t be their opinion as to its execution.
No such supposition could be made by Cooper; no such belief inspired
him to exertion. He might hope to create interest; he could not (p. 032)
venture to assume its existence. One other incident connected with
the composition of this work marks even more plainly the almost
despairing attitude of his mind. While the second volume was slowly
printing, he received an intimation from his publisher that the work
might grow to a length that would endanger the profits. The author
hereupon adopted a course which is itself a proof of how much stranger
is fact than fiction. To placate the publisher and set his mind at
rest, the last chapter was written, printed, and paged, not merely
before the intervening chapters had been composed, but before they had
been fully conceived. It was fair to expect failure for a work which
no bookseller had been found willing to undertake at his own risk, and
which the author himself set about in a manner so perfunctory. The
indifference and carelessness displayed, he said afterward, were
disrespectful to the public and unjust to himself; yet they give, as
nothing else could, a vivid picture of the literary situation in
America at that time.

The reluctance and half-heartedness with which Cooper began and completed
this work stand, indeed, in sharpest contrast to the existing state of
feeling, when it is only the prayers of friends and the tears of
relatives that can prevent most of us from publishing some novel we
have already written. But almost as it were by accident he had struck
into the vein best fitted for the display of his natural powers. In it
he succeeded with little effort, where other men with the greatest
effort might have failed. The delicate distinctions that underlie
character where social pressure has given to all the same outside, it
was not his to depict. Still less could he unfold the subtle (p. 033)
workings of motives that often elude the observation of the very
persons whom they most influence. Such a power is essential to the
success of him who seeks to delineate men as seen in conventional
society; and largely for the lack of it his first novel had been a
failure. It was only at rare intervals, also, that he showed that
precision of style and pointed method of statement which, independent
of the subject, interest the reader in men and things that are not in
themselves interesting. It was the story of adventure, using adventur