not from the sting
of ill-success, not from mortified vanity, not from wounded self-love, but
from an heroic sense of duty. How easy a life might he have purchased by
the cheap virtues of silence, submission, and acquiescence! Booksellers
would have enriched him; society would have caressed him; political
distinction would have crowned him: he had only to watch the course of
public sentiment, and so dispose himself that he should seem to lead where
he only followed, and all comfortable things would have been poured into
his lap. But he preferred to breast the stream, to speak ungrateful
truths. He set a wholesome example in this respect; none the less valuable
because so few have had the manliness and self-reliance to imitate him.
More than twenty years ago De Tocqueville said,--"I know of no country in
which there is so little true independence of mind and freedom of
discussion as in America": words which we fear are not less true to-day
than when they were written. Cooper's dauntless courage would have been
less admirable, had he been hard, cold, stern, and impassive: but he was
none of these. He was full of warm affections, cordial, sympathetic, and
genial; he had a woman's tenderness of heart; he was the most faithful of
friends; and in his own home no man was ever more gentle, gracious, and
sweet. The blows he received fell upon a heart that felt them keenly; but
he bared his breast none the less resolutely to the contest because it was
not protected by an armor of insensibility.

But we must bring this long paper to a close. We cannot give to it the
interest which comes from personal recollections. We saw Cooper once, and
but once. This was the very year before he died, in his own home, and amid
the scenes which his genius has made immortal. It was a bright midsummer's
day, and we walked together about the village, and around the shores of
the lake over which the canoe of Indian John had glided. His own aspect
was as sunny as that of the smiling heavens above us; age had not touched
him with its paralyzing finger: his vigorous frame, elastic step, and
animated glance gave promise of twenty years more of energetic life. His
sturdy figure, healthy face, and a slight bluffness of manner reminded one
more of his original profession than of the life and manners of a man of
letters. He looked like a man who had lived much in the open air,--upon
whom the rain had fallen, and against whom the wind had blown. His
conversat