the twenty-seventh chapter of "The Pioneers." Indeed, this whole novel is
full of the finest expressions of the author's genius. Into none of his
works has he put more of the warmth of personal feeling and the glow of
early recollection. His own heart beats through every line. The fresh
breezes of the morning of life play round its pages, and its unexhaled dew
hangs upon them. It is colored throughout with the rich hues of
sympathetic emotion. All that is attractive in pioneer life is reproduced
with substantial truth; but the pictures are touched with those finer
lights which time pours over the memories of childhood. With what spirit
and power all the characteristic incidents and scenes of a new settlement
are described,--pigeon-shooting, bass-fishing, deer-hunting, the making of
maple-sugar, the turkey-shooting at Christmas, the sleighing-parties in
winter! How distinctly his landscapes are painted,--the deep, impenetrable
forest, the gleaming lake, the crude aspect and absurd architecture of the
new-born village! How full of poetry in the ore is the conversation of
Leatherstocking! The incongruities and peculiarities of social life which
are the result of a sudden rush of population into the wilderness are also
well sketched; though with a pencil less free and vivid than that with
which he paints the aspects of Nature and the movements of natural man. As
respects the structure of the story, and the probability of the incidents,
the novel is open to criticism; but such is the fascination that hangs
over it, that it is impossible to criticize. To do this would be as
ungracious as to correct the language and pronunciation of an old friend
who revives by his conversation the fading memories of school-boy and
college life.

Cooper would have been a better writer, if he had had more of the quality
of humor, and a keener sense of the ridiculous; for these would have saved
him from his too frequent practice of introducing both into his narrative
and his conversations, but more often into the latter, scraps of