—— o'er no sweeter lake
Shall morning break or noon-cloud sail;
No fairer face than thine shall take
The sunset's golden veil.
J.G. WHITTIER.
"
Cooper had no predecessor and no successor in his own field of fiction; he stood alone,—he was a creator, and his 'Natty' will stand forever as the most original of pioneer characters," wrote Henry M. Alden.
With Rev. Mr. Birdsall, many think the time has come when the fame of Fenimore Cooper demands a world-given memorial in Cooperstown. A lifelike statue from an artist's chisel should show the "'prose poet of the silent woods and stormy seas' seated, pen in hand, gazing dreamily for inspiration over the Glimmerglass, where the phantom creatures of his genius brood." Let it stand, a new-world literary shrine, in the square fronting the Old-Hall home
site, which northward commands a sweeping view of his "little lake" and a side glimpse of lofty Leatherstocking of the tree-tops—not far away.