In 1841, The Deerslayer was published. Again, in the preparation of this work, has Cooper drawn upon the fond and all but inexhaustible resources of his youthful experience in the region of Otsego Lake, and we are presented with rare and energetic pencillings of primeval scenery and backwoods life. Deerslayer "is the author's ideal of a chivalresque manhood, of the grace which is the natural flower of purity and virtue; not the stoic, but the Christian of the woods, the man of honorable act and sentiment, of courage and truth. . . . In point of style it is Cooper's purest composition. There are passages of Saxon in the dialogues and speeches which would do honor to the most admired pages of the romantic old Chroniclers. The language is as noble as the thought." * The next nine years of Cooper's life, the closing ones, were characterized by truly wonderful literary activity; he having published in that time seventeen separate works. He died, September 14, 1851, at his country estate at Cooperstown, on the eve of his sixty-second birthday. 66 Cooper was the first American author who attained a wide popular reputation beyond the limits of his own language. His novels were translated, as soon as they appeared, in the principal countries of Europe, where the Indian tales especially were universal favorites. His delineation of the aboriginal character was a novelty which gained him a hearing, and the attention thus obtained was secured and extended by his vivid pictures of the forest and the frontier. Cooper wisely chose a new path, which he could make and hold as his own. He tried and succeeded."* "What Cooper had the bold invention to undertake, he had the firmness of purpose and the elasticity of spirit to pursue with unflinching zeal. Indeed, his most characteristic trait was self-reliance. He commenced the arduous career of an author in a new country, and with fresh materials: at first, the tone of criticism was somewhat discouraging; but his appeal had been to the popular mind, * Duyckinck's Cyclopædia of American Literature. and not to a literary clique, and the response was universal and sincere. "His faculty of description, and his sense of the adventurous, were the great sources of his triumph. Refinement of style, poetic sensibility, and melodramatic intensity, were elements that he ignored; but when he pictured the scenes of the forest and prairie, the incidents of Indian warfare, the vicissitudes of border life, and the phenomena of the ocean and nautical experience, he displayed a familiarity with the subjects, a keen sympathy with the characters, and a thorough reality in the delineation, which at once stamped him as a writer of original and great capacity. "It is true that in some of the requisites of the novelist he was inferior to many subsequent authors in the same department. His female characters want individuality and interest, and his dialogue is sometimes forced and ineffective; but, on the other hand, he seized with a bold grasp the tangible and characteristic in his own land, and not only stirred the hearts of his countrymen with vivid pictures of colonial, revolutionary, and emigrant life, with the vast ocean and forest for its scenes, but opened to the gaze of Europe phases of human existence at once novel and exciting." * "In his personal character Cooper presents to us a manly resolute nature, of an independent mood, aggressive, fond of the attack; conscious of the strength which had led him to choose his own path in the world and triumph. He never exerted his power, however, but in some chivalrous cause."† * H. T. Tuckerman: Sketch of American Literature. HAWTHORNE. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE was born at Salem, Massachu setts, on the 4th of July, 1804, and was descended from Puritan ancestors. He was graduated from Bowdoin College, Maine, in 1825, where he was a fellow-student with Henry W. Longfellow and Franklin Pierce. His first volume, entitled Twice-Told Tales, appeared in 1837, and a second series of these Tales followed after an interval of five years. The following sketch, necessarily and largely abridged, is one of the sunniest and simplest of these Tales: LITTLE ANNIE'S RAMBLE. DING-DONG! ding-dong! ding-dong! The town-crier has rung his bell at a distant corner, and little Annie stands on her father's door-steps, trying to hear what the man with the loud voice is talking about. Let me listen, too. Oh! he is telling the people that an elephant, and a lion, and a royal tiger, and a horse with horns, and other strange beasts from foreign countries, have come to town, and will receive all visitors who choose to wait upon them. . . Smooth back your brown curls, Annie; and let me tie on your bonnet, and we will set forth! What a strange couple to go on this ramble together! One walks in black attire, with a measured step, and a heavy brow, and his thoughtful eyes bent down, while the gay little girl trips lightly along, as if she were forced to keep hold of my hand, lest her feet should dance away from the earth. ... Now we turn the corner. Now her eyes brighten with pleasure! A street musician has seated himself on the steps of yonder church, and pours forth his strains to the busy town, a melody that has gone astray among the tramp of footsteps, the puzz of voices, and the roar of passing wheels. Who heeds the poor organ-grinder? None but myself and little Annie, whose feet begin to move in unison with the lively tune, as if she were loath that music should be wasted without a dance. But where would Annie find a partner? Some have the gout in their toes, or the rheumatism in their joints; some are stiff with age; some feeble with disease; some are so lean that their bones would rattle, and others of such ponderous size that their agility would crack the flagstones; but many, many have leaden feet, because their hearts are far heavier than lead. It is a sad thought that I have chanced upon. What a company of dancers should we be! For I, too, am a gentleman of sober footsteps, and therefore, little Annie, let us walk sedately on. Oh, my stars! Is this a toyshop, or is it fairy-land? For here are gilded chariots, in which the king and the queen of the fairies might ride side by side, while their courtiers, on these small horses, should gallop in triumphal procession before and behind the royal pair. . . . Betwixt the king and the queen should sit my little Annie, the prettiest fairy of them all. Here we may review a whole army of horse and foot, in red and blue uniforms, with drums, fifes, trumpets, and all kinds of noiseless music; they have halted on the shelf of this window, after their weary march from Liliput. But what cares Annie for soldiers? Here we see something to remind us of the town-crier, and his ding-dong bell! Look! look at that great cloth spread out in the air, pictured all over with wild beasts, as if they had met together to choose a king, according to their custom in the days of Esop. But they are choosing neither a king nor a president; else we should hear a most horrible snarling! As we enter among them, the great elephant makes us a bow, in the best style of elephantine courtesy, bending lowly down his mountain bulk, with trunk abased, and leg thrust out behind. Annie returns the salute, much to the gratification of the elephant, who is certainly the best-bred monster in the caravan. The lion and the lioness are busy with two beef-bones. The royal tiger, the beautiful, the untamable, keeps pacing his narrow cage with a haughty step, unmindful of the spectators, or recalling the fierce deeds of his former life, when he was wont to leap forth upon such inferior animals, from the jungles of Bengal. Here we see the very same wolf-do not go near him, Annie!— the selfsame wolf that devoured little Red Riding Hood, and her grandmother. In the next cage, a hyena from Egypt, who has doubtless howled around the pyramids, and a black bear from our own forests, are fellow-prisoners, and most excellent friends. Are there any two living creatures who have so few sympathies that they cannot possibly be friends? But, oh, those unsentimental monkeys! the ugly, grinning, aping, chattering, ill-natured, mischievous, and queer little brutes. Annie does not love the monkeys. Their ugliness shocks her pure, instinctive delicacy of taste, and makes her mind unquiet, because it bears a wild and dark resemblance to humanity. But here is a little pony, just big enough for Annie to ride, and round and round he gallops in a circle, keeping time with his trampling hoofs to a band of music. And here—with a laced coat and a cocked hat, and a riding-whip in his hand-here comes a little gentleman, small enough to be king of the fairies, and ugly enough to be king of the gnomes, and takes a flying leap into the saddle. Merrily, merrily plays the music, and merrily gallops the pony, and merrily rides the little old gentleman. Come, Annie, into the street again; perchance we may see monkeys on horseback there! * * * * * * * Strayed from her home, a LITTLE GIRL, of five years old, in a blue silk frock and white pantalets, with brown curling hair and hazel eyes. Whoever will bring her back to her afflicted mother-" Stop, stop, town-crier! The lost is found. O, my pretty Annie, we forgot to tell your mother of our ramble, and she is in despair, and has sent the town-crier to bellow up and down the streets, affrighting old and young, for the loss of the little girl who has not once let go my hand! Well, let us hasten homeward; and as we go, forget not to thank Heaven, my Annie, that, after wandering a little way into the world, you may return at the first ɛummons, with an untainted and unwearied heart, and be a happy child again. Hawthorne's next publication was The Journal of an Afri |