COOPER IN (GERMANY 



65 



in this novel the last struggles of the legitiiiuil c licirs to the Amei-- 

 ican soil against the white intruders. In this liistorical iiov(4 we 

 witness the wars of some tribes of the Creeks, whose foi'jiier 

 lands lay in Georgia and Alabama, under their chief, Tokeah, 

 against the Whites under the great republican General Jackson. 

 Tokeah finally gives up the land of his ancestors and leaves to 

 find a new home among the Comanches in the Par West. 

 Tokeah dies while still east of the Mississipjii, but his remains are 

 brought to the land beyond the great river, where he had hoped 

 to live unmolested with his people. The Indian chief Tokeah 

 is in some respects not unlike Cooper 's Chingachgook. Like Natty 

 in 'The Prairie,' which had appeared a year earlier than 'Der 

 Legitime,' Tokeah also retires westward before the coming wave 

 of eastern civilization. The general atmosphere in Sealsfield's 

 novel is more Cooperian than that of his subsequent works. In 

 spite of this conventionality, Sealsfield's work received high 

 praise. It demanded some courage for a German to strive for a 

 place beside Cooper. A contemporary critic writes: "Hatte 

 Cooper's gebildetere Feder diesen Plan ausgefiihrt, so diii^fte die 

 Ausfiihrung mancherlei gewonnen haben. Im ganzen aber miis- 

 sen wir, Cooper's Talent in Ehren, dieser Conception vor der Coo- 

 per 'schen den Yorzug geben, well sie geistreicher und grossartigei' 

 ist. Auf jeden Fall ist dieser Roman bei weitem lehrreicher als 

 irgend ein Scott 'scher oder Cooper 'scher, und verdient von den 

 Deutschen besonders beachtet zu werden, die schon mit einem 

 Fusse aus ihrer heimatlichen Hiitte getreten sind, um die grosse 

 Auswanderung zu gewinnen."^^ 



In the unfolding of a plot Sealsfield was never so successful 

 as Cooper. He felt this and confined himself largely to the shorter 

 form of narrative. From 1834 to 1837 appeared his 'Lebensbilder 

 aus der westlichen Hemisphare, ' a series of sketches in six volumes. 

 In the sixth volume we have the striking story of 'Nathan Strong, 

 der Squatter-Regulator.' Nathan is one of Sealsfield's best char- 

 acter portrayals. The reader of Nathan will, however, have no 

 difficulty in recognizing that Nathan is none other than our old 

 friend Natty Bumpo seen through the rugged, virulent tempera- 

 ment of Sealsfield. The following description may serve to show 

 Sealsfield's manner of treatment: "Also Nathan hier ! diese in 



13 Cf. Sarrazin's criticism of Faust's 'Cliarles Sealsfield. der Dicbter beider 

 Hemlspharen,' in tbe 'Arcbiv fiir das Stndium der neueren Spracbeu nnd Littera- 

 turen.' 100. Rd. s. :398-401. 



1* See 'Blatter fiir Uterarisebe Unterbaltung." Lpz. 7. Miirz. lSo2. 



