The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-08-31
LITERARY OFFENCES IN FICTION
BY LEMUEL B. LESTER.

Mark Twain may have failed in
business and may even have exhaust
ed his humorous vein of fancy; or
rather, perhaps, has satiated his
readers, who are now off in other di-
rections looking for new sensations,
but he is still the inimitable Mark
and his drollness stands him in good
stead in other directions than those
along which he achieved success. In
the August number of the North
American Review, for instance, he
treats the readers of that wide awake
periodical to about as clever piece
of literary criticism as has appeared
for many day in America or else
where. Starting out to show some of
Fennimore Cooper's literary offences
he quotes in the beginning the opin-
ions of such eminent critics as Pro-
fessor Brander Matthews and Profes-
sor Lounsbury, of Yale, and also the
dictum of Wilkie Collins, namely,
that Cooper is the greatest artist in
the domain of romantic fiction yet
produced in America" Professor
Lounsbury speaking of Cooper's
tales as "pure works of art" and
Brander Matthews AYERS that "all the
delicate art of the forest" was "famil-
lar to him from his youth up"
To attack reputation SO well es-
tablished as that of Fennimore Coop
or, is an enterprise that might well
have deferred more distinctly liter
ary critic than Mark Twain. But
"Mark" Notwithstanding, sets out to
show that Cooper's pen has some de-
fects; that in the way of invention his
was not rich endowment, and that
as to "the delicate art of the forest"
Cooper was 'splendidly inaccurate"
In two-thirds of page in "Deer
Slayer" Mark AYERS Cooper has
scored LA offences against literary
art out of possible 115." Mark fur
thermore says there are nineteen rules
governing literature and art in the
domain of romantic fiction, and that
in "Deerslayer" Cooper has violated
eighteen of them, and proceeds to call
attention to these violations seriatim.
And Natty Bumppo and Pathfinder,
really it was unfortunate for them
when Mark Twain turned his atten-
tion to their ways and pointed out the
impossibilities and inconsistencies of
these favorite heroes of Cooper. As
to "Deerslayer" Mark sums up his
verdict by saying that "Cooper wrote
about the poorest English that exists
in our language, and that the English
of Deerslayer is the very worst that
ever Cooper wrote. It's humor, he
says, sis pathetic; its pathos is funny;
its conversations are oh indescriba-
BILE; it's love-scenes odious; its En-
glish crime against the language.
Counting out these Mark thinks that
"what is left is art"
Really we shall have to read "Deer-
slayer" again now that he has been so
rudely treated by Mark. We have no
idea we shall agree with Mark in all
he says about Cooper. but there is
entirely too much delivering of opin-
ions on literature by people eminently
learned in what is written about lit
erature rather than in literature itself;
and this class of persons, which it
seems includes even some professors
of language and literature have been
given an intellectual jolting and
shake up by Mark Twain's original
criticism that ought to do them good.
Whatever merit Mark Twain may or
may not have, as literary critic he
talks at first hand and from careful
study of what he is talking about
when he once sets himself a topic
such as that he discusses in the pages
Of the North American.
But Cooper's literary offences, even
though they be as numerous and as
grievous as Mark Twain affirms, are,
we are afraid, of but little concern to
the present generation of readers.
The enormous food of modern fiction,
ever widening and threatening to
overpower the entire domain of litera-
ture, is without a parallel in all the
ages of literary activity. And there
is but little hope that the overfowing
of this Nile is bringing to the broad
plains and the regions of everyday
life the rich loan of fertile mountain
sides of thought. In some cases it
probably does, but as to the greater
part, it brings with it, not the seeds
and possibilities of greater things,
but breeds kind of intellectual sati-
ETY. destructive of all genuine vigor
and achievement, and increases, like