The "Leather-Stocking" Tales: I. The Deerslayer; II. The Last of the Mohicans; III. The Pathfinder; IV. The Pioneers; V. The Prairie (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The "Leather-Stocking" Tales: I. The Deerslayer; II. The Last of the Mohicans; III. The Pathfinder; IV. The Pioneers; V. The Prairie

As has been stated in the preface to the series of the leather-stocking Tales, 'the Deerslayer is properly the first in the order of reading, though the last in that of pub lication. In this book the hero is represented as just arriving at manhood, with the freshness of feeling that belongs to that interesting period of life, and with the power to please that properly characterizes youth. As'a consequence, he is loved; and, what denotes the real waywardness of humanity, more than it corresponds with theories and moral propositions, perhaps, he is loved by one full of art, vanity, and weakness, and loved principally for his sincerity, his modesty, and his unerring truth and probity. The preference he gives to the high qualities named, over beauty, delirious passion, and sin, it is hoped, will offer a lesson that can injure none. This portion of the book is intentionally kept down, though it is thought to be sufficiently distinct to convey its moral.

The intention has been-to put the sisters in strong contrast; one admirable in person, clever, filled with' the pride of beauty, erring, and fallen; the other, barely provided with sufficient capacity to know good from evil, instinct, notwithstanding, with the vir tues of woman, reverencing and loving God, and yielding only to the weakness of her sex, in admiring personal attractions in one too coarse and unobservant to distinguish or to understand her quiet, gentle feeling in his favor.

As for the scene of this tale, it is intended'for, and believed to be a close description of, the Otsego, prior to the year,17 60, when the first rude settlement was commenced on its banks, at that time only an insignificant clearing near the outlet, with a small hut of squared logs, for the temporary dwelling of the Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs. The recollections of the writer carry him back distinctly to a time when nine-tenths of the shores of this lake were in the virgin forest, a peculiarity that was owing to the circumstance of the roads running through the first range of valleys removed from the water-side. The woods and the mountains have ever formed a principal source of beauty with this charming sheet of water, enough of the former remaining to this day to relieve the open grounds from monotony and tameness.

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