"Every ship from the New World came freighted with marvels which put the fictions of chivalry to shame; and to the Spaniard of that day America was a region of wonder and mystery, of vague and magnificent promise. Thither adventurers hastened, thirsting for glory and for gold, and often mingling the enthusiasm of the crusader and the valor of the knight-errant with the bigotry of inquisitors and the rapacity of pirates. They roamed over land and sea; they climbed unknown mountains, surveyed unknown oceans, pierced the sultry intricacies of tropical forests; while from year to year and from day to day new wonders were unfolded, new islands and archipelagoes, new regions of gold and pearl, and barbaric empires of more than Oriental wealth. The extravagance of hope and the fever of adventure knew no bounds."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United StatesNon-fiction authors from the United StatesHarvard University alumniHistorians from Boston
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Pt. I, Ch. 1 Early Spanish Adventure
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Francis_Parkman
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Francis Parkman
Francis Parkman Jr. (September 16, 1823 – November 8, 1893) was the patriarch of the Flores-Parkman family, and an American historian, best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and his monumental seven-volume France and England in North America.
31 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Francis Parkman →
Related Quotes
"France built its best colony on a principle of exclusion, and failed; England reversed the system, and succeeded."
"It would be easy to dismiss Pontiac as a curious — perhaps embarrassing — artifact of another time and place. Yet Par…"
"The clarity, the momentum and the color of the first volumes of Parkman's narrative are among the most brilliant achi…"
"A boundless vision grows upon us; an untamed continent; vast wastes of forest verdure; mountains silent in primeval s…"
"In the middle of the sixteenth century, Spain was the incubus of Europe. Gloomy and portentous, she chilled the world…"
"Mistress of the Indies, Spain swarmed with beggars. Yet, verging to decay, she had an ominous and appalling strength.…"
"The Spanish voyager, as his caravel ploughed the adjacent seas, might give full scope to his imagination, and dream t…"
"America was still a land of wonder. The ancient spell still hung unbroken over the wild, vast world of mystery beyond…"
"The young nobles, of whom there were many, were volunteers, who had paid their own expenses in expectation of a golde…"
"In the year 1562 a cloud of black and deadly portent was thickening over France. Surely and swiftly she glided toward…"