The Novelist's Library
From a drawing by G. Pomeroy Keese
In the early morning, when Cooper shut himself in the library, he set down on paper in its final form the portion of narrative that he had worked out while pacing the hall the previous afternoon. The library opened from the main hall, and occupied the southwestern corner of the house. It was lighted by tall, deeply-recessed windows, against which the branches of the evergreens outside flung their waving shadows. The wainscoting was of dark oak, and the sombre bookcases that lined the walls were of the same material. A large fireplace occupied the space between the two western windows. Across the room stood a folding screen[106] upon which had been pasted a collection of engravings representing scenes known to the family during their tour and residence in Europe, together with a number of notes and autographs from persons of distinction. Attached to the top of one of the bookcases was a huge pair of antlers[107] holding in their embrace a calabash from the southern seas.
A Page Of Cooper's Manuscript
(Two-fifths of actual size)
The table at which the novelist sat once belonged to his maternal grandfather, Richard Fenimore, and had been brought by Judge Cooper from Burlington at the settlement of Cooperstown. It was a plain one of English walnut, and the chair in which he sat was of the same material. Cooper wrote rapidly, in a fine, small, clear hand, upon large sheets of foolscap, and seldom made an erasure. No company was permitted in the room while he was writing except an Angora cat who was allowed to bound upon the desk without rebuke, or even to perch upon the author's shoulders. Here the cat settled down contentedly, and with half-shut eyes watched the steady driving of the quill across the paper.
Among the many books written in this library The Deerslayer brought the greatest fame to Cooperstown, for it peopled the shores of Otsego Lake with the creatures of Cooper's fancy, and added to the natural beauty of its scenery the glamour of romance. The idea of writing this story came to Fenimore Cooper on a summer afternoon as he drove from the Chalet homeward in his farm wagon, with his favorite daughter by his side, along the shaded road on the east shore of the lake. He was singing cheerily, for, although no musician, often he sang snatches of familiar songs that had struck his fancy, and above the rumbling of the wagon his booming voice frequently was heard along the road in a sudden burst of "Scots, wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled!" or Moore's "Love's Young Dream"—always especial favorites with him. On this occasion, however, it was a political song that he was singing, a ditty then popular during the campaign of 1840 in the party opposed to his own. Suddenly he paused, as an opening in the woods revealed a charming view of the lake. His spirited gray eye rested a moment on the water, with an expression of abstracted poetical thought, familiar to those who lived with him; then, turning to the companion at his side, he exclaimed: "I must write one more book, dearie, about our little lake!" Again his eye rested on the water and wooded shores with the far-seeing look of one who already had a vision of living figures and dusky forms moving amid the quiet scene. A moment of silence followed. Then Fenimore Cooper cracked his whip, resumed his song, with some careless chat on incidents of the day, and drove homeward. Not long afterward he shut himself in his library, and the first pages of The Deerslayer were written.[108]
There were perhaps many in the village who felt honored in being neighbor to a novelist of international fame. But the general sentiment toward Fenimore Cooper in his home town was not altogether created by his success as a writer. It may be that the aged Miss Nancy Williams, who lived in the house which still stands on Main Street next east of the Second National Bank, was not alone in her estimate of this kind of success. Her favorite seat was at a front window where she was daily occupied in knitting, and watching all passers-by. Whenever Fenimore Cooper passed, whom she had known as a boy, Miss Williams called out to him: "James, why don't you stop wasting your time writing those silly novels, and try to make something of yourself!"