"
Pure, in that connection, means faultless--faultless in all details and
language is a detail. If Mr. Lounsbury had only compared Cooper's
English with the English which he writes himself--but it is plain that he
didn't; and so it is likely that he imagines until this day that Cooper's
is as clean and compact as his own. Now I feel sure, deep down in my
heart, that Cooper wrote about the poorest English that exists in our
language, and that the English of Deerslayer is the very worst that even
Cooper ever wrote.

I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that Deerslayer is not a work
of art in any sense; it does seem to me that it is destitute of every
detail that goes to the making of a work of art; in truth, it seems to me
that Deerslayer is just simply a literary delirium tremens.

A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence,
or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of
reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words
they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that
they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations
are--oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime
against the language.

Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fennimore Cooper's Literary Offences
by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

ESSAYS ON PAUL BOURGET

by Mark Twain

CONTENTS:
WHAT PAUL BOURGET THINKS OF US
A LITTLE NOTE TO M. PAUL BOURGET

WHAT PAUL BOURGET THINKS OF US

He reports the American joke correctly. In Boston they ask, How much
does he know? in New York, How much is he worth? in Philadelphia, Who
were his parents? And when an alien observer turns his telescope upon
us--advertisedly in our own special interest--a natural apprehension
moves us to ask, What is the diameter of his reflector?

I take a great interest in M. Bourget's chapters, for I know by the
newspapers that there are several Americans who are expecting to get a
whole education out of them; several who foresaw, and also foretold, that
our long night was over, and a light almost divine about to break upon
the land.

"His utterances concerning us are bound to be weighty and well
timed."

"He gives us an object-lesson which should be thoughtfully and
profitably studied."

These w