James Fenimore CooperA critical biography presenting a summing-up of 19th century opinion of the great American author. |
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adventure Albany appeared attack Balzac Battle of Lake Boston Bryant called Captain character Cooperstown countrymen criticism Deerslayer delight editor Elliott England English fact feeling fiction Fisher Ames followed give Graham's Magazine Greeley Harvey Birch Heathcote Hill Home as Found Horace Greeley impression Indian James Cooper JAMES FENIMORE COOPER June Lake Erie land later Leather-Stocking letters libel suits literary literature live Mackenzie Mamaroneck matter Maynard & Company Mohicans months Morse nautical Naval History navy never newspaper North American Review novels Otsego Hall Otsego Lake Otsego Republican Paris passed Pathfinder patriot Perry Perry's Pilot political Published Red Rover romance sails scarcely scene Scott SHUBRICK sketch spirit story style Susan Fenimore Cooper tell Three Mile Point tion took traits true ures village volume voyage Weed Westchester County Whig writes written wrote York
Popular passages
Page 46 - You tell me that I must review him next time myself. Ah, sir! he is too sensitive a creature for me to touch. He seems to think his own works his own property, instead of being the property of the public, to whom he has given them...
Page 85 - Resolved, also that we will and do denounce any man as sycophant, who has, or shall, ask permission of James F. Cooper to visit the Point in question.
Page xx - In 1785 I visited the rough and hilly country of Otsego, where there existed not an inhabitant, nor any trace of a road; I was alone three hundred miles from home, without bread, meat, or food of any kind; fire and fishing tackle were my only means of subsistence. I caught trout in the brook, and roasted them on the ashes. My horse fed on the grass that grew by the edge of the waters. I laid me down to sleep in my...
Page 51 - has its charm in other compositions as well as in sermons. He has much genius a powerful conception of character and force of execution. The same ideas, I see, recur upon him that haunt other folks. The graceful form of the spars and the tracery of the ropes and cordage against the sky is too often dwelt upon.
Page 102 - It is not because I have not thought of you and your excellent family that I have not long since written you, to know your personal welfare. I hear of you often, it is true, through the papers. They praise you as usual, for it is praise to have the abuse of such as abuse you. In all your libel suits against these degraded wretches, I sympathize entirely with you, and there are thousands who now thank you in their hearts for the moral courage you display in bringing these licentious scamps to a knowledge...
Page 30 - ... head of Columbia College, and his two immediate predecessors in that office. I might enlarge the list with many other names of no less distinction. The army and navy contributed their proportion of members, whose names are on record in our national history. Cooper when in town was always present, and I remember being struck with the inexhaustible vivacity of his conversation and the minuteness of his knowledge, in everything which depended upon acuteness of observation and exactness of recollection.
Page 5 - This man was an epitome of the national prejudices, and, in some respects, of the national character. He was the son of a beneficed clergyman in England ; had been regularly graduated at Oxford and admitted to orders ; entertained a most profound reverence for the king and the nobility ; was not backward in expressing his contempt for all classes of dissenters and all ungentlemanly sects; was particularly severe on the immoralities of the French Revolution, and, though eating our bread, was not especially...
Page 81 - Paris, an article was shown him in an American newspaper, purporting to be a criticism on one of his works, but reflecting with much asperity on his personal character. "I care nothing," he is reported to have said, "for the criticism, but I am not indifferent to the slander. If these attacks on my character should be kept up five years after my return to America, I shall resort to the New York courts for protection.
Page 59 - Visited Princess Galitzin, and also Cooper, the American novelist. This man, who has shown so much genius, has a good deal of the manner, or want of manner, peculiar to his countrymen...
Page 118 - ... noble book; worthy of The Last of the Mohicans, The Pioneers, and The Prairie, to which it serves as a completion. Cooper is in our epoch the only author worthy of being put beside Walter Scott: he does not equal him, but he has his genius. He owes the high place he holds in modern literature to two faculties: that of painting the sea and seamen; that of idealizing the magnificent landscapes of America.