defending his country. No sooner had he lived in Europe long enough
to become acquainted with the erroneous impressions there prevalent, in
regard to America, than he set out to prepare a work which should expose
their falsity. In it he determined to lay the precise facts before a
public which was indisposed to believe anything to the credit, and
disposed to believe everything to the discredit of democratic institutions.
On the face of it, this was a futile undertaking, no matter how
praiseworthy its motive. Nations, no more than individuals, are
convinced by what other nations say of themselves; it is only by what
they do. In this particular case the difficulty was rendered more
insurmountable by the fact that these erroneous impressions prevailed
among those who did not care enough about the matter to investigate it
seriously, and who would be certain in most cases to refrain from
investigating it at all, had they a suspicion that their preconceived
beliefs would be overthrown or even shaken, as a result of their
examination. The question naturally arises, whether such men could be
convinced by facts and arguments, and if so, whether they were worth the
trouble of convincing. Why grudge the adherents of a dying cause the
dismal enjoyment they receive from contemplating the ruin that is always
being wrought, or is always to be wrought, by Democracy to Democracy?
Experience led Cooper subsequently to see the uselessness of the
experiment he, in this instance, tried. When asked at a later period why
some efforts were not made to correct the false notions prevalent (p. 101)
in Europe in regard to America, he answered with perfect truth then,
that no favorable account would be acceptable; that it would not be
enough to confess our real faults, but we should be required to confess
the precise faults that, according to the opinions of that quarter of
the world, we were morally, logically, and politically bound to possess.
By the wide circulation of his fictions he, in truth, did more to remove
wrong impressions, dissipate prejudices, and open the eyes of Europe to
a knowledge of American life and manners, than could have been
accomplished by the longest and most ponderous array of indisputable
facts.

Facts, however, he at this time purposed to furnish. Accordingly, on the
13th of August, 1828, appeared a work entitled, "Notions of the
Americans, Picked up by a Traveling Bachelor." Whatever its actual
success, it was a rel