1826-1830.
With the publication of "The Last of the Mohicans," Cooper's popularity
was at its height. His countrymen were proud of him, proud that he had
chosen his native land as the scene of his stories, proud that he had in
consequence extended among all cultivated peoples its fame as well as his
own. His works were more than read. They were in most cases dramatized
and acted as soon as published. Artists vied in making incidents depicted
in them the subjects of their paintings. Poems, founded upon them or
connected in some way with them, made their appearance in the newspapers.
If in many cases these things were in themselves of no value, they at
least served to show the widespread popular interest which his writings
had aroused. Moreover, his reputation was far from being limited to his
own land. No other American, before or since, has enjoyed so wide a
contemporary popularity. Irving may have been on the whole a greater
favorite in England; but if so, it was largely due to the fact that the
subjects upon which he was employed were of special interest to English
readers, and his manner of treating them was flattering to English
prejudices. But the Continental fame of Cooper was unrivaled, and
indeed could fairly be said to hold its own with that of Walter Scott.
Long before he went to Europe himself, his works appeared (p. 057)
simultaneously in America, England, and France. They were speedily
translated into German and Italian, and in most instances soon found
their way into the other cultivated tongues of Europe. Everywhere his
ability had been recognized by those whose approbation, if it could
not confer immortality, was certain to bring with it temporary applause.
The admiration expressed for him was far less marked in England than
upon the Continent; but even there it could often be termed cordial.
It came, too, from those who, whatever estimation we may give to their
praise, did not praise lightly. From Miss Edgeworth he received
personally a tribute to his success in delineating the characters in
which her own reputation had been largely won. On reading "The Spy,"
she sent him a message, that she liked Betty Flanigan particularly,
and that no Irish pen could have drawn her better. Scott had been much
struck by the scenes and personages depicted in "The Pilot," the novel
he first read, and predicted at once the success of the sea-story and
of its creator. Many there were, even in England, who looked upon
Cooper as being equal to the great master of historical romance. "Have
you read the American novels?" wrote in November, 1824, Mary Russell
Mitford to a friend. "In my mind they are as good as anything Sir Walter
ever wrote. He has opened fresh ground, too (if one may say so of the sea).
No one but Smollett has ever attempted to delineate the naval character;
and then his are so coarse and hard. Now this has the same truth and power
with a deep, grand feeling.... Imagine the author's boldness in taking
Paul Jones for a hero, and his power in making one care for him! I envy
the Americans their Mr. Cooper.... There is a certain Long Tom who (p. 058)
appears to me the finest thing since Parson Adams." Subsequently, in
July, 1826, she spoke thus of "The Last of the Mohicans," in a letter
to Haydon: "I like it," she wrote, "better than any of Scott's, except
the three first and 'The Heart of Mid-Lothian.'" The praise, indeed,
given both then and at a later period, may often seem extravagant. In
a passage written in 1835, Barry Cornwall, not merely content with
putting Cooper at the head of all American authors, added that he may
"dare competition with almost any writer whatever."
It need hardly be said that opinions such as these were not to be found
generally in the English literary periodicals. Cooper's name was not
even mentioned in the great reviews until his fame had been secured
without their aid. The success which he won in Great Britain was not
due in the slightest to the professional critics. These men fancied
they had exhausted the power of panegyric when they went so far as to
term him the American Scott. This fact was triumphantly paraded at a
later period by a writer in Blackwood, presumably Wilson, as one of
the convincing proofs of the untruthfulness of the charge made by
Barry Cornwall, that authors from this country were treated with
systematic unfairness in English reviews. "Were we ever unjust to
Cooper?" he asked. "Why, people call him the American Scott." This
sort of patting on the back was thought a proud illustration of the
generosity of the British character, and as putting the recipient of
it under obligations of everlasting gratitude.
There is no doubt, indeed, that the reputation of Cooper suffered all
his life by the constant comparison that was made between him and (p. 059)
the great Scotch writer. It was to a certain extent inevitable; but it
was none the less unfortunate. He could never be judged by what he did;
it was always by the fanciful test of how some one else would have done
it. This was even more true of his own country than of England. Scott's
popularity was greater here than it was anywhere else. There was a
feeling akin almost to moral reprobation expressed against any one who
should presume to fancy that the best work of any native author could
equal the poorest that Scott put forth. The Continental opinion which
at that time often reckoned the American novelist as equal, if not
superior to his British contemporary, seemed to men here like a
profanation. It was, indeed, so said in direct terms.
Comparison with Scott, therefore, always put the one compared at a great
disadvantage. This, however, is a method of judging that is necessary
to some and easy to all. Genuine appreciation demands study and thought.
For these comparison is a cheap substitute. To call Cooper the American
Scott in compliment in the days of his popularity, and in derision in the
days of his unpopularity, was a method of criticism which enabled men to
praise or undervalue without taking the trouble to think. Stories were
invented and set in circulation of how he himself rejoiced in being so
designated. Great, accordingly, was the indignation felt and expressed
by these gentry at the presumption of the American author, when at a
later period he asserted that so far from taking pride in the title,
it merely gave him just as much gratification as any nickname could
give a gentleman.
It would be, moreover, far from truth to say that in this most (p. 060)
prosperous portion of his career his popularity was unmixed in his own
country. Even then his success had aroused a good deal of envy. In 1823
he was attacked, in common with many prominent citizens of New York,
in a satire called "Gotham and the Gothamites." This was the work of a
man of the name of Judah, who, in 1822, had published a dramatic poem
styled "Odofried the Outcast." The title was ominous of the fate which
the production met. The author naturally felt that the age was
unappreciative. To relieve his mind he wrote eleven or twelve hundred
lines of fresh drivel, in which he assailed everything and everybody.
The satire was of that dreadful kind which requires notes and commentaries
to point out who is hit and what is meant; and the annotation, as is
usual in such cases, took up much more space than the text. This
work--for which the author was sent to jail, though a lunatic asylum
would have been a far fitter place--is only of interest here because
it bears direct and positive evidence to the fact that at this time
Cooper was the most widely read of American authors.
But jealousy of his fame could be found among men of much higher
pretensions than this wretched poetaster. "The North American Review"
had at that time been ponderously revolving through space for several
years. It was then a periodical respectable, classical, and dull, all
three in an eminent degree. Towards Cooper it struggled in a feeble
way to be just, but for all that it was the exponent of a distinctly
unfriendly feeling. Among individuals a conspicuous representative of
this hostility was the poet Percival. He could not endure the reputation
which the novelist had acquired. Percival was a man of a good deal of
ability, of a great deal of knowledge, and of an inexhaustible (p. 061)
capacity of spinning out verse, never rising much above, nor falling
much below mediocrity, which, if mere quantity were the only element
to be considered, would have justified him in contracting to produce
enough to constitute of itself a national literature. As he invariably
proved himself entirely destitute of common sense in his ordinary
conduct, he was led to fancy that he was not merely a man of ability,
but a man of genius; and during the whole of his life he perpetually
posed as that most intolerable of literary nuisances, a man of
unappreciated genius. In spite of the fact that he had been hospitably
entertained and befriended by Cooper, he could not be satisfied, because
their common publisher looked upon the latter as the "greatest literary
genius in America." The reception given by the public to the "long, dirty,
straggling tales" of the novelist disgusted him. "I ask nothing," he wrote
in April, 1823, "of a people who will lavish their patronage on such a
vulgar book as "The Pioneers." They and I are well quit. They neglect me,
and I despise them." In a later letter he returned to this work. "It might
do," he said, "to amuse the select society of a barber's shop or a
porter-house. But to have the author step forward on such stilts and claim
to be the lion of our national literature, and fall to roaring himself and
set all his jackals howling (S. C. & Co.) to put better folks out of
countenance--why 'tis pitiful, 'tis wondrous pitiful at least for the
country that not only suffers it but encourages it." Percival, indeed, his
biographer tells us, was subsequently urged to contribute to "The North
American Review" a critical article on "The Prairie," in which simple
justice was to be done to Cooper--which phrase had, of course, its (p. 062)
usual meaning, that injustice was to be done him. The poet's customary
indecision prevailed, however; the country was spared this exhibition
of spiteful incapacity, and the novelist was left to stumble along in
uncertainty as to his precise position among men of letters.
Not but there were plenty of men anxious to show it. Especially was this
true of that class which looked upon it as the supreme effort of critical
judgment to exaggerate the value of everything written in Europe and
depreciate everything of native origin. There was a prevailing belief
among those who mistook their own individual impotence for the incapacity
of a whole people, that nothing good could come out of America. Many
showed their faith by their conduct. In 1834, Cooper himself said that
he knew of several instances in which persons had not read anything he
had written for the avowed reason that nothing worth reading could be
written by one of their countrymen. To all of these it was a subject of
some perplexity and of more annoyance that his works should be, if
anything, more popular in Europe than they were in his native land. To
account for this fact various sage reasons were early suggested and are
still occasionally heard. One of these has always been particularly
common. This was that it was the novelty of the scenes and characters
depicted that attracted attention and not the ability shown in depicting
them. At any rate, they wished it understood that if he satisfied the
European, he did not satisfy the native world: for if creative power had
been denied us, we could at least show that as a compensation we had
been supplied with a double portion of refined taste. Speaking in behalf
of the American people, these critics expressed anxiety that (p. 063)
neither at home nor abroad should Cooper be regarded as obtaining the
unqualified admiration or attaining the lofty ideal of "all of us."
Against any such impression they entered their humble protest. All that
lay in their power should be done to counteract it. This is no one-sided
statement of opinions then expressed. These very sentiments in almost
these very words can be found in reviews of that period.
Cooper at the time of writing his first novel was dwelling at Angevine.
When the success of the second made it probable that he would continue
for a while his career as an author, and possibly devote his life to it,
the necessity arose of changing his residence. His country home was
about five and twenty miles from the city, but twenty-five miles in
those days of limited mail facilities and limited means of communication
was a distance not to be tolerated. Accordingly, in 1822 he moved into
New York. Either there or in its suburbs he dwelt until his departure
for Europe. Here his youngest child, Paul, was born in 1824, and here,
as has already been mentioned, his infant son Fenimore died. His talents
and his reputation gave him at once a leading position in society. Nor
were his associates inferior men. He founded a club which included on
its rolls the residents of New York then best known in literature and
law, science and art. The names of many will be even more familiar to
our ears than they were to those of their contemporaries. All forms of
intellectual activity were represented. To this club belonged, among
others, Chancellor Kent the jurist; Verplanck, the editor of Shakespeare;
Jarvis the painter; Durand the engraver; DeKay the naturalist; Wiley the
publisher; Morse the inventor of the electric telegraph; Halleck and
Bryant, the poets. It was sometimes called after the name of its (p. 064)
founder; but it more commonly bore the title of the "Bread and Cheese
Lunch." It met weekly, and Cooper, whenever he was in the city, was
invariably present. More than that, he was the life and soul of it.
Though kept up for a while after his departure from the country, it was
only a languishing existence it maintained, and even this speedily ended
in death.
His pecuniary situation had been largely improved by his literary
success. The pressure upon his means had in fact been one of the main
reasons, if not the main reason, that had led him to contemplate
pursuing a literary life. The property left by his father had gradually
dwindled in value, partly through lack of careful uninterrupted
management. His elder brothers, on whom the administration of the estate
had successively devolved, had died. The result was, that he found
himself without the means which in his childhood he might justly have
looked forward to possessing. So far from being a man of wealth he was
in the earlier part of his literary career a poor man. From any
difficulties, however, into which he may have fallen he was more than
retrieved by the success of what he wrote. Precisely what was the sale
of his books, or how much he received for their sale, it would be hard
and perhaps impossible now to tell. He was careless himself about
preserving any records of such facts. But, besides this natural
indifference, he seemed to resent any public reference to the price paid
him for his writings as an unauthorized intrusion into his personal
affairs. Allusions even to the amount of his receipts he apparently
regarded as springing not so much from a feeling of pride in his
success, as from a desire to represent him as being under great (p. 065)
obligations to his countrymen. In some instances he was certainly correct
in so regarding it. On one occasion after his return from Europe, he
denied the truth of an assertion made in a newspaper, as to the amount
he derived from the sale of each of his novels. "It remains for the
public to decide," said he, "whether it will tolerate or not this
meddling with private interests by any one who can get the command of a
little ink and a few types." In the prefatory address to the publisher
which appeared in the first edition of "The Pioneers," he made the
statement, that the success of "The Spy," should always remain a secret
between themselves. This reticence and dislike of publicity continued
throughout the whole of his career. It extended to everything connected
with his writings. Our knowledge on these points is, therefore, both
scanty and uncertain. The size of the editions has never been given to
the public. The sale of "The Pioneers" on the morning of its publication
has already been noticed; and there are contemporary newspaper
statements to the effect that the first edition of "The Red Rover"
consisted of five thousand copies, and that this was exhausted in a few
days. But it is only from incidental references of this kind, which can
rarely be relied upon absolutely, that we at this late day are able to
gain any specific information whatever.
He was unquestionably helped in the end, however, by what in the
beginning threatened to be a serious if not insuperable obstacle. He was
unable to get any one concerned in the book trade to assume the risk of
bringing out "The Spy." That had to be taken by the author himself. In
the case of this novel, we know positively that Cooper was not only the
owner of the copyright, but of all the edition; that he gave (p. 066)
directions as to the terms on which the work was to be furnished to the
booksellers, while the publishers, Wiley & Halsted, had no direct
interest in it, and received their reward by a commission. It is evident
that under this arrangement his profits on the sale were far larger than
would usually be the case. Whether he followed the same method in any of
his later productions, there seems to be no means of ascertaining. Wiley,
however, until his death, continued to be his publisher. "The Last of
the Mohicans" went into the hands of Carey & Lea of Philadelphia; and
this firm, under various changes of name, continued to bring out the
American edition of his novels until the year 1844. It was from the
sales in this country that most of the income from his books was derived.
England, indeed, brought him a large sum, at least up to the passage of
the copyright law of 1838; but he gained little pecuniary benefit from
the wide circulation of his works on the European continent, whatever
may have been the renown. In regard to France, he said in 1834 after his
return, that he had paid in taxes to the government of that country,
during his different residences in it, considerably more money than was
obtained from the sales of the sheets of fourteen books. In Germany,
where his writings had an immense circulation, his receipts were still
less.
But whatever may have been the precise amount acquired by the sale of
his works, it was sufficient to pay off heavy debts incurred by others,
but which he was compelled to assume, to put him in an independent
position and justify him in determining to fulfill a long-cherished
desire of spending some time in Europe. Accordingly on the 1st (p. 067)
of June, 1826, he sailed with his family--consisting, with the servants,
of ten persons--from the port of New York. On the 5th of November, 1833,
he landed there on his return. His original intention was to be gone for
but five years. To the fixing of this particular time he was apparently
influenced by a remark of Jefferson, that no American should remain away
for a longer period from the country, because if he did, so rapid were
the changes, its facts would have got wholly beyond his knowledge. His
absence actually extended to a little less than seven years and a half.
Most of this time was spent in France. From Henry Clay, then Secretary
of State, he had received the appointment of consul at Lyons. He had
asked for it, because he did not wish to have the appearance of
expatriating himself; for as the service was then conducted, such a post
involved no duties and brought in no returns. His commission bears date
the 10th of May, 1826. Even this nominal position he gave up after
holding it between two and three years. No resignation of his is on file
in the State Department; but a successor was appointed on the 15th of
January, 1829. He threw up the place because he had come to entertain
the conviction that gross abuses existed in the system of foreign
appointments, and it became him to set an example of the principles he
professed.
It may be well at this point to furnish an outline sketch of his various
residences in Europe. The voyage from America lasted about a month; and
after staying a few days in England he passed over to France, on the
soil of which he first set foot on the 18th of July, 1826. Either in
Paris or its immediate neighborhood he remained until February, 1828,
when he crossed over to England. Leaving London early in June, (p. 068)
he went back to France by the way of Holland and Belgium. In July, 1828,
he left Paris for Switzerland, and took up his residence near Berne.
After spending some weeks in making excursions from that point, he
crossed the Alps in October by the Simplon Pass. The following winter
and spring he spent in Florence and its vicinity. In the summer of 1829
he sailed down the Italian coast to Naples, and after staying a few
weeks in that city, made a home for himself and his family at Sorrento
for nearly three months. The winter of 1829-30 he spent in Rome. In the
spring of 1830 he went to Venice. From that place he journeyed to Munich
by the Tyrol, and finally settled down in Dresden. From his temporary
home in Saxony, however, the July revolution speedily drew him to Paris,
and that city he made mainly his residence from that time until his
return to America in 1833. There he was, and there he stood his ground
during the terrible cholera ravages of 1832. Occasional expeditions he
made, and of one in particular, up the Rhine and in Switzerland, he has
published a full account.
It was eminently characteristic of Cooper, that though he brought with
him letters of introduction, he found himself unwilling to deliver a
single one of them. Yet, certainly, if any American could be pardoned
the use of a custom that has been so much abused, he was the man. But
after he had resided quietly in France for a few weeks, he happened to
attend a diplomatic dinner given by the United States minister to
Canning, then on a visit to Paris. This was the occasion of making his
presence known to those who had long before made the acquaintance of his
writings. He was at once sought out and welcomed by the most (p. 069)
distinguished men of the most brilliant capital in the world. The
polish, the grace, the elegance, and the wit of French social life made
upon him an impression which he not only never forgot, but which he was
afterwards in the habit of contrasting with the social life of England
and America, to the manifest disadvantage of both, and with the certain
result of provoking the hostility of each. He himself says very little
of the reception he met; but we know from other sources how cordial and
even deferential it was. He was not a man, indeed, to enjoy being
lionized, to be set up, as he expressed it, at a dinner-table as a piece
of luxury, like strawberries in February or peaches in April. But he was
in a capital where attention is always paid to ability, though rarely
with noisy demonstration. He received his full share of it. Without
mentioning numerous other evidences, the conspicuous position he held is
evident from the way Scott speaks of him in his diary. He mentions
meeting him one evening at the Princess Galitzin's in November, 1826.
"Cooper was there," said he, "so the Scotch and American lions took the
field together."
But of all the countries in which he resided he grew to be fondest of
Italy. This was partly due to the fact that there he could indulge to
the full extent two passions that had come to be a part of his
nature--the love of fine skies, and of beautiful scenery. His feelings
in regard to this country and to France he expressed on one occasion
with a courtliness that was wholly free from the insincerity of the
courtier's art. In November, 1830, shortly after his return to Paris
from Germany, he was presented to the royal family. The Queen of Louis
Philippe, who was the daughter of Ferdinand I., of the Two (p. 070)
Sicilies, asked him of all the lands visited by him which he most
preferred. "That in which your majesty was born," was the reply, "for
its nature, and that in which your majesty reigns for its society."
There was not in this the slightest compliment, if by compliment
anything is meant inconsistent with the severest truth. "Switzerland,"
he said afterward, "is the country to astonish and sometimes to delight;
but Italy is the land to love." During the nearly two years he remained
there, its scenery, its climate, its recollections, and also its people,
were constantly gaining a hold upon his heart. No country did he ever
leave with so much regret; and when he came to take his final departure,
his feelings were such as are experienced by him who is on the point of
bidding farewell to a much-loved home. When he passed into the valley of
the Adige on his journey to the Tyrol, in 1830, he reversed the usual
practice of the traveler who has his eyes fixed only on what is to come.
He turned around to cast a last lingering glance at the land he was
about to leave behind. Italy was the only country, his wife told him,
that she had ever known him to quit looking over the shoulder. His
regard for the people was, perhaps, intensified by the reaction against
the estimation in which he had been wont to hold them. "The
vulgar-minded English,"--he said in one of those deliciously irritating
and double-acting sentences he was afterward in the habit of frequently
uttering--"talk of the damned Italians, and the vulgar-minded American,
quite in rule, imitates his great model." Certainly his prejudices
against the inhabitants of that country were soon swept away. He
contrasted them favorably with all their neighbors. They were (p. 071)
more gracious than the English, more sincere than the French, and
infinitely more refined than the Germans. In grace of mind, and in love,
and even knowledge of the arts, a large portion of the common Italians
were, in his opinion, as much superior to the Anglo-Saxons as
civilization is to barbarism. He came in time to have a sort of fondness
even for the professional mendicants. He furnishes us a curious picture
of the beggars who assembled about his residence daily in Sorrento, to
whom he invariably gave a grano apiece. The company, starting out from
one or two, had been steadily reinforced by recruits from far and near,
till it ran up to the neighborhood of a hundred men, who regularly
presented themselves for their pittance. There is no more graphic
description in his writings than his account of the scene which took
place when a new-comer among the beggars had the indiscretion, on
receiving his grano, to wish the giver only a hundred years of life; the
indignation of the king of the gang at this exhibition of black
ingratitude; the tumult with which the blunder was corrected, and the
shouts and outcries with which the pitiful hundred was changed into a
thousand years, and long ones at that.
During this time his literary activity was unceasing. Before the close
of 1830 he had completed four novels: "The Prairie," "The Red Rover,"
"The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish," and "The Water Witch,"--all of which were
devoted to the delineation of scenes and characters belonging to his
native land. Before he started for Europe he had begun a new Indian
story. This was finished during his early residence in Paris. He had
felt it to be a hazardous venture to bring into "The Last of the
Mohicans" the personages who had been previously drawn in "The (p. 072)
Pioneers." But so great had been his success, and so strongly had the
characters taken hold of him, that he determined to renew the experiment
for a third time. Leather-Stocking, accordingly, was introduced as
living in extreme old age on the Western prairies, and the book ends
with his death. The idea of transferring the home of the worn-out hunter
to these vast solitudes was suggested, it is fair to infer from Cooper's
own words, by the actual career of Daniel Boone, the Kentucky pioneer.
The simple story of this man's life was sufficiently remarkable; but in
the exaggerated accounts of it that were then current, he was
represented as having emigrated, in his ninety-second year, to an estate
three hundred miles west of the Mississippi, because he found a
population of ten to the square mile inconveniently crowded.
On the 17th of May, 1827, "The Prairie" was published. It did not meet
with the extraordinary success of "The Last of the Mohicans," nor has it
ever been as great a favorite with the general public. It was written in
a far more quiet and subdued vein. It never keeps up that prolonged
strain upon the feelings which characterizes the work that preceded it,
and which while a defect in the eyes of some is to most readers its
special charm. There are, indeed, in many of Cooper's stories,
situations more thrilling and scenes more stirring than can be found in
"The Prairie," though in it there is no lack of these. But of all his
tales it is much the most poetical. Man sinks into insignificance in the
presence of these mighty solitudes; for throughout the whole book the
immensity of nature hangs over the spirit like a pall. Nor were the
characters of the principal personages out of harmony with the atmosphere
that envelopes the scenes described. In the lonely hunter, now (p. 073)
nearing his grave, there is a pathetic grandeur, which is a natural
development, and not an artificial addition. Though he has hurried as
far away as possible from the din of the settlements, he is no longer
querulous and irritable as in his old age in the Otsego hills. He has
learned to recognize the inevitable. While he does not cease to regret,
he has ceased to denounce. He knows that the majestic solitude of nature
will not long remain undisturbed, nor its more majestic silence unbroken;
for in every wind that blows from the East he hears the sound of axes and
the crash of falling trees that herald the march of civilization across
the continent. He sorrows at the ruin impending on all that is dearest to
his heart; but he awaits it in dignified submission. In fine contrast to
him stands the man who has likewise sought the solitude of the wilderness,
not because he loves the beauty and the majesty of primeval nature, but
because he hates the restraints that human society has thrown about the
indulgence of human passions. Criticism has rarely done justice to the
skill and power with which Cooper has drawn the squatter of the prairies,
who holds that land should be as free as air; who has traveled hundreds of
miles beyond the Mississippi to reach a place where title-deeds are not
registered and sheriffs make no levies; who neither fears God nor regards
man; to whom the rule of the rifle is the supremest law; and yet who, with
all his detestation of the safeguards which society has erected for its
security, has a moral code and a rough wild justice of his own.
"The Prairie" was followed by "The Red Rover," which came out on the 9th
of January, 1828. During the years that followed the publication (p. 074)
of "The Pilot," the reputation of that work had been steadily increasing.
Time had more than confirmed the first favorable impression. Not only
had any lingering prejudice against the sea-story as a story been
entirely swept away, but tales of this kind were beginning to be the
fashion. Imitators were springing up everywhere. It was natural, therefore,
for Cooper to turn his attention once more to a kind of fiction to the
composition of which he himself had originally opened the way. After
leaving the navy he had become one of the owners of a whaling vessel,
and in it had made one or two voyages to Newport. In the harbor of that
place he fixed the introduction of his new story of the sea. He had
taken up his residence during the summer of 1827 in the little hamlet of
St. Ouen on the Seine, not far from Paris. There, in the space of three
or four months, "The Red Rover" was written. From the date of its
appearance to the present time it has always been justly one of the most
popular of his productions, and perhaps, considered as a whole, stands
at the head of his sea-tales.
On the 6th of November, 1829, succeeded an Indian story of King Philip's
war, under the name of "The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish." The fanciful title
puzzled, and did not altogether please, the public. As a matter of fact
it was used only in this country. In England the novel was called "The
Borderers;" in France "The Puritans of America, or the Valley of
Wish-ton-Wish." This work was begun during his residence in Switzerland
in 1828, and was completed at Florence. It has never been popular,
particularly in America. The tale is a tragic one throughout, and the
prevailing air of sombreness is rarely lightened by any success in the
management of minor incidents. The introduction too was marked by (p. 075)
one of Cooper's besetting faults, intolerable prolixity. But the main
cause of his failure lay in his inability to delineate the Puritan
character. It was not knowledge that was wanting, it was sympathy; or
perhaps it is better to say that it was his lack of sympathy which
prevented his having any genuine knowledge. He tried in all honesty to
depict the men who had founded New England, the men of hard heads and
iron hearts, in whom piety and pugnacity were, as in himself, so
intimately blended that the transition from the one to the other is a
vanishing line whose discovery defies the closest scrutiny. Paradoxical
as the assertion may seem, he was too much like the Puritans to do them
justice. His character was essentially the same as their own; but the
influences under which he had been trained were altogether different.
Upon their manners, their ideas, and even their appearance he had early
learned to look with aversion; and he had not the power to project his
mind out of the circle of notions and prejudices in which he had been
brought up. The very name of the Reverend Meek Wolf which he bestowed in
this story upon his clergyman, revealed of itself the existence of
feelings which put him at once out of that pale of sympathetic thought,
which enables the novelist or historian to look with the insight of the
spirit upon men and motives which his intellect acting by itself would
prompt him to distrust and dislike.
To this tale succeeded "The Water Witch." This was begun at Sorrento and
finished at Rome, a city which he subsequently used often to speak of as
the precise moral antipodes of the capital of the New World, in the
harbor of which he had laid much of the scene of this story. It (p. 076)
was not till he reached Dresden, however, that he was enabled to have
it put in print. On the 11th of December, 1830, it made its appearance
in this country. With it ended for a time his fictions that dealt with
American life and manners. He now turned to new fields and wrote with
different aims.
* * * * *
During all these years his popularity had continued unabated, though his
last two novels could hardly be said to have met with the favor which
had been accorded to most of those which had preceded them. It is
certainly a convincing proof of the wide reputation he had gained before
he went to Europe, that five editions of "The Prairie," the first work
he wrote after his arrival, were arranged to be published at the same
time. Two were to come out in Paris, one in French and one in English;
one in London; one in Berlin; and one in Philadelphia. But even this
success was soon surpassed. It is hard to credit the accounts that are
given on unimpeachable testimony. One statement, however, is too
important to be overlooked, coming from the source it does. In the
controversy going on in this country in 1833, in regard to the part
Cooper had taken in the finance discussion, which will be mentioned in
its proper place, Morse, the inventor of the electric telegraph,
published a letter in defense of his absent friend. In it he bore
witness in the following words to the popularity of the novelist in the
Old World: "I have visited, in Europe, many countries," said he, "and
what I have asserted of the fame of Mr. Cooper I assert from personal
knowledge. In every city of Europe that I visited the works of Cooper
were conspicuously placed in the windows of every bookshop. They (p. 077)
are published as soon as he produces them in thirty-four different
places in Europe. They have been seen by American travelers in the
languages of Turkey and Persia, in Constantinople, in Egypt, at
Jerusalem, at Ispahan."