ith
invitations from counts and countesses; dining at Holland House in
London with Lord and Lady Holland; a guest of honor at a ball given by a
prince in Rome; presented at the brilliant Tuscan court at Florence, for
which occasion he was decked in lace frills and ruff, with dress hat and
sword;--such incidents of his foreign life began to be mentioned to
account for Cooper's disinclination to encourage familiar acquaintance
with the villagers of Cooperstown.

Cooper himself was entirely unconscious of any arrogance in his
attitude, and when, in connection with the later controversies, it came
to his knowledge that some villagers accused him of posing as an
aristocrat in Cooperstown, he resented the imputation with some
bitterness. "In this part of the world," he said, "it is thought
aristocratic not to frequent taverns, and lounge at corners, squirting
tobacco juice."[109] Cooper was strongly democratic in his convictions,
and was so far from having been a toady during his residence in Europe
that he had made enemies in aristocratic circles abroad by his fearless
championship of republican institutions. At the same time he was
fastidiously undemocratic in many of his tastes. It is a keen
observation of Lounsbury's that Cooper "was an aristocrat in feeling,
and a democrat by conviction." His recognition of the worth of true
manhood, entirely apart from rank and social refinement, is shown in the
noble character of Leather-Stocking. Yet the manners and customs of
uncultivated people in real life were most offensive to his squeamish
taste, and much of his concern for the welfare of his countrymen had to
do with their neglect of the decencies and amenities of social
behaviour.

More than half a century after his death there were some living in
Cooperstown who frequently related their childhood memories of Fenimore
Cooper. His tendency to lecture the neighbors on their manners was
burned into the memory of a child who, as she sat on her doorstep, was
engaged with the novelist in pleasant conversation, until he spied a
ring that she was wearing upon the third finger of her left hand. This
he made the text of a solemn declaration upon the impropriety of wearing
falsely the symbol of a sacred relationship. The lesson intended was
probably sensible and wholesome, but the effect produced upon the child
was a terror of Fenimore Cooper which lasted as long as life. On the
other hand, one who was a slip of a girl at the time used