s which looked upon it as the supreme effort of critical
judgment to exaggerate the value of everything written in Europe and
depreciate everything of native origin. There was a prevailing belief
among those who mistook their own individual impotence for the incapacity
of a whole people, that nothing good could come out of America. Many
showed their faith by their conduct. In 1834, Cooper himself said that
he knew of several instances in which persons had not read anything he
had written for the avowed reason that nothing worth reading could be
written by one of their countrymen. To all of these it was a subject of
some perplexity and of more annoyance that his works should be, if
anything, more popular in Europe than they were in his native land. To
account for this fact various sage reasons were early suggested and are
still occasionally heard. One of these has always been particularly
common. This was that it was the novelty of the scenes and characters
depicted that attracted attention and not the ability shown in depicting
them. At any rate, they wished it understood that if he satisfied the
European, he did not satisfy the native world: for if creative power had
been denied us, we could at least show that as a compensation we had
been supplied with a double portion of refined taste. Speaking in behalf
of the American people, these critics expressed anxiety that (p. 063)
neither at home nor abroad should Cooper be regarded as obtaining the
unqualified admiration or attaining the lofty ideal of "all of us."
Against any such impression they entered their humble protest. All that
lay in their power should be done to counteract it. This is no one-sided
statement of opinions then expressed. These very sentiments in almost
these very words can be found in reviews of that period.

Cooper at the time of writing his first novel was dwelling at Angevine.
When the success of the second made it probable that he would continue
for a while his career as an author, and possibly devote his life to it,
the necessity arose of changing his residence. His country home was
about five and twenty miles from the city, but twenty-five miles in
those days of limited mail facilities and limited means of communication
was a distance not to be tolerated. Accordingly, in 1822 he moved into
New York. Either there or in its suburbs he dwelt until his departure
for Europe. Here his youngest child, Paul, was born in 1824, and here,
as has alre