Chapter 11

The beauty of this Wild-Rose Point claimed Cooper's earliest love. He made it the scene where Deerslayer and Chingachgook rescued Wah-ta-Wah. Its flatiron-shaped pebble-beach jutted out from the lake's west shore and was covered with fine old forest trees garlanded with vines; and from their graveled rootage there gurgled a limpid spring of sweet waters. Then a wild brook came brawling down the hills to find its gentle outlet on the beach. Azalias and wild roses made its shrubbery, while pitcher-plant, moccasin-flower, gentians blue and white, with brilliant lobelias, were among the native blossoms that charmed the author's childhood and made this Three-Mile Point especially dear to him.

The Italian part of Cooper's "Gleanings in Europe" was brought to print in 1838, and later in this year appeared "The American Democrat." Then "Homeward Bound," its sequel, "Home as Found," and the "Chronicles of Cooperstown"--all came in hot haste from the author's modest three-story brick home in St. Mark's Place near Third Avenue in New York City. In these books Cooper told his side of foreign and town troubles, and it was said that not ten places or persons could complain in truth that they had been overlooked. Thereby New York society and the American press became greatly excited. Cooper was ever a frank friend or an open enemy. A critic wrote of him and this time: "He had the courage to defy the majority and confound the press, from a heavy sense of duty, with ungrateful truths. With his manly, strong sense of right and wrong he had a high regard for courage in men and purity in women, but, with his keen sense of justice, he was not always judicious. Abroad he defended his country with vigor, and was fearless in warning and advising her, when needful, at home. While he never mistook 'her geese for swans,' he was a patriot to the very core of his heart." However, this over-critical writing soon became newspaper gossip, and began for Cooper six long years of tedious lawsuits, finally settled in his favor in 1843. With such able men as Horace Greeley, Park Benjamin, and Thurlow Weed among others in battle-array against him, Cooper closed this strife himself by making a clear, brilliant, and convincing six-hour address before the court during a profound silence. Well may it be said: "It was a good fight he fought and an honorable victory he won" when he silenced the press as to publishing private or personal affairs. His speech was received with bursts of applause, and of his closing argument an eminent lawyer said: "I have heard nothing like it since the days of Emmet." "It was clear, skilful, persuasive, and splendidly eloquent," is another's record. At the Globe Hotel the author wrote his wife the outcome, and added: "I tell you this, my love, because I know it will give you pleasure." In "American Bookmen," by M.A. De Wolfe Howe, it appears that when going to one of his Cooper trials Mr. Weed picked up a new book to shorten the journey. It proved to be "The Two Admirals," and says Weed: "I commenced reading it in the cars, and became so charmed that I took it into the court-room and occupied every interval that my attention could be withdrawn from the trial with its perusal." Mr. Howe adds: "Plaintiff and defendant have rarely faced each other under stranger conditions."

While in the St. Mark's-Place home the family found Frisk, described by Mr. Keese as "a little black mongrel of no breed whatever, rescued from under a butcher's cart in St. Mark's Place, with a fractured leg, and tenderly cared for until recovery. He was taken to Cooperstown, where he died of old age after the author himself. Mr. Cooper was rarely seen on the street without Frisk."

The shores of Otsego, "the Susquehanna's utmost spring," Cooper made the scenic part of "Home as Found," but high authority asserts the characters to be creatures of the author's fancy, all save one,--"a venerable figure, tall and upright, to be seen for some three-score years moving to and fro over its waters; still ready to give, still ready to serve; still gladly noting all of good; but it was with the feeling that no longer looked for sympathy." It was of "Home as Found" that Morse wrote to Cooper: "I will use the frankness to say I wish you had not written it. But whenever am I to see you?"

The effect of this conflict with the press so cut the sale of Cooper's books that in 1843 he wrote: "I know many of the New York booksellers are afraid to touch my works on account of the press of that righteous and enlightened city." Of these disturbing conditions Balzac's opinion was: "Undoubtedly Cooper's renown is not due to his countrymen nor to the English: he owes it mainly to the ardent appreciation of France."

Cooper's income, from England, suffered on account of an act of Parliament change, in 18381 of the copy-right law. But his London publisher, Bentley, was credited with usually giving the author about $1500 each for his later stories. Report gave him about $5000 each for his prior works.

May 10, 1839, Cooper published his "History of the United States Navy." It was first favored and then, severely criticised at home and abroad; but the author was fourteen years in gathering his material, and his close contact with navy officers and familiarity with sea life made him well qualified for the work. He had not yet convinced the press that an author's and editor's right to criticise was mutual; that each might handle the other's public work as roughly as he pleased, but neither might touch on the other's private affairs. However, the "Naval History" sold well and has borne the test of time, and still remains an authority on subjects treated. There are many officers who well remember their delight on first reading those accounts of the battles of long-ago, of which Admiral Du Pont said that any lieutenant "should be ashamed not to know by heart." One well qualified to judge called Cooper's "Naval History" "one of the noblest tributes ever paid to a noble profession."

When "The Pathfinder" came later from the author's pen critics were startled from the press-estimate of his character by "the novel beauty of that glorious work--I must so call it," said Bryant. Natty's goodness a dangerous gift might prove for popular success, but its appeal to Washington Irving won this record: "They may say what they will of Cooper; the man who wrote this book is not only a great man, but a good man." Balzac held it to be "_un beau livre_" and thought Cooper owed his high place in modern literature to painting of the sea and seamen, and idealizing the magnificent landscapes of America. It was of Cooper and his works that Balzac wrote: "With what amazing power has he painted nature! How all his pages glow with creative fire!"

Concerning Cooper's innate love for his home-country scenery, Dr. Francis gives this incident: "It was a gratifying spectacle to see Cooper with old Colonel Trumbull, the historical painter, discanting on Cole's pencil in delineating American forest-scenery--a theme richest in the world for Cooper. The venerable Colonel with his patrician dignity, and Cooper with his aristocratic bearing, yet democratic sentiment. Trumbull was one of the many old men I knew who delighted in Cooper's writings, and in conversation dwelt upon his captivating genius."

Personally, Mr. Cooper was a noble type of our race. He was of massive, compact form, a face of strong intelligence and glowing with masculine beauty, in his prime. His portraits, though imposing, by no means do justice to the impressive and vivacious presence of the man. This pen picture is by one who knew the author well.

On July 8, of this year, Cooper was made a member of the Georgia Historical Society, and the following autumn "Mercedes of Castile" came from his pen. It relates the first voyage of Columbus, and "with special knowledge of a seaman, the accuracy of an historian, and with something of the fervor of a poet."

Gleaning Miss Cooper's "Pages and Pictures," one reads, as to "The Deerslayer": "One pleasant summer evening the author of 'The Pathfinder,' driving along the shady lake shore, was, as usual, singing; not, however, a burst of Burns's 'Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled!' or Moore's 'Love's Young Dream,'--his favorites,--but this time a political song of the party opposing his own. Suddenly he paused as a woods' opening revealed to his spirited gray eye an inspiring view of Otsego's poetical waters." When the spell was broken he turned to his beloved daughter and exclaimed: "I must write one more book, dearie, about our little lake!" Another far-seeing look was taken, to people this beautiful scene with the creatures of his fancy, followed by a moment of silence, then cracking his whip, he resumed his song with some careless chat, and drove home. A few days later the first pages of the new book were written. When the touch of Time was frosting his own head, he leads Natty, as a youth, over the first warpath of his hero. And so the "Glimmerglass" and its "Mt. Vision" country grew into the story of "The Deerslayer"; it is "the very soul of the little lake overflowing with youthful freshness and vivid with stirring adventure."

On the bosom of its waters is anchored "Muskrat Castle," and over it, to and fro, move the "Ark of Floating Tom" and the Indian canoes, which gave a strange, wild interest to the story. Afloat and ashore come those unlike sisters,--proud Judith, handsome but designing, and simple-hearted Hetty, gentle, innocent, and artless; both so real and feminine, and yet so far removed from their supposed father, the buccaneer. Then comes this Uncas of the eagle air, swooping with lithe movement to his rocky trysting-place. And Uncas is in strong contrast with "The Pathfinder's" "Arrowhead," who was a wonder-sketch of the red-man's treachery and vengeance, while his sweet girl-wife, "Dew-of-June," shows, true to life, an Indian woman's unfaltering devotion to her savage lord. Over all its pages broods the commanding spirit of "The Deerslayer,"--the forest's young Bayard who has yet to learn what the taking of human life is like. So, in "The Deerslayer," printed in 1841, the "Little Lake" (Otsego), with its picturesque shores, capes, and forest-crowned heights, was made classic soil. Just back of "The Five-Mile Point."--where Deerslayer gave himself up to merciless Indian justice at the Huron Camp, and later was rescued by British regulars--is the rocky gorge, Mohican Glen, through which a purling brook ripples by its stone-rift banks thatched with great clumps of rose and fern. From the gravel-strewn shore of Hutter's Point beyond, the eyes of Leatherstocking first fell upon the Glimmerglass, and impressed by its wonder and beauty he exclaimed: "This is grand! 't is solemn! 't is an edication of itself." Leaning on his rifle and gazing in every direction, he added: "Not a tree disturbed, but everything left to the ordering of the Lord, to live and die, to His designs and laws! This is a sight to warm the heart."

The tribes, hunters, and trappers had their "own way of calling things," and "seeing the whole basin, often fringed with pines, would throw back the hills that hung over it," they "got to calling the place the 'Glimmerglass.'" At Gravelly Point opposite, Deerslayer killed his first Indian, and above are the tree-tops where rose the star that timed Hist's meeting with her lover. Some distance to the north is the spot--now known as the "Sunken Islands"--which marks the site of Muskrat Castle, and is near the last resting-place of Hetty Hutter and her mother. And far to the southwest lies a long, low, curving beach jutting sickle-shape into the lake. As a favored haunt of muskrats, it was once called Muskrat Cove, and now Blackbird Bay. Just beyond lies Fenimore, the home of Cooper's early married life.

In the author's pages on England, published in 1837, was expressed a wish to write a story on "the teeming and glorious naval history of that land." Our own country at that time had no fleet, but Cooper's interest in his youthful profession made quite fitting to himself the words of his old shipmate, Ned Myers: "I can say conscientiously that if my life were to be passed over again it would he passed in the navy--God bless the flag!" Out of England's long naval records Cooper made "The Two Admirals," an old-time, attractive story of the evolution of fleets, and the warm friendship between two strong-hearted men in a navy full of such, and at a time before the days of steam. "Cooper's ships live," so says Captain Mahan; and continues: "They are handled as ships then were, and act as ships still would act under the circumstances." This naval historian thought "the water a noble field for the story-teller." "The Two Admirals" first appeared in _Graham's Magazine,_ for which Cooper was regularly engaged to write in 1842. On June 16 of this year a decision was rendered in the "Naval History" dispute. One of the questions was whether Cooper's account of the battle of Lake Erie was accurate and fair and did justice to the officers in command, and whether he was right in asserting that Elliott, second in command, whom Perry at first warmly commended and later preferred charges against, did his duty in that action. Cooper maintained that while Perry's victory in 1813 had won for himself, "as all the world knows, deathless glory," injustice had been done to Elliott. Three arbitrators chosen by the parties to the dispute decided that Cooper had fulfilled his duty as an historian; that "the narrative of his battle of Lake Erie was true; that it was impartial"; and that his critics' "review was untrue, not impartial"; and that they "should publish this decision in New York, Washington, and Albany papers." Later Commodore Elliott presented Cooper with a bronze medal for this able and disinterested "defense of his brother-sailor."

Professor Lounsbury's summary of Cooper's "Naval History" is: "It is safe to say, that for the period which it covers it is little likely to be superseded as the standard history of the American navy. Later investigation may show some of the author's assertions to be erroneous. Some of his conclusions may turn out as mistaken as have his prophecies about the use of steam in war vessels. But such defects, assuming that they exist, are more than counterbalanced by advantages which make it a final authority on points that can never again be so fully considered. Many sources of information which were then accessible no longer exist. The men who shared in the scenes described, and who communicated information directly to Cooper, have all passed away. These are losses that can never be replaced, even were it reasonable to expect that the same practical knowledge, the same judicial spirit and the same power of graphic description could be found united again in the same person." Most amusing was Cooper's own story of a disputing man who being told: "Why, that is as plain as two and two make four," replied: "But I dispute that too, for two and two make twenty-two."

Cooper called the Mediterranean, its shores and countries, "a sort of a world apart, that is replete with charms which not only fascinate the beholder, but linger in the memories of the absent like visions of a glorious past." And so his cruise in 1830, in the _Bella Genovese_, entered into the pages of "Wing-and-Wing." The idea was to bring together sailors of all nations--English, French, Italian, and Yankee--on the Mediterranean and aboard a French water-craft of peculiar Italian rig--the lateen sail. These sails spread like the great white wings of birds, and the craft glides among the islands and hovers about every gulf and bay and rocky coast of that beautiful sea. Under her dashing young French captain, Raoul Yvard, _Le Fen Follet_ (Jack-o'-Lantern or fire-fly, as you will) glides like a water-sprite here, there, and everywhere, guided by Cooper's sea phrases,--for which he had an unfailing instinct,--that meant something "even to the land-lubber who does not know the lingo." It is said many down-east fishermen never tire of Cooper, but despise many of his followers because of their misuse of sea terms. But more of "Wing-and-Wing": there was lovely Ghita, so sweet and brave, and anxious for her daring young lover Raoul, and stricken by the tragedies that befell her in the wake of Lord Nelson's fleet. The brown mountains of Porta Farrajo, "a small, crowded town with little forts and a wall," Cooper had seen.

He had tested its best inn, _The Four Nations_, by a good dinner in its dining-room of seven mirrors and a broken tile floor, and had some talk with its host as to their late ruler,--he said Napoleon came that evening, sent at once for Elba's oldest flag, which was run up on the forts as a sign of independence.

Cooper saw Napoleon's Elba home,--"a low, small house and two wings, with ten windows in its ninety feet of front." He also saw the more comfortable one-story home of Napoleon's mother. Other isles and shores seen then--during his cruise in the _Bella Genovese_--found place in "Wing-and-Wing," published in 1842. The knowledge thus obtained of localities and the Italians led Cooper to say: "Sooner or later Italy will, inevitably, become a single state; this is a result that I hold to be certain, though the means by which it is to be effected are still hidden."

During 1843 appeared in _Graham's Magazine_ Cooper's "Life-Sketch of Perry," "The Battle of Lake Erie," and "The Autobiography of a Pocket-handkerchief," or "Social Life in New York." This volume of _Graham's Magazine_ also included the life of "John Paul Jones," wherein appeared Cooper's masterful description of the celebrated battle of the _Bon Homme Richard_--one of the most remarkable in the brief annals of that time of American naval warfare.

Of John Paul Jones himself Cooper wrote:

"In battle, Paul Jones was brave; in enterprise, hardy and original; in victory, mild and generous; in motives, much disposed to disinterestedness, though ambitious of renown and covetous of distinction; in pecuniary relations, liberal; in his affections, natural and sincere; and in his temper, except in those cases which assailed his reputation, just and forgiving."

Fenimore Cooper was a veritable pioneer in spirit. He delighted in the details of American "clearing,"--from the first opening of the forest to sunlight, by the felling of trees and stump-extractor, to the neat drain and finished stonewall. On the mountain slope of Otsego's shore, and less than two miles from Cooperstown, lay his small farm belted with woodland, from which he had filched it in true pioneer fashion. Concerning Cooper's "costly contest with the soil," Mr. Keese tells us: "The inspiring beauty of its commanding views caught Cooper's fancy for buying it far more than any meager money returns its two hundred acres could promise."

After ten years of devoted care the author is on record as saying with some humor: "for this year the farm would actually pay expenses." But full returns came in charming views over field, wood, and lake, where his fancy built "Muskrat Castle" and the "Ark of Floating Tom." Besides, its pork and butter were the sweetest, its eggs the whitest and freshest; its new peas and green corn "fit for the pot" were the first in the country. When the morning writing hours were over at the Hall, it was to the Châlet, as he called this farm, that he drove, to look after his horses, cows, pigs, and chickens.

The dumb creatures soon learned to know and love him. They would gather about him and frequently follow him "in a mixed procession often not a little comical. He had a most kindly feeling for all domestic animals," and "was partial to cats as well as dogs; the pet half-breed Angora often perched on his shoulders while he sat writing in the library." Then there were the workmen to direct, for whom he always had a kindly word. One of these said: "We never had to call on him a second time for a bill; he brought us the check. When I knocked at his library door it was surprising how quickly I heard the energetic 'Come in.' When I met him in the street in winter he often said: 'Well, Thomas, what are you driving at?' If work was dull he would try to think of something to set me about." Of Cooper's activity was added: "When the masons were repairing his home, in 1839, he, at fifty, and then quite stout, went up their steep, narrow ladder to the topmost scaffold on the gable end and walked the ridge of the house when the chimney was on fire." The Châlet brought to the author's mind "Wyandotté," or "The Hutted Knoll," a tale of border-life during the colonial period. A family of that time forces from the wilderness an affluent frontier home and settlement for its successors. In "Sassy Dick" the idle and fallen Indian is pathetically portrayed: Dick's return to the dignity of Wyandotté, the Indian chief, by reason of the red-man's fierce instincts, is a pen-picture strong in contrasts, illustrating how "he never forgot a favor nor forgave an injury." This story and that of Ned Myers were published in 1843.

Of these years there are records of Cooper's kindly love for little folk. Miss Caroline A. Foot, a schoolgirl of thirteen and a frequent visitor at Otsego Hall, had always a warm welcome from Mr. Cooper and his family. When she was about to leave her Cooperstown home for another elsewhere, "she made bold to enter his sanctum, carrying her album in her hand and asking him to write a verse or two in the same." Those verses have been treasured many years by that little girl, who became Mrs. George Pomeroy Keese. Two of her treasured verses are:

TO CAROLINE A. FOOT

But now, dear Cally, comes the hour When triumph crowns thy will, Submissive to thy winning power I seize the recreant quill: Indite these lines to bless thy days And sing my peans in thy praise.

In after life when thou shalt grow To womanhood, and learn to feel The tenderness the aged know To guide their children's weal, Then wilt thou bless with bended knee Some smiling child as I bless thee.

J. FENIMORE COOPER. Otsego Hall, August, 1843.

The delight of the winsome little lady was great, not only for the loving sentiment but also for the autograph, which is now both rare and valuable. Not long after the capture of her verses a copy of them was sent to her friend Julia Bryant, daughter of Mr. Cooper's friend, the poet. Miss Julia wrote at once in reply that she never would be happy until she too had some lines over the same autograph. An immediate request was made of Mr. Cooper at his desk in the old Hall library, and with "dear Cally" by his side, he wrote:

Charming young lady, Miss Julia by name, Your friend, little Cally, your wishes proclaim; Read this and you'll soon learn to know it, I'm not your papa the great lyric poet.

J. FENIMORE COOPER.