1837-1838.
Three miles from Cooperstown, on the western side of Otsego Lake, a low,
wooded point of land projects for some distance into the water. It
combines two characteristics of an attractive resort: beauty of scenery
and easiness of access. On these accounts Cooper's father had refused to
sell it when he disposed of his other lands. He had, in fact, specially
reserved it for his own use, and for that of his descendants. In 1808, a
year before his death, he drew up his will. In it he made a particular
devise of this spot. "I give and bequeath," ran the words of the
document, "my place, called Myrtle Grove, on the west side of the Lake
Otsego, to all my descendants in common until the year 1850; then to be
inherited by the youngest thereof bearing my name." Two small buildings
had been successively erected by him on the spot. The first he tore down
himself, but the second was set on fire after his death, by the
carelessness of trespassers using it, and burned to the ground. Shortly
after 1821, the only representative of the family living in Cooperstown
who was of proper age to be consulted, gave his consent, so far as he
was concerned, to the erection of a new building by the community. From
that time the Point came to be a place of general resort. To it fishing
and picnic parties were in the habit of repairing. An impression (p. 143)
sprang up, moreover, that the spot was public property. This impression
in the course of years advanced to the dignity of positive assertion. It
became in time a universally accepted belief in the minds of the
citizens that the place belonged to them. It then only remained to
furnish the explanation of how it had happened to come into their
possession. This was no difficult achievement. The story was soon
generally received that Cooper's father, instead of permitting the
public to use the Point, had actually made a gift of it to the public.
When Cooper took up his summer residence in the village, after his
return from Europe, he found the notion prevalent that the place in
question belonged to the community. As executor of his father's will he
took pains to correct the error. He informed his fellow-citizens that
the Point was private property, and not public; and that while he had no
desire to prevent them from resorting to it, he was determined to insist
upon the recognition of the real ownership. He might as well have talked
to the winds. The community did not bother itself about examining the
question of title. It had been in the habit of using the Point without
asking any one's consent, and the Point it purposed to keep on using in
the same way.
Matters reached a crisis in 1837. The building erected on the spot had
become dilapidated. Workmen were sent out to repair it, without going
through the formality of consulting the owners of the property. A tree
was also cut down, which, on account of certain associations connected
with his father, Cooper valued particularly. This was not the way to win
over to the view of the community the executor of the property. He sent
a card at once to the editor of the Democratic newspaper of the (p. 144)
village, stating that the Point was private property, and cautioning
the public against injuring the trees. Nothing, however, was said about
trespassing. The card came too late for publication that week and before
another number of the paper appeared, rumor of its existence had got
about. Its reported character created ill-feeling, and messages and even
threats were sent to Cooper on the subject. These had the effect which
might have been expected. He withdrew the original card and published in
its stead a simple, ordinary notice of warning against trespassing on
the Point, with a few additional facts. The notice, which is dated July
22, 1837, reads as follows:--
"The public is warned against trespassing on the Three Mile Point, it
being the intention of the subscriber rigidly to enforce the title of
the estate, of which he is the representative, to the same. The public
has not, nor has it ever had, any right to the same beyond what has been
conceded by the liberality of the owners."
The notice was signed by Cooper as the executor of his father's estate.
Great was the excitement in the village when it was published. A
hand-bill was immediately put into circulation calling a meeting of the
citizens, to take into consideration the propriety of defending their
rights against the arrogant claims and assumed authority of "one J.
Fenimore Cooper." The meeting was accordingly held. There was little
difference of sentiment among those present. All were animated,
according to the newspaper reports, by the determination to use the
Three Mile Point without being indebted to the liberality of Cooper or
any one else. Stirring speeches were made. Two or three persons were
anxious to delay any action until the question of title had been (p. 145)
examined. This proposition was deemed by the immense majority of those
present to have a truckling character, and consequently met with no
favor. The meeting, accordingly, found immediate relief for its feelings
in the usual American way, by passing a series of resolutions. The vigor
of these was out of all proportion to the sense. The disposition to defy
Cooper shot, in some instances, indeed, beyond its proper mark, and
extended even to the rules of grammar. After reciting in a preamble the
facts as they understood them, the citizens present went on to express
their determination and opinions as follows:--
"Resolved, By the aforesaid citizens that we will wholly disregard the
notice given by James F. Cooper, forbidding the public to frequent the
Three Mile Point.
"Resolved, That inasmuch as it is well known that the late William
Cooper intended the use of the Point in question for the citizens of
this village and its vicinity, we deem it no more than a proper respect
for the memory and intentions of the father, that the son should
recognize the claim of the citizens to the use of the premises, even had
he the power to deny it.
"Resolved, That we will hold his threat to enforce title to the
premises, as we do his whole conduct in relation to the matter, in
perfect contempt.
"Resolved, That the language and conduct of Cooper, in his attempts to
procure acknowledgements of 'liberality,' and his attempt to force the
citizens into asking his permission to use the premises, has been such
as to render himself odious to a greater portion of the citizens of this
community.
"Resolved, That we do recommend and request the trustees of the Franklin
Library, in this village, to remove all books, of which Cooper is (p. 146)
the author, from said library.
"Resolved also, That we will and do denounce any man as sycophant, who
has, or shall, ask permission of James F. Cooper to visit the Point in
question.
"Resolved, That the proceedings of this meeting be signed by the
chairman and secretary, and published in the village papers."
Whatever else these proceedings show, they make it clear that the people
of Cooperstown had not well improved the opportunity afforded by his
residence among them, of becoming well acquainted with the character of
their distinguished townsman. Still there was knowledge enough about him
to make the officers of the meeting unwilling to publish the resolutions
as they had been ordered. He was not a man to be trifled with; and no
one cared to make himself personally responsible for what had been said.
As a matter of fact the secretary of the meeting furnished Cooper with a
copy of the resolutions; and it was the latter that first caused them to
be printed. But the story of the meeting speedily found its way into the
newspapers. In the accounts of the proceedings that were in circulation,
it was said that a resolution had been passed that the works of the
novelist should be taken from the library and publicly burned. This was
caught up by the press and repeated everywhere throughout the country.
To this day the baseless tradition lingers in Cooperstown itself, that
this act was not only determined upon but actually done. The matter
doubtless was discussed among the other sage proposals that were brought
forward at this meeting; and it may be true, as was afterwards
suspected, that the original resolution on this point was modified
before it was allowed to go out to the public.
Under the circumstances only one result was possible. The (p. 147)
community were very speedily satisfied that they did not own the Point,
and were equally convinced that their prospect of obtaining possession
of it by clamor was far from good. Two letters, marked by anything but
timidity or amiability, Cooper wrote to the Democratic newspaper of the
village. In them he gave fully all the facts in the case. To the
assertion paraded in many of the Whig journals of the state, that this
meeting showed the spirit of the people in Cooperstown, he made an
indignant reply. Such a remark, he said, was a libel on the character of
the place. The meeting, he declared, was not composed of a fourth part
of the population, or a hundredth part of the respectability of the
village. The resolutions he described as being the work of presuming
boys, who swagger of time immemorial; of strangers who had lived but a
brief time in the county; and of a few disreputable persons who, bent on
construing liberty entirely on their own side, interposed against
palpable rights and sacred family feelings their gossiping facts, their
grasping rapacity, and their ruthless disposition to destroy whatever
they could not control. "There is but one legal public," he defiantly
concluded his first letter, "and that acts under the obligation of
precise oaths, through prescribed forms, and on constitutional
principles. Let 'excitement' be flourished as it may, this is the only
public to which I shall submit the decision of my rights. So far as my
means allow, insult shall be avenged by the law, violence repelled by
the strong hand, falsehood put to shame by truth, and sophistry exposed
by reason."
It is perfectly clear that on the merits of this controversy Cooper was
wholly in the right. The bluster of these resolutions exhausted (p. 148)
all the courage of his opponents. The question of ownership was at once
settled definitely and forever. No one on the spot ever questioned the
point any farther, though the original falsehood was steadily repeated
by newspapers at a distance, and apparently never once contradicted
after its untruth had been shown. Some may think the result might have
been reached by milder means, but the spirit shown at the meeting
renders this more than doubtful. Cooper even had to pay for the
insertion of his letters in the village newspaper. Unfortunately the
ill-feeling aroused did not stop here. It gave rise to what may be
described as a semi-political controversy--that is, a controversy in
which one party attacks a man, and the party to which he belongs does
not think it expedient or worth while to defend him. The libel suits to
which it directly or indirectly led with the Whig newspapers of the
state will demand a separate chapter. Before they were well under way,
however, the novelist made up his mind to right himself in another
manner, and brought out a work of fiction which seemed expressly
contrived to meet the thought of the sacred writer who wished his
adversary had written a book.
Cooper determined to write a story in which he would set forth the
principles involved in the controversy about the Point. There is perhaps
no subject that cannot be made interesting by the right treatment. But
he was now in a state of mind that would not have permitted him to
discuss any matter of this nature in the spirit that belongs to the
composition of a work of the imagination. The dispute had embittered his
feelings already sore. It had tended to give him a still more distorted
view of the country to which he had come back. So completely had (p. 149)
his feelings swung around that he now had an eye for little but the
worst features of the national character. Passion had largely unbalanced
his judgment. Ancient fable has pointed out the danger of falling under
the fascinations of the sirens; but even that seems preferable to
becoming bewitched by the furies.
Still he could not well make a book out of this one event. It could be
used to suit all his purposes, however, by being introduced as an
incident of an ordinary tale. In this way his side of the story would
travel as far as the false assertions about his conduct in the matter
which had been circulated not only over America but over Europe. He also
set out to bring together in the work he was contemplating all the
things that he looked upon with disapprobation and dislike in the social
life of this country. His original intention was to begin a story with
the landing here of an American family long resident in Europe. Happily
he was induced to give an account of the voyage home, and this in the
end necessitated the division of the work into two parts. Accordingly on
the 16th of August, 1837, appeared the novel of "Homeward Bound,"
followed in November of the same year by its sequel, entitled "Home as
Found." The leading characters are the same in both tales, but the
events are entirely unlike. The scene of the first is laid wholly on the
water. In its movement, its variety of incidents, and the spirit and
energy with which they are told, it is one of the best of Cooper's
sea-novels. Nor is this estimate seriously impaired by the fact that it
is in some places marred by controversial discussions on liberty and
equality, and by the withering exposure of views that no man maintained
whose opinions were worth regarding. But these are only occasional (p. 150)
blemishes. They do not materially interfere with the progress of the
story, which moves on with little variation of interest to the end. On
the other hand, the characters are generally as uninteresting as the
events are exciting. The chief ones among them have all reached that
supreme refinement which justifies them in feeling and decisively
pronouncing that whatever is done by anybody but themselves is coarse.
But in this work the personages are so subordinate to the scenes that
any failure in representing the former is more than counterbalanced by
the success shown in depicting the latter.
The reverse was the fact when the sequel followed. In this the
characters and their views became prominent, and the events were of
slight importance. "Home as Found" was far poorer than "Homeward Bound"
was good. Never was a more unfortunate work written by any author. This
is the fact, whether it be looked at from the literary or the popular
point of view. For the latter it is enough to say that the opinions
about America which have already been given in the account of his
European travels were more than reënforced. He said again what he had
said before, and he took pains to add a great deal that had been left
unsaid. The new matter surpassed in the energy of invective the old, and
its attack was more concentrated. There were in the novel, to be sure,
the remarks that had now got to be habitual with Cooper upon the
provincialism of the whole country; but it was upon New York city that
the vials of his wrath were especially poured. The town, according to
the view here expressed of it, was nothing more than a huge expansion of
commonplace things. It was a confused and tasteless collection of
flaring red brick houses, martin-box churches, and colossal (p. 151)
taverns. But the assault made upon its external appearance bore no
comparison to that upon its internal life. The city in a moral sense
resembled, according to Cooper, a huge encampment. It stood at the
farthest remove from the intellectual supremacy and high tone of a
genuine capital as distinguished from a great trading port. In its
gayeties he saw little better than the struggles of an uninstructed
taste, if indeed that could properly be styled gay which was only a
strife in prodigality and parade. The conversation of the elders was
entirely about the currency, the price of lots, and the latest
speculations in towns. The younger society was made up of babbling
misses, who prattled as waters flow, without consciousness of effort,
and of whiskered masters who fancied Broadway the world; and the two
together looked upon the flirtations of miniature drawing-rooms as the
ideal of human life in its loftiest aspects. Upon the _literati_ the
attack was even more savage. He described this appellation as being
given to the most incorrigible members of the book clubs of New York.
These had been laboriously employed in puffing each other into celebrity
for many weary years, but still remained just as vapid, as conceited, as
ignorant, as imitative, as dependent, and as provincial as ever.
It is not an easy matter to condense the bitterness of two volumes into
a few sentences. Enough has been given, however, to show the character
of the strictures. Whatever may be thought of their justice, few will be
disposed to deny their vigor. But Cooper, unfortunately for himself, was
not satisfied with demolishing what seemed poor in his eyes. He
undertook the business of reconstruction, and set up an ideal of how
things ought to be. His main agents in this work were the members (p. 152)
of the Effingham family, whom he had brought over from Europe in
"Homeward Bound." In these and the train dependent upon them, we were to
find realized that pure and perfect social state which he contemplated
in his own mind. To them were added a few survivors from the old
families, as he termed them, which after a manner had ridden out the
social gale that had made shipwreck of so many of their original
companions. Out of these materials Cooper attempted to build his ideal
framework of a life in which men thought rationally and lived nobly. It
was here he made his mistake, and it was a signal one. His inability to
portray the higher types of character was an absolute bar to success.
This was largely due to his inability to catch and reproduce the tone of
polished conversation. Never was his weakness in this respect more
painfully manifested than in "Home as Found." He could appreciate such
conversation; he could bear a part in it; but he could not represent it.
His characters taken from low life, whatever critics may say, have
usually a marked individuality. But whenever Cooper sought to draw the
men and women of cultivated society he achieved at best a doubtful
success. In this instance he tried to make them and their words and
deeds the vehicle of reproof and satire. His failure was absolute.
Modern culture, we all know, consists largely in the most refined method
of finding fault. But this his ideal family had not reached. An
essentially coarse method of finding fault was the only one to which it
had attained. Never, indeed, was a more bumptious, conceited, and
disagreeable set of personages created by an author, under the
impression that they were the reverse. The simple-minded, (p. 153)
thoughtful, and upright Mr. Effingham can speedily be dismissed as
merely a mild type of bore. Not so with his daughter Eve, and his cousin
John Effingham. The latter plays the part of critic of his country and
countrymen. It seems hardly possible that in this narrow-minded,
disagreeable, and essentially vulgar character, Cooper could have
fancied he was creating anything but a contemptible boor. The contrast
between what is said of him, and what is said by him, almost reaches the
comic. We read constantly of his caustic satire; we find little of it in
his conversation. His fine face is, according to the author, always
expressing contempt and sarcasm; but the examples of these that are
shown in his speeches are usually specimens of that forcible-feeble
straining to be severe which marks the man of violent temper and feeble
intellect. As represented, he has neither the feeling, the instincts,
nor the manners of a gentleman. He so much dislikes untruth that he
insinuates to a guest, very broadly as well as very unjustly, that he is
lying. In short, he is one of those rude and vulgar men who fancy that
they are frank simply because they are brutal. No civilized society
would long tolerate the presence, if even the existence, of such an
animal as he is here represented to be.
Even he, however, shines by comparison with the heroine. Of her we hear
no end of praise. Her delicacy, her plastic simplicity, the simple
elegance of her attire, her indescribable air of polish, her surpassing
beauty and modesty of mien, are referred to again and again. She is
simple, she is feminine, she is dignified. To men her smiles are faint
and distant. Across her countenance no unworthy thought has ever left a
trace. Once and once only did she fail to keep up to the high (p. 154)
level of deportment which she ordinarily maintained. On one occasion
"her little foot moved" in spite of the fact that "she had been
carefully taught, too, that a ladylike manner required that even this
beautiful portion of the female frame should be quiet and unobtrusive."
Something, however, must always be pardoned to human nature; and Cooper
doubtless felt that it would not do to make his heroine absolutely free
from frailty. As a sort of foil to her was introduced her cousin Grace
Van Cortlandt. She, to be sure, had not had the advantage of foreign
travel; but there was a redeeming feature in her case. She belonged to
an old family. She was saved in consequence from being entirely
submerged in that sweltering, foaming tide of mediocrity, which called
itself New York society. Belonging to an old family did not, however,
preserve her from being provincial. She is taken along with the rest to
Templeton. On her way thither she is steadily snubbed by the masculine
element of the party, and henpecked by the feminine. The reader comes in
time to have the sincerest pity for this unfortunate girl, who is made
to pay very dearly for the misfortune of being akin to a family whose
members had become too superior to be gracious and too polished to be
polite.
In the composition of this work Cooper seems to have lost all sense of
the ridiculous. The personages whom he wished to make particularly
attractive are uniformly disagreeable. A French governess appears in the
story, who is simply insufferable. He brings in an American woman, Mrs.
Bloomfield, as a representative, according to him, of that class which
equals, if it does not surpass, in the brilliancy of its conversation
the best to be found in European salons. She is introduced discoursing
on the civilization of the country in a way that would speedily (p. 155)
empty any of the parlors of her native land. Indeed, throughout the work
the characters converse as no rational beings ever conversed under any
sort of provocation. But it is in the speeches of the heroine that the
language reaches its highest development. She can emphatically be said
to talk like a book. She does not guess, she hazards conjectures. She
playfully addresses her father as "thoughtless, precipitate parent."
When she is asked what she thinks of the country now that an attempt was
made to take possession of the Point, she describes her character, as
drawn in this novel, as no words of another can. "Miss Effingham," she
says, "has been grieved, disappointed, nay, shocked, but she will not
despair of the republic." Indeed the only person in the work who has any
near kinship to humanity is one of the inferior characters, named
Aristobulus Bragg. He is the more attractive because he says bright
things unconsciously; while the heavy characters say heavy things under
the impression that they are light.
This book had a profound influence upon Cooper's fortunes. From
beginning to end it was a blunder. It cannot receive even the negative
praise of being a work in which the best of intentions was marred by the
worst of taste. Its spirit was a bad spirit throughout. It was dreadful
to think some of the things found in it; but it was more dreadful to say
them. There was a great deal of truth in its pages, but if the views
expressed in it had been actually inspired, the attitude and tone the
author assumed would have prevented his making a convert. To some extent
this had been true of "Homeward Bound." Greenough expostulated with
Cooper, after reading that novel. "I think," he wrote from (p. 156)
Florence, "you lose hold on the American public by rubbing down their
shins with brickbats as you do." The most surprising thing connected
with "Home as Found," however, is Cooper's unconsciousness, not of the
probability, but of the possibility, that he would be charged with
drawing himself in the character of Edward Effingham, and to some extent
in that of John Effingham. The sentiments advanced were his sentiments,
the acts described were in many cases his acts. The absence in a foreign
land, the return to America, the scene laid at Templeton, with a direct
reference to "The Pioneers," the account of the controversy about the
Three Mile Point,--all these fixed definitely the man and the place.
Variations in matters of detail would not disturb the truth of the
general resemblance. Still Cooper not only did not intend to represent
himself, he was unaware that he had done so. Nearly three years after in
the columns of a weekly newspaper he stoutly defended himself against
the imputation. It was useless. From this time forward the name of
Effingham was often derisively applied to him in the controversies in
which he was engaged.
It was not merely the intemperate spirit exhibited, which destroyed the
effect of the shrewd and just comments often appearing in "Home as
Found." This was full as much impaired by the display of personal
weaknesses. Cooper's foible about descent he could not help exposing. No
thoughtful man denies the desirability of honorable lineage, or
undervalues the possession of it; but not for the reasons for which the
novelist regarded it and celebrated it. There was much in this single
story to justify Lowell's sarcasm, uttered ten years later, that (p. 157)
Cooper had written six volumes to prove that he was as good as a
lord. He traces his families up to remote periods in the past. He
thereby shows their superiority to the newly-created family of the
English baronet who is brought into the tale. It was to correct the
erroneous impression, prevalent in Europe, that there was no stability,
no permanent respectability in the society of this country, that he
enlarged upon the date to which ancestry could be traced. The difficulty
was to persuade anybody that the men who took the pains to look up their
forefathers had any superiority to those who shared in the general
indifference as to who their forefathers were. He went farther than this
in some instances, and expressly implied that blood and birth were
necessary to gentility. This was provincialism pushed to an extreme.
Whatever we may think of its actual value, English aristocracy resembles
in this gold and silver, that it has an accepted value independent of
the character of its representatives. It is, therefore, current
throughout the civilized world; whereas American aristocracy is like
local paper money: worth nothing except in its own country, and even
there receiving little recognition or circulation outside of the
immediate neighborhood in which it is found. Still, the subject of blood
and birth is a solemn one to those who believe in it, and they are
absolutely incapable of comprehending the feelings of a world of
scoffers, or, if they do, impute them to imperfect mental or spiritual
development. On this point Cooper had the misfortune to say what some
think but dare not express.
The wrath aroused, especially in New York city, by this particular
novel, had about it something both fearful and comic. In one (p. 158)
respect Cooper had the advantage, and his critics all felt it. His work
was certain to be translated into all the principal languages of modern
Europe. The picture he drew of New York society would be the one that
foreigners would naturally receive as genuine. By them it would be
looked upon as the work of a man familiar with what he was describing,
the work of a man, moreover, who had been well known in European circles
for his intense Americanism. It was vain to protest that it was a
caricature. The protest would not be heeded even if it were heard. His
enemies might rage; but they were powerless to influence foreign
opinion, and they felt themselves so. Rage they certainly did; and if
the assault made upon him had been as effective as it was violent,
little would have been left of his reputation. Even as late as 1842,
during the progress of the libel suits, some one took the pains to
produce a novel in two volumes called "'The Effinghams, or Home as I
Found It,' by the Author of the 'Victims of Chancery.'" The whole aim of
this tale was to satirise Cooper. Mere malignity, however, has little
vitality; and in spite of the fact that the work was widely praised by
the journals for its "sound American feeling," and for its hits at "the
conceited, disappointed, and Europeanized writer of 'Home as Found,'" it
passed so speedily to the paper-makers that antiquarian research would
now be tasked to find a copy. About the contemporary newspaper notices
there was a certain tiger-like ferocity which almost justified much that
Cooper said in denunciation of the American press. A specimen, though a
somewhat extreme one, of a good deal of the sort of criticism to which
the novelist was subjected, can be found in the "New Yorker" for the
1st of December, 1838. This journal was edited by Horace Greeley, (p. 159)
but the article in question came probably from the pen of Park Benjamin.
It defended Cooper from the charge of vilifying his country in order to
make his works salable in England, but it defended him in this way. No
motive of that kind was necessary to be supposed. He had an inborn
disposition to pour out his bile and vent his spleen. "He is as proud of
blackguarding," the article continued, "as a fishwoman of Billingsgate.
It is as natural to him as snarling to a tom-cat, or growling to a
bull-dog.... He is the common mark of scorn and contempt of every
well-informed American. The superlative dolt!" In this refined and
chastened style did the defenders of American cultivation preserve its
reputation from its traducer.
Criticism of the kind just quoted, hurts only the man who utters it and
the community which tolerates it. It injured the reputation of the
country far more than the work could that it criticised. "Home as
Found," as a matter of fact, was prevented from doing any harm, partly
by its excessive exaggeration but more by its excessive poorness. As a
story it stood in marked contrast to its immediate predecessor. It was
as difficult to accompany Cooper on land as it had been to abandon him
when on the water. The tediousness of the tale is indeed something
appalling to the most hardened novel-reader. The only interest it can
possibly have at this day is from the opportunity it affords of studying
one phase of the author's character, and of accounting for much of the
bitter hostility with which he was assailed.
While he was lecturing his countrymen on manners, his own were spoken of
in turn in a way that gave especial delight to the enemies he had (p. 160)
made by his criticisms. In 1837 Lockhart's "Life of Sir Walter Scott"
was appearing. In the diary of that novelist were some references to the
American author. "This man," he said, describing his first interview,
"who has shown so much genius, has a good deal of the manners, or want
of manners, peculiar to his countrymen." Cooper's personal acquaintance
with Scott had begun in 1826, just after the latter had set about his
gigantic effort to pay off the load of debt in which he had involved
himself. The American novelist had made then an attempt to secure for
the man he regarded as his master some adequate return from the vast
sale of his works in the United States. In this he had been foiled. In
the "Knickerbocker Magazine" for April, 1838, he gave an account of
these fruitless negotiations. In a later number of the same year he
reviewed Lockhart's biography. This work is well known as one of the
most entertaining in our literature. But on its appearance it gave a
painful shock to the admirers of the great author by the revelations it
made of practices which savored more of the proverbial canniness of the
Scotchman than of the lofty spirit of the man of honor. Equally
surprising was the unconsciousness of the biographer, that there was
anything discreditable in what he disclosed. Cooper criticised Scott's
conduct in certain matters with a good deal of severity. In regard to
some points he took extreme, and what might fairly be deemed Quixotic
ground. Yet the general justice of his article will hardly be denied now
by any one who is fully cognizant of the facts. Nor, indeed, was it
then. "I have just read," wrote Charles Sumner from London to Hillard,
in January, 1839, "an article on Lockhart's 'Scott,' written by (p. 161)
Cooper in the "Knickerbocker," which was lent me by Barry Cornwall.
I think it capital. I see none of Cooper's faults; and I think a proper
castigation is applied to the vulgar minds of Scott and Lockhart.
Indeed, the nearer I approach the circle of these men the less disposed
do I find myself to like them." Sumner subsequently wrote, that Procter
fully concurred in the conclusions advanced in the review. But these
were not the prevalent opinions, in this country at least. Great was the
outcry against Cooper for writing this article; great the outcry against
the "Knickerbocker" for printing it. The latter was severely censured
for its willingness to prostitute its columns to the service of the
former in his slanderous "attempts to vilify the object of his impotent
and contemptible hatred." Americans who were averse to Scott's being
honestly paid proved particularly solicitous that he should not be
honestly criticised. They showed themselves as little scrupulous in
defending him after he was dead as they had been in plundering him while
he was living.
Cooper had previously aroused the resentment of many because he had
failed to express gratification or delight at being termed "the American
Scott." He had then been assured again and again that there was no
danger of the title being applied to him in future; that in ten years
their names would never be coupled together, and that he himself would
be totally forgotten. It could hardly have been deemed a compliment in a
land where scarcely a petty district can exist peacefully and
creditably, with a hill three thousand feet in height, which is not in
time rendered disreputable by being saddled with the pretentious name of
"The American Switzerland." Personal malice alone, however, could
impute his disclaimer either to malice or to envy. His own (p. 162)
estimate of his relations to the British novelist, he had given many
times; and indirectly at that very time in his account in the first
"Knickerbocker" article, of his interview with Sir Walter Scott. The
latter had been so obliging, he observed, as to make him a number of
flattering speeches, which he, however, did not repay in kind. His
reserve he thought Scott did not altogether like. In this he was
probably mistaken, but the reason he gave for his own conduct savored
little of feelings of envy or rivalry. "As Johnson," he wrote, "said of
his interview with George the Third, it was not for me to bandy
compliments with my sovereign." No attention was paid to these and
similar utterances of a man whom his bitterest enemies never once dared
to charge with saying a word he did not mean.
Few at this day will be disposed to deny the justice of a good deal of
the criticism that Cooper passed upon his country and his countrymen.
Even now, though many of his strictures are directed against things that
no longer exist, there is still much in his writings that can be read
with profit. The essential justice of what he said is not impaired by
the fact that he was usually indiscreet and intemperate in the saying of
it. Nor were his motives of a low kind. He loved his country, and
nothing lay dearer to his heart than to have her what she ought to be.
The people were the source of power; and it was his cardinal principle
that power ought always to be censured rather than flattered. It needed
to be told the truth, however unwelcome; and in his eyes, that man was
no true patriot who was not willing to encounter unpopularity, if it
came in the line of duty. At the same time, while doing full justice to
the purity of his motives, we cannot shut our eyes to the defects (p. 163)
of his method. His abilities, his reputation, his acquaintance with
foreign lands, gave him inestimable advantages for influencing his
countrymen, and of educating them in matters where they stood sadly in
need of it. But the spirit in which he went to work deprived him of the
legitimate influence he should have exerted. Excitement, and passion,
and indignation led him often to say the wrong thing. More often they
caused him to say the right thing in the wrong way. Nor did he escape
the special temptation which speedily besets him who starts out to tell
his fellow-men unpleasant truths. Duty of this kind soon begins to have
a peculiar fascination of its own. The careful reader cannot fail to see
that in process of time the more disagreeable was the truth the more
delightful it became to Cooper to tell it. Most unreasonable it
certainly was to expect that constant fault-finding would be looked upon
as a proof of special attachment. The means, moreover, were not always
adapted to the end. Men may possibly be lectured to some extent into the
acquisition of the virtues, but they never can be bullied into the
graces.
Besides all this, in a great deal of Cooper's criticism there were
fundamental defects. He constantly confounded the unimportant and the
temporary with the important and the permanent. Many of his most violent
strictures are devoted to points of little consequence, and the feeling
expressed is out of all proportion to the significance of the matter
involved. Nothing, for instance, seemed to irritate him more than the
preference given by many of his countrymen to the scenery of America
over that of Europe. Especially was he indignant with the (p. 164)
"besotted stupidity" that could compare the bay of New York with that of
Naples. He returned to this topic in book after book. Yet of all the
harmless exhibitions of mistaken judgment, that which prefers the
scenery of one's own land is what a wise man would be least disposed to
find fault with; certainly what he would think least calculated to
inspire the wrath of a Juvenal. Cosmopolitanism is well enough in its
way. But that ability to see things exactly as they are, which enables a
man to criticise his mother with the same impartiality with which he
does any other woman, can hardly be thought to mark a high development
of his loftier feelings, however creditable it may be to the judicial
tone of his mind. Undue preference of the scenery of one's own country
is an amiable weakness at which the philosopher may smile, but the
patriot can afford to rejoice.
There was, moreover, a certain vagueness about much of Cooper's
criticism that deprived it of effect. No more striking illustration of
this could be found than his constant charge of provincialism made
against this country. He repeated it in season and out of season. For
several years he hardly published a work which did not contain a number
of references to it or assertions of its existence. Provincial enough we
certainly were then, if looked at from the point of view of the present
time. We in turn may seem so to our descendants. This possibility shows
at once the somewhat unreal nature of the accusation. Provincialism,
like vulgarity, is a term that defies exact explanation. It is the
indefinite and, therefore, unanswerable charge that men constantly bring
against those whose standard of living and thinking is different from
their own. It depends upon the point of view of the speaker full (p. 165)
as much as upon the conduct and opinions of those spoken of. It
changes as manners change. Nations not only impute it to one another,
but even to themselves at different periods of their history. Made by
itself, therefore, it means nothing. Without a specific description of
what in particular is meant by provincialism, the charge cannot and
ought not to have any weight with those against whom it is directed.
Certain incidental facts mentioned in these observations bring also to
light another marked defect of Cooper's course. This was not in his
views but in his method of enforcing them. He could not refrain from the
constant repetition of the same censures. He had never learned literary
self-restraint; that special criticisms, in order to have their full
weight, must not be forced too often upon the attention, and especially
at unseasonable times. The mind revolts at having the same exhibition of
personal feeling thrust upon it in the most uncalled-for manner and in
the most unexpected places. Even when originally disposed to agree with
the view expressed, it will, out of a pure spirit of contradiction, take
the side opposed to that which is enforced with exasperating frequency.
The fullest sympathizer is sure to get tired of this everlasting slaying
of the slain. A similar effect is, indeed, likely to be produced upon
the victim of the criticism. Instead of being stirred to reflection,
repentance, or even indignation, he simply becomes bored. After a man
has been told a hundred times that he is provincial, the remark ceases
to be exciting. The things, therefore, that Cooper said incidentally are
even now the only ones that make any deep impression upon the mind. Like
all men, sensitive to the national honor, he felt keenly the (p. 166)
refusal of Congress to pass a copyright law. It led him to say twice,
but both times very quietly, that in spite of loud profession there was
little genuine sympathy in this country with art, or scholarship, or
letters. The absence of all heat and excitement gives to the remark a
weight that never belongs to his violent utterances and fierce
denunciations. We may hope that we have gained since his time; but even
at this day we have little to boast of, if the average cultivation of
the people, as well as its average morality, finds expression in the
laws. The record in these matters of the highest legislative body in the
land is still the most discreditable of that of any nation in
Christendom. To gratify the greed of a few traders, it has never refused
to lay heavy burdens upon scholarship and letters. It has steadily
imposed duties on the introduction of everything that could facilitate
the acquisition of learning, and further the development of art. It has
persistently stabbed literature under the pretence of encouraging
intelligence. It has never once been guilty of the weakness of yielding
for a moment to the virtuous impulse that would even contemplate the
enactment of a copyright law. If it ever does pass one, it will do so,
not because foreign authors have rights, but because native publishers
have quarrels. Thus consistent in its unwillingness to do an honest
thing from an honest motive, it will even then grant to selfishness what
has been invariably denied to justice.
There were other than faults of view or faults of statement that mark
Cooper's writings at this time. The two novels published during the year
1838 show a radical change in the attitude he assumed to his art. What
had been indicated in the stories whose scenes were laid in (p. 167)
Europe, was now carried out completely. He may have been unconscious of
the difference of his point of view, but none the less did it exist. The
novel was no longer something in which he could embody his conceptions
of beauty fairer, or truth higher than could actually be found in
nature. It no longer served him as a refuge from the din of a clamorous,
or the hostility of a censorious world. It became a sort of fortress,
from the secure position of which he was enabled to deal out annoyance
and defiance to his foes. He had not now so much a story to tell as a
sermon to preach; and with him, as with many others, to preach meant to
denounce. His spirit for a time became captive to the prejudices and the
heated feelings which had been aroused by the sense of the injustice
with which he had been treated. Though he at intervals worked himself
out of this state of mind, upon much of his later work rested the shadow
of the prison-house which he, for a season, had made his abiding-place.
The result was that a good deal of what he afterwards wrote was marred
by the obtrusion of personal likes and dislikes, and the taint of
controversial discussion. These things rarely concerned the story in
which they appeared, and they inspired hostility to the writer. Cooper,
indeed, never learned to appreciate the fact that a reader has rights
which an author is bound to respect. By dragging in irrelevant
discussions, moreover, he was taking the surest way to lose the audience
he most sought to influence. A little reflection would have taught him
that there was little use in a prophet's crying in the wilderness,
unless he can succeed in gathering the people together.
While, therefore, there can be no justification for the ferocity with
which Cooper was assailed, there was some palliation. His course (p. 168)
from his return to the country had been wanting in prudence, and at
times in common sense. He had plunged at once as a combatant into one of
the bitterest political controversies that ever agitated the republic.
Hard blows were given and taken. He could scarcely expect that, in the
heat of the strife, regard would in all cases be paid to the proprieties
and even the decencies of private life. There was much in his later
productions, moreover, to alienate many who were honestly disposed to
admire him as a writer. Politics we could get at all times and from
everybody. If, again, we were hopelessly provincial, if we were
irreclaimably given over to vulgarity, we could find out all about it
from the latest English traveler, or the review of his work that had
appeared in the latest English periodicals. But by Cooper the life of
the wilderness and of the sea had been told as by no other writer. Over
the fields and forests and streams of his native land he had thrown the
glamour of romantic association and lofty deeds. There was something
unpleasant in witnessing a man who could do this turning his attention
to the discussion of points of etiquette and manners. Beside the waste
of power, which is something always disagreeable to contemplate, the
subject itself could hardly be called an attractive one. It was a sandy
desert to travel over at best. But even those who thought it a thing
worth while to do once, could hardly help feeling surprise at the spirit
which could induce a man to go over it again and again, enlarge upon its
discomforts, its perpetual sameness and barrenness, and point out its
incapacity of being made much better. There were even worse things than
this. It could scarcely fail to inspire a sentiment almost like disgust
to have the creator of Leather-Stocking argue with heat the (p. 169)
question whether it is right for a lady to come into a drawing-room at a
party without leaning upon the arm of a gentleman; or discourse solemnly
upon the proper way of eating eggs, and announce oracularly that all who
were acquainted with polite society would agree in denouncing the
wine-glass or egg-glass as a vulgar substitute for the egg-cup.
Questions like these are usually left to those who have the taste to
delight in them and the mental elevation to grasp the difficulties
involved in them. They were the more disagreeable when met with in
Cooper, because in addition to the pettiness of the subject, there was
an apparent unconsciousness on his part that the limits of his own
preferences and conclusions were not necessarily those of the human
mind.
Cooper indeed exemplified in his literary career a story he was in the
habit of telling of one of his early adventures. While in the navy he
was traveling in the wilderness bordering upon the Ontario. The party to
which he belonged came upon an inn where they were not expected. The
landlord was totally unprepared, and met them with a sorrowful
countenance. There was, he assured them, absolutely nothing in his house
that was fit to eat. When asked what he had that was not fit to eat, he
could only say in reply that he could furnish them with venison,
pheasant, wild duck, and some fresh fish. To the astonished question of
what better he supposed they could wish, the landlord meekly replied,
that he thought they might have wanted some salt pork. The story was
truer of Cooper himself than of his innkeeper. Nature he could depict,
and the wild life led in it, so that all men stood ready and eager to
gaze on the pictures he drew. He chose too often to inflict upon them,
instead of it, the most commonplace of moralizing, the stalest (p. 170)
disquisitions upon manners and customs, and the driest discussions of
politics and theology.
But the moral injury which Cooper received from these controversial
discussions and their results was far greater than the intellectual.
They swung him off the line of healthful activity. They perverted his
judgment. He looked upon the social and political movements that were
going on about him with the eye of an irritated and wronged man. Years
did not bring to him the philosophic mind, but the spirit of the
opinionated partisan and the heated denouncer. He fixed his attention so
completely on the tendencies to ill that manifested themselves in the
social state, that he often became blind to the counterbalancing
tendencies to good. Hence his later judgments were frequently one-sided
and partial. He too often took up the rôle of prophesying disasters that
never came to pass. Moreover, this habit of looking at one side not only
narrowed his mental vision, but turned it in the direction of petty
objects. No reader of his later novels can fail to see how often he
excites himself over matters of no serious moment; or which, whether
serious or slight, are utterly out of place where they are. By many of
these exhibitions the indifferent will be amused, but the admirers of
the man will feel pained if not outraged.