Original - North Central Michigan College Library

discloses internal evidence of shrewdness andinsight on the part of its author. Necessarily,since it is a personal narration, his own doingsand point of view receive constant emphasis.For this the intelligent reader will make dueallowance, as he will for such errors of precisedetail as may disclose themselves. That theseshould occur in the recital of sixteen years oftravel and adventure is inevitable. Equallyinevitable is it that the author could not haveabandoned himself to willful mendacity withoutleaving evidences of the habit which wouldbe patent to the scholar who follows on histrail; and when such a scholar as FrancisParkman accords to Henry a certificate of goodfaith we may be sure that his book is somethingother than a collection of yarns spunfor the delectation of a group of "pop-eyedNew York burghers."From quite another point of view Henry'snarrative deserves attention. It is evidentthat Henry must have received some education,but hi his twenty-first year he plungedinto the wilderness, not to emerge therefromfor sixteen long years. Such a career is not inclose accord with the curriculum laid down inthe schools for the training of him who aspiresto become a writer. Yet in some mysteriousmanner Henry had become a master of Englishand this, his sole production, is literaturein the best sense of the term. The shelves ofour libraries are loaded down with books, dryxxii