Rural Hours by Susan Fenimore Cooper: A Review

🌳 Rural Hours is a journal written by 19th century female author: Susan Fenimore Cooper. If you feel familiar with her surname, it's because she was the daughter of James Fenimore Cooper, the author of The Last of the Mohicans. More background facts about Susan Fenimore Cooper, and how this journal had inspired Darwin and possibly Thoreau, I have written in my 1st Impression on this book.

🌳 Cooper was an amateur naturalist; she read many books or essays by other naturalists, and recorded her observations on animals, plants, landscape, as well as rural life during her daily excursions, onto her journals. This book was derived from these notes, took up a course of four seasons of 1848, beginning from the spring.

🌳 Reading an amateur naturalist has its advantage. I took pleasure of Cooper's observations, as if I was walking with her, but without being troubled too much with scientific phrases of a pedantic. While bird-watching, she would observe:

"It was amusing to watch the parents flying home, and listen to the family talk going on; there was a vast deal of twittering and fluttering before settling down in the nest, husband and wife seemed to have various items of household information to impart to each other, and the young nestlings made themselves heard very plainly; one gathered a little scolding, too, on the part of some mother-robins."

Can you imagine yourself taking a stroll with Cooper, bird-watching with amusement like that? That has always been my dream!

🌳 I loved Cooper's sharp wit in her observations, such as when she wrote about a spider:

"A huge spider, by-the-bye, with her intricate web and snares, would form no bad emblem of a courtier and diplomatist, of the stamp of Cardinal Wolsey. He certainly took "hold with his hands, in kings' palaces," and did his share of mischief there."

🌳 Beyond the animals or plants (she could talk about trees for some pages!), Cooper is also a sharp observer of human nature and their civilization. She criticized her nation for their reckless behavior towards horticulture, and for not focusing on the advantages of gardening. She also noticed how her people were gradually taking distance from nature, even on adorning their houses:

"In very truth, a fine tree near a house is a much greater embellishment than the thickest coat of paint that could be put on its walls, or a whole row of wooden columns to adorn its front; nay, a large shady tree in a door-yard is much more desirable than the most expensive mahogany and velvet sofa in the parlor."

Wood Lane, Claude Monet, 1876

🌳 I loved also her observation on the simple life of farmers, when visiting a farmer house, she observed that they provide most of their domestic needs at home; doing all their spinning, weaving, dyeing by themselves.

🌳 Sometimes Cooper would talk about some unusual sights, like how, on one foggy dawn, a flock of wild pigeons alighted on the trees at the heart of the village (a rare sight!), and only after the fog has lifted, that the birds flown again. Some cows Cooper saw on her walk one evening, were returning home after pasturing along the road side or unfenced woods. They were left to forage by themselves, and usually came from different houses. They would leave home in the morning, and return home in the evening, one to this house, the other to that - all by themselves without anyone accompanying them.

🌳 Few more amusing things Cooper observed: Otters - these animals have one very strange habit: it is said that they actually slide down hill on the snow, merely for amusement. Then there is her amusing comment on singular leaf of a tree that dances merrily, moved by some light puff of air:

"A single leaf or two in rapid movement, all else still and calm; and one might fancy Puck, or some other mischievous elf, sitting astride the stem, shaking his sides with laughter at the expense of the bewildered spectator."

La Promenade, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1875

🌳 Cooper shared her father's sentiments regarding the Indians, which she showed in her note: "..a savage race is almost invariably corrupted rather than improved by its' earliest contact with a civilized people; they suffer from the vices of civilization before they learn justly to comprehend its merits. It is with nations as with individuals-amelioration is a slow process, corruption a rapid one."

🌳 I've just realized that the US named their rivers, mountains, or cities with Indian names: Michigan, Ontario, Mississippi, Potomac, and many more. Cooper beautifully put it into this reflection:

"A name is all we leave them, let us at least preserve that monument to their memory; as we travel through the country, and pass river after river, lake after lake, we may thus learn how many were the tribes who have melted away before us, whose very existence would have been utterly forgotten but for the word which recalls the name they once bore. And possibly, when we note how many have been swept from the earth by the vices borrowed from civilized man, we may become more earnest, more zealous, in the endeavor to aid those who yet linger among us."

🌳 Sometimes too, we get glimpses of some village stories or legends. One of my favorites is of a pet fawn, who, after being saved from haunting dog's chase by some people, was then shot by a hunter because it approached him without fear. Another reminder to us to let wild animals be wild!

🌳 I think from what I've written and quoted above, you can see how I loved this book! For a person who live in a tropical country with only two seasons: wet and dry, where the flowers keep blossoming, and the landscape never changes its hue, Cooper's journal provided me with invaluable glimpses of the four beautiful seasons I wouldn't have witnessed. I loved every little change of the lake color, the leaves, or the flower petals, from season to season. I'm a 'color' person, and this has been a wonderful "experience" of a lifetime, though only through Susan Fenimore Cooper's pen.

Rating: 4,5 / 5

1st Impression on Rural Hours by Susan Fenimore Cooper

Painting: Woman Walking on a Forest Trail by Vasily Polenov

Susan Fenimore Cooper was the daughter of the great American novelist: James Fenimore Cooper, who wrote The Last of the Mohicans, and "whom she served as devoted companion and amanuensis until his death in 1851." [source: Britannica]

Encouraged by her father, Susan wrote her first novel: Elinor Wyllys; or, The Young Folk of Longbridge, under the pseudonym Amabel Penfeather. It was published in 1845.

Besides a writer, Susan was also, what one might call, an amateur naturalist. She loved to observe nature and rural country life of her village: Cooperstown, New York, during her walks and excursions. It was from her journals on these subject, that Rural Hours was published in 1850, with quite a big success.

Despite of not putting her name as the writer (it's written only as "by a Lady"), her book was by no means unnoticed by her contemporaries. Even Charles Darwin, the famous naturalist at that time, had mention Susan's book in his letter to a friend:

“Talking of books, I am in middle of one which pleases me…’Miss Cooper’s Journal of a Naturalist.’ Who is she? She seems a very clever woman & gives a capital account of the battle between our & your weeds”. - [source: Wikipedia]

(Rural Hours was also published as "Journal of a Naturalist").

Rural Hours was even believed to be the inspiration of Thoreau's Walden:
"Rural Hours in particular has been called the first major work of environmental literary nonfiction by an American woman writer, both a source and a rival of Thoreau's Walden" - [source: Wikipedia]

From her very first journal entry (Saturday, March 4th), I was instantly hooked; but it was her entry about birds which completely won my heart. I love birds, though living in a big city don't give me much opportunity to get to know them intimately. I'm contented enough to watch them flying and feeding on the trees outside my apartment window. Fortunately, I have a neighbor who's also a bird lover. Every morning she puts a plate of grains to feed birds around here outside her balcony. The visitors are mostly Old World Sparrows and two or three Black Pigeons. While the smaller one: Estrildid Finches are usually flying around and feeding on the trees. It's hard to see them, but I know where they are from their twittering. Also regular visitors to this area are Zebra Doves with their cute head movements when walking on the ground, and Sooty-headed bulbul with their beautiful singing voices.

Two of my favorite passages so far, are all about birds. I found them interesting mostly because I've never seen nor heard them. I've even checked YouTube videos because I was so curious. It actually added charm to my reading!

"Three large waterfowl also passed along in the same direction; we believed them to be loons; they were in sight only for a moment, owing to the trees above us, but we heard a loud howling cry as they flew past like that of those birds."

 

"The Dipper must indeed be a very singular bird; instead of swimming on the surface of the water like ducks and geese, or beneath like the loons, or wading along the shores like many of the long-legged coast tribes, it actually runs or flies about at will over gravelly beds of mountain streams."

This would be a very slow read for me. So exciting to explore the birds and flowers together with Cooper, all through the four seasons! Will report back my final thoughts in the next few weeks - or more!