James Fenimore Cooper Part 3

But it was the English opinion that Cooper resented most bitterly. This was partly because he believed from the community of origin and speech it ought to be better informed, and partly because he looked upon it as responsible for many of the absurd and erroneous impressions that prevailed in the rest of Europe. His feelings were rendered still keener by the direct contact with English prejudice which he had personally during his residence abroad. The att.i.tude of the Continent towards America was that of supreme ignorance and indifference. But there was at the time something besides that in the att.i.tude of England, so far (p. 088) certainly as it was represented by its periodical literature. In the most favorable cases it was supercilious and patronizing, an att.i.tude which never permits the nation criticising to understand the nation criticised. There was never any effort to penetrate into the real nature of the social and political movements that were taking place on this side of the water. Men were contented with the examination of mere external phenomena, which, whether good or bad in themselves, belonged to a period of growth and were certain to pa.s.s away. Not the slightest sympathy existed with the feelings and aspirations of a people closely allied in blood and speech, and the lack of desire involved the lack of ability to enter into the spirit of their inst.i.tutions. There was no idea that there could be other types of character than those found on British soil, or any room or reason for the play of other social and political forces than were at work in British communities.

At the time, however, that Cooper took up his residence in Europe there was more than supercilious indifference in the character of English criticism. There was steady misrepresentation and abuse, due in a few cases to design, in more to ignorance, in most to that disposition on the part of all men to believe readily what they wish ardently. It made little difference whether the writer were Whig or Tory. If anything the open dislike of the latter was preferable to the patronizing regard of the former. In 1804 the poet Moore visited America. He wrote home a number of poetical epistles, in which he told his friends that he had found us old in our youth and blasted in our prime. The demon gold was running loose; everything and everybody was corrupt; truth, (p. 089) conscience, and virtue were regularly made matters of barter and sale. A succession of English travelers repeated from year to year the same dismal story, and their statements were caught up and paraded and dwelt upon in the English periodical press. In "The Quarterly Review," in particular, our condition was constantly held up as an awful example of the results of democratic inst.i.tutions and universal suffrage. Certain facts and predictions had been repeated so often that they came to be accepted and believed by all. We spoke a dialect of the English tongue; our manners were bad, if we could be said to have any at all; loyalty we could know nothing about, because we had no king; religion we were entirely devoid of, because there was no established church; the federation was steadily tending towards monarchy; the wealthy were longing to be n.o.bles; and the Union could not last above a quarter of a century. Worse than all, intrigue and bribery were sapping the national life; or to use a still favorite phrase of the newspapers, though the repet.i.tion of a hundred years has now made it somewhat stale, corruption was preying upon the vitals of the republic.

There is not the slightest exaggeration in these statements. Their truth any one familiar with the periodical literature of that period will least of all doubt. There was a perfect agreement between those who visited us and described us and those who drew their description from their imaginations. Nothing distinguished the English traveler or the English reviewer so much as his piety, and his profound conviction that religion could not exist where it was not carefully watched over by an established church. Besides this inevitable moral dest.i.tution, we (p. 090) were irreclaimably given over to vulgarity. Manners there could not be in a land abandoned to an unbridled democracy. In the most praiseworthy instances even, men lacked that repose, that fine tact, which were found universally in the higher orders in the mother country. The defect was ineradicable, according to most; for it had its baleful origin in popular inst.i.tutions themselves. In justice it must be added that there were some who, in consequence of the American pa.s.sion for traveling, entertained a mild hope that in time this rudeness would wear away, and this total ignorance of good breeding would be enlightened by the polish and refinement that would be picked up from the quant.i.ty to be found scattered about foreign courts. The published correspondence of that period is delicious in its frankness. The Englishman, writing to his American friend, never descends from his lofty position of censor both of great and petty morals. The inferiority of manners in this country is a point insisted upon by the former with an a.s.siduity and a.s.surance that are sufficient of themselves to make clear how high was the breeding to which he himself had attained. It makes little difference who write the letters. They all express the same sentiments. They all offer advice as to the best method America can take to retrieve the good opinion of Europe which it has lost. They are careful to say that they entertain the kindest of feelings to the United States; that they neglect no occasion of doing justice to the good and wise that had found there a home. Unfortunately these are few in number; and with a lofty sense of justice they never fail to express disapprobation in strong terms of the vast amount to be condemned in a land which had fallen under the sway of a reckless democracy and a G.o.dless church. One English (p. 091) gentleman in the British military service, after being some time in this country, writes, after his return, to an American friend, and thus cheerfully records his impressions. "The frightful effects produced by an unrestrained democracy," he says, "the demoralizing effects produced by universal suffrage never appeared to me so odious as they do now by contrast with the good breeding, the order and mutual support which all give to each other in this country, from the highest to the lowest."

This letter belongs to the year 1839, and it only continues a line of remark common for the half-century previous. Everything that came from America, if praised at all, was praised with a qualification. Not a compliment could be uttered of an individual without an implied disparagement of the land that gave him birth. The record of every man who was well received in English society will bear out this a.s.sertion.

Scott wrote to Southey in 1819, that Ticknor was "a wondrous fellow for romantic lore and antiquarian research, _considering his country_." Even words of genuine affection were often accompanied with an impertinence which has a delightfulness of its own from the utter unconsciousness on the part of the writer or speaker of having said anything out of the way. They were compliments of the kind which intimated that the person addressed was a sort of redeeming feature in a wild waste of desert.

"You have taught us," writes in 1840 Mrs. Basil Montagu to Charles Sumner, "to think much more highly of your country--from whom we have hitherto seen no such men."

There is nothing to be gained in raking over at this day the ashes of dead controversies and revilings. Americans no longer read the (p. 092) writings of the kind described, and Englishmen have largely forgotten that they were ever written. The new commentators on our habits and customs have taken up a new line of remark, and the new prophets of woe foresee an entirely new cla.s.s of calamities. But it has been necessary to revive here the memory of the old charges and forebodings, in order to show the state of feeling that would be developed by them in a man of a peculiarly sensitive and proud nature, such as was the subject of this biography. Rubbish as they may seem now, they were to the men of that time a grievous sore. Whatever may have been Cooper's feelings previously, it was not until after he had resided for a while in Europe that any hostility towards England is seen in his works. But there it soon began to manifest itself, though at first rather in the way of defense than attack. As time went on it increased rather than diminished. It largely affected his own fortunes by the personal hostility it provoked in return. To some extent, without doubt, his oft-repeated declaration was true, that in the dependence then existing here upon foreign opinion, every American author held his reputation at the mercy of the British reviewer. It would be unjust to say that it seemed at one period almost as if Cooper had sworn towards England undying hate. But it is certainly a fact that he gave utterance to his inmost feelings when he described it as a country that cast a chill over his affections, a country that all men respected but that few men loved. Yet he had been brought up in the school of the Federalist party, in which admiration for the literature, policy, and morals of the motherland was taught as a duty; in which every door was thrown open to visitors from England as an act of hospitality due to kinsmen separated merely by the accident of (p. 093) position. He himself tells us how, an ardent boy of seventeen, he leaped for the first time upon the soil of Great Britain, feeling for it a love almost as devoted as that which he bore the land of his birth, and looking upon every native of it in the light of a brother. It did not take him long to find out that the fancied tie of kins.h.i.+p was not recognized, that it was even despised; and that if he made friends, it must be in spite of his country, and not because of it. His connection with the navy had also led him to be keenly sensitive to the injustice and indignities connected with the impressment of seamen. In his first voyage in a merchant s.h.i.+p he had seen two native Americans taken from the vessel and forced into the British service. His own captain even had on one occasion been seized, though speedily liberated. There had also been an attempt to press a Swede belonging to the crew, on the ground that his country and England were in alliance, and the latter had therefore a right to his help. These were not the acts to inspire devotion towards the people who committed or who authorized them. The keen resentment Cooper felt for the wrongs then perpetrated upon the American marine he afterward expressed in his novels of "Wing-and-Wing"

and "Miles Wallingford." He never forgot those early experiences. When he came to reside in Europe he was as little disposed to forgive the depreciation of his country which he imputed, whether justly or unjustly, to English influence. Distrust became dislike, and dislike deepened into hostility.

There is little doubt that with a man of Cooper's nature the revulsion from his original feelings would tend to swing him to the opposite extreme; that, as a consequence of that, he would often fancy (p. 094) insult where none was intended, and impute to design conduct that was the result of chance or even of personal timidity. But making full allowance for this inevitable source of error, there was plenty of reason furnished for offense to a man whose personal pride was equal to that of the whole British aristocracy, and whose pride in his country exceeded even his personal pride. The ignorant criticism which amused most Americans was apt to make him indignant. No compliment, in particular, could be paid with safety to him individually at the expense of his country. This was a practice, however, which the Englishmen of that day seemed to regard as the consummate crown of adulation.

Depreciation of America of any sort he resented at once. If conversation touched upon matters discreditable to the United States--which was far from being an uncommon topic--it was very much his practice, instead of listening to it patiently, to bring up matters discreditable to Great Britain. There was unquestionably ample material on both sides with which each could blacken the other. But while this tended to make the conversation less monotonous, it likewise tended to make the converser less popular. Cooper lost early by his bearing in English society much of the favor which he had won from his writings. To this we have positive evidence. It is specifically mentioned in the sketch of his life, which along with his portrait appeared in 1831 in Colburn's "New Monthly Magazine." The article went on, after mentioning this fact, to pay a tribute to his somewhat aggressive patriotism. "Yet he seems," it said, "to claim little consideration on the score of intellectual greatness; he is evidently prouder of his birth than of his genius; and looks, speaks, and walks as if he exulted more in being recognized (p. 095) as an American citizen than as the author of 'The Pilot' and 'The Prairie.'"

To a man whose heart was thus full of the future glories of the republic, the indifference and neglect with which it was regarded could not but be galling. Still this was nothing to the positive contempt which often manifested itself in social slights that could be felt but could not well be resented. This was especially noticeable in the case of the legations, the conduct of which was largely under the control of the home government. The English policy was here in marked contrast to that of Russia, which, even at that early day, cultivated almost ostentatiously friends.h.i.+p with America. Between the legations of these two countries there was always the best of understandings. The direct contrary often prevailed between the ministers of Great Britain and of the United States. The influence of the former was frequently thought to be exerted to the social injury of the latter. Whether true or false, this was generally believed. Cooper certainly credited it and looked forward to the time when the whole att.i.tude of England would be altered.

We were then less than twelve millions in population; but the day would come when we should be fifty millions. The existing state of things would then be changed. You and I may not live to see it, he wrote substantially to his friends, but our sons and grandsons will. They may not like us any better, but they will take care to hide their feelings.

Strong resentment sometimes drove him into taking up positions he would not in his cooler moments have maintained. "As one citizen of the republic," he wrote, "however insignificant, I have no notion of being blackguarded and vituperated half a century and then cajoled (p. 096) into forgetfulness at the suggestion of fear and expediency, as circ.u.mstances render our good-will of importance." Not one of these slights and insults would he have the fifty millions forget. He did not bear in mind that fifty millions could not afford to remember. It was like asking the man of middle life to revenge upon the sons the indignities which the boy had received from the fathers.

Cooper's residence in England was only for a few months during the first half of the year 1828. With his feelings towards that country and with the feeling entertained in it toward his own, nothing could have made his stay highly pleasant. But it is one of the numerous minor falsehoods that came to be connected with his life, that it was unpleasant. On the contrary, his company was sought by many of the most distinguished men, though in accordance with his usual custom he carried no letters of introduction. At a later period he said that in no country had he been personally so well treated as in England; he was as strongly convinced as his worst enemy, that as an author he had been extolled there beyond his merits; nor had he failed to receive quite as much substantial remuneration as he could properly lay claim to. But the social atmosphere there prevailing was not the atmosphere he loved. The poet Moore relates in his diary a story told him by Sydney Smith of the "touchiness" of "the Republican"--so the American novelist is styled--as evinced by the indignation of the latter at the conduct of Lord Nugent.

This n.o.bleman, it appears, invited Cooper to take a walk with him to a certain street. Arriving there he unceremoniously entered the (p. 097) house of a friend and left his companion to make his way back alone.

Cooper's resentment of the treatment may have been unwisely shown; for though often termed an aristocrat, he never exhibited in the slightest degree that reticence which is or is supposed to be the peculiar characteristic of aristocracy. But few would now be found to deny that his indignation was both natural and just, and that the act of Lord Nugent was the act of a boor and not of a gentleman. It was certainly unreasonable to expect that a society which could rejoice in this method of rebuking republican pretension could itself be agreeable to a republican. Cooper could not but be offended by the prejudices he found existing against his country and the dislike usually felt and sometimes expressed for it. The only man he met whom he thought well informed about America was Sir James Mackintosh. The ignorance of some of his friends was so great that even to him it caused amus.e.m.e.nt rather than anger. Many readers will have heard of the practice of "gouging," with which, according to the veracious English traveler of early days, the native American gave the charm of diversity and diversion to a life whose serious thoughts were wholly absorbed in the acquisition of pelf.

Some will remember the definition given of it in Grose's "Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue:" "to squeeze out a man's eye with the thumb; a cruel practice used by the Bostonians in America." A curious ill.u.s.tration of the belief in this myth occurred to Cooper. One of his friends in England was an amiable and pleasant man of letters, named William Sotheby, little heard of in these days; and even in his own days he had to endure the double degradation of being called a small poet by the small poets themselves. He was at this time an old gentleman of (p. 098) over seventy, and was preparing to make a creditable close to his career by performing the task, which seems to a.s.sume the shape of a duty to every literary Englishman of leisure, of translating the Iliad and the Odyssey. Not unnaturally he was more familiar with the way the wrath of Achilles manifested itself than with the shape taken by the wrath of the men of his race beyond the sea. On one occasion he condoled with Cooper because of the quarrelsomeness and fighting prevalent in America, making during this expression of his sympathy an obvious allusion to gouging. It was useless to attempt setting him right. His interest in ancient fiction had not been so absorbing as to close his mind to the acquisition of modern fact; and to Cooper's denial of what he had implied he listened with a polite but incredulous smile.

CHAPTER VI. (p. 099)

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 inst.i.tutions.

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 ent.i.tled, "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 authors.h.i.+p 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 a.s.surances of loyalty to republican inst.i.tutions 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 a.s.surance, 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, a.s.signed 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 a.s.sertions, 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 antic.i.p.ations. 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 a.s.serted 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 c.u.mbered, 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 a.s.sertion.

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 a.s.sail him for having them. He was accused, especially, of pluming himself highly upon the t.i.tle 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 pa.s.sages 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sist 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 authors.h.i.+p.

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 inst.i.tutions, 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 a.s.sailed oligarchical, and lauded democratic inst.i.tutions. 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.suredly is in compositions of a certain cla.s.s; 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 inst.i.tutions, 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 a.s.sumed another aspect. To that statesman Cooper was bound by ties of intimate personal friends.h.i.+p 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 Dela.s.sert, 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 _charge 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 circ.u.mstances 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 _charge 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 cla.s.s 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 ma.n.u.script 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.

CHAPTER VII. (p. 117)

1833-1838.

On the fifth of November, 1833, Cooper landed at New York. For a few winters that followed he made that city his place of residence. The summers he spent in Cooperstown. To this village he paid a visit in June, 1834, after having been away from it entirely for about sixteen years. The recollections of his early life had always endeared it to his memory, and in it he now determined to take up his permanent abode.

Accordingly he acquired possession of his father's old place, which for a long period had remained unoccupied. The house had received from the inhabitants the name of Templeton Hall, with a direct reference to "The Pioneers." Everything about it was rapidly hastening to ruin. Cooper at once began repairs upon it, and after these had been fully completed he made it his only residence. It was in this little village, upon the sh.o.r.e of the lake which his pen has made famous, that he spent the remainder of his life. There he wrote nearly all the works which he produced after his return to his native land. Its seclusion and quiet gave him ample opportunities for undisturbed literary exertion; the beauty of the surroundings ministered constantly to his pa.s.sion for scenery; and of the world outside he saw sufficient to satisfy his wishes in the frequent journeys which business compelled him to make to the great cities.

Yet, though his latter days were spent in the country, the life (p. 118) he led henceforward deserves anything but the name of a pastoral. With the return from Europe begins the epic period of Cooper's career. The next ten years, in particular, were years of battle and storm. He had been criticised harshly and unjustly; he came back prepared and disposed to criticise. His feelings found expression at once. The America to which he had returned seemed to him much worse than that from which he had gone. In his opinion nearly everything had deteriorated. Manners, morals, the whole spirit of the nation, struck him as being on a lower level. Yet the change was not really in the people; it was in himself.

The country had been moving on in the line of its natural bustling development; he, on the contrary, had been going back in sentiment. In one particular there was a certain justification for the dislike expressed by him for the novel things he saw. The business of the entire land was in a feverish condition. The Erie Ca.n.a.l, completed the year before his departure for Europe, had opened an unbroken water way from the Atlantic sea-board to the farthest sh.o.r.es of the great lakes. To this stimulus to population and trade was added the expected stimulus of the railroad system, then in its infancy. Both together were disclosing, though more to the imagination than to the eye, the wealth that lay hid in the unsettled regions of the West. They were active agents, therefore, in creating one of those periods of speculative prosperity which are sure to recur when any new and unforeseen avenue to sudden fortune is laid open. The immense field for endeavor revealed by the prospective establishment of flouris.h.i.+ng communities reacted unfavorably upon the intellectual movement which had begun in a feeble way (p. 119) to show itself twenty years before. The attraction of mighty enterprises which held out to the hope promises of the highest temporal triumphs, was a compet.i.tion that mere literary and scholastic pursuits, with their doubtful success and precarious rewards, could not well maintain. The country certainly went back for a time in higher things in consequence of that rapid material progress which drew to its further development the youthful energy and ability of the entire land. To make money and to make it rapidly seemed to be the one object of life.

Such a fever of speculative prosperity wholly absorbing the thoughts and activities of men in the acquisition of wealth, would have been viewed by Cooper at any time with indifference, even if it did not inspire disgust. But a greater change than he knew had come over him. It is clear that he had now grown largely out of sympathy with the energy and enterprise which were doing so much to build up the prosperity and power of his country. His nature had come into a profound sympathy with the quiet, the culture, and the polish of the lands he had left behind. His spirit could no longer be incited by the romance that lay hid in the fiery energies of trade. In the tumultuousness of the life about him, he could see little but a restless and vulgar exertion for the creation of wealth. The perpetual bustle and change were not to his taste. He spoke of it afterwards, in one of his works, with a certain grim humor peculiarly his own. America he said, was a country for alibis. The whole nation was in motion; and everybody was everywhere, and n.o.body was anywhere.

Feelings of this kind had begun to come over him long before his (p. 120) return from abroad. He had been affected by his surroundings to an extent of which he was only vaguely conscious. While in Europe he admitted that he found growing in his nature a strong distaste for the common appliances of common life. He had not been long in Florence before these sentiments found utterance. "I begin to feel," he wrote, "I could be well content to vegetate here for one half of my life, to say nothing of the remainder." He drew sharp distinctions between commercial towns and capitals. Even in Italy, Leghorn with its growing trade, its bales of merchandise, its atmosphere filled with the breath of the salt sea mixed with the smell of pitch and tar, seemed mean and vulgar after the refinement and world-old beauty of Florence. He acknowledged that the languor and repose of towns which glory simply in their collections and recollections, were far more suited to his feelings than the activity and tumult of towns whose glory lies in their commercial enterprises. This preference is not uncommon among cultivated men. But it is too much to ask of a nation that it shall exist for the sake of gratifying the aesthetic emotions of travelers. The process of achieving greatness can never be so agreeable to the looker-on as the sight of greatness achieved; but it is unhappily often the case that many things, which the visitor regards as a charm, the native feels to be a reproach.

Besides the change of view in himself, there were some actual changes in the country that were not temporary in their nature. The const.i.tution of society had altered at home during his residence abroad, or was rapidly altering. The influence of the old colonial aristocracy was fast dying out. New men were pus.h.i.+ng to the wall the descendants of the (p. 121) families that had flourished before the Revolution, and had sought after it to keep up distinctions and exclusiveness which the very success of the struggle in which they had been concerned doomed to an early decay.

This was especially noticeable in New York. In such a city social rank must tend, in the long run, to wait upon wealth. The result may be delayed, it cannot be averted. Wealth, too, in most cases, will find its way to the hands of those carrying on great commercial undertakings.