and begun. For the story's setting the author's mind turned to the
far-away, new home-country, and early frontier life in Connecticut.
There he brought the transatlantic Puritan and the North American Indian
together--the strong, stern Puritan family affection in close contact
with the red-man's savage cruelty, dignity, and his adoption of a white
child. A fair-haired little girl is torn from her mother and cared for
by a young Indian chief, once a captive in the white settlement. Years
pass over the bereaved family, when an Indian outbreak restores the lost
child to her parents' roof as "Narra-Mattah," the devoted wife of a
Narraganset warrior-chief, and the young mother of his little son. This
book draws a strong picture of pure family devotion; even the old
grandfather's heart, beneath his stiff Puritan garb, beats an
unforgettable part. Sorrow for the lost child gave the story its
name--"The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish" (then thought to mean in the Indian
language, "Place of the Whip-poor-will")and it has been said to
describe the settlement of the Fenimore family in America.
[Illustration: NARRA-MATTAH.]
Many and interesting were their excursions. One was to Interlachen, with
its glimpse of the Jungfrau, and the Lauterbrunnen valleys "full of
wonder and delight." At Lauterbrunnen they walked to the famous Falls of
_Staubbach_, which Cooper describes and explains as meaning "Torrents of
Dust."
[Illustration: CONNECTICUT EMIGRANTS.]
As the summer had fled autumn winds began to whistle through the lindens
of _La Lorraine_, and the snow began to fall upon its pretty garden,
warning the author to fly south with his fledglings and their mother
before the Alpine passes were closed by real winter. Cooper resigned
the consulate at Lyons, which was given him solely "to avoid the
appearance of going over to the enemy" while abroad. A carriage and two
servitors were engaged. One of these, Caspar, had his soldiering under
the first Napoleon, and many were the camp tales he had to tell in a way
to please his employers. At the old town of Alstetten, with painted
wooden houses at the foot of the Am Stoss, they arrived, more than ready
for breakfast, which was somewhat delayed because, said Cooper, "our
German was by no means classical; and English, Italian, and French were
all Hebrew to the good people of the inn." It was "easy to make the
hostess understand that we _wished_ to eat,--but _what_ would we eat? In
this crisis I bethought me of a long-neglected art, and crowed like a
cock. The shrill strain hardly reached the ear of the good woman before
it was answered by such laughter as none but village lungs could raise.
William--an admirable mimic--began to cackle like a hen. In due time we
had a broiled fowl, an _omelette_, and boiled eggs." At another place
where they stopped for mid-day luncheon Cooper writes: "We asked for a
fruit-tart, and--odors and nosegays!--they gave us one made of onions,
which they thought very good fruit in its way, and we ate exactly as
much as we wished."
[Illustration: FALL OF THE STAUBBACH.]
"The baths of Pfäffer," he wrote "in my own unworthy person have wrought
a sudden and wondrous cure"; and of his visit to the Devil's Bridge over
the Reuss: "We entered a gorge between frightful rocks, where the river
was fretting and struggling to get in before us." From the yawning mouth
of a gloomy cave came the tinkling bells of pack-horses to Italy by the
St. Gothard. To the roar of the river and the rushing of winds without
they plunged through this dark "Hole of Uri," which brought them to a
rugged rock-rift pass with but a thread of heaven's blue far above them;
and here "a slight, narrow bridge of a single arch spanned the gorge
with a hardihood that caused one to shudder." Its slender, unrailed,
fifteen feet of width was eighty of span, and one hundred above the
boiling torrent that fell on broken rocks below, and over it; wrote
Cooper: "The wind blew so furiously that I really wished for a rope to
hold on by. This was the far-famed Devil's Bridge; other bridges may
have been built by imps, but Beëlzebub himself had a hand in this."
[Illustration: THE DEVIL'S BRIDGE.]
[Illustration: FERNEY, VOLTAIRE'S LAZE LEMAN HOME.]
They enjoyed the beauty of Lake Geneva, and were charmed by the
attractions of "Ferney," Voltaire's home on Leman's shore, and enjoyed
the solemn gorge-valley of the Rhone, and through the Simplon passed
into fair Italy. As they "drew near a small chapel in a rock Casper
flourished his whip, calling out the word 'Italia!' I pulled off my hat
in reverence," wrote the author. Down the steep mountains, over bridged
torrents, past the hill-towns and valley-lands, they came to the City of
the Lily,--fair Florence of the Arno. "As early as 1829," Cooper
thought, "the unification of Italy was irresistible."
[Illustration: THE SIMPLON PASS.]
[Illustration: FLORENCE, ITALY.]
[Illustration: PALAZZO RICASOLI, FLORENCE, ITALY.]
In Florence a home was soon found in the Palazzo Ricasoli, Via del
Cocomero. Lofty of ceiling--twenty feet--was their apartment, in which
they enjoyed "two noble bed-rooms, several smaller ones, a large
drawing-room, dining-room, baths, a small court and garden within the
iron gates, and all for the modest sum of sixty dollars per month." The
oil burned in their lamps the home-folk "would be happy to use on their
salads." Here, around the cheering glow of great wood-fires, the
American author would gather his friends, old and new. From Otsego days
a blazing hearth-stone ever rejoiced his cheery nature, and his way of
laying the wood and nursing the flames horrified his Italian servants as
waste of fuel. The chill of the _tra montana_ brought into this circle
of warmth and light many eminent foreigners; and of home-country folk,
that true American, Horatio Greenough, often basked in the bright glow
of the author's wood-fires at Florence.
Later Greenough wrote: "Fenimore Cooper saved me from despair after my
return to Italy. He employed me as I wish to be employed; and up to this
moment has been a father to me." Greenough's last work was a bust of his
illustrious friend, the American novelist, which he proposed to cast in
bronze, at his own expense, and place in the field where stands the Old
Mill in Newport, and where the opening scene of "The Red Rover" is laid.
He took counsel with Cooper's friends as to a monument to the author,
and among his papers was found an elaborate design for the work.
[Illustration: HORATIO GREENOUGH.]
Cooper loved to encourage rising talent in young artists. He gave them
orders, and also his cheering sympathy. One of these wrote that Cooper
gave him a free letter-of-credit on his banker in Paris, and added: "I
had occasion to use it more than once, and my drafts were always
cheerfully accepted. Since then I have paid him, though he never would
have asked for the money; nobody but he and I ever knew of the
transaction." A Boston man writes of his visit to the Florence studio of
Greenough: "My eye fell upon a bust which awakened sea and forest
pictures,--the spars of an elegant craft, the lofty figure of a hunter,
the dignified bearing of a mysterious pilot." It was the bust of
Fenimore Cooper. Of the sculptor it was noted that "he always referred
with emotion to the gleam of sunshine which encouraged him at this
crisis, in the friendship of our late renowned novelist, Cooper."
[Illustration: BUST OF JAMES FENIMORE COOPER.]
In the Pitti one day they passed before Raphael's _Madonna del Trono_,
and the sculptor pointed out to his companion the fine drawing in the
two little angel figures of the foreground, in the act of singing.
Cooper asked if the subject would not lend itself to sculpture;
afterwards one of his daughters copied the figures, and the result of
the mutual interest in the design was an order from Cooper for a group
which in a few months Greenough executed in marble. It was exhibited in
America under the title of "The Chanting Cherubs." It was Cooper's
"Chanting Cherubs"--the first group of its kind from an American chisel
--that led to Greenough's order for the statue of Washington, and
inspired the pen of Richard Henry Dana to write:
Whence came ye, cherubs? from the moon?
Or from some shining star?
Ye, sure, are sent a blessed boon,
From kinder worlds afar;
For while I look my heart is all delight:
Earth hath no creatures half so pure and bright.
[Illustration: CHANTING CHERUBS.]
Later on Greenough came to them "all booted and bearded beyond
recognition" save in "his walk and his talk."
During Cooper's later American press troubles his close friend,
Greenough, wrote him: "You lose your hold on the American public with
rubbing down their skins with brick-bats." And yet, during Greenough's
dark days, he said: "What is the use of blowing up bladders for
posterity to jump upon for the mere pleasure of hearing them crack?" The
author's keen delight in architecture, sculpture, and painting then gave
him daily pleasure in the churches, palaces, and art-galleries of _Bella
Firenzi_. Familiar from youth with his father's engravings of antique
sculpture subjects, he writes of his first glimpses of the originals in
the Pitti: "I stood, hat in hand, involuntarily bowing to the circle of
marble figures that surrounded me."
[Illustration: LEOPOLD II, GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY.]
[Illustration: PITTI PALACE, FLORENCE, ITALY, 1828.]
Attired in "a black coat, breeches, and vest with steel buttons, lace
frills and ruff, a sword and a dress-hat," our author was presented at
the brilliant Tuscan Court. Grand Duke Leopold II left on Cooper's mind
a strong impression of integrity of character; his simplicity and
justice were borne out in his greeting: "They tell me you are the
author of many books, but as it has never been my good fortune to meet
with them, I can say no more on this subject than that I have heard them
well spoken of by those who have." Cooper was asked "a hundred questions
as to America," and assured of the prince's pleasure in seeing him at
court and his being in Tuscany. When leaving Florence Cooper paid his
parting respects at the Pitti in an hour's pleasant converse, and then
presented the Grand Duke with a copy of "The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish,"
printed in his city of the Arno. Here Cooper and his family had some gay
carnival days with their various friends. Among them was the Count St.
Leu, son of Queen Hortense and King Louis of Holland, and the author's
sometimes host, and "one of the handsomest men of his age" that Cooper
ever met. We are told of the Count: "He lived in good style, having a
fine villa where I dined lately, and a palace in town." By those nearest
him he was addressed "your Majesty," and held some "little show" of
royalty. Princess Charlotte, his wife, and daughter of Joseph Bonaparte,
the author also knew. He met Madame Mère, who is described as "a slight
old lady, with little remains of beauty except fine black eyes." She was
quiet, simple; in short, motherly, when seen by Cooper the winter of
1828-29.
[Illustration: COUNT ST. LEU.]
[Illustration: LETIZIA BOUNAPARTE.]
[Illustration: MADAME MÈRE.]
Longing for the open country came with the early Italian spring, and a
hillside villa just outside the walls of Florence was secured. A narrow
lane ran between this villa _St. Illario_ and its rustic church of the
same name. The villa had two projecting wings with belvederes and roofed
terraces, one of which connected with the author's study. Herein he
wrote of "the witchery of Italy"--the land he loved next to his own. His
letters give glorious glimpses of the Arno, their strolls to
Bellosguardo's heights, the churches, monasteries, costumes, and songs
of the peasants--all attuned to poesy. Frequent were the exchanges of
civility between the author's study and the good old _curato_ across the
lane. Cooper wrote of him: "The man has some excellent figs, and our
cook, having discovered it, lays his trees under contribution." He
continues: "One small, green-coated, fresh fig is the precise point of
felicity. But the good _curato_, besides his figs, has a pair of uneasy
bells in his church-tower that are exactly forty-three feet from my
ears, which ring in pairs six or eight times daily. There are matins,
noontide, vespers, to say nothing of christenings, weddings, and
funerals."
Then follows a rare account of a night funeral service ending beneath
his study walls.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. ILLARIO AND NARROW LANE.]
[Illustration: VILLA, ST. ILLARIO.]
During the great Florentine _fête_ of St. John, the patron saint of the
city,--from the Count St. Leu's windows on the Arno,--the author and his
family saw the display of gala-boats decked with thousands of
colored-paper lanterns.
[Illustration: CHARIOT RACES, FLORENCE.]
They enjoyed the chariot races in the wide Piazza Santa Maria Novella,
where the small obelisks point the start and finish of the races. These
were followed by the _corso dei barberi_--barbed horse-races without
riders--down the longest street of the town. Then followed the French
Minister's masked ball, amusing as well as splendid, readers of Cooper's
"Italy" will find. But more than all, on their return to Villa St.
Illario, were they charmed with the brilliant illumination of the noble
cathedral dome, which against the dark skies "looked like a line
engraving of fire." So closed this festa of Florence in the grand-ducal
days, bright in gay gear and alive with everybody, from prince to
_contadini_. Then he came in happy touch with the impulsive, laughing,
singing, dark-haired Italians, and to the finer aspects of their nature
he was partial. They were in sharp contrast to the Puritan band in the
valley of the Connecticut, which his pen pictured in the finishing
touches of "The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish," when in his study at _Casa
Ricasoli._
[Illustration: GENOA.]
Press censorship and no English printing-house in Florence forced Cooper
to leave his family and go to Marseilles. His letters give some pretty
pictures which passed his carriage windows on the way. Of Genoa: "The
seaward prospect was glorious." The islands "were borrowed by Leonardo,"
and a circuit of the city walls was made on horseback. Full of charm
and interest was the road "on the margin of the sea"--from Genoa to
Nice. In his "Excursions in Italy" appears of Genoa: "I looked back with
longing-eyes at _Genoa la Superba_ and thought it well deserved the
title." "The whole of this coast," he wrote, "is as picturesque and
glorious as the imagination can picture it." He tells of feluccas and
other water-craft that claimed a sailor's eye; and the landward views of
Mentone, Santa Monica, the heights, arches, and passes, and the
wasp-like Villa Franca, perched on its ledge up two hundred feet--for
fear of "the bears" said the guide. In Marseilles an English printer was
secured and brought back to Florence. Besides being deaf and dumb his
name--Richard Heavysides--bore out the burden of an unfortunate temper
to the necessity of sending this printer back to Marseilles. Finally, by
the kindness of the grand duke's librarian, a small edition of "The Wept
of Wish-ton-Wish" was printed, and early sheets sent to publishers in
Paris, London, and Philadelphia. In England the book was called "The
Borderers," being based on the story of Eunice Williams of Deerfield,
Mass., but it was more highly valued in England and France than in
America.
[Illustration: LEGHORN.]
The Mediterranean blue on Cooper's journey to Marseilles allured him
into conceiving another sea tale. Its writing, however, was delayed by a
mild return of the old fever that was induced by the summer sun of
Italy. Longing, therefore, for the water breezes, mid-summer found him
within "sight and sound" of the sea waves. He writes "July 29 the whole
family went to Leghorn, where the salt air was grateful, and I snuffed
the odor of this delightful sea with a feeling that was 'redolent of joy
and youth.' We feasted our eyes on the picturesque rigs and barks of
those poetical waters, and met several men from the Levant,--an
Algerian Rais calmly smoking his chibouque on the deck of his poleacre,
many Sardinians, Tuscans, Jews, and three Russians. Rowing under the
bows of a Yankee, I found one seated on the windlass playing on the
flute,--as cool a piece of impudence as can well be imagined for a
Massachusetts man to practice in Italy! The delicious odors of the
seaport were inhaled with a delight no language can describe."
[Illustration: NAPLES.]
At Leghorn Cooper engaged a Genovese felucca, "_La Bella Genovese_,--a
craft of thirty tons, beautiful mould, lateen-rigged, carrying two of
that sail and a jib, and ten men for her crew." Aboard this small vessel
the author and his family spent six days of pure pleasure, yet "somewhat
bitten by fleas." They touched at Elba and other islands, and skirted
the coasts of Tuscany, the Roman States, and so on to Naples, of which
Cooper wrote: "Oh Napoli! glorious, sunny, balmy Napoli!" This cruising
along the western coast of Italy in the _Bella Genovese_ suggested to
the author one of his favorite stories, "Wing-and-Wing," which was
published twelve years later. In Naples several weeks were passed at a
hotel; thence to a short-time home of their own on the cliffs of
Sorrento. The very air of Italy was a delight to this sunny-hearted
sailor, who so deeply felt the charm of all Italian nature. "The house
we have taken," he wrote, "is said to be the one in which Tasso was
born. It stands on the brow of the cliffs, within the walls of the town,
and in plain sight of every object of interest on the bay. We occupy the
principal floor only, though I have taken the entire house. There is a
chapel beneath the grand _sala_, and kitchens and offices somewhere in
those lower regions. We enter by a porte-cochère into a court which has
a well with a handsome marble curb and a flight of broad, marble steps
fit for a palace." Seaward several rooms led to the _sala_, fifty feet
long, and facing the water. Cooper tells of its tiled floor, gilded
couches, chairs, and marble busts. The great charm of the house was its
terrace, fifty feet long by twenty-five wide, and protected by a stone
balustrade, massive and carved, hanging over the blue Mediterranean, and
giving to view Vesuvius, Ischia, and all the coast of glorious sea.
Hearing an outcry from his son Paul one day, his father found the boy
with his head fast between two of these great spindles--"in a way that
frightened me as well as the youngster himself. It was like being
imbedded in a rock. Below the terrace runs a narrow beach, where our
children delight to play, picking up shells and more than
shells,--ancient mosaics. There is a little room off from the terrace I
use for writing," and where he could watch the beauty of the sea. Much
of "The Water Witch" was rapidly written in this study on the inspiring
terrace of _Casa Tasso_, Vesuvius in sight. Daily excursions were made.
When four-of-the-clock threw the rock shadows far over the water, they
went a-boating. On land they made "donkey" and "non-donkey" jaunts.
_Capo di Monti_, overlooking the town landing-place, was also a favorite
resting-place, and gave some bright pictures of native life. By an
amusing practice of giving their king--a fine old mendicant with a lame
leg--and his daily-growing train a _grano_ a day at the gate, Cooper and
his family on their excursions were freed from an army of beggars. All
were grateful, and wished the American _admiral_ "a thousand
years,"--save one poor creature, who blundered into "a hundred," upon
which his angered fellows cudgeled him with blows and words into
shouting, "A thousand years, and long ones." Donkeys and boats were
taken for Amalfi with her convent-crowned cliffs above the sea. Not
until the chill _tra montana_ and the snow-powdered mountain-tops
reminded them that but one fire could be kindled in their vast Sorrento
home did they leave it one morning, with ninety-six of their well-wisher
beggars in the court to bid them good-speed on their way to the Eternal
City.
[Illustration: CASA TASSO AT SORRENTO.]
[Illustration: CASA TASSO TERRACE-STUDY.]
In the autumn of 1830 Cooper and his family entered Rome through the
gate of St. John, and drove across the city to the Hotel de Paris, just
below the Pincio and near the _Porta del Popolo_. After dinner, with
still an hour of daylight, and eager to see what Rome was like, Cooper
called a guide, and, holding Paul by the hand, sallied forth through the
narrow, crooking streets over the bridge of the angels to St. Peters.
"Pushing aside the door, I found myself in the nave of the noblest
temple in which any religious rites were ever celebrated. To me there
was no disappointment, and as I stood gazing at the glorious pile, the
tears forced themselves from my eyes. Even little Paul was oppressed
with the vastness of the place, for he clung close to my side and kept
murmuring, 'What is this? What is this? Is this a church?' I turned away
impressed with the truth that if ever the hand of man had raised a
structure to the Deity in the least worthy of His Majesty, it was this!"
[Illustration: ST. PETER'S, EXTERIOR, ROME.]
[Illustration: ST. PETERS, INTERIOR.]
[Illustration: ADAM MICKIEOWICZ.]
The usual roof-tree was soon found in the via Ripetta, where their back
windows overlooked the tawny Tiber and gave them views of Castle St.
Angelo and St. Peter's dome glorified by each day's setting sun, and
here was passed their winter in old Rome. The Eternal City's ruins were
most interesting to Cooper; it was his special delight to ride for hours
with some friend over the Campagna, lingering among fragments of
structures or statues of ancient days. Perhaps none who rode with him
gave him more pleasure than the famous Polish poet, Adam Mickieowicz,--a
man full of originality, genius, and sadness for the fate of his lost
country. All of this won Cooper's sympathy and help in zealous writing
and speaking for the suffering Poles; and one, Count Truskalaskie
Wuskalaskia, later on found a welcome at Otsego Hall.
[Illustration: PORTA RIPETTA, WHERE COOPER LIVED IN ROME.]
Our author also saw something of social Rome, as is noted: He "was at a
grand ball--faultless as to taste and style"--given by a prince to a
prince near to the royal family of England. Of compatriots he writes:
"_We_ have had a dinner, too, in honor of Washington, at which _I_ had
the honor to preside. You will be surprised to hear that we sat down
near seventy Yankees in the Eternal City!"
[Illustration: ROMAN FORUM.]
"The Water Witch," now nearly finished, required printing, which some
kind Italian friends nearly brought about in Rome; but the book
contained this sentence: "Rome itself is only to be traced by fallen
temples and buried columns," which gave offense where none was intended
and barred the work's issue there. The story was finished and laid aside
until spring, when, after five delightful months in Rome and a few days
at Tivoli, Cooper and his family reluctantly drove through the _Porto
del Popolo_. In their own carriage, with four white horses, and their
servitors in another with four brown ones, they passed up the Adriatic
coast to Venice.
[Illustration: PORTA DEL POPOLO.]
Miss Cooper's "Pages and Pictures" gives her father's graphic account of
this interesting journey,--how, in a wild mountain-road they fell in
with pilgrims neither way-worn nor solemn, but most willing to talk.
They seemed moving pictures with their staffs, scrip, and scallop-shell
capes, returning from Rome. Then came Terni and its famous waterfall--a
mile away, they knew, for they walked there. Man-made were those falls,
by the turning of a pretty stream many hundred years ago.
[Illustration: FALLS OF MARMORA AT TERNI.]
High bridges and hermit nooks were passed, and then a long aqueduct with
_Gothic_ arches, called _Roman_ in the guide-books; an old temple turned
into a church, and but a trifle larger than a Yankee corn-crib. Then
over the fine road beyond Foligno, and the hill Fiorito, and they rolled
easily down into the Ancona country, where they found the shrine of
Loreto.
[Illustration: ANCONA.]
[Illustration: LORETO.]