, though she can hardly be said to adorn
the tale. She draws from the transaction the lesson that it is a
warning against marrying a person with a difference of views. In this
particular instance the respect of the man for religion had been
injurious to his wife, because "had he been an open deist, she would
have shrunk from the act in his company on suspicion of its
sinfulness." It is justice to add that many of these extreme opinions,
at least in the extreme form stated in this work, the author came
finally to outgrow if in fact he held them seriously then.

There are certain other peculiarities of Cooper's beliefs that
"Precaution" exemplifies. He has been constantly criticised for the
unvarying and uninteresting uniformity of his female characters. This
is hardly just; but it is just in the sense that there was only one
type which he ever held up to admiration. Others were introduced, but
they were never the kind of women whom he delighted to honor. Of
female purity he had the highest ideal. Deference for the female sex
as a sex he felt sincerely and expressed strongly. Along with (p. 027)
this he seemed to have the most contemptible opinion of the ability of
the female individual to take care of herself. On the other hand, if
she had the requisite ability, the greater became his contempt; for
helplessness, in his eyes, was apparently her chiefest charm. The
Emily Moseley of his first novel is the prototype of a long line of
heroines, whose combination of propriety and incapacity places them at
the farthest possible remove from the heroic. She is worthy of special
mention here, only because in this novel he describes in detail the
desirable qualities, which in the others are simply implied. He
furnishes us, moreover, with the precise training to which she had
been subjected by her aunt, Mrs. Wilson. Accordingly, we learn both
what, in Cooper's eyes, it was incumbent for a woman to be, and what
she ought to go through in order to be that woman. A few sentences
taken at random will show the character of this heroine. She was
artless, but intelligent; she was cheerful, but pious; she was familiar
with all the attainments suitable to her sex and years. Her time was
dedicated to work which had a tendency to qualify her for the duties
of this life and fit her for the life hereafter. She seldom opened a
book unless in search of information. She never read one that
contained a sentiment dangerous to her morals, or incu