etter.--Last night I was actually dissipated. L.---- came for me
in a carriage and carried me off almost by force to Doctor
Bellows, where I met the Sketch Club, some forty people, many of
whom I knew. I stayed until past ten, ate a water ice, talked a
great deal, returned, went to bed fatigued and slept it off.--My
friends are very attentive to me, they all seem glad to see me and
think I am improving, as I certainly am.... I shall come home
shortly--I want to be in my garden and I wish to be in your dear
hands, love, for though you know nothing you do a great deal that
is right. Last evening I passed with Charlotte M.--who wanted to
take me home to nurse me. There is no chance of seeing S.----.

Adieu, my love.... My blessing on the girls--all four of them.

J.F.C.

In April, 1851, the poet Bryant wrote of him "Cooper is in town, in ill
health. When I saw him last he was in high health and excellent
spirits." These spirits were not dashed by the progressing malady that
took him home to Cooperstown. Not realizing what illness meant, he
bravely accepted what it brought,--the need to dictate the later parts
of his "History of the United States Navy," and the "Towns of
Manhattan," when he himself could no longer write. The latter was
planned, partly written, and in press at the time of his death. That
which was printed was burnt, the manuscript in part rescued, and
finished by the pen of one of the family.

It was Fenimore Cooper's happiness to be blessed with a family whose
greatest pleasure was to supply his every needed comfort; and one of his
daughters was ever a companion in his pursuits, the wise and willing
writer of his letters and dictations, and the most loving, never-tiring
nurse of his latter days. Of these last months there is a pretty
child-record by a friend who, "entering without notice," one day saw Mr.
Cooper "lying at full length on the parlor floor, with a basket of
cherries by his side. Upon his chest, vainly trying to bestride the
portly form, sat his little grandson, to whom he passed cherries, and
who, in turn, with childish glee, was dropping them, one by one, into
his grandfather's mouth. The smiles that played over the features of
child and man during this sweet and gentle dalliance were something not
easily forgotten. A few months after this both child and man had passed
beyond 'the smiling'; aye, and 'the weeping,' too."

Letters