housand miles away, call Cooper "a liar, a bilious
braggart, a full jackass, an insect, a grub, and a reptile"?

The cause is not far to seek. Cooper was the most disputatious man in
the history of American literature. Cooper used to tell the story of
the man who in an argument was met with: "Why it is as plain as that
two and two make four." "But I deny that too," was the retort, "for
two and two make twenty two." Cooper was himself that sort of a man.
He always had a quarrel on his hands. The more pugnacious a man is,
the more militant he will find society. He instituted libel suits
against the most prominent editors in the country, among them Horace
Greeley and Thurlow Weed. And what is more to the point,--he won his
cases. But this did not make him any more popular with the press. When
we remember that Billingsgate was an important part of the literary
equipment of the critic of Cooper's time, we need not be surprised
that Cooper's pugnacity evoked such sweet disinterestedness as Park
Benjamin indulged in when he called Cooper "a superlative dolt, and a
common mark of scorn and contempt of every well-informed American."

In addition to this denunciation of Cooper as a man, there have in
recent years arisen severe criticisms on Cooper as a writer. "There
are nineteen rules," writes Mark Twain, "governing literary art in the
domain of romantic fiction--some say twenty-two. In _Deerslayer_
Cooper violated eighteen of them." And then Mark Twain gives us the
detailed specifications. It is very cleverly put, this criticism of
Mark Twain's. But the astounding fact remains that the one rule Cooper
did not violate seems to secure him a place in the Pantheon of
authors. Along with Poe, and Whitman, and Mark himself, Cooper is
found in various editions on the shelves of the bookdealers and in the
libraries of the book-lovers from the Thames to the Volga. If Cooper
had observed only one or two more of the rules of literary art, where
would he stand? One is reminded of the Dutchman who was told that this
clock would run eight days without winding. "Ach, Himmel, what would
she do if she was woundt?"

The one literary sin that Cooper does not commit is dulness. He is
interesting. Of course there are some of Cooper's works that no one
cares to read now. But he is to be judged by his best, not by his
worst. Balzac is something of a novelist himself, and has a right to
be heard. "If Cooper," says Balzac in a passage quoted by every