ll these characteristics is
added a peculiar sensitiveness to criticism, it is evident that if
proper opportunities are offered, personal unpopularity will be certain
to result from the ample materials existing for its development.

Against this view of his character, it is fair to add here that he had
many qualities which would tend to bring about an entirely opposite
result. He was more than ordinarily generous; and gave with a liberality
that went at times beyond what most men would look upon as prudence. He
was prompt to relieve merit that stood in need of help. Many cases of
this kind there are unpublished and unknown out of a very small circle;
for Cooper was not one to let his left hand know what his right hand was
doing. One fact, however, has been so often mentioned, that it is
violating no sanctity of private life to repeat it here. He was the
first to discover the excellence of Greenough and to make that sculptor
known to his countrymen. "Fenimore Cooper saved me from despair," wrote
the latter in 1833, "after my second return to Italy. He employed me as
I wished to be employed; and has up to this moment been a (p. 082)
father to me in kindness." To this generosity, it is to be added that
his sense of personal honor was of the loftiest kind. It was sometimes,
indeed, carried to an extreme almost Quixotic; so that men morally
fat-witted could not even comprehend his principles of action, and men
who contented themselves with conventional morality resented his
assertion of them as a reflection upon themselves. His loyalty to those
who had become dear to him was, moreover, just as conspicuous as his
loyalty to what he deemed right. It withstood every chance of change,
every accident of time and circumstance, and only gave way on absolute
proof of unworthiness. Intimate acquaintance was sure to bring to Cooper
respect, admiration, and finally affection. Few men have stood better
than he that final test of excellence which rests upon the fact that
those who knew him best loved him most. Yet even these were often forced
to admit, that it was necessary to know him well to appreciate how
generous, how true, and how lofty-minded he was.

Besides these traits of character, it is important to understand some of
Cooper's political and social opinions. He was an aristocrat in feeling,
and a democrat by conviction. To some this seems a combination so
unnatural that they find it hard to comprehend it. That a man wh