Chapter 16

As I said, Cooper was thirty years old before he began to write. He had studied under an Episcopal rector, and was intending to enter the junior class at Yale; the rector died and Cooper entered the second term of the freshman class; for some frolic in which he was engaged he was dismissed; he then entered the navy, where he gathered valuable experience which he worked afterwards into literature; he married; resigned, and lived the quiet life of a country gentleman. One day he threw down an English novel he had been reading and said to his wife, "I believe I could write a better story myself." Now this is a feeling that many of us have had, but few of us are put to the test. Cooper's wife fortunately told him to make the trial. He did so, and _Precaution_ was the result. This was published in 1820. As a novel it is a failure; as a literary document it is highly interesting. _Precaution_ is a story of English life. Why should Cooper write of American life when all Americans seemed to consider American life dull and prosaic? Politically we were free; intellectually we were slaves. The English lark sang in American poetry and English lords talked in American novels. It was not until 1837 that Emerson gave that famous address, _The American Scholar_, an event which Lowell calls "without any former parallel in our literary annals," and which Holmes declared to be "our intellectual Declaration of Independence."

_Precaution_ has been called a failure, but it was not so much of a failure that Cooper's friends discouraged him from trying again. No, it was a first attempt and gave promise of something better. Why not write about American scenes and events? The very neighborhood in which he lived had been the scene of many stirring adventures during the Revolutionary conflict. "Years before, while at the residence of John Jay, his host had given him, one summer afternoon, the account of a spy that had been in his service during the war. The coolness, shrewdness, fearlessness, but above all the unselfish patriotism of the man had profoundly impressed the Revolutionary leader who had employed him. The story made an equally deep impression upon Cooper at the time. He now resolved to take it as the foundation of the tale he had been persuaded to write."

Near the close of 1821 _The Spy_ appeared. In March of the following year a third edition was on the market. The work soon appeared in England, published by Miller, the same publisher that had first ventured to bring Irving's _Sketch Book_ before the English public. In England the book was at once successful. This meant much to the American estimate of the author's ability, for American critics were afraid to praise a work that had not yet been applauded by England. In this same year, 1822, a French translation appeared. In France the work was enthusiastically received. This was the first of many translations into many European languages. Its influence in teaching patriotism cannot be estimated, nor can its value as an effective retort to the sneer "Who reads an American book?" ever be overlooked.

About the early life of Cooper there are unfortunately but few anecdotes. One reason for this lack of _personalia_ about a man who had a most vigorous personality is due to his dying request. He enjoined upon his family that they permit no authorized biography to appear. Because of this we have lost much that would be valuable in estimating the character of Cooper. There is a story that when he was a young man he engaged in a foot-race for a prize of a basket of fruit. "While Cooper and his competitor were preparing to start, a little girl stood by full of eagerness for the exciting event. Cooper quickly turned and picked her up in his arms. 'I'll carry her and beat you!' he exclaimed, and away they went, Cooper with his laughing burden, the other runner untrammeled. It is almost needless to add that Cooper won the race, else why should the story have been preserved?" One cannot help speculating about the size of the girl and the speed of the rival runner, if this story is true.

A more satisfying story is that told of Cooper's meeting with Scott. In 1826 Cooper went to Europe. With a family of ten persons he moved about for seven years. Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, and England were visited. When in Paris the two romancers met.

"Est ce Monsieur Cooper que j'ai l'honneur de voir?"

"Monsieur je m'appelle Cooper."

"Eh bien, donc, je suis Walter Scott."

After a minute or two of French Sir Walter suddenly recollected himself and said: "Well, here have I been _parley vooing_ to you in a way to surprise you, no doubt, but these Frenchmen have got my tongue so set to their lingo that I have half forgotten my own language."

I have said that Cooper was not popular. This is not putting it strong enough. He was more than unpopular; he was hated by his neighbors, and slandered by the press at home and abroad. This lamentable condition of affairs was not due to any despicable qualities in the man, for Cooper was a kind father, an affectionate husband, a good citizen, and an honest, truth-loving man. These seem admirable qualities. Of few of us can much higher praise be spoken. Why then did the citizens of Cooper's home village hold a mass meeting and pass resolutions to the effect that Cooper had rendered "himself odious to a greater portion of the citizens of this community," and why should _Fraser's Magazine_, three thousand miles away, call Cooper "a liar, a bilious braggart, a full jackass, an insect, a grub, and a reptile"?

The cause is not far to seek. Cooper was the most disputatious man in the history of American literature. Cooper used to tell the story of the man who in an argument was met with: "Why it is as plain as that two and two make four." "But I deny that too," was the retort, "for two and two make twenty two." Cooper was himself that sort of a man. He always had a quarrel on his hands. The more pugnacious a man is, the more militant he will find society. He instituted libel suits against the most prominent editors in the country, among them Horace Greeley and Thurlow Weed. And what is more to the point,--he won his cases. But this did not make him any more popular with the press. When we remember that Billingsgate was an important part of the literary equipment of the critic of Cooper's time, we need not be surprised that Cooper's pugnacity evoked such sweet disinterestedness as Park Benjamin indulged in when he called Cooper "a superlative dolt, and a common mark of scorn and contempt of every well-informed American."

In addition to this denunciation of Cooper as a man, there have in recent years arisen severe criticisms on Cooper as a writer. "There are nineteen rules," writes Mark Twain, "governing literary art in the domain of romantic fiction--some say twenty-two. In _Deerslayer_ Cooper violated eighteen of them." And then Mark Twain gives us the detailed specifications. It is very cleverly put, this criticism of Mark Twain's. But the astounding fact remains that the one rule Cooper did not violate seems to secure him a place in the Pantheon of authors. Along with Poe, and Whitman, and Mark himself, Cooper is found in various editions on the shelves of the bookdealers and in the libraries of the book-lovers from the Thames to the Volga. If Cooper had observed only one or two more of the rules of literary art, where would he stand? One is reminded of the Dutchman who was told that this clock would run eight days without winding. "Ach, Himmel, what would she do if she was woundt?"

The one literary sin that Cooper does not commit is dulness. He is interesting. Of course there are some of Cooper's works that no one cares to read now. But he is to be judged by his best, not by his worst. Balzac is something of a novelist himself, and has a right to be heard. "If Cooper," says Balzac in a passage quoted by every writer who touches upon Cooper, "had succeeded in the painting of character to the same extent that he did in the painting of the phenomena of nature, he would have uttered the last word of our art." This is no mean praise. Cooper is read because he is interesting. He shall continue to be read for another reason. He is wholesome and vigorous. The air we breathe is the air of the pine forest and the salt sea. Youth is forever attracted by the mystery and adventure of primitive life. As America becomes more and more densely settled the imagination will turn back to the early times when the bear and the deer, the settler and Indian were tracking the trail through the forest and along the shore. For this reason Cooper is likely to remain an abiding force in American literature.

XLIX

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY AND BISMARCK

John Lothrop Motley, the American historian, a writer who in his _The Rise of the Dutch Republic_ produced a history as fascinating as a romance and a work that was immediately in Europe translated into three different languages, was, after graduation from Harvard, a student at Goettingen. Here he studied German so well that in after years he was asked by the emperor of Austria whether he were not a German. Here too he became acquainted with Bismarck.

That they were great friends is evident from letters by Bismarck himself. "I never pass by old Logier's House, in the Friedrichstrasse--wrote Bismarck in 1863--without looking up at the windows that used to be ornamented by a pair of red slippers sustained on the wall by the feet of a gentleman sitting in the Yankee way, his head below and out of sight. I then gratify my memory with remembrance of 'good old colony times when we were roguish chaps.'" And here is another part of a letter which illustrates that even dignitaries like to unbend and become like boys again. This letter was written by the minister of foreign affairs to the minister of the United States at the court of Vienna:

Berlin, May 23d, 1864.

Jack my Dear,-- ... what do you do that you never write a line to me? I am working from morn to night like a nigger, and you have nothing to do at all--you might as well tip me a line as well as looking at your feet tilted against the wall of God knows what a dreary color. I cannot entertain a regular correspondence; it happens to me that during five days I do not find a quarter of an hour for a walk; but you, lazy old chap, what keeps you from thinking of your old friends? When just going to bed in this moment my eye met with yours on your portrait, and I curtailed the sweet restorer, sleep, in order to remind you of Auld Lang Syne. Why do you never come to Berlin? It is not a quarter of an American's holiday from Vienna, and my wife and me should be so happy to see you once more in this sullen life. When can you come, and when will you? I swear that I will make out the time to look with you on old Logier's quarters, ... and at Gerolt's, where they once would not allow you to put your slender legs upon a chair. Let politics be hanged and come to see me. I promise that the Union Jack shall wave over our house, and conversation and the best old hock shall pour damnation upon the rebels. Do not forget old friends, neither their wives, as mine wishes nearly as ardently as myself to see you, or at least to see as quickly as possible a word of your handwriting.

Sei gut und komm oder schreibe. Dein, V. BISMARCK.

In a letter to Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1878, Bismarck in answer to an inquiry tells how the two became friends.

"I met Motley at Goettingen in 1832, I am not sure if at the beginning of the Easter term or Michaelmas term. He kept company with German students, though more addicted to study than we members of the fighting clubs. Although not having mastered yet the German language he exercised a marked attraction by a conversation sparkling with wit, humor, and originality. In autumn of 1833, having both of us emigrated from Goettingen to Berlin for the prosecution of our studies, we became fellow lodgers in the house No. 161 Friedrichstrasse. There we lived in the closest intimacy, sharing meals and outdoor exercise. Motley by that time had arrived at talking fluently: he occupied himself not only in translating Goethe's poem, _Faust_, but tried his hand even in composing German verses. Enthusiastic admirer of Shakspere, Byron, Goethe, he used to spice his conversation abundantly with quotations from these his favorite authors. A pertinacious arguer, so much so that sometimes he watched my awakening in order to continue a discussion on some topic of science, poetry, or practical life cut short by the chime of the small hours, he never lost his mild and amiable temper.... The most striking feature of his handsome and delicate appearance was uncommonly large and beautiful eyes. He never entered a drawing-room without exciting the curiosity and sympathy of the ladies."

While the sheets of Motley's history were passing through the press in 1856, he paid a visit to Bismarck at Frankfort:

"When I called," says Motley, "Bismarck was at dinner, so I left my card, and said I would come back in half an hour. As soon as my card had been carried to him (as I learned afterwards) he sent a servant after me to the hotel, but I had gone another way. When I came back I was received with open arms. I can't express to you how cordially he received me. If I had been his brother, instead of an old friend, he could not have shown more warmth and affectionate delight in seeing me. I find I like him better even than I thought I did, and you know how high an opinion I always expressed of his talents and disposition. He is a man of very noble character, and of very great powers of mind. The prominent place which he now occupies as a statesman sought _him_. He did not seek it or any other office. The stand which he took in the Assembly from conviction, on the occasion of the outbreak of 1848, marked him at once to all parties as one of the leading characters of Prussia....

"In the summer of 1851, he told me that the minister, Manteuffel, asked him one day abruptly, if he would accept the post of ambassador at Frankfort, to which (although the proposition was as unexpected a one to him as if I should hear by the next mail that I had been chosen governor of Massachusetts) he answered after a moment's deliberation, yes, without another word. The king, the same day, sent for him, and asked him if he would accept the place, to which he made the same brief answer, 'Ja.' His majesty expressed a little surprise that he made no inquiries or conditions, when Bismarck replied that anything which the king felt strong enough to propose to him, he felt strong enough to accept. I only write these details that you may have an idea of the man. Strict integrity and courage of character, a high sense of honor, a firm religious belief, united with remarkable talents, make up necessarily a combination which cannot be found any day in any court; and I have no doubt that he is destined to be prime minister, unless his obstinate truthfulness, which is apt to be a stumbling-block for politicians, stands in his way....

"Well, he accepted the post and wrote to his wife next day, who was preparing for a summer's residence in a small house they had taken on the sea-coast, that he could not come because he was already established in Frankfort as minister. The result, he said, was three days of tears on her part. He had previously been leading the life of a plain country squire with a moderate income, had never held any position in the government or in diplomacy, and had hardly ever been to court."

L

THE YOUTH OF GEORGE TICKNOR

George Ticknor was born in 1791. His father, he says, fitted him for college. He never went to a regular school. President Wheelock, Professor Woodward, and others connected with Dartmouth College, who were in the habit of making his father's house their home in the long winter vacations, took much notice of him; and the professor, after examining him in Cicero _Orations_ and the Greek Testament, gave him a certificate of admission before he was ten years old. "Of course," he adds, "I knew very little, and the whole thing was a form, perhaps a farce. There was no thought of my going to college then, and I did not go till I was fourteen, but I was twice examined at the college (where I went with my father and mother every summer) for advanced standing, and was finally admitted as a junior, and went to reside there from Commencement, August, 1805." He learned very little at college. "The instructors generally were not as good teachers as my father had been, and I knew it." He consequently took no great interest in study, although he liked reading Horace, and had mathematics enough to enjoy calculating the great eclipse of 1806, and making a projection of it which turned out nearly right. To supply the deficiency in classical acquirements with which he left college, he was placed under Dr. John Gardiner, of Trinity Church, who was reputed a good scholar, having been bred in the mother country under Dr. Parr.

"I prepared at home what he prescribed, and the rest of my time occupied myself according to my tastes. I read with him parts of Livy, the _Annals_ of Tacitus, the whole of Juvenal and Persius, the _Satires_ of Horace, and portions of other Latin classics which I do not remember. I wrote Latin prose and verse. In Greek I read some books of the _Odyssey_, I don't remember how many; the _Alcestis_; and two or three other plays of Euripides; the _Prometheus Vinctus_ of AEschylus; portions of Herodotus, and parts of Thucydides,--of which last I only remember how I was tormented by the account of the plague at Athens. This was the work of between two and three years."

After a year's experience in law, he decides to give up his profession and goes to Europe in order to study at Goettingen. On reaching Liverpool his first introduction is to Roscoe, and then on his way to London he stops at Hatton to visit Dr. Parr, who astonished him not a little by observing, "Sir, I would not think I had done my duty if I went to bed any night without praying for the success of Napoleon Bonaparte."

In London Mr. Ticknor formed a friendship with Lord Byron; two men more unlike in every respect can hardly be conceived of, and it is amusing to think of Byron impressing his visitor as being "simple and unaffected," or of his speaking "of his early follies with sincerity," and of his own works "with modesty." It is amusing, too, to hear that as Lady Byron is going out for a drive, "Lord Byron's manner to her was affectionate; he followed her to the door, and shook hands with her, as if he were not to see her for a month." The following curious anecdote shows that Byron was no less unpatriotic in his views than Dr. Parr himself. Mr. Ticknor is calling upon him, and Byron is praising Scott as the first man of his time, and saying of Gifford that no one could have a better disposition, when,--

"Sir James Bland Burgess, who had something to do in negotiating Jay's Treaty, came suddenly into the room, and said abruptly, 'My lord, my lord, a great battle has been fought in the Low Countries, and Bonaparte is entirely defeated.' 'But is it true?' said Lord Byron, 'is it true?' 'Yes, my lord, it is certainly true; and an aid-de-camp arrived in town last night, he has been in Downing Street this morning, and I have just seen him as he was going to Lady Wellington's. He says he thinks Bonaparte is in full retreat towards Paris.' After a moment's pause, Lord Byron replied, 'I am sorry for it;' and then, after another slight pause, he added, 'I didn't know but I might live to see Lord Castlereagh's head on a pole. But I suppose I sha'n't now.' And this was the first impression produced on his imperious nature by the news of the battle of Waterloo."

But Byron is not Mr. Ticknor's only London friend, for we read of a breakfast with Sir Humphry Davy, a "genuine bookseller's dinner" with Murray, and a visit to the author of _Gertrude of Wyoming_.

Goettingen, however, is the object of his journey, and at Goettingen he remains for the next year and a half. If he does not learn to scorn the delights of society, he has at least the resolution to live the laborious days of the earnest student. He studies five languages, and works twelve hours in the twenty-four. Greek, German, theology, and natural history seem chiefly to claim his attention, but he is also busy with French, Italian, and Latin, and manages at the same time to keep up his English reading. He is much amused with the German professors, and describes them with no little humor. There is Michaelis, who asks one of his scholars for some silver shoe-buckles, in lieu of a fee. There is Schultze, who "looks as if he had fasted six months on Greek prosody and the Pindaric meters." There is Blumenbach, who has a sharp discussion at a dinner-table, and next day sends down three huge quartos all marked to show his authorities and justify his statements.

Here is another interesting anecdote given in Ticknor's _Memoirs_:

"When I was in Goettingen, in 1816, I saw Wolf, the most distinguished Greek scholar of the time. He could also lecture extemporaneously in Latin. He was curious about this country, and questioned me about our scholars and the amount of our scholarship. I told him what I could,--amongst other things, of a fashionable, dashing preacher of New York having told me that he took great pleasure in reading the choruses of AEschylus, and that he read them without a dictionary! I was walking with Wolf at the time, and, on hearing this, he stopped, squared round, and said, 'He told you that, did he?' 'Yes,' I answered. 'Very well; the next time you hear him say it, do you tell him he lies, and that I say so.'"

During a six weeks' vacation there is a pleasant tour through Germany, and at Weimar Mr. Ticknor makes the acquaintance of Goethe, who talked about Byron, and "his great knowledge of human nature."

And now in the November of 1816, there comes an intimation that Harvard College wishes to recall Mr. Ticknor to his old home, and give him the professorship of French and Spanish literature. It was a matter of difficulty for him to make a final decision, and a year passes before he determined to accept the charge, and a year and a half more before he enters upon its duties.

Meanwhile he leaves Goettingen, visits Paris, Geneva, and Rome, and then goes on to Spain.... When in Spain, Mr. Ticknor is busy learning Spanish and collecting Spanish books, and here he lays the groundwork for that special literary distinction for which he is now so widely known.--Adapted from the _Athenaeum_ and _Quarterly Review_.

LI

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK

Fitz-Greene Halleck died at a ripe old age in 1867. On the evening of February 2d, 1869, Bryant delivered an address on the life and writings of Halleck. The address was given before the New York Historical Society and was printed the next day in the _New York Evening Post_. Here is an interesting extract from the address:

"When I look back upon Halleck's literary life I cannot help thinking that if his death had happened forty years earlier, his life would have been regarded as a bright morning prematurely overcast. Yet Halleck's literary career may be said to have ended then. All that will hand down his name to future years had already been produced. Who shall say to what cause his subsequent literary inaction was owing? It was not the decline of his powers; his brilliant conversation showed that it was not. Was it, then, indifference to fame? Was it because he had put an humble estimate on what he had written, and therefore resolved to write no more? Was it because he feared lest what he might write would be unworthy of the reputation he had been so fortunate to acquire?