The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-02 00:00:00

The Historian Prescott's Library.

As DESCRIBED IN HIS NEWLY-PUBLISHED MEMOIRS.
Two sides of the room were lined with books from
floor to ceiling. On the easterly side was a green
screen, which darkened that part of the room
towards which he turned his face as he sat at his
writing-table. On the westerly side was ono win-
dow covered by several curtains of light-blue mus-
lin, so arranged that any one of them could be
wholly or partially raised, and thus temper the
light exactly to the ability of his eye to bear it, as
the sky might happen to be bright or cloudy, or his
eye more or less sensitive. In the centre of the
room stood his writing-table, at which he sat in a
rocking-chair with his back towards the curtained
window, and sometimes with a green shade over
his eyes. When we had a fire, he used only coke in
the grate, as giving out no flame, and he frequently
placed a screen between himself and the grate to
keep off the glare of the embers. At the north
westerly corner of the room was the only window
not partly or wholly darkened. It was set high up
in the wall, and under it was my chair. I was thus
brought a short distance from his left side, and
rather behind him—as a sailor would say, on his
quarter. In this position I read aloud to him regu-
larly every day, from ten o'clock in the forenoon
to two in the afternoon, and from about six in
the evening to eight. Ire seemed fully con-
scious of the difficulty of the task before him, but
resolutely determined to accomplish it, if human
patience and perseverance could do so. As I read
any passages which he wished to impress on his
memory, he would say, « Mark that"—that is,
draw parallel lines in the margin with a pencil
against it. He used also to take a note or memo-
randum of anything he wished particularly to
remember, with a reference to it. His writing
apparatus always lay open before him on the table,
and he usually sat with his ivory style in hand,
ready to make his notes of reference. These notes
I afterwards copied out in a very large round hand
for his future use, and, when he began actually to
write the history,
would read them over and verify
the reference by the original authority, if he re-
quired it. I think, however; he did not very often
find it necessary to refer to the book, as he seemed
to have cultivated his memory to a very high
degree, and had besides a habit of reflecting upon
and arranging in his mind, or " digesting," as he
phrased it, the morning's reading while sitting
alone afterwards in his study. A graphic phrase it
was, too, considering that he took in through his
ears I don't know how many
pages at a four hours'
session of steady reading. The wonder was, how
he could find time to " digest" such a load between
the sessions. But thus he fixed the substance of
what had been read to him in his mind, and im-
pressed the results of the forenoon's work on his
memory. When I first began to read Mr. Pres-
cott, his eye was in a very sensitive state, and he
did not attempt to use it at all. After some months,
however, it got stronger, and he would sit at the
curtained window, with a volume open upon a
frame on a stand, and read himself, marking pas-
sages as he went along. While so reading, he would
frequently raise or lower, wholly or partially, one
or more of the blue curtains. Jach of them hail

NG, MARCH 2, 1864

its separate cord, whicch). he know as well as a sailor
knows his ropes. Every little white cloud that
passed across the sky rtquired a change in the
arrangement of these curtains, so sensitive was his
eye to a variation of light imperceptible to me. But
it was only a portion of the time that he could do
this. His eye would give way, or he would feel
symptoms of returning trouble, and then, for weeks
together, he would be compelled to take his old
seat in the rocking-chair, and return to the slow
process of listening and marking passages, and
having his notes and memoranda read over to him,
as at the first.