James Fenimore Cooper, 1789–1851
3,806 words
Chapter 4 of Studies in Classic American Literature
Benjamin Franklin had a specious little equation in providential mathematics:
Rum + Savage = 0. Awfully nice! You might add up the universe to nought, if you kept on.
D. H. Lawrence on Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Novels
Andrew Wyeth, The Last of the Mohicans, 1919
5,821 words
Chapter 5 of Studies in Classic American Literature
In his Leatherstocking books, Fenimore is off on another track. He is no longer concerned with social white Americans that buzz with pins through them, buzz loudly against every mortal thing except the pin itself. The pin of the Great Ideal.
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