an author cannot transfer real persons to the pages of fiction
without a violation of good taste. Here lies perhaps a partial
explanation of the fact that Cooper never acknowledged a living model
for any of his characters. Even Judge Temple in _The Pioneers_, who
occupies exactly the position of Judge Cooper in reference to the
village which he actually founded, Fenimore Cooper will not admit to be
drawn in the likeness of his father. He disposes of this supposition in
the introduction of _The Pioneers_ by observing that "the great
proprietor resident on his lands, and giving his name to his estates, is
common over the whole of New York." Yet in the same introduction he
confesses that "in commencing to describe scenes, and perhaps he may add
characters, that were so familiar to his own youth, there was a constant
temptation to delineate that which he had known, rather than that which
he might have imagined." How far he yielded to the temptation is a
question which, in making as if to reply, he deftly leaves unanswered,
and his unwillingness to satisfy curiosity on this point is the one
thing that a careful reading of his words makes clear. He is free to
admit in a general way that he drew upon life for material, but he will
not be pinned down as to any particular character; yet only in the one
instance--when his sister was named as the original of Elizabeth
Temple--did he flatly deny the identification of a real original with a
creature of his fiction. After all, even if Cooper had drawn many of his
characters from real life, there would have been so much modification
necessary to fit them into the action of a story as to warrant him in
the assertion "that there was no intention to describe with particular
accuracy any real character"; and if he did not wish to take the public
into his confidence regarding these intimate details of his work, he had
a perfect right to treat the matter as evasively as the truth would
permit.

One can see reasons for Cooper's unwillingness to inform the public that
his old neighbors in Cooperstown were to be recognized in his books.
There is the creative artist's reason, who does not wish to be regarded
as a mere photographer; there is the gentleman's sensitiveness to
certain rights of privacy not to be invaded by public print; there is
the experience of a writer who was often dismayed at the facility of his
pen in stirring neighborly animosities.

As to Leather-Stocking, this is to be sa