[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected.The original spelling has been retained.]
American Men of Letters.
Edited By
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
American Men of Letters.
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER.
By
THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY,
Professor Of English In The Sheffield Scientific School,
Yale College.
BOSTON:
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY.
New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge.
1884.
Copyright, 1882,
By THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge:
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
PREFATORY NOTE.
When Cooper lay on his death-bed he enjoined his family to permit noauthorized account of his life to be prepared. A wish even, that wasuttered at such a time, would have had the weight of a command; andfrom that day to this pious affection has carried out in the spirit aswell as to the letter the desire of the dying man. No biography ofCooper has, in consequence, ever appeared. Nor is it unjust to saythat the sketches of his career, which are found either in magazinesor cyclopædias, are not only unsatisfactory on account of theirincompleteness, but are all in greater or less degree untrustworthy intheir details.
It is a necessary result of this dying injunction that the direct andauthoritative sources of information contained in family papers areclosed to the biographer. Still it is believed that no facts ofimportance in the record of an eventful and extraordinary career havebeen omitted or have even been passed over slightingly. A large partof the matter contained in this volume has never been given to thepublic in any form: and for that reason among others no pains havebeen spared to make this narrative absolutely accurate, so far as itgoes. Correction of any errors, if such are found, will be gratefullywelcomed.
JAMES(p. 001)FENIMORE COOPER.
Chapter I.
1789-1820.
In one of the interior counties of New York, less than one hundred andfifty miles in a direct line from the commercial capital of the Union,lies the village of Cooperstown. The place is not and probably neverwill be an important one; but in its situation and surroundings naturehas given it much that wealth cannot furnish or art create. It standson the southeastern shore of Otsego Lake, just at the point where theSusquehanna pours out from it on its long journey to the Chesapeake.The river runs here in a rapid current through a narrow valley, shutin by parallel ranges of lofty hills. The lake, not more than ninemiles in length, is twelve hundred feet above tide-water. Low andwooded points of land and sweeping bays give to its shores theattraction of continuous diversity. About it, on every side, standhills, which slope gradually or rise sharply to heights varying fromtwo to five hundred feet. Lake, forest, and stream unite to form ascene of quiet but picturesque beauty, that hardly needs theadditional charm of romantic association which has been imparted toit.
Though it was here