Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/91

 COOPER S LITERARY OFFENSES

language, and that the English of Deerslayer is the very worst that even Cooper ever wrote.

I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that Deerslayer is not a work of art in any sense; it does seem to me that it is destitute of every detail that goes to the making of a work of art; in truth, it seems to me that Deerslayer is just simply a literary delirium trcmcns.

A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no life- likeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they arc; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are oh ! indescribable ; its love-scenes odious ; its English a crime against the language.

Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that.

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