While, therefore, there can be no justification for the ferocity with which Cooper was assailed, there was some palliation. His course (p. 168) from his return to the country had been wanting in prudence, and at times in common sense. He had plunged at once as a combatant into one of the bitterest political controversies that ever agitated the republic. Hard blows were given and taken. He could scarcely expect that, in the heat of the strife, regard would in all cases be paid to the proprieties and even the decencies of private life. There was much in his later productions, moreover, to alienate many who were honestly disposed to admire him as a writer. Politics we could get at all times and from everybody. If, again, we were hopelessly provincial, if we were irreclaimably given over to vulgarity, we could find out all about it from the latest English traveler, or the review of his work that had appeared in the latest English periodicals. But by Cooper the life of the wilderness and of the sea had been told as by no other writer. Over the fields and forests and streams of his native land he had thrown the glamour of romantic association and lofty deeds. There was something unpleasant in witnessing a man who could do this turning his attention to the discussion of points of etiquette and manners. Beside the waste of power, which is something always disagreeable to contemplate, the subject itself could hardly be called an attractive one. It was a sandy desert to travel over at best. But even those who thought it a thing worth while to do once, could hardly help feeling surprise at the spirit which could induce a man to go over it again and again, enlarge upon its discomforts, its perpetual sameness and barrenness, and point out its incapacity of being made much better. There were even worse things than this. It could scarcely fail to inspire a sentiment almost like disgust to have the creator of Leather-Stocking argue with heat the (p. 169) question whether it is right for a lady to come into a drawing-room at a party without leaning upon the arm of a gentleman; or discourse solemnly upon the proper way of eating eggs, and announce oracularly that all who were acquainted with polite society would agree in denouncing the wine-glass or egg-glass as a vulgar substitute for the egg-cup. Questions like these are usually left to those who have the taste to delight in them and the mental elevation to grasp the difficulties involved in them. They were the more disagreeable when met with in Cooper, because in addition to the pettiness of the subject, there was an apparent unconsciousness on his part that the limits of his own preferences and conclusions were not necessarily those of the human mind.