The criticisms of which you speak give me no concern....  The “Heidenmauer” is not equal to the “Bravo,” but it is a good book and better than two thirds of Scott’s.  They may say it is like his if they please; they have said so of every book I have written, even the “Pilot.”  But the “Heidenmauer” is like and was intended to be like, in order to show how differently a democrat and an aristocrat saw the same thing.  As for French criticisms they have never been able to exalt me in my own opinion nor to stir my bile, for they are written with such evident ignorance (I mean of English books) as to be beneath notice.  What the deuce do I care whether my books are on their shelves or not?  What did I ever get from France or Continental Europe?  Neither personal favors nor money.  But this they cannot understand, for so conceited is a Frenchman that many of them think that I came to Paris to be paid.  Now I never got the difference in the boiling of the pot between New York and Paris in my life.  The “Journal des Debats” was snappish with “Water Witch,” merve [?] I believe with “Bravo,” and let it bark at “Heidenmauer” and be hanged.

No, no more.  The humiliation comes from home.  It is biting to find that accident has given me a country which has not manliness and pride to maintain its own opinions, while it is overflowing with conceit.  But never mind all this.  See that you do not decamp before my departure and I’ll promise not to throw myself into the Rhine....

I hope the Fourth of July is not breaking out in Habersham’s noddle, for I can tell him that was the place most affected during the dinner.  Adieu,

Yours as ever,
J. FENIMORE COOPER.

The Mr. Habersham here jokingly referred to was R.W.  Habersham, of Augusta, Georgia, who in the year 1831 was an art student in the atelier of Baron Gros, and between whom and Morse a friendship sprang up.  They roomed together at a time when the cholera was raging in Paris, but, owing to Mr. Habersham’s wise insistence that all the occupants of the house should take a teaspoonful of charcoal every morning, all escaped the disease.

Mr. Habersham in after years wrote and sent to Morse some of his reminiscences of that period, and from these I shall quote the following as being of more than ordinary interest:—­

“The Louvre was always closed on Monday to clean up the gallery after the popular exhibition of the paintings on Sunday, so that Monday was our day for visits, excursions, etc.  On one occasion I was left alone, and two or three times during the week he was absent.  This was unusual, but I asked no questions and made no remarks.  But on Saturday evening, sitting by our evening lamp, he seemed lost in thought, till suddenly he remarked:  ’The mails in our country are too slow; this French telegraph is better, and would do even better in our clear atmosphere than here, where half the time fogs obscure the skies.  But this will not be fast enough—­the lightning would serve us better.’