the reputation of a popular writer, gave to these
attacks far more weight than they deserved.

It was, therefore, with exaggerated and unnecessary feelings of distrust
that he had returned to his native land. He looked for indifference and
aversion. Men seldom fail to find in such cases what they expect. He was
present at a reception given, a few days after his return, to Commodore
Chauncey. Men whom he knew, but had not seen for years, did not come up
to speak with him; those who did, addressed him as if he had been gone
from the city a few weeks. So much was he chilled by this apparent
coldness that he left the room before the dinner was half over. He did
not appreciate his own reserve of manner. The indifference which he
found was, in many cases, due not to any lack of cordiality in others,
but to hesitation at the way in which advances would be received by
himself. There was a brusqueness in his address, an apparent assumption
in his manner, which had nothing consonant to them in his feelings. But
it was only those who knew him intimately that could venture, after long
separation, to break in upon this seeming unsociableness and hauteur.

On Monday, May 29 1826, just before his departure for Europe, a dinner
had been given to Cooper at the City Hotel by the club which he had
founded. It partook almost of the nature of an ovation. Chancellor Kent
had presided. De Witt Clinton, the governor of the state, General Scott,
and many others conspicuous in public life, had honored it with their
presence. Charles King, the editor of the "New York American," and
subsequently president of Columbia College, had addressed him in a
speech full of the heartiest interest in his future and of pride (p. 128)
in his past. The Chancellor had voiced the general feeling by toasting
him as the "genius which has rendered our native soil classic ground,
and given to our early history the enchantment of fiction." No one, in
fact, had ever left the country with warmer wishes or more enthusiastic
expressions of admiration and regard. It was but little more than a week
after his return when another invitation to a public dinner was offered
him by some of the most prominent citizens of New York. In this they
expressly asserted that he had won their esteem and affection, not
merely by his talents, but by his manly defense, while abroad, of the
institutions of his country. The invitation seemed to surprise Cooper as
well as the language in which