on the part of those whose thoughts were so
taken up with the consideration of what their fathers had been or had
done that they forgot to be or to do anything themselves. Yet the latter
composed no small share of the class with which Cooper's early
associations had lain. He naturally sympathized with them rather than
with those who were displacing them. Trade began to seem to him vulgar,
and it was doubtless true that many engaged in it, who had become
rapidly rich, were vulgar enough. But he made no distinction. He longed
for the restoration of a state of things that had gone forever by. He
was disposed to feel dissatisfaction with much that was taking place,
not because it came into conflict with his judgment, but because it
jarred upon his tastes and prejudices.

A residence in Europe for a few years had, indeed, done for him (p. 122)
what the coming-on of old age does for most. He had become the eulogist
of times past. The views which he expressed in private and in public,
during the decade that followed his return to America, were not of the
kind to make him popular with his countrymen. The manners of the people
were, according to him, decidedly worse than they were twenty or thirty
years before. The elegant deportment of women had been largely
supplanted by the rattle of hoydens and the giggling of the nursery. The
class of superior men of the quiet old school were fast disappearing
before the "wine-discussing, trade-talking, dollar-dollar set" of the
day. Under the blight of this bustling, fussy, money-getting race of
social Vandals, simplicity of manners had died out, or was dying out.
The architecture of the houses, like the character of the society, was
more ambitious than of old, but in far worse taste; in a taste, in fact,
which had been corrupted by uninstructed pretension. The towns were
larger, but they were tawdrier than ever. The spirit of traffic was
gradually enveloping everything in its sordid grasp. There had taken
place a vast expansion of mediocrity, well enough in itself, but so
overwhelming as nearly to overshadow everything that once stood out as
excellent.

In most of these remarks I am giving Cooper's sentiments, as far as
possible, in his own words. They stung the national vanity to the quick.
The bitter resentment they evoked at the time could hardly be understood
now; and a great deal of wrath was then kindled at what would meet with
assent, at the present day, on account of its justi