aders in sympathy with him; sure also that
some time in the future the revolution of taste would bring him into
fashion if he had written anything that really deserved to live.

These facts and considerations must, however, be borne in mind in order
to understand the gradual growth of the ill-feeling that sprang up
between Cooper and his countrymen. To the change of view in himself and
to the change of taste in the public, were soon added special
circumstances that tended to bring about or increase alienation. But
there did not exist toward him, when he came back from Europe, any
hostility on the part of his countrymen. Circumstances had led him (p. 126)
to suspect such a feeling; but it was mainly the creation of a nature
that was morbidly sensitive to criticism. He was not, to be sure, the
popular idol at his return that he had been at his departure. But this
decline, outside of the causes already mentioned, was due to ignorance
rather than dislike. A new generation had, during his absence, come on
the scene of active life. To it the influence of his personal presence
was unknown. He had been away so long that many looked upon him with the
indifference with which foreigners are regarded by the majority; on the
other hand, the fact of his being a native prevented others from feeling
that interest in him which a foreigner has to some. Whatever hostility
actually existed sprang mainly from causes creditable to himself. If
Cooper disliked England for its depreciation of America, he hated with a
hatred akin to loathing, the recreant Americans who mistook the relation
they bore to their native land, and apologized for its character and
existence, instead of apologizing for their own. For these men he made
no effort to hide the contempt he felt. This class, far larger then in
numbers than now, came mainly from the great cities. Many of them had
wealth and social position to make up for their lack of ability; some of
them were attached to the legations. They naturally resented the low
opinion entertained and expressed of them by their countryman, and had
doubtless done him some harm, though far less than he supposed. Besides
these, however, there were certainly a pretty large number by whom his
aggressive patriotism was felt to be a positive bore. To this feeling
there had been a good deal of expression given in the newspaper press.
Cooper, who never could learn how little effect of itself hostile (p. 127)
criticism has upon