at every thing. And yet what does it amount to! After the water has been suffered to have its will, for a time, like a headstrong man, it is gathered together by the hand that made it, and a few rods below you may see it all flowing on steadily toward the sea, as was fore-ordained from the first foundation of the 'arth!"

XII

This is how he describes the upper end of Lake George:

"Immediately at the feet of the party, the southern shore of the Horican swept in a broad semi-circle, from mountain to mountain, marking a wide strand, that soon rose into an uneven and somewhat elevated plain. To the north stretched the limpid, and, as it appeared from that dizzy height, the narrow sheet of the holy lake', indented with. numberless bays, embellished by fantastic headlands, and dotted with countless islands. At the distance of a few leagues, the bed of the waters became lost among mountains, or was wrapped in the masses of vapor that came slowly rolling along their bosom, before a light morning air. But a narrow

His Conception of Indian Character 261

opening between the crests of the hills pointed out the passage by which they found their way still further north, to spread their pure and ample sheets again, before pouring out their tribute into the distant Champlain. To the south stretched the defile, or rather broken plain, so often mentioned. For several miles in this direction, the mountains appeared reluctant to yield their dominion, but within reach of the eye they diverged, and finally melted into the level and sandy lands across which we have accompanied our adventurers in their double journey."

XIII

His conception of the Indian character has probably done more than that of any other writer to draw the picture of the traditional Indian in the American mind. Those who live near the present reservations are slow to believe that Indians could have been men of whom Chingachook and Uncas are types. It is said, however, that his early life gave him ample opportunity for mingling with the Indians of his day, and that to the end of his life he maintained that his picture of the virtues and the vices of the Indians was a true one.

This is one of the illustrations he gives of the scout's skilled observation:

Of that there is little cause of fear," returned the scout, slowly shaking his head; "this is a firm and straight, though a light step, and not over long. See, the heel has hardly touched the ground; and there the dark hair has made a little jump, from root to root. No, no; my knowledge of it, neither of them was nigh fainting hereaway. Now, the singer was beginning to be footsore and leg-weary, as is plain by his trail. There, you see, he slipped; here he has travelled wide, and tottered; and there, again, it looks as though he journeyed on snow-shoes. Ay, ay, a man who uses his throat altogether, can hardly give his legs a proper training."

XIV

Cooper's views upon all subjects were positive and pronounced. The woman, for instance, is always the clinging vine. "There is," says the governess in "The Red Rover", no peace for our feeble sex but in submission, no happiness but in obedience."

In "Mercedes of Castile" the heroine is

Careless as to Details

thus described by her aunt :

263

"Her very

nature", " she says, "is made up of religion and female decorum." It is evident that the author imagined that in this commendation he was exhausting praise".

In The Deerslayer" he gives this conception of the Indian woman's view of higher education for women:

"No need to spell name at all. Moravian try to make Wah-ta-Wah spell, but no won't let him. No good for Delaware girl to know too much-know more than warrior sometime ; that great shame1."

XV

Of artistic workmanship he had very little. His stories are remarkable for the prolixity of their introductions. In "The Pioneers" it takes 15 chapters to bring the events to the close of the first night3. Besides the complicated sentences and the excess of punctuation marks in which especially his earlier stories abounded, he was careless as to details. In "The Pioneers" the first edition was printed and sold before he discovered that he had changed the name of his heroine. In "The Deerslayer" he sells

In

five castles out of one set of chessmen. "The Pathfinder" it was an unpardonable blunder to make a traitor out of Lieut. Muir, and was undoubtedly a change of plan after the eccentricities of that unamiable Scotchman had been developed in a clumsy attempt at humor.

Especially weak is the conversation that he puts into the mouths of his characters. For pages the only difference he makes between what he would have represented as his own conversation and that of Natty Bumppo is that he puts an italic y in place of the i in such words as reptile.

XVI

Here is some of the language that he ascribes to a hero who could not read and who wiped his nose upon the back of his hand3.

"The lake seems made to let us get an insight into the noble forests, and land and water alike stand in the beauty of God's providence1."

"Is love so overcoming that it causes a man to study the story of his sweeheart's habitation1 ?