d, or an identity of existence more
perfect than those with which the American wife clings to her husband.
She is literally 'bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.' It is seldom
that her wishes cross the limits of the domestic circle, which to her is
earth itself and all that it contains which is most desirable. Her
husband and children compose her little world, and beyond them and their
sympathies it is rare indeed that her truant affections ever wish to
stray. A part of this concentration of the American wife's existence in
these domestic interests is doubtless owing to the simplicity of
American life and the absence of temptation. Still, so devoted is the
female heart, so true to its impulses, and so little apt to wander from
house-feelings and home-duties, that the imputation to which there is
allusion is just that of all others to which the wives of the Republic
ought not to be subject."

This is the testimony of a man who knew his people and his time in some
ways better than any other American novelist and who did not hesitate to
use the cautery when he thought its application desirable. Therefore it
is to be regarded as just and accurate, the more so that it contains
admission of interior facts concerning which "European jealousy and
European superciliousness" could find ground for blame that could not be
termed carping. It was of that which is now openly and then secretly
termed "the middle class" that Cooper was chiefly speaking, however,
though most of his words were applicable to all classes of American
society. One may doubt the actuality of the "simplicity of American
life" in its more prominent expressions at that time, and the "absence
of temptation," in the sense in which our author means the phrase, does
not appear, since the conditions which made for such temptation in
European society were to be found in that of America; but morals were
then under the care of the most efficient guardian which they can
know,--public opinion. Indeed, in such matters it was rather the day of
prudery in America. The American woman was justly proud of her virtue,
was indeed something of a catharist; and she would not tolerate the
smallest departure from the rigid code which she set as the
unimpeachable law in these matters. If she was extreme in this wise, at
least the extremity was carried in the right direction; and American
society, whatever its follies, was pure.

Nor were there wanting many of those in high places