The extracts given below are from a long review of Parkman's Life and Works, in The Nation:-- "The passing away of Francis Parkman leaves vacant the first place among American writers of history. His title to this pre-eminence has been increasingly recognized with every new contribution to the fascinating series of volumes which bear his name.... The historical reputation of Mr. Parkman--in a considerable degree contrasted with that of Prescott and Motley, and very strikingly in contrast with that of Bancroft--is seen to be one which steadily grows with more intimate acquaintance with his work. That this is the case is due not so much to the dignity of his theme and its aptitude for splendid workmanship upon it, though his theme lacks nothing in this regard, as to the personal qualities which Mr. Parkman himself brought to his undertaking,--his absolute sincerity, his painstaking perseverance, his fine moral sense, his judicial equipoise, his wholesome, uncloistered sympathy with nature and with outdoor things, his self-repression, and his chaste, unexaggerating, conscientious literary taste and skill. The result is that we have in the volumes of Mr. Parkman the most graphic and most truthful of all our American historical writings, and the ones likely longest to retain a place not alone on library shelves, but in living contact with the eyes and hearts of men." Critics and reviewers of Parkman's works have been fond of pointing out that they read like romances, and are more fascinating than novels, and readers have not found such phrases misplaced. It may be added that Parkman has influenced writers of fiction and inclined several to select themes from his own chosen field. One of the novelists who have paid tribute to the great historian is Mary Hartwell Catherwood, author of "The Story of Tonty," "The Lady of Fort St. John," etc. She says: "The humble disciple of a great man has always some timidity in approaching him or claiming any share of his attention. I have often wished I lived in the neighborhood of Francis Parkman, and might carry a flower to his door every day and ask about his health, and once in a while let loose upon him all that flood of questions which constantly rises in the mind of a student. The prime fascination of his books, beyond their lucid style, their compact form, their glow and breadth of forest life, their presentation of transplanted Latin men and aboriginal savage as each existed, is their reliability. When you have sifted a dozen contradictory records, you may turn to him and find that he has been through much more labor before you, and long ago from just conclusions wrested the truth. There is scarcely a day in one's life when his histories are not turned to as handbooks. What a loss if he had never written them!"