The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVI. Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I.

XVIII. Prescott and Motley.

§ 19. Vienna.


Although he did not enlist, he was summoned to do other work for the republic, and accepted the mission to Austria, where, it was felt, the sentiment he had shown in his London letters would be serviceable. His own historical work was put aside for the six years in which he lived at Vienna, upholding the dignity of the United States. A cultivated, polished, high-minded American official was a great asset to the United States at that juncture, when there was a disposition abroad to count the Northerners as commercial sordid folk. Here was a Yankee of the Yankees as a living witness that the name was not counted as a term of reproach by those who bore it.   35