496 GERMANIC LITERATURE 



" she resembled a statue, in which the artist intends to represent pro- 

 found and silent attention"; "she was like a dumb statue of child- 

 like love"; "like the model for a nude and beautiful statue of skill 

 and strength "; "marble could not be colder nor more motionless "; 

 "like to many lifeless statues," etc. The "Apollo of the wilderness," 

 in the Deerslayer, reminds us of a comparison in the Heath Village, 

 where the author drops for the moment the prevailing biblical and 

 Oriental tone of the story: "like a war god." 



The Indians in Cooper's stories love comparisons with animals: 

 high as the eagle, swift as the stag, and many others; and they 

 like to compare women to animals or flowers: Hist is the Wren of the 

 Woods, Hetty the Drooping Lily or the Woodbine Flower, Judith 

 the Wild Rose, a Huron girl a little slender birch, etc. Gregory 

 turns his eyes, like two eagles, towards the girls: "They are two 

 beautiful wood-flowers." Johanna's little white hand drops, like 

 a dove, among the rocks of Gregory's fingers. 



A close relationship is shown by the following two passages. From 

 the Deerslayer : " The tramp of the warriors, as they sprang from the 

 fire, was plainly audible; and at the next moment, three or four of 

 them appeared on the top of the ridge, drawn against the background 

 of light, resembling the dim shadows of the phantasmagoria." 

 From the Mountain Forest : " These were the only words spoken by 

 the company regarding the singular betrothal, which had glided past 

 on their meadow like some strange phantasmagoria." Not only is 

 the sameness of the figure striking, but the contrast between noise 

 and noiselessness is similar in the two passages. 



Cooper is fond of the expression: "There are always some who 

 think . . . and others who think," a turn of expression that 1 have not 

 yet observed in Stifter. But it is in a very similar vein that Gregory 

 says, while relating the legend of the aspen: "There are here two 

 opinions." 



In the first composition of his works, Stifter thoughtlessly takes 

 over, from the bad translations of Cooper, foreign words, which 

 more- rare subsequently leads him to change to corresponding Ger- 

 manized expressions; for example " Hauptcorps," later not very 

 happily changed to "Hauptschlachthaufe." 



Thus these Indian stories made fertile the European author's 

 imagination, made his observation keener, awakened his feeling for 

 style, and influenced his language. As if on a long and distant 

 journey, lie was carried through strange, far-off, untrodden regions, in 

 a mad medley of unheard of adventures, in a different world. And 

 hence ihe old familiar ground at home seemed often strange and 

 weird to him, as if lighted by another and paler sun: "It is a wild 

 jumble of torn strata, Consisting of nothing but coal-black earth, the 

 dark death-bed of a thousand years of vegetation, on which lie 



