cooi'Ki; i\ (;i:i;.M AN Y 



59 



from intercourse, and little affected by the spirit of the times, he 

 6arly became a close observer and lover of nature and later one 

 of her keenest interpreters. Stifter had always been considered one 

 of the most original of writers. It is therefore of special interest 

 to note that Cooper's works struck a responsive chord in Stifter 's 

 nature which w^as attained fre:|uent]y in his works. 



The poetry of Lenau, who had drawn inspiration from the 

 primitive forests of North America, was familiar to Stifter. Sauer 

 also intimates that Stifter may have been ac((uainted with the novels 

 of Sealsfield. At least Stifter seems also to have felt a certain 

 ' ' Drang nach Amerika. ' ' In a letter he exclaims he should like to 

 leap arai in arm with his future beloved into Niagara Falls. In 

 'Der Kondor' (one of his Studien) the artist goes across the At- 

 lantic. The preceding action of the 'Feldbliunen' is laid in 

 America. 



It appears that Stifter has nowhere in his works mentioned 

 Cooper. Sauer, however, assumes that Stifter read all of the 

 'Leatherstocking Tales' in German, and that Natty Bumpo was a 

 familiar character to him. A comparison is then made between 

 Stifter 's 'Hochwald' and Cooper's 'Deerslayer. ' The description 

 of the lake in each w^ork is found to resemble the other. The fur- 

 nishings of the forest home in the 'Hochwald' are not unlike those 

 in the ' Deerslayer. ' Old Gregor in the 'Hochwald' and the 'Deer- 

 slayer' are both sons of nature. To both a settlement in the virgin 

 forest is, in a sense, a desecration. The 'Deerslayer' says: "Die 

 Walder sind nie still wenn man ihre Stimme nur zu deuten weiss. ' ' 

 Gregor goes in the forest the "Reden des Waldes zu horen und 

 der Sinn ward ihm auf getan, seine Anzeichen zu verstehen. . . . " 

 Gregor has also taken on some of the characteristics of the 'Deer- 

 slayer. ' Natty Bumpo liked to lean on his long gun, for wliich the 

 Indians had named him "la longue haleine." Like Scherr's Groot 

 Willem, Gregor also strikes this stock pose. "Der alte Jager stand, 

 auf seine Biichse nach vorn gelehnt, wie ein Standbild und keine 

 Fiber an ihm verriet, was in ihm vorgehen konnte. . . . ' ' Like 

 the aged trapper in 'The Prairie,' old Gregor is filled with the 

 recollections of the past. Natty had fled from the haunts of his 

 youth to find at last a lonely grave on the western prairie. Old 

 Gregor is made to disappear in the depths of the forest, like the 

 'Pathfinder' at the close of the novel of that name. "Einen alten 

 Mann, wei einen Schemen, sah man noch ofter durch den Wald, 

 aber kein Mensch kann eine Zeit sagen, wo er noch ging. und eine, 

 wo er nicht mehr ging." 



