imitative, as dependent, and as provincial as ever.

It is not an easy matter to condense the bitterness of two volumes into
a few sentences. Enough has been given, however, to show the character
of the strictures. Whatever may be thought of their justice, few will be
disposed to deny their vigor. But Cooper, unfortunately for himself, was
not satisfied with demolishing what seemed poor in his eyes. He
undertook the business of reconstruction, and set up an ideal of how
things ought to be. His main agents in this work were the members (p. 152)
of the Effingham family, whom he had brought over from Europe in
"Homeward Bound." In these and the train dependent upon them, we were to
find realized that pure and perfect social state which he contemplated
in his own mind. To them were added a few survivors from the old
families, as he termed them, which after a manner had ridden out the
social gale that had made shipwreck of so many of their original
companions. Out of these materials Cooper attempted to build his ideal
framework of a life in which men thought rationally and lived nobly. It
was here he made his mistake, and it was a signal one. His inability to
portray the higher types of character was an absolute bar to success.
This was largely due to his inability to catch and reproduce the tone of
polished conversation. Never was his weakness in this respect more
painfully manifested than in "Home as Found." He could appreciate such
conversation; he could bear a part in it; but he could not represent it.
His characters taken from low life, whatever critics may say, have
usually a marked individuality. But whenever Cooper sought to draw the
men and women of cultivated society he achieved at best a doubtful
success. In this instance he tried to make them and their words and
deeds the vehicle of reproof and satire. His failure was absolute.
Modern culture, we all know, consists largely in the most refined method
of finding fault. But this his ideal family had not reached. An
essentially coarse method of finding fault was the only one to which it
had attained. Never, indeed, was a more bumptious, conceited, and
disagreeable set of personages created by an author, under the
impression that they were the reverse. The simple-minded, (p. 153)
thoughtful, and upright Mr. Effingham can speedily be dismissed as
merely a mild type of bore. Not so with his daughter Eve, and his cousin
John Effingham. The latter plays the part