One may enjoy a good story, however, without knowing or caring for its author's peculiarities, and the vast majority of readers are happily not critical but receptive. Hence if we separate the man from the author, and if we read The Red Rover or The Last of the Mohicans "just for the story," we shall discover the source of Cooper's power as a writer. First of all, he has a tale to tell, an epic tale of heroism and manly virtue. Then he appeals strongly to the pioneer spirit, which survives in all great nations, and he is a master at portraying wild nature as the background of human life. The vigor of elemental manhood, the call of adventure, the lure of primeval forests, the surge and mystery of the sea,—these are written large in Cooper's best books. They make us forget his faults of temper or of style, and they account in large measure for his popularity with young readers of all nations; for he is one of the few American writers who belong not to any country but to humanity. At present he is read chiefly by boys; but half a century or more ago he had more readers of all classes and climes than any other writer in the world.
LIFE. The youthful experiences of Cooper furnished him with the material for his best romances. He was born (1789) in New Jersey; but while he was yet a child the family removed to central New York, where his father had acquired an immense tract of wild land, on which he founded the village that is still called Cooperstown. There on the frontier of civilization, where stood the primeval forest that had witnessed many a wild Indian raid, the novelist passed his boyhood amid the picturesque scenes which he was to immortalize in The Pioneers and The Deerslayer.
[Sidenote: HIS TRAINING]
Cooper picked up a little "book learning" in a backwoods school and a little more in a minister's study at Albany. At thirteen he entered Yale; but he was a self-willed lad and was presently dismissed from college. A little later, after receiving some scant nautical training on a merchantman, he entered the navy as midshipman; but after a brief experience in the service he married and resigned his commission. That was in 1811, and the date is significant. It was just before the second war with Great Britain. The author who wrote so much and so vividly of battles, Indian raids and naval engagements never was within sight of such affairs, though the opportunity was present. In his romances we have the product of a vigorous imagination rather than of observation or experience.
[Illustration: JAMES FENIMORE COOPER]
His literary work seems now like the result of whim or accident. One day he flung down a novel that he was reading, declaring to his wife that he could write a better story himself. "Try it," challenged his wife. "I will," said Cooper; and the result was Precaution, a romance of English society. He was then a farmer in the Hudson valley, and his knowledge of foreign society was picked up, one must think, from silly novels on the subject.
Strange to say, the story was so well received that the gratified author wrote another. This was The Spy (1821), dealing with a Revolutionary hero who had once followed his dangerous calling in the very region in which Cooper was now living. The immense success of this book fairly drove its author into a career. He moved to New York City, and there quickly produced two more successful romances. Thus in four years an unknown man without literary training had become a famous writer, and had moreover produced four different types of fiction: the novel of society in Precaution, the historical romance in The Spy, and the adventurous romance of forest and of ocean in The Pioneers and The Pilot.
[Sidenote: YEARS OF STRIFE]
Cooper now went abroad, as most famous authors do. His books, already translated into several European languages, had made him known, and he was welcomed in literary circles; but almost immediately he was drawn into squabbles, being naturally inclined that way. He began to write political tirades; and even his romances of the period (The Bravo, The Heidenmauer, The Headsman) were devoted to proclaiming the glories of democracy. Then he returned home and proceeded to set his countrymen by the ears (in such books as Home as Found) by writing too frankly of their crudity in contrast with the culture of Europe. Then followed long years of controversy and lawsuits, during which our newspapers used Cooper scandalously, and Cooper prosecuted and fined the newspapers. It is a sorry spectacle, of no interest except to those who would understand the bulk of Cooper's neglected works. He was an honest man, vigorous, straightforward, absolutely sincere; but he was prone to waste his strength and embitter his temper by trying to force his opinion on those who were well satisfied with their own. He had no humor, and had never pondered the wisdom of "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat."
[Illustration: OTSEGO HALL, HOME OF COOPER]