eat dangers
calmly met and treated as a matter of course. Largely it is a record of
achievement. At points where it is a record of failure Champlain accepts
the inevitable gracefully and conforms his emotions to the will of
God. The Voyages reveal a strong man 'well four-squared to the blows of
fortune.' They also illustrate the virtue of muscular Christianity.

At a time which, like ours, is becoming sated with cleverness, it is a
delight to read the unvarnished story of Champlain. In saying that
the adjective is ever the enemy of the noun, Voltaire could not have
levelled the shaft at him, for few writers have been more sparing in
their use of adjectives or other glowing words. His love of the sea
and of the forest was profound, but he is never emotional in his
expressions. Yet with all his soberness and steadiness he possessed
imagination. In its strength and depth his enthusiasm for colonization
proves this, even if we omit his picture of the fancied Ludovica. But as
a man of action rather than of letters he instinctively omits verbiage.
In some respects we suffer from Champlain's directness of mind for on
much that he saw he could have lingered with profit. But very
special inducements are needed to draw him from his plain tale into a
digression. Such inducements occur at times when he is writing of the
Indians, for he recognized that Europe was eager to hear in full detail
of their traits and customs. Thus set passages of description, inserted
with a sparing hand, seemed to him a proper element of the text,
but anything like conscious embellishment of the narrative he
avoids--probably more through mere naturalness than conscious
self-repression.

From Marco Polo to Scott's Journal the literature of geographical
discovery abounds with classics, and standards of comparison suggest
themselves in abundance to the critic of Champlain's Voyages. Most
naturally, of course, one turns to the records of American exploration
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--to Ramusio, Oviedo, Peter
Martyr, Hakluyt, and Purchas. No age can show a more wonderful galaxy
of pioneers than that which extends from Columbus to La Salle, and among
the great explorers of this era Champlain takes his place by virtue
alike of his deeds and writings. In fact, he belongs to the small and
distinguished class of those who have recorded their own discoveries in
a suitable and authentic narrative, for in few cases have geographical
results of eq