American history, however, has been marked by certain great romantic passions that seem endowed with indestructible vitality. The romance of discovery, the fascination of the forest and sea, the sense of danger and mystery once aroused by the very word "redskin," have all moulded and will continue to mould the national imagination. How completely the romance of discovery may be fused with the glow of humanitarian and religious enthusiasm has been shown once for all in the brilliant pages of Parkman's story of the Jesuit missions in Canada. Pictorial romance can scarcely go further than this. In the crisis of Chateaubriand's picturesque and passionate tale of the American wilderness, no one can escape the thrilling, haunting sound of the bell from the Jesuit chapel, as it tolls in the night and storm that were fatal to the happiness of Atala. One scarcely need say that the romance of missions has never faded from the American mind. I have known a sober New England deacon aged eighty-five, who disliked to die because he thought he should miss the monthly excitement of reading the _Missionary Herald_. The deacon's eyes, like the eyes of many an old sea-captain in Salem or Newburyport, were literally upon the ends of the earth. No one can reckon how many starved souls, deprived of normal outlet for human feeling, have found in this passionate curiosity and concern for the souls of black and yellow men and women in the antipodes, a constant source of beneficent excitement. Nor is there any diminution of interest in the mere romance of adventure, in the stories of hunter and trapper, the journals of Lewis and Clarke, the narratives of Boone and Crockett. In writing his superb romances of the Northern Lakes, the prairie and the sea, Fenimore Cooper had merely to bring to an artistic focus sentiments that lay deep in the souls of the great mass of his American readers. Students of our social life have pointed out again and again how deeply our national temperament has been affected by the existence, during nearly three hundred years, of an alien aboriginal race forever lurking upon the borders of our civilization. "Playing Indian" has been immensely significant, not merely in stimulating the outdoor activity of generations of American boys, but in teaching them the perennial importance of certain pioneer qualities of observation, resourcefulness, courage, and endurance which date from the time when the Indians were a daily and nightly menace. Even when the Indian has been succeeded by the cowboy, the spirit of romance still lingers,--as any collection of cowboy ballads will abundantly prove. And when the cowboys pass, and the real-estate dealers take possession of the field, one is tempted to say that romance flourishes more than ever.