SUCCESS

Dr. Johnson, in his rather unsympathetic life of Milton, declares that it is impossible for a blind man to write history. Already, before Prescott began historical composition, this dictum had been refuted by the brilliant French historian, Augustin Thierry, whose scholarly study of the Merovingian period was composed after he had wholly lost his sight.[7] Moreover, Prescott was not wholly blind, for at times he could make a cautious use of the right eye. Nevertheless, the task to which he had set himself was sufficiently formidable to deter a less persistent spirit. In the first place, all the original sources of information were on the other side of the Atlantic. Nowhere in the United States was there a public library such as even some of our smaller cities now possess. Prescott himself, moreover, had at this time done comparatively little special reading in the subject of which he proposed to write; and the skilled a.s.sistance which he might easily have secured in Europe was not to be had in the United States. Finally, though he was not blind in the ordinary sense, he could not risk a total loss of sight by putting upon his remaining eye the strain of continuous and fatiguing use.

In spite of all these obstacles and discouragements, however, he began his undertaking with a touch of that stoicism which, as Thomas Hughes has somewhere said, makes the Anglo-Saxon find his keenest pleasure in enduring and overcoming. Prescott had planned to devote a year to preliminary studies before putting pen to paper. The work which he then had in mind was intended by him to be largely one of compilation from the works of foreign writers, to be of moderate size, with few pretensions to originality, and to claim attention chiefly because the subject was still a new one to English readers. He felt that he would be accomplishing a great deal if he should read and thoroughly digest the princ.i.p.al French, Spanish, and Italian historians--Mariana, Llorente, Varillas, Flechier, and Sismondi--and give a well-balanced account of Ferdinand and Isabella's reign based upon what these and a few other scholarly authorities had written. But the zeal of the investigator soon had him in its grip. Scarcely had the packages of books which he had ordered from Madrid begun to reach his library than his project broadened out immensely into a work of true creative scholarship. His year of reading now appeared to him absurdly insufficient. It had, indeed, already been badly broken into by one of his inflammatory attacks; and his progress was hampered by the inadequate a.s.sistance which he received. A reader, employed by him to read aloud the Spanish books, performed the duty valiantly but without understanding a single word of Spanish, very much as Milton's daughters read Greek and Hebrew to their father. Thinking of his new and more ambitious conception of his purpose and of the hindrances which beset him, Prescott wrote: "Travelling at this lame gait, I may yet hope in five or six years to reach the goal." As a matter of fact, it was three years and a half before he wrote the opening sentence of his book. It was ten years before he finished the last foot-note of the final chapter. It was nearly twelve years before the book was given to the public.

Some account of his manner of working may be of interest, and it is convenient to describe it here once for all. In the second year, after he had begun his preliminary studies, he secured the services of a Mr.

James English, a young Harvard graduate, who had some knowledge of the modern languages. This gentleman devoted himself to Prescott's interests, and henceforth a definite routine of study and composition was established and was continued with other secretaries throughout Prescott's life. Mr. English has left some interesting notes of his experiences, which admit us to the library of the large house on Bedford Street, where the two men worked so diligently together. It was a s.p.a.cious room in the back of the house, lined on two sides with books which reached the ceiling. Against a third side was a large green screen, toward which Prescott faced while seated at his table; while behind him was an ample window, over which a series of pale blue muslin shades could be drawn, thus regulating the illumination of the room according to the state of Prescott's eye and the conditions of the weather. At a second window sat Mr. English, ready to act either as reader or as amanuensis when required.

Allusion has been made from time to time to Prescott's written memoranda and to his letters, which, indeed, were often very long and very frequent. It must not be thought that in writing these he had to make any use of his imperfect sight. The need of this had been obviated by an invention which he had first heard of in London during his visit there in 1816. It was a contrivance called "the noctograph," meant for the use of the blind. A frame like that of a slate was crossed by sixteen parallel wires fastened into the sides and holding down a sheet of blackened paper like the carbon paper now used in typewriters and copying-machines. Under this blackened paper was placed a sheet of plain white note-paper. A person using the noctograph wrote with a sort of stylus of ivory, agate, or some other hard substance upon the blackened paper, which conveyed the impression to the white paper underneath. Of course, the bra.s.s wires guided the writer's hand and kept the point of the stylus somewhere near the line.[8]

Of his noctograph Prescott made constant use. For composition he employed it almost altogether, seldom or never dictating to a scribe.

Obviously, however, the instrument allowed no erasures or corrections to be made, and the writer must go straight forward with his task; since to go back and try to alter what had been once set down would make the whole illegible. Hence arose the necessity of what Irving once described as "pre-thinking,"--the determination not only of the content but of the actual form of the sentence before it should be written down. In this pre-thinking Prescott showed a power of memory and of visualisation that was really wonderful. To carry in his mind the whole of what had been read over to him in a session of several hours,--names, dates, facts, authorities,--and then to shape his narrative, sentence by sentence, before setting down a word, and, finally, to bear in mind the whole structure of each succeeding paragraph and the form in which they had been carefully built up--this was, indeed, an intellectual and literary achievement of an unusual character. Of course, such a power as this did not come of itself, but was slowly gained by persistent practice and unwearied effort. His personal memoranda show this: "Think closely," he writes, "gradually concentrating the circle of thought."

And again: "Think continuously and closely before taking up my pen. Make corrections chiefly in my own mind." And still again: "Never take up my pen until I have travelled over the subject so often that I can write almost from memory."

But in 1827, the time had not yet come for composition. He was hearing books read to him and was taking copious notes. How copious these were, his different secretaries have told; and besides, great ma.s.ses of them have been preserved as testimony to the minute and patient labour of the man who made and used them. As his reader went on, Prescott would say, "Mark that!" whenever anything seemed to him especially significant.

These marked pa.s.sages were later copied out in a large clear hand for future reference. When the time came, they would be read, studied, compared, verified, and digested. Sometimes he spent as much as five days in thus mastering the notes collected for a single chapter. Then at least another day would be given to reflection and (probably) to composition, while from five to nine days more might go to the actual writing out of the text. This power of Prescott's increased with constant exercise. Later, he was able to carry in his head the whole of the first and second chapters of his _Conquest of Peru_ (nearly sixty pages) before committing them to paper, and in preparing his last work, _Philip II._, he composed and memorised the whole fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of Book II., amounting to seventy-two printed pages.

Prescott had elaborated a system of his own for the regulation of his daily life while he was working. This system was based upon the closest observation, extending over years, of the physical effect upon him of everything he did. The result was a regimen which represented his customary mode of living. Rising early in the morning, he took outdoor exercise, except during storms of exceptional severity. He rode well and loved a spirited horse, though sometimes he got a fall from letting his attention stray to his studies instead of keeping it on the temper of his animal. But, in the coldest weather, on foot or in the saddle, he covered several miles before breakfast, to which he always came back in high spirits, having, as he expressed it, "wound himself up for the day." After a very simple breakfast, he went at once to his library, where, for an hour or so, he chatted with Mrs. Prescott or had her read to him the newspapers or some popular book of the day. By ten o'clock, serious work began with the arrival of his secretary, with whom he worked diligently until one o'clock, for he seldom sat at his desk for more than three consecutive hours. A brisk walk of a mile or two gave him an appet.i.te for dinner, which was served at three o'clock, an hour which, in the year 1827, was not regarded as remarkable, at least in Ma.s.sachusetts. This was a time of relaxation, of chat and gossip and family fun; and it was then that Prescott treated himself to the amount of wine which he had decided to allow himself. His fondness for wine has been already casually mentioned. To him the question of its use was so important, that once, for two years and nine months, he recorded every day the exact amount that he had drunk and the effect which it had had upon his eye and upon his general health. A further indulgence which followed after dinner was the smoking of a mild cigar while his wife read or talked to him. Then, another walk or drive, a cup of tea at five, and finally, two or more industrious hours with his secretary, after which he came down to the library and enjoyed the society of his family or of friends who happened in.

This, it will be seen, was not the life of a recluse or of a Casaubon, though it was a life regulated by a wise discretion. To adjust himself to its routine, Prescott had to overcome many of his natural tendencies.

In the first place, he was, as has been already noted, of a somewhat indolent disposition; and a steady grind, day after day and week after week, was something which he had never known in school or college. Even now in his maturity, and with the spurring of a steady purpose to urge him on, he often faltered. His memoranda show now and then a touch of self-accusation or regret.

"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 ill.u.s.trated 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 att.i.tude 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 of _Ferdinand 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 to _far 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, times when 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 his _Ferdinand 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 the _North American Review_ in 1837, did even his familiar a.s.sociates 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, upon whom 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 for _Ferdinand and Isabella_ went 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 very _Quellen_, 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 ma.s.ses of black-letter and copies of ancient archives, from which some precious fact or 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 the _North 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 Conde's _History 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 the _North American_, and therefore it was set aside and ultimately made into a chapter of his _Ferdinand 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 ma.n.u.script. 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 (quite incorrectly, 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." And somewhat 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 ill.u.s.trating 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 d.a.m.ned. 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 t.i.tle-page,--the _History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella_ was 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,--the _North American_, the _Examiner_, and the _Democratic 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 a.s.sure 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, called _fungum 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 the _Athenoeum_ there 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 the _Edinburgh Review_ by Don Pascual de Gayangos, a distinguished Spanish writer living in England. Highly important among the English criticisms was that which was published in the _Quarterly Review_ of June, 1839, from the pen of Richard Ford, a very accurate and critical Spanish scholar. Mr. Ford approached the book with something of the _morgue_ of 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 of _Ferdinand 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 the _Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve_, by the Comte Adolphe de Circourt. The Comte was a friend of Lamartine (who called him _la 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 of _Ferdinand and Isabella_, Prescott won and held an international reputation, and tasted to the full the sweets of a deserved success.

CHAPTER V

IN MID CAREER

After the publication of _Ferdinand 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 Moliere--a book that should be agreeable and popular rather than profound. Yet Spain still kept its hold on his imagination, and even before his _Ferdinand and Isabella_ had 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 compa.s.s 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 to idleness, 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 ac.u.men 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 G.o.d, 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 a.s.suring 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 afterward his 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 my _cheval de bataille_ and 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, ma.n.u.scripts, copies of official doc.u.ments, and all the _apparatus criticus_ which even the most exacting scholar could require. The distinguished historian, Navarrete, placed his entire collection of ma.n.u.scripts relating to Mexico and Peru at the disposal of his American _confrere_. The Spanish Academy let him have copies of the collections made by Munoz and by Vargas y Ponce--a matter of some five thousand pages. Prescott's friend, Senor 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 the _Edinburgh Review_, delved among the doc.u.ments in the British Museum on behalf of Prescott, and caused copies to be made of whatever seemed to bear upon the Mexican conquest. A year or two later, he even sent to Prescott the whole of his own collection of ma.n.u.scripts. In Spain very valuable a.s.sistance 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 of _Ferdinand 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 the _conciudadano_ of the American historian. Mr. Edward Everett Hale, whose acquaintance with Prescott was very slight, relates an experience which is quite ill.u.s.trative:--

"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 among others the gentlemen of the Spanish Emba.s.sy 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 Emba.s.sy 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 a.s.sistant 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]