Not but there were plenty of men anxious to show it. Especially was this true of that class which looked upon it as the supreme effort of critical judgment to exaggerate the value of everything written in Europe and depreciate everything of native origin. There was a prevailing belief among those who mistook their own individual impotence for the incapacity of a whole people, that nothing good could come out of America. Many showed their faith by their conduct. In 1834, Cooper himself said that he knew of several instances in which persons had not read anything he had written for the avowed reason that nothing worth reading could be written by one of their countrymen. To all of these it was a subject of some perplexity and of more annoyance that his works should be, if anything, more popular in Europe than they were in his native land. To account for this fact various sage reasons were early suggested and are still occasionally heard. One of these has always been particularly common. This was that it was the novelty of the scenes and characters depicted that attracted attention and not the ability shown in depicting them. At any rate, they wished it understood that if he satisfied the European, he did not satisfy the native world: for if creative power had been denied us, we could at least show that as a compensation we had been supplied with a double portion of refined taste. Speaking in behalf of the American people, these critics expressed anxiety that (p. 063) neither at home nor abroad should Cooper be regarded as obtaining the unqualified admiration or attaining the lofty ideal of "all of us." Against any such impression they entered their humble protest. All that lay in their power should be done to counteract it. This is no one-sided statement of opinions then expressed. These very sentiments in almost these very words can be found in reviews of that period.