Chapter II: His Character

Bancroft’s character was fashioned on a large scale. His mental horizon was broad, his power to plan and carry out a vast undertaking was commensurate with the reach of his vision. There was little in his habit of thought to suggest the narrowness so often associated with the name of scholar. Yet he had the infinitely laborious powers of the mere scholar. He could toil with unflagging energy day by day or year by year.

The magisterial note in his historical writings is due not alone to the subject or to the literary manner, but also to the deliberate tenacity of purpose with which the historian wrought. Such a work is the product, not of feverish spasms of intellectual activity, but of even and steady effort.

Bancroft has been accused of a want of enthusiasm in receiving critical observations on his work. It is a question whether historians (more than philosophers) are wont to receive with rapture proofs that they are possibly in the wrong. Bancroft’s tone of controversy is perhaps less peculiar to himself than is commonly asserted. However, it must be kept in mind that he had a ‘strong nervous personality.’

Emerson described the greeting he had from Bancroft in London. When he presented himself at the minister’s door, ‘it was opened by Mr. Bancroft himself in the midst of servants whom that man of eager manners thrust aside, saying that he would open his own door for me. He was full of goodness and talk.’ Other accounts of him give an impression of much stateliness of manner tempered by affability. Still others convey the idea that he was always artificial, and sometimes playful with a playfulness that bordered on frivolity. A friend[14] professed to detect in Bancroft’s bearing marks of the man of letters, diplomat, politician, preacher and pedagogue, one trait superimposed on another. But the blend of characteristics was charming.[15]