1828-1833.
Misrepresentation and abuse of his native land it was not in Cooper's
nature to bear in silence. His resentment for the imputations cast upon
his country began to show itself soon after he had taken up his
residence abroad. In "The Red Rover," which appeared in 1827, there are
satirical references to the benevolence and piety of the moral
missionaries which England had sent among us, and to the correctness and
wisdom of current foreign opinion. In the next novel, "The Wept of
Wish-ton-Wish," his feelings are still more fully expressed. In this
work he puts into the mouth of one of the characters, a physician, an
elaborate disquisition upon the degeneracy of man in America. In the
course of it the leech informs his opponent that the science and wisdom
and philosophy of Europe had been exceedingly active in the
investigation of this matter of colonial inferiority, that they had
proved to their own perfect satisfaction, which was the same thing as
disposing of the question without appeal, that man and beast, plant and
tree, hill and dale, lake, pond, sun, air, fire, and water were all
wanting in some of the perfectness of the old regions. It was plain we
could never hope to reach the exalted excellence they enjoy; and while
he respected the patriotism that held the contrary view, he could not,
out of deference to it, afford to doubt what had been demonstrated (p. 100)
by science and collected by learning.
It was not in this indirect way, however, that he could content himself
with defending his country. No sooner had he lived in Europe long enough
to become acquainted with the erroneous impressions there prevalent, in
regard to America, than he set out to prepare a work which should expose
their falsity. In it he determined to lay the precise facts before a
public which was indisposed to believe anything to the credit, and
disposed to believe everything to the discredit of democratic institutions.
On the face of it, this was a futile undertaking, no matter how
praiseworthy its motive. Nations, no more than individuals, are
convinced by what other nations say of themselves; it is only by what
they do. In this particular case the difficulty was rendered more
insurmountable by the fact that these erroneous impressions prevailed
among those who did not care enough about the matter to investigate it
seriously, and who would be certain in most cases to refrain from
investigating it at all, had they a suspicion that their preconceived
beliefs would be overthrown or even shaken, as a result of their
examination. The question naturally arises, whether such men could be
convinced by facts and arguments, and if so, whether they were worth the
trouble of convincing. Why grudge the adherents of a dying cause the
dismal enjoyment they receive from contemplating the ruin that is always
being wrought, or is always to be wrought, by Democracy to Democracy?
Experience led Cooper subsequently to see the uselessness of the
experiment he, in this instance, tried. When asked at a later period why
some efforts were not made to correct the false notions prevalent (p. 101)
in Europe in regard to America, he answered with perfect truth then,
that no favorable account would be acceptable; that it would not be
enough to confess our real faults, but we should be required to confess
the precise faults that, according to the opinions of that quarter of
the world, we were morally, logically, and politically bound to possess.
By the wide circulation of his fictions he, in truth, did more to remove
wrong impressions, dissipate prejudices, and open the eyes of Europe to
a knowledge of American life and manners, than could have been
accomplished by the longest and most ponderous array of indisputable
facts.
Facts, however, he at this time purposed to furnish. Accordingly, on the
13th of August, 1828, appeared a work entitled, "Notions of the
Americans, Picked up by a Traveling Bachelor." Whatever its actual
success, it was a relative failure. Cooper himself tells us that it
occasioned him a heavy pecuniary loss. Manner and matter, both
foredoomed it to the fate which it met. The plan of it was an unfortunate
one as well as a purely artificial one. The views and observations and
statements of fact are put into the mouth of a European traveling
bachelor, a member of a club of cosmopolites, who, in consequence of
meeting an American, named Cadwallader, is persuaded to visit and see
for himself the new world. Arriving there he writes letters to his
friends, giving an account of his impressions. The fiction of foreign
authorship was the first mistake. It could not mislead any one, nor was
it intended to mislead any one. But a grave didactic treatise which was
designed to convey a truthful impression, lost something and gained
nothing by being connected with any artifice, even though not meant to
impose upon the reader. Nor was the work interesting to one not (p. 102)
specially interested in the subject. To the American it gave the
strongest assurances of loyalty to republican institutions on the part
of her most widely-known man of letters; but it added little or nothing
to the information of which he was already in possession. On the other
hand, the laudatory style in which this country was invariably spoken of
was certain to be offensive to those whom it was the design of the work
to enlighten. The weight of matter, moreover, was not rendered any more
endurable by lightness of treatment. At the present day the work is
chiefly interesting for the keen observations that are found in it, and
for its remarks upon the future of the country rather than upon its then
existing state. Cooper's predictions were concerned with the minutest,
as well as the greatest subjects. They ranged all the way from the
indefinite assurance, that New York must eventually become the
gastronomic capital of the globe, to the precise statement, as to the
exact number of the population there would be in the United States fifty
years from the time in which he was writing. This last prophecy, it is
to be said, has turned out singularly true. He fixed the number at fifty
millions. That this was no chance guess, but a carefully worked out
computation, is evident from the fact that he repeats it several times
in this work and occasionally in later ones. He, moreover, assigned
definitely forty-three millions to the whites and seven millions to the
blacks.
It is not for an American to find fault with the laudatory tone of a
work which reflects the ardent love of country felt by the writer. Yet
in many respects it is a singular production. In manner it is calm,
grave, almost philosophical; there is not the slightest effort at (p. 103)
fine writing; the tone can never be said to be even fervid. Yet it
must be confessed that not in the most exalted of Fourth of July
orations does the national eagle scream with a shriller note, or wing
his way with a more unflagging flight. Any one who formed his notions of
this country exclusively from this book, would be sure to fancy that
here at last paradise was reopening to the children of a fallen race.
After this remark, it may seem ridiculous, and yet it is perfectly just
to say, that Cooper, so far from giving way to exaggeration in his
assertions, kept himself well within the bounds of the truth. In the
exercise of that duty which presses heavily upon every reviewer, to
seem, if not to be wiser than his author, many of the English
periodicals, even those most favorable to America, undertook to doubt
his statements of fact, to sneer at his prophecies of the future as
ludicrous exaggerations, and to term them striking and whimsical
instances of Yankee braggadocio, and of the love of building castles in
the air. Cooper could not well overstate the material prosperity and
progress of the country, nor the inability of men trained under
different conditions either to believe it or to comprehend it. Reality
soon outran some of his most daring anticipations. His most extravagant
statements were speedily more than confirmed by the operation of
agencies whose mighty results he could not foresee, because, when he
wrote, the agencies themselves did not exist. He had carefully guarded
himself in one instance, by saying that he did not expect that the
Northwest would be settled within an early period. The precaution was
unnecessary. He had been brought up in a town, founded in the
wilderness, at a distance of less than one hundred and fifty miles (p. 104)
from the commercial capital of the republic. He lived long enough to see
the frontiers of civilization pushed one thousand miles west of the line
it had held in his boyhood's home.
Any wrong impression, therefore, which the work conveyed was not due to
the spirit of braggadocio pervading it, as asserted and commented upon
by the English reviewers. No false statement was made intentionally;
there were very few that were made mistakenly. But though Cooper
purposed to tell nothing but truth about his country, he did not feel
himself under obligation to tell all the truth. The attention was almost
exclusively directed to that side of the national character which lent
itself most readily to favorable treatment. What was unfavorable was
either omitted altogether, or was very lightly passed over. One letter
alone, and that not a long one, was devoted to slavery. It is plain that
he was annoyed by it; to some extent, in spite of his confidence,
disquieted by it, though the dangers he feared were not the dangers that
actually came. Even at that early day there was enough to trouble the
lover of his country in the criticism it encountered, for the glaring
contrast between its professions of liberty and its practice; but far
more in the dimly-seen shape of that gigantic struggle which, though
itself vague and undefined, was already beginning to cast its lowering
shadow over the future of the republic. So in a similar manner the
literature, architecture, and art of America were passed over in a few
pages, while letter after letter was given up to a description of its
progress in wealth and comfort. Yet no one knew better than Cooper,--at
a later period he took care his countrymen should not forget it,--that
of all standards by which to test national glory, the material (p. 105)
standard is in itself the lowest and most vulgar; and that the
difference in real greatness between two places can never be measured by
the comparative amount of sugar, or salt, or flour sold in each. Yet he
remembered then, what later he seemed to forget, that the necessity of
conquering the continent, of making it inhabitable for man, was at the
time and must continue long to remain a very positive hindrance to the
development of literary and artistic ability, because by the immense
rewards it offered it attracted to the development of material resources
the intellect and vigor of the entire land.
Cooper tells us, as has been said, that he lost money on this work. But
there was something more than pecuniary failure that attended it. There
were in it statements which met with disfavor at home. More important
than these, however, were remarks that aroused personal hostility
abroad. He made several references, in particular, to the people of
England, and they were not of a kind to conciliate regard for himself
and his work. In one place he spoke of the society of that country as
being more repulsive, artificial, and cumbered, and, in short, more
absurd and frequently less graceful than that of any other European
nation. Theoretically, the English care nothing for foreign opinion.
They have said it so often among themselves that most of them look upon
it as a point which has been settled by the consent of mankind. But like
many other beliefs it has become an article of faith without having
become an article of practice. To this extent it is true that they care
nothing for the remarks of obscure men of which they never hear. On the
other hand, no nation is more sensitive to contemporary foreign opinion,
coming from writers of distinction. There will be plenty of (p. 106)
instances furnished in this one biography to prove fully this assertion.
Cooper's attack was never forgotten or forgiven. From this time there
was a distinctly hostile feeling manifested toward him in many of the
English periodicals. Even before his next work appeared, London
correspondents of American newspapers announced that it was going to be
severely criticised, inasmuch as the novelist had made himself unpopular
in England by the comments made and the views put forth in the "Notions
of the Americans." If this were not true, it was at least believed to be
true. Certainly the fact of hostility steadily increasing from this
period, on the part of the British press, cannot be denied, whatever we
may think of the causes that brought it about. Nor did it stop short
with depreciation of his works. Literary criticism, even if based merely
upon personal dislike, can always resort with safety to the cheap
defense that it is honest. But there were reviewers who went farther,
who framed for Cooper imaginary feelings and then proceeded to assail
him for having them. He was accused, especially, of pluming himself
highly upon the title of the "American Scott." Hazlitt, for instance,
seeing him strutting, as he terms it, in the streets of Paris, was
enabled to detect by the way the novelist walked the way he felt upon
this special matter, and afterward to state the conclusion at which he
had arrived as a positive fact. Similar specimens of fine critical
insight into Cooper's motives and sentiments can be found scattered up
and down the pages of English journals.
At the time he was bringing out "The Water Witch" in Germany, the
revolution in France took place that resulted in the expulsion of (p. 107)
the Bourbons and the calling of Louis Philippe to the throne. Paris
became at once the Mecca to which the lovers of liberty throughout
Europe resorted. Thither Cooper hastened from his home in Dresden. He
reached the city in August, 1830. There he watched with the profoundest
interest the political movements that were going on about him. The
reactionary tendencies that early began to manifest themselves in the
rule of the Citizen King, brought to him the same disappointment and the
same disgust that it did to all the ardent republicans of the Old World.
There is much in what he says to remind the reader of the feelings
expressed by Heine, who had likewise hurried to Paris after the July
revolution, and who was venting his indignation and contempt in the
columns of the Augsburg "Allgemeine Zeitung." Occasional passages bear
even a close similarity. Cooper on one occasion describes Louis Philippe
walking about among his subjects wearing a white hat, carrying a red
umbrella, and evidently laboring to act in an easy and affable manner.
"In short," he said in a phrase that might have been written by the
great German, "he was condescending with all his might."
Close upon the revolution in France followed the revolt of Poland. The
insurrection lasted about ten months, and during its progress the
feelings of Cooper were profoundly stirred in behalf of that people.
With this his personal friendship with the Polish poet, Mickiewicz, had
probably a great deal to do; for at Rome a close intimacy had sprung up
between him and that author. At a meeting, held in Paris on the 4th of
July, 1831, at which Cooper presided, a sum of money was contributed to
aid the revolters in their struggle. He presided also at other (p. 108)
meetings to advance the same cause, and acted as chairman of a committee
to raise funds to assist the Polish soldiers who were fighting for
independence, and when this failed, to relieve the exiles in their
distress. Two addresses to the American people signed by him in his
official capacity--one written in July, 1831, and the other in June,
1832--appeared in the American papers of those years; and the fervor
that characterizes them both leaves little doubt as to their authorship.
Into the great struggle going on in Europe, either openly or silently
between aristocracy and democracy, he now, indeed, threw himself with
his whole heart. In certain respects this was a disadvantage. Whenever
Cooper's feelings on political subjects were aroused, his literary work
betrayed the obtrusion of interests more dominating than those which
belong to it legitimately. This was manifested in the three tales which
followed. In them the scene of action was not only transferred to
European soil, but a direct attempt was avowedly made to apply American
principles to European facts. These novels were "The Bravo," which
appeared November 29, 1831; "The Heidenmauer," which appeared September
25, 1832; and "The Headsman," which appeared October 18, 1833. The
purpose of all these was the direct exaltation of republican
institutions, and likewise the exposure of those which paraded in the
garb of liberty without possessing its reality. The scenes of two were
accordingly laid in the aristocratic cities of Venice and of Berne. The
first of the three is generally spoken of as the best, especially by
those who have read none of them at all. Little difference will be
found, as a matter of fact, between "The Bravo" and "The Headsman" (p. 109)
as regards literary merit. "The Heidenmauer" is, however, distinctly
inferior, and is in truth one of the most tedious novels that Cooper
ever wrote. All were, however, animated by the same spirit. They all
assailed oligarchical, and lauded democratic institutions. They were
full of denunciations of the accommodating stupidity of patricians who
were never able to see anything beneficial to the interests of the state
in what was injurious to the interests of their own order. In
particular, the doctrine was held up to derision, that while to the
ignorant and the low there was ample power given to suffer, there was no
power given to understand; and that consequently it was their duty
always to obey and never to criticise.
In writing this series Cooper was undertaking what was on the face of it
a hazardous experiment. The peril was not, as thoughtless criticism has
had it, in transferring his scenes and characters to a foreign soil.
Human nature suffers no material change in passing from America to
Europe. The danger lay in the fact that these were novels written with a
purpose. The story was not told for its own sake, but for the sake of
enforcing certain political opinions. It required, therefore, unusual
skill in its construction and in the management of its details. For
whatever may be the exact truth contained in the doctrine of art for
art's sake, this is certainly clear, that in a work of fiction designed
to advance successfully any cause, or support any theory, the didactic
element must be made entirely subordinate to the purely creative
element. Otherwise we impart to the novel the tediousness of a homily
without its accepted authority. Art must be wooed as a mistress; she can
never be commanded as a slave. He, therefore, who seeks to press (p. 110)
fiction into a work so foreign to its nature as the inculcation of
political opinions, must, if he hopes to succeed, make the story suggest
the lesson without conveying it obtrusively. Above all is there need of
delicate touch and skillful handling, if the aim be to affect those who
are prejudiced against the views expressed, or whose interests are
involved in the fate of those attacked. But Cooper's was never a
delicate touch. What he thought he never insinuated; what he believed
himself he never allowed to make its way indirectly into the minds of
others. He always uttered it boldly, and sometimes offensively.
Effective this assuredly is in compositions of a certain class; but it
is entirely out of place in a work of fiction. In the case of these
particular novels the purpose is avowed openly and repeatedly. Cooper,
indeed, takes care never to let it escape the reader's attention. He may
almost be said to stand by his shoulder to jog him if he once happens to
forget that the story has a moral. American institutions, especially,
were constantly held up as models in which the best results were seen,
and which it was the policy of all other countries to imitate. The
course taken was a mark of patriotism; but it was not the way to gain
converts. It is, in truth, the misfortune of the novelist, burdened with
a moral purpose, that the reader usually feels the burden and is not
affected by the moral. It was not by methods like these that Scott threw
about chivalry and aristocracy that glamour which outlasts the most
minute acquaintance with the reality, and influences the imagination in
spite of the protest of the judgment.
But another result that followed from writing novels with a purpose, had
a more direct influence upon his reputation. It made it impossible (p. 111)
that his work should any longer be criticised fairly. This was
immediately seen in the case of "The Bravo." This novel had far more
success in Europe than in America. But the success was not of a
legitimate kind. Parties were at once arrayed for it or against it, not
because it was a good or bad production from a literary point of view,
but according as men sympathized with or were hostile to the political
principles it advocated. It was not the merit of the work that came
under consideration, but the merit of the cause. This at once destroyed
almost entirely the value of any criticism which the story received.
A little while before "The Bravo" appeared, Cooper was unwillingly led
to take part in a controversy which, according to his own view, was the
remote cause of the hostility he afterwards encountered in his own land.
It was at the time that the movement began on the part of Louis Philippe
to separate himself from the liberals, of whom Lafayette was the chief
representative. A discussion had arisen, in the French Chamber of
Deputies, on the desirability of a reduction in the expenses of
government. It gave rise to a controversy which extended much beyond the
body in which it originated. Lafayette had advocated greater economy. In
the course of the debate mentioned, he had referred to the United States
as being a country which was cheaply governed, and at the same time well
governed. The periodical press at once took up the question. M. Saulnier,
one of the editors of the "Revue Britannique," came out with an article,
the direct object of which was to prove that a government of three
powers, such as was the limited monarchy recently established, was not
so expensive as that of a republic. In particular, he claimed that (p. 112)
the tax levied per head on the citizens of France was less than that
similarly levied on the citizens of the United States. This was a direct
attack upon Lafayette, who had for forty years been maintaining that the
government of this country was the cheapest known. The attention of
Cooper was called to this article, and he was asked to reply. He
declined. A little later it was made clear to him that the object with
which it was written was to injure Lafayette. The matter then assumed
another aspect. To that statesman Cooper was bound by ties of intimate
personal friendship and by a common love of this country. At a public
dinner, which had been given to Lafayette on the 8th of December, 1830,
by the Americans in Paris, Cooper had presided, and in a speech of
marked fervor and ability, he had dwelt upon the debt due from the
United States to the gallant Frenchman, who had ventured fortune and
life to aid a nation struggling against great odds to be free. It was
not in his nature to have his deeds give the lie to his words. The fact
above mentioned at once overcame his reluctance to engage in the
controversy. Accordingly in December, 1831, appeared a "Letter to
General Lafayette," preceded by a letter from Lafayette to himself,
dated the 22d of November. This was a pamphlet of fifty pages, in which
he went into the subject of the cost of the United States government. It
produced an immediate reply from M. Saulnier, who went over the ground
again, and with a fine air of candor affected to revise his previous
statements. As a result he made the cost of the American government a
little larger than he had done before. To this Cooper replied in a series
of letters published in the "National." The controversy would (p. 113)
have ended sooner than it did, had it not been for the appearance
of a fresh actor on the scene. This was a certain Mr. Leavitt Harris. He
nominally belonged to New Jersey, but a large share of his life had been
spent in Russia, and his political notions had apparently become
acclimated to that region. He wrote an article on the subject in the
shape of a letter to M. Francois Delassert, the vice-president of the
Chamber of Deputies. In it he took ground opposite to that taken by
Cooper, controverted his facts, and denied his inferences. So great
weight was attached to it by the French government party that it was
published as a supplementary number of the "Revue Britannique." Mr.
Harris had once been left as _chargé d'affaires_ at St. Petersburg
during the absence of John Adams at the peace negotiations at Ghent. His
letter was accordingly dwelt upon as the production of an American who
had been intrusted by his government with high diplomatic position. We
who know out of what stuff our foreign agents are sometimes made, would
not be likely to attach much weight to the mere fact. But to a foreign
nation the opinion of an official seemed naturally more trustworthy than
that of a private citizen.
To the letter of Mr. Harris, Cooper replied on the 3d of May, 1832. This
closed the discussion, at least so far as he was concerned.[1] But the
controversy was followed by circumstances of a mortifying character. After
the return to America of the United States minister, William (p. 114)
C. Rives, Mr. Harris was nominated by the President, and confirmed by
the Senate early in March, 1833, as _chargé d'affaires_; and this office
he held until the arrival of Edward Livingston, who was appointed
minister on the 3d of May of the same year. Previously to this
discreditable act, the Department of State had committed one of
imbecility. It had issued a circular to the different local authorities
of the Union with avowed reference to the finance controversy. Its
purport was a request for them to furnish information in regard to the
amount of public expenditures over which they had control. Against this
course Cooper protested at once in a long and vigorous letter to the
American people, written on the 10th of December, 1832, from Vevay,
Switzerland, and first printed in the Philadelphia "National Gazette."
He took the ground that in such a discussion local burdens ought not to
be included. It was, in fact, by confusing various kinds of taxation,
and taxation for various objects, that the French government party had
been able to make any showing for their own side. The letter was widely
circulated, and seems to have served its purpose in suppressing the
information that had been asked.
[Footnote 1: I express no opinion on the merits of
this controversy, for I have seen very slight
summaries only of the articles that appeared in the
_Revue Britannique_. But it is proper to say that it
was the opinion of the French liberals, that Cooper
utterly demolished his antagonists in the
controversy.]
Unfortunately it was not the administration alone that displayed a lack
of proper sentiment in this controversy. It is far from being a
creditable thing in the history of the country that Cooper was subjected
to constant attack, and even abuse, in the American newspapers, for his
conduct in this finance discussion. He had been particularly careful to
confine his remarks to the cost of government in the United States. He
had not touched at all upon the cost of government in France. Yet he
was charged with having overstepped the reserve imposed upon (p. 115)
foreigners, and of having attacked the administration of a friendly
country. The accusation was constantly made against him that he went
about "flouting his Americanism throughout Europe," and in this
particular case that he had overrated the importance of the controversy,
and also the importance of the part he had taken in it. He had, in fact,
aroused the hostility of that section of Americans, insignificant in
number and ability, but sometimes having social position, who prefer the
conveniences of despotism to the inconveniences of liberty. To such men
Cooper's intense nationality was a standing reproach. His reputation,
moreover, made their own littleness especially conspicuous. Depreciation
of him, and of his rank as a man of letters, was a necessity of their
case. As they did not express openly their real feelings, they carried
on at advantage a war against a man who never had the prudence to hide
what he thought. Yet among the better class of Americans abroad,
Cooper's attachment to his native land received the recognition it
merited. "Cooper's new book, 'The Bravo,'" wrote Horatio Greenough, from
Paris, to Rembrandt Peale, in November, 1831, "is taking wonderfully
here. If you could transfuse a little of that man's love of country and
national pride into the leading members of our high society, I think it
would leaven them all."
But the attacks in the American newspapers made a painful impression
upon a mind that was morbidly sensitive to criticism even from the most
insignificant of men. For an act of generous patriotism for which he
deserved the thanks of all his countrymen he had received vilification
from many of them. These things embittered him. They made him
distrustful of the spirit that prevailed in his own land. He (p. 116)
began to fancy that the country had gone back instead of forward in
national feeling during the years of his absence. He had determined to
return, because he was unwilling to have his children brought up on
foreign soil and under foreign influences. But for himself he resolved
to abandon literature. As soon as he had finished the manuscript he had
in hand, he would give up all further thought of writing. "The quill and
I are divorced," he wrote to Greenough in June, 1833, "and you cannot
conceive the degree of freedom, I could almost say of happiness, I feel
at having got my neck out of the halter." Longings for his old sea-life
often came over him. "You must not be surprised," he wrote,
half-jestingly, to the same friend, "if you hear of my sailing a sloop
between Cape Cod and New York." But he had no definite plans marked out.
The only thing about which his mind was made up was not to write any
more.