XX

Balzac was one of his great admirers. Speaking of "The Pathfinder" he said:

"It is beautiful! It is grand! Its interest is tremendous! I know no one in the world save Walter Scott who has risen to that grandeur and serenity of colors. * Never did the art of writing tread closer upon the art of the pencil. This is the school of study for literary landscape paint* If Cooper had succeeded in the painting of character to the same extent that he did in painting the phenomena of nature he would have uttered the last word of our art."

ers.

*

We have referred to the fact that he was often compared with Scott. This was to him a matter of annoyance, although he

once spoke of him

self as nothing

more than a chip

from the former's block, and Victor Hugo

Ample Pecuniary Recognition 271

pronounced him greater than Scott. Scott himself said of an evening in Paris in 1826: "Cooper was there, so the Scotch and American lions took the field together."

But Scott did not admire him. In Lockhart's "Life" the novelist said of Cooper :

"This man who is so much of a genius has a good deal of the manners, or want of manners, peculiar to his countrymen.'

دو

In one respect they suffered together. Along about 1830 there came a reaction against the novel of adventure, and Bulwer was for a time the popular favorite.

ΧΧΙ

Authorship brought him good returns. While his first books were published at his own expense and risk, the success of "The Spy" was so great that thereafter his books were sought after by publishers in America and England alike. It is said that he received $5,000 each from England for his earlier stories, and up to the last his London publisher paid him $1,500 each for them. From 1840 on however, his profits were less from the fact that two weekly newspapers in New York had begun the practice of re

printing in their columns the writings of the most popular novelists, and an era of cheap books followed. "Wing-and-Wing",

66

Wyandotte", "The Redskins", "The Crater", "Jack Tier", "The Oak Openings", and "The Sea Lions" were published each in two volumes at 25 cents a volume; "Afloat and Ashore", "Satanstoe", and "Ned Myers" at 37 cents a volume.

He needed money in the latter part of his life for he lost a good deal in cotton speculation and Western lands. When he died it was found that enough was left to ensure a competence to his family, but the house in which he had lived so many years had to be given up, and not long after the building was burned.

XXII

In character he was a man of strong individuality, with many corners that threescore years failed to round, and prejudices that were often unjust; but there was in his nature no meanness. He was capable of deep resentment, but his warfare was always open and manly. He was charitable-the sculptor Greenough for instance, writes that

Fearless and Truthful

273

Cooper saved him from despair; and he was as generous as he was irascible and pugnacious. His faults were foibles, not vices; of temper rather than of character; and posterity judges him more justly than did his contemporaries.

Prof. Lounsbury's summing-up may be accepted as impartial. Like the defects of his writings, the faults of his character lay upon the surface, and were seen and read of all men. But granting everything that can be urged against him, impartial consideration must award him an ample excess of the higher virtues. His failings were the failings of a man who possessed in the fullest measure vigor of mind, intensity of conviction, and capability of passion. Disagree with him one could hardly help; but one could never fail to respect him.

XXIII

The fearlessness and truthfulness of his nature are conspicuous in almost every incident of his career. He fought for a principle as desperately as other men fought for life. The storm of detraction through which he went never once shook the almost

haughty independence of his conduct or swerved him in the slightest from the course he had chosen.

There was a royalty in his nature that disdained even the semblance of deceit. With other authors one feels that the man is inferior to his work. With him it is the very reverse. His life was the best answer to many of the charges brought against his country and his countrymen.

America has had among her representatives of the irritable race of writers many who have shown far more ability to get on pleasantly with their fellows than Cooper. She has had several gifted with higher spiritual insight than he, with broader and juster views of life, with finer ideals of literary art, and, above all, with far greater delicacy of taste. But she counts on the scanty roll of her men of letters the name of no one who acted from purer patriotism or loftier principle. She finds among them all no manlier nature, and no more heroic soul".