who, I am sure, will not misunderstand me? The effect of all this—which a boy at Dr. Gardiner's school, I remember, calledfungum popularitatem—has been rather to depress me, and S—— was saying yesterday, that she had never known me so out of spirits as since the book has come out."

What he wanted most was to read a thoroughly impartial estimate written by some foreign scholar of distinction. He had not long to wait. In theAthenœumthere soon appeared a very eulogistic notice, written by Dr. Dunham, an industrious student of Spanish and Portuguese history. Then followed an admirably critical paper in theEdinburgh Reviewby Don Pascual de Gayangos, a distinguished Spanish writer living in England. Highly important among the English criticisms was that which was published in theQuarterly Reviewof June, 1839, from the pen of Richard Ford, a very accurate and critical Spanish scholar. Mr. Ford approached the book with something of themorgueof a true British pundit when dealing with the work of an unknown American;[9]but, none the less, his criticism, in spite of his reluctance to praise, gave Prescott genuine pleasure. Ford found fault with some of the details ofFerdinand and Isabella, yet he was obliged to admit both the sound scholarship and literary merit of the book. On the Continent appeared the most elaborate review of all in a series of five articles written for theBibliothèqueUniverselle de Genève, by the Comte Adolphe de Circourt. The Comte was a friend of Lamartine (who called himla mappemonde vivante des connaissances humaines) and also of Tocqueville and Cavour. Few of his contemporaries possessed so minute a knowledge of the subject which Prescott treated, and of the original sources of information; and the favourably philosophical tone of the whole review was a great compliment to an author hitherto unknown in Europe. Still later, sincere and almost unqualified praise was given by Guizot in France, and by Lockhart, Southey, Hallam, and Milman, in England. Indeed, as Mr. Ticknor says, although these personages had never before heard of Prescott, their spirit was almost as kindly as if it had been due to personal friendship. The long years of discouragement, of endurance, and of patient, arduous toil had at last borne abundant fruit; and from the time of the appearance ofFerdinand and Isabella, Prescott won and held an international reputation, and tasted to the full the sweets of a deserved success.

AFTERthe publication ofFerdinand and Isabella, its author rested on his oars, treating himself to social relaxation and enjoying thoroughly the praise which came to him from every quarter. Of course he had no intention of remaining idle long, but a new subject did not at once present itself so clearly to him as to make his choice of it inevitable. For about eighteen months, therefore, he took his ease. His correspondence, however, shows that he was always thinking of a second venture in the field of historical composition. His old bent for literary history led him to consider the writing of a life of Molière—a book that should be agreeable and popular rather than profound. Yet Spain still kept its hold on his imagination, and even before hisFerdinand and Isabellahad won its sure success, he had written in a letter to Ticknor the following paragraph:—

"My heart is set on a Spanish subject, could I compass the materials: viz. the conquest of Mexico and the anterior civilisation of the Mexicans—a beautiful prose epic, for which rich virgin materials teem in Simancas and Madrid, and probably in Mexico. I would give a couple of thousand dollars that they lay in a certain attic in Bedford Street."

This purpose lingered in his mind all through his holidays, which were, indeed, not wholly given up toidleness, for he listened to a good deal of general reading at this time, most of it by no means of a superficial character. Ever since his little daughter's death, Prescott had felt a peculiar interest in the subject of the immortality of the soul, and had read all of the most serious treatises to be found upon that subject. He had also gone carefully through the Gospels, weighing them with all the acumen which he had brought to bear upon his Castilian chronicles. This investigation, which he had begun with reference to the single question of immortality, broadened out into an examination of the whole evidential basis of orthodox Christianity. In this study he was aided by his father, who brought to it the keen, impartial judgment of an able lawyer. Of the conclusions at which he ultimately arrived, he was not wont to talk except on rare occasions, and his cast of mind was always reverential. He did, however, reject the doctrines of his Puritan ancestors. He held fast to the authenticity of the Gospels, but he found in these no evidence to support the tenets of Calvinism.

Now, in his leisure time, he read over various works of a theological character, and came to the general conclusion that "the study of polemics or Biblical critics will tend neither to settle principles nor clear up doubts, but rather to confuse the former and multiply the latter." Prescott's whole religious creed was, in fact, summed up by himself in these words: "To do well and act justly, to fear and to love God, and to love our neighbour as ourselves—in these is the essence of religion. For what we can believe, we are not responsible, supposing we examine candidly and patiently. For what we do, we shall indeed be accountable.The doctrines of the Saviour unfold the whole code of morals by which our conduct should be regulated. Who, then, whatever difficulties he may meet with in particular incidents and opinions recorded in the Gospels, can hesitate to receive the great religious and moral truths inculcated by the Saviour as the words of inspiration? I cannot, certainly. On these, then, I will rest."

In April, 1838, Prescott took the first step toward beginning a study of the Mexican conquest. He wrote to Madrid in order to discover what materials were available for his proposed researches. At the same time he began collecting such books relating to Mexico as could be obtained in London. Securing personal letters to scholars and officials in Mexico itself, he wrote to them to enlist their interest in his new undertaking. By the end of the year it became evident that the wealth of material bearing upon the Conquest was very great, and a knowledge of this fact roused in Prescott all the enthusiasm of an historical investigator who has scented a new and promising trail. Only one thing now stood in the way. This was an intimation to the effect that Washington Irving had already planned a similar piece of work. This bit of news was imparted to Prescott by Mr. J. G. Cogswell, who was then in charge of the Astor Library in New York, and who was an intimate friend of both Prescott and Irving. Mr. Cogswell told Prescott that Irving was intending to write a history of the conquest of Mexico, as a sort of sequel, or rather pendant, to his life of Columbus. Of course, under the circumstances, Prescott felt that, in courtesy to one who was then the most distinguished American man of letters,he could not proceed with his undertaking so long as Mr. Irving was in the field. He therefore wrote a long letter to Irving, detailing what he had already done toward acquiring material, and to say that Mr. Cogswell had intimated that Irving was willing to relinquish the subject in his favour.

"I have learned from Mr. Cogswell that you had originally proposed to treat the same subject, and that you requested him to say to me that you should relinquish it in my favour. I cannot sufficiently express to you my sense of your courtesy, which I can very well appreciate, as I know the mortification it would have caused me if, contrary to my expectations, I had found you on the ground.... I fear the public will not feel so much pleased as myself by this liberal conduct on your part, and I am not sure that I should have a right in their eyes to avail myself of it. But I trust you will think differently when I accept your proffered courtesy in the same cordial spirit in which it was given."

To this letter Irving made a long and courteous reply, not only assuring Prescott that the subject would be willingly abandoned to him, but offering to send him any books that might be useful and to render any service in his power. The episode affords a beautiful instance of literary and scholarly amenities. The sacrifice which Irving made in giving up his theme was as fine as the manner of it was graceful. Prescott never knew how much it meant to Irving, who had already not only made some study of the subject, but had sketched out the ground-plan of the first volume, and had been actually at work upon the task of composition for a period of three months. But there was something more in it than this. Writing to his nephew, Pierre Irving, who was afterwardhis biographer, he disclosed his real feeling with much frankness.

"I doubt whether Mr. Prescott was aware of the extent of the sacrifice I made. This was a favourite subject which had delighted my imagination ever since I was a boy. I had brought home books from Spain to aid me in it, and looked upon it as the pendant to my Columbus. When I gave it up to him I, in a manner, gave him up my bread; for I depended upon the profits of it to recruit my waning finances. I had no other subject at hand to supply its place. I was dismounted from mycheval de batailleand have never been completely mounted since. Had I accomplished that work my whole pecuniary situation would have been altered."[10]

There was no longer any obstacle in Prescott's way, and he set to work with an interest which grew as the richness of the material revealed itself. There came to him from Madrid, books, manuscripts, copies of official documents, and all theapparatus criticuswhich even the most exacting scholar could require. The distinguished historian, Navarrete, placed his entire collection of manuscripts relating to Mexico and Peru at the disposal of his Americanconfrère. The Spanish Academy let him have copies of the collections made by Muñoz and by Vargas y Ponce—a matter of some five thousand pages. Prescott's friend, Señor Calderon, who at this time was Spanish Minister to Mexico, aided him in gathering materials relating to the early Aztec civilisation. Don Pascual de Gayangos, who had written the favourable notice in theEdinburgh Review, delved among the documents in the British Museum on behalf of Prescott, and caused copies to be made of whatever seemed to bear uponthe Mexican conquest. A year or two later, he even sent to Prescott the whole of his own collection of manuscripts. In Spain very valuable assistance was given by Mr. A. H. Everett, at that time American Minister to the Spanish court, and by his first Secretary of Legation, the South Carolinian who had taken his entrance examination to Harvard in Prescott's company, and who throughout his college life had been a close and valued friend. A special agent, Dr. Lembke,[11]was also employed, and he gave a good part of his time to rummaging among the archives and libraries. Prescott's authorship ofFerdinand and Isabella, however, was the real touchstone which opened all doors to him, and enlisted in his service enthusiastic purveyors of material in every quarter. In Spain especially, the prestige of his name was very great; and more than one traveller from Boston received distinguished courtesies in that country as being theconciudadanoof the American historian. Mr. Edward Everett Hale, whose acquaintance with Prescott was very slight, relates an experience which is quite illustrative:—

"I had gone there [to Madrid] to make some studies and collect some books for the history of the Pacific, which, with a prophetic instinct, I have always wanted to write. Different friends gave me letters of introduction, and amongothers the gentlemen of the Spanish Embassy here were very kind to me. They gave me four such letters, and when I was in Madrid and when I was in Seville it seemed as though every door flew open for me and every facility was offered me. It was not until I was at home again that I came to know the secret of these most diligent civilities. I still had one of my Embassy letters which I had never presented. I read it for the first time, to learn that I was the coadjutor and friend of the great historian Prescott through all his life, that I was his assistant through all his historical work, and, indeed, for these reasons, no American was more worthy of the consideration of the gentlemen in charge of the Spanish archives. It was certainly by no fault of mine that an exaggeration so stupendous had found its way to the Spanish Legation. Somebody had said, what was true, that Prescott was always good to me, and that our friendship began when he engaged me as his reader. And, what with translating this simple story, what with people's listening rather carelessly and remembering rather carelessly, by the time my letters were drafted I had become a sort of 'double' of Mr. Prescott himself. I hope that I shall never hear that I disgraced him."[12]

Actual work upon theConquestbegan early in 1839, though not at first with a degree of progress which was satisfactory to the investigator. By May, however, he had warmed to his work. He went back to his old rigorous regime, giving up again all social pleasures outside of his own house, and spending in his library at least five hours each day. His period of rest had done him good, and his eyesight was now better than at any time since it first became impaired. After three months of preliminary reading he was able to sketch out the plan of the entire work, and on October 14, 1839, he began the actual task of composition. He found the introduction extremelydifficult to write, for it dealt with the pre-historic period of Mexico, obscured as it was by the mist of myth and by the contradictory assertions of conflicting authorities. "The whole of that part of the story," wrote Prescott, "is in twilight, and I fear I shall at least make only moonshine of it. I must hope that it will be good moonshine. It will go hard with me, however, but that I can fish something new out of my ocean of manuscripts." He had hoped to dispose of his introduction in a hundred pages, and to finish it in six months at the most. It actually extended to two hundred and fifty pages, and the writing of it took nearly eighteen months. One interruption occurred which he had not anticipated. The success ofFerdinand and Isabellahad tempted an unscrupulous publisher to undertake an abridgment of that book. To protect his own interests Prescott decided to make an abridgment of his own, and thus to forestall the pirate. This work disheartened and depressed him, but he finished it with great celerity, only to find that the rival abridgment had been given up. A brief stay upon the sea-coast put him once more into working condition, and from that time he went on steadily with theConquest, which he completed on August 2, 1843, not quite four years from the time when he began the actual composition. His weariness was lightened by the confidence which he felt in his own success. He knew that he had produced a masterpiece.

Naturally, he now had no trouble in securing a publisher and in making very advantageous terms for the production of the book. It was brought out by the Harpers of New York, though, as before, Prescott himself owned the plates. His contract allowed theHarpers to publish five thousand copies for which they paid the author $7500, with the right of publishing more copies if required within the period of one year and on the same general terms. An English edition was simultaneously brought out by Bentley in London, who purchased the foreign copyright for £650. Three Spanish translations appeared soon after, one in Madrid in 1847 and two in Mexico in 1844. A French translation was published in Paris, by Didot in 1846, and a German translation, in Leipzig, by Brockhaus in 1845. A French reprint in English appeared in Paris soon after Bentley placed the London edition upon the market.

No historical work written by an American has ever been received with so much enthusiasm alike in America and in Europe. Within a month, four thousand copies were disposed of by the Harpers, and at the end of four months the original edition of five thousand had been sold. The reviewers were unanimous in its praise, and an avalanche of congratulatory letters descended upon Prescott from admirers, known and unknown, all over the civilised world.Ferdinand and Isabellahad brought him reputation; theConquest of Mexicomade him famous. Honours came to him unsought. He was elected a member of the French Institute[13]and of the Royal Society of Berlin. He had already accepted membership in the Royal Spanish Academy of History at Madrid and in the Royal Academy of Sciences in Naples. Harvard conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. Perhaps nothing pleased him more, however, than a personalletter from Humboldt, for whom Prescott had long entertained a feeling of deep admiration. This eminent scholar, at that time the President of the Royal Society of Berlin, in which body Niebuhr, Von Raumer, and Ranke had been enrolled, wrote in French a letter of which the following sentences form a part:—

"My satisfaction has been very great in studying line by line your excellent work. One judges with severity, with perhaps a bias towards injustice, when he has had a vivid impression of the places, and when the study of ancient history with which I have been occupied from preference has been pursued on the very soil itself where a part of these great events took place. My severity, sir, has been disarmed by the reading of yourConquest of Mexico. You paint with success because you haveseenwith the eyes of the spirit and of the inner sense. It is a pleasure to me, a citizen of Mexico, to have lived long enough to read you and to speak to you of my appreciation of the kind expressions with which you have done honour to my name.... Were I not wholly occupied with myCosmos, which I have had the imprudence to print, I should have wished to translate your work into the language of my own country."

While gathering the materials for theConquest of Mexico, Prescott had felt his way toward still another subject which his Mexican researches naturally suggested. This was the conquest of Peru. Much of his Mexican reading had borne directly upon this other theme, so that the labour of preparation was greatly lightened. Moreover, by this time, he had acquired both an accurate knowledge of sources and also great facility in composition. Hence the only serious work which was necessary for him to undertake as a preliminary to composition was the study of Peruvian antiquities. This occupied him eight months, and proved to be far more troublesome to him and muchless satisfactory than the like investigation which he had made with reference to the Aztecs. However, after the work had been commenced it proceeded rapidly,—so rapidly, in fact, as to cause him a feeling of half-comical dismay. He began to write on the 12th of August, 1844, and completed his task on November 7, 1846. During its progress he made a note that he had written two chapters, amounting in all to fifty-one printed pages, in four days, adding the comment, "I never did up so much yarn in the same time. At this rate Peru will not hold out six months. Can I finish it in a year? Alas for the reader!" No doubt he might have finished it in a year had certain interruptions not occurred. The first of these was the death of his father, which took place on December 8th, not long after he had begun the book. His brother Edward had died shortly before, and this double affliction affected very deeply so sensitive a nature as Prescott's. To his father, indeed, he owed more than he could ever express. The two had been true comrades, and had treated one another with an affectionate familiarity which, between father and son, was as rare in those days as it was beautiful. Judge Prescott's generosity had made it possible for the younger man to break through all the barriers of physical infirmity, and not only to win fame but also the happiness which comes from a creative activity. They understood each other very well, and in many points they were much alike both in their friendliness and in their habits of reserve. One little circumstance illustrates this likeness rather curiously. Fond as both of them were of their fellows, and cordial as they both were to all their friends, each wished at times to be alone, and these times werewhen they walked or rode. Therefore, each morning when the two men mounted their horses or when they set out for a walk, they always parted company when they reached the road, one turning to the right and the other to the left by a tacit understanding, and neither ever thought of accompanying the other. Sometimes a friend not knowing of this trait would join one of them to share the ride or walk. Whenever such a thing as this took place, that particular route would be abandoned the next day and another and a lonelier one selected.

A further interruption came from the purchase of a house on Beacon Street and the necessity of arranging to leave the old mansion on Bedford Street. The new house was a fine one, overlooking the Mall and the Common; and the new library, which was planned especially for Prescott's needs, was much more commodious than the old one. But the confusion and feeling of unsettlement attendant on the change distracted Prescott more than it would have done a man less habituated to a self-imposed routine. "A month of pandemonium," he wrote; "an unfurnished house coming to order; a library without books; books without time to open them." It took Prescott quite a while to resume his methodical habits. His old-time indolence settled down upon him, and it was some time before his literary momentum had been recovered. Moreover, he presumed upon the fairly satisfactory condition of his eye and used it to excess. The result was that his optic nerve was badly over-taxed, "probably by manuscript digging," as he said. The strain was one from which his eye never fully recovered; and from this time until the completion ofthePeru, he could use it in reading for only a few minutes every day, sometimes perhaps for ten or fifteen, but never for more than thirty. As this is the last time that we shall mention this subject, it may be said that for all purposes of literary work Prescott was soon afterward reduced to the position of one who was actually blind. What had before been a merely stationary dimness of vision became a slowly progressive decay of sight, or, to express it in medical language, amblyopia had passed into amaurosis. He followed rigorously his oculist's injunctions, but in the end he had to face the facts unflinchingly; and a little later he recorded his determination to give up all use of the eye for the future in his studies, and to be contented with preserving it for the ordinary purposes of life. The necessity disheartened him. "It takes the strength out of me," he said. Nevertheless, neither this nor the fact that his general health was most unsatisfactory, caused him to abandon work. He could not bring himself to use what he called "the coward's word, 'impossible.'" And so, after a little time, he went on as before, studying "by ear-work," and turning off upon his noctograph from ten to fifteen pages every day. He continued also his outdoor exercise, and, in fact, one of the best-written chapters of theConquest of Peru—the last one—was composed while galloping through the woods at Pepperell. On November 7, 1846, theConquest of Peruwas finished. Like the preceding history, it was published by the Harper Brothers, who agreed to pay the author one dollar per copy and to bring out a first edition of seventy-five hundred copies. This, Mr. Ticknor says, was a more liberal arrangement than had ever before been madewith an historical writer in the United States. The English copyright was purchased by Bentley for £800.

Prescott's main anxiety about the reception which would be given to theConquest of Peruwas based upon his doubts as to its literary style. Neither of his other books had been written so rapidly, and he feared that he might incur the charge of over-fluency or even slovenliness. Yet, as a matter of fact, the chorus of praise which greeted the two volumes was as loud and as spontaneous as it had been over hisMexico. Prescott now stood so firmly on his feet as to look at much of this praise in a somewhat humorous light. The approbation of theEdinburgh Reviewno longer seemed to him thesumma laus, though he valued it more highly than the praise given him by American periodicals, of which he wrote very shrewdly:

"I don't know how it is, but our critics, though not pedantic, have not the businesslike air, or the air of the man of the world, which gives manliness and significance to criticism. Their satire, when they attempt it—which cannot be often laid to their door—has neither the fine edge of theEdinburghnor the sledgehammer stroke of theQuarterly. They twaddle out their humour as if they were afraid of its biting too hard, or else they deliver axioms with a sort of smart, dapper conceit, like a little parson laying down the law to his little people.... In England there is a far greater number of men highly cultivated—whether in public life or men of leisure—whose intimacy with affairs and with society, as well as books, affords supplies of a high order for periodical criticism."

As for newspaper eulogies, he remarked: "I am certainly the cause of some wit and much folly in others." His latest work, however, brought him two new honours which he greatly prized,—an electionto the Royal English Society of Literature, and the other an invitation to membership in the Royal Society of Antiquaries. The former honour he shared with only one of his fellow-countrymen, Bancroft; the latter had heretofore been given to no American.

Prescott now indulged himself with a long period of "literary loafing," as he described it, broken in upon only by the preparation of a short memoir of John Pickering, the antiquarian and scholar, who had been one of Prescott's most devoted friends. This memoir was undertaken at the request of the Massachusetts Historical Society. It has no general interest now, but is worthy of note as having been the only one of Prescott's works which he dictated to an amanuensis. Prescott had an aversion to writing in this way, although he had before him the example of his blind contemporary, Thierry. Like Alphonse Daudet, he seems to have felt that what is written by hand comes more directly from the author's inner self, and that it represents most truly the tints and half-tones of his personality. That this is only a fancy is seen clearly enough from several striking instances which the history of literature records. Scott dictated to Lockhart the whole ofThe Bride of Lammermoor. Thackeray dictated a good part ofThe Newcomesand all ofPendennis, and evenHenry Esmond, of which the artificial style might well have made dictation difficult. Prescott, however, had his own opinion on the subject, and, with the single exception which has just been cited, he used his noctograph for composition down to the very end, dictating only his correspondence to his secretary.

His days of "literary loafing" allowed him to enjoy the pleasures of friendship which during his periodsof work were necessarily, to some extent, intermitted. No man ever had more cordially devoted friends than Prescott. He knew every one who was worth knowing, and every one was attracted by the spontaneous charm of his manner and his invincible kindliness. Never was a man more free from petulance or peevishness, though these defects at times might well have been excused in one whose health was such as his. He presented the anomaly of a dyspeptic who was still an optimist and always amiable. Mr. John Foster Kirk, who was one of his secretaries, wrote of him:—

"No annoyance, great or small, the most painful illness or the most intolerable bore, could disturb his equanimity, or render him in the least degree sullen, or fretful, or discourteous. He was always gay, good-humoured, and manly. He carried his kindness of disposition not only into his public, but into his private, writings. In the hundreds of letters, many of them of the most confidential character, treating freely of other authors and of a great variety of persons, which I wrote at his dictation, not a single unkind or harsh or sneering expression occurs. He was totally free from the jealousy and envy so common among authors, and was always eager in conversation, as in print, to point out the merits of the great contemporary historians whom many men in his position would have looked upon as rivals to be dreaded if not detested."

Bancroft the historian has added his testimony to the greatness of Prescott's personal charm.

"His countenance had something that brought to mind the 'beautiful disdain' that hovers on that of the Apollo. But while he was high-spirited, he was tender and gentle and humane. His voice was like music and one could never hear enough of it. His cheerfulness reached and animated all about him. He could indulge in playfulness and could also speak earnestly and profoundly; but he knew not how to be ungracious or pedantic."

No wonder then that his friends were legion, comprising men and women of the most different types. Dry and formal scholars such as Jared Sparks; men of the world like Lord Carlisle; nice old ladies like Maria Edgeworth and the octogenarian Miss Berry, Walpole's friend; women of fashion like Lady Lyell, Lady Mary Labouchère, and the Duchess of Sutherland; Spanish hidalgos like Calderon de la Barca; smooth politicians like Caleb Cushing; and intense partisans like Charles Sumner,—all agreed in their affectionate admiration for Prescott. His friendship with Sumner was indeed quite notable, since no men could have been more utterly unlike. Sumner was devoid of the slightest gleam of humour, and his self-consciousness was extreme; yet Prescott sometimes poked fun at him with impunity. Thus, writing to Sumner about his Phi Beta Kappa oration (delivered in 1846), he said:—

"Last year you condemned warsin toto, making no exception even for the wars of freedom. This year you condemn therepresentationof war, whether by the pencil or the pen. Marathon, Salamis, Bunker Hill, the retreat from Moscow, Waterloo, great and small, areallto be blotted from memory equally with my own wild skirmishes of barbarians and banditti. Lord deliver us! Where will you bring up? If the stories are not to be painted or written, such records of them as have been heedlessly made should by the same rule be destroyed. I laugh; but I fear you will make the judicious grieve. But fare thee well, dear Sumner. Whether thou deportest thyselfsana menteormente insana, believe me always truly yours."

But Sumner's arrogance and egoism were always in abeyance where Prescott was concerned, and even their lack of political sympathy never marred the warmthof their intercourse. Prescott, in fact, cared very little about contemporary politics. He had inherited from his fighting ancestors a sturdy patriotism, but his loyalty was given to the whole country and not to any faction or party. His cast of mind was essentially conservative, and down to 1856 he would no doubt have called himself an old-line Whig. He was always, however, averse to political discussion which, indeed, led easily to personalities that were offensive not only to Prescott's taste but to his amiable disposition. His friend Parsons said of him: "He never sought or originated political conversation, but he would not decline contributing his share to it; and the contribution he made was always of good sense, of moderation, and of forbearance."

Prescott's detachment with regard to politics was partly due, no doubt, to the nature of the life he led, which kept him isolated from the bustle of the world about him; yet it was probably due still more to a lack of combativeness in his nature. Motley once said of him that he lacked the capacity forsæva indignatio. This remark was called forth by Prescott's tolerant view of Philip II. of Spain, who was in Motley's eyes little better than a monster. One might fairly, however, give it a wider application, and we must regard it as an undeniable defect in Prescott that nothing external could strike fire from him. Thus, when his intimate friend Sumner had been brutally assaulted in the Senate chamber by the Southern bully, Brooks, Prescott wrote to him: "You have escaped the crown of martyrdom by a narrow chance, and have got all the honours, which are almost as dangerous to one's head as a gutta-perchacane." There is a tameness about this sentence which one would scarcely notice had Sumner merely received a black eye, but which offends one's sense of fitness when we recall that Sumner had been beaten into insensibility, and that he never fully recovered from the attack. Again, when, in 1854, Boston was all ablaze over the capture of a fugitive slave, when the city was filled with troops and muskets were levelled at the populace, Prescott merely remarked to an English correspondent: "It is a disagreeable business." To be sure, he also said, "It made my blood boil," but the general tone of the letter shows that his blood must have boiled at a very low temperature. Nevertheless, he seems to have been somewhat stirred by the exciting struggle which took place over Kansas between the Free-Soil forces and the partisans of slavery. Hence, in 1856, he cast his vote for Frémont, the first Republican candidate for the Presidency. But, as a rule, the politics of the sixteenth century were his most serious concern, and in the very year in which he voted for Frémont, he wrote: "I belong to the sixteenth century and am quite out of place when I sleep elsewhere." It was this feeling which led him to decline a tempting invitation to write a history of the modern conquest of Mexico by the American army under General Scott. The offer came to him in 1847; and both the theme itself and the terms in which the offer was made might well have attracted one whose face was set less resolutely toward the historic past. His comment was characteristic. "I had rather not meddle with heroes who have not been under ground two centuries at least." It is interesting to note that the subject which Prescottthen rejected has never been adequately treated; and that the brilliant exploits of Scott in Mexico still await a worthy chronicler.

It was natural that a writer so popular as Prescott should, in spite of his methodical life, find his time encroached upon by those who wished to meet him. He had an instinct for hospitality; and this made it the more difficult for him to maintain that scholarly seclusion which had been easy to him in the days of his comparative obscurity. His personal friends were numerous, and there were many others who sought him out because of his distinction. Many foreign visitors were entertained by him, and these he received with genuine pleasure. Their number increased as the years went by so that once in a single week he entertained, at Pepperell, Señor Calderon, Stephens the Central American traveller, and the British General Harlan from Afghanistan. Sir Charles Lyell, Lady Lyell, Lord Carlisle, and Dickens were also visitors of his. It was as the guest of Prescott that Thackeray ate his first dinner in America.[14]Visitors of this sort, of course, he was very glad to see. Not so much could be said of the strangers who forced themselves upon him at Nahant, where swarms of summer idlers filled the hotels and cottages, and with well-meaning but thoughtless interest sought out the historian in the darkened parlour of his house. "I have lost a clear month here by company," he wrote in 1840, "company which brings the worst of all satieties; for the satiety from study brings the consciousness of improvement. But this dissipation impairs health, spirit, scholarship. Yet how can I escape it, tied like a bear to a stake here?"

Prescott's favourite form of social intercourse was found in little dinners shared with a few chosen friends. These affairs he called "cronyings," and in them he took much delight, even though they often tempted him to an over-indulgence in tobacco and sometimes in wine.[15]One rule, however, he seldom broke, and that was his resolve never to linger after ten o'clock at any function, however pleasant. An old friend of his has left an account of one especially convivial occasion to which Prescott had invited a number of his friends. The dinner was given at a restaurant, and the guests were mostly young men and fond of good living. The affair went off so well that, as the hour of ten approached, no one thought of leaving. Prescott began to fidget in his chair and even to drop a hint or two, which passed unnoticed, for the reason that Prescott's ten o'clock rule was quite unknown to his jovial guests. At last, to the surprise of every one, he rose and made a little speech to the company, in which he said that he was sorry to leave them, but that he must return home.

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