COOPER S LITERARY OFFENSES
[]We cannot imagine such a thing as a veteran Scotch Commander-in-Chief comporting himself in the field like a windy melodramatic actor, but Cooper could. On one occasion Alice and Cora were being chased by the French through a fog in the neighbor hood of their father s fort :
"Point de quartier aux coquins!" cried an eager pursuer, who seemed to direct the operations of the enemy.
" Stand firm and be ready, my gallant 6oths!" suddenly exclaimed a voice above them; " wait to see the enemy; fire low, and sweep the glacis."
" Father! father." exclaimed a piercing cry from out the mist; "it is I! Alice! thy own Elsie! spare, 0! save your daughters!"
" Hold!" shouted the former speaker, in the awful tones of parental agony, the sound reaching even to the woods, and rolling back in solemn echo. " Tis she! God has restored me my children! Throw open the sally-port; to the field, 6oths, to the field! pull not a trigger, lest ye kill my lambs! Drive off these dogs of France with your steel!" Ii
Cooper s word-sense was singularly dull. When a person has a poor ear for music he will flat sharp right along without knowing it. He keeps near the tune, but it is not the tune. When a person has a poor ear for words, the result is a literary flatting and sharping ; you perceive what he is intend ing to say, but you also perceive that he doesn t say it. This is Cooper. He was not a word-musician. His ear was satisfied with the approximate word. I will furnish some circumstantial evidence in support of this charge. My instances are gathered from half a dozen pages of the tale called Deerslayer. He uses "verbal" for "oral"; "precision" for "facility";
- phenomena " for " marvels " ; " necessary for
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