I thank him for that, while I excuse his
confounding of sounds that he hears in England from America, and agree
that what we need in that valley to tell its story, to interpret it, is
not a specialist in statistics nor an annalist, not a critic who looks at
the smoke of the chimneys and visits the slaughter-houses only, but a poet
who will have the patience to consult both the statistician and the
annalist, a patient poet with the "loyalty of a child" toward his theme.
EPILOGUE
FRANCIS PARKMAN
THE HISTORIAN OF FRANCE IN THE NEW WORLD
I make the epilogue of this story my tribute to Francis Parkman, who has
in a sense made this all possible for me: first, by reason of the love he
gave me long ago for his New France with its primeval forests, its virgin
prairies, its glistening rivers, its untamed Indians, its explorers, its
gray and black cowls, its coureurs de bois, its stars whose light had
never before looked on a white face; and second, by reason of the mass of
incident and color which he has supplied for the background of the life I
have known in that valley.
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