arried out completely. He may have been unconscious of
the difference of his point of view, but none the less did it exist. The
novel was no longer something in which he could embody his conceptions
of beauty fairer, or truth higher than could actually be found in
nature. It no longer served him as a refuge from the din of a clamorous,
or the hostility of a censorious world. It became a sort of fortress,
from the secure position of which he was enabled to deal out annoyance
and defiance to his foes. He had not now so much a story to tell as a
sermon to preach; and with him, as with many others, to preach meant to
denounce. His spirit for a time became captive to the prejudices and the
heated feelings which had been aroused by the sense of the injustice
with which he had been treated. Though he at intervals worked himself
out of this state of mind, upon much of his later work rested the shadow
of the prison-house which he, for a season, had made his abiding-place.
The result was that a good deal of what he afterwards wrote was marred
by the obtrusion of personal likes and dislikes, and the taint of
controversial discussion. These things rarely concerned the story in
which they appeared, and they inspired hostility to the writer. Cooper,
indeed, never learned to appreciate the fact that a reader has rights
which an author is bound to respect. By dragging in irrelevant
discussions, moreover, he was taking the surest way to lose the audience
he most sought to influence. A little reflection would have taught him
that there was little use in a prophet's crying in the wilderness,
unless he can succeed in gathering the people together.

While, therefore, there can be no justification for the ferocity with
which Cooper was assailed, there was some palliation. His course (p. 168)
from his return to the country had been wanting in prudence, and at
times in common sense. He had plunged at once as a combatant into one of
the bitterest political controversies that ever agitated the republic.
Hard blows were given and taken. He could scarcely expect that, in the
heat of the strife, regard would in all cases be paid to the proprieties
and even the decencies of private life. There was much in his later
productions, moreover, to alienate many who were honestly disposed to
admire him as a writer. Politics we could get at all times and from
everybody. If, again, we were hopelessly provincial, if we were
irreclaimably given over to vulgari