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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/15984-8.txt b/15984-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b49371 --- /dev/null +++ b/15984-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7046 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Washington Irving, by Charles Dudley Warner + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Washington Irving + +Author: Charles Dudley Warner + +Release Date: June 4, 2005 [EBook #15984] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WASHINGTON IRVING *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Peter Barozzi and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + [Illustration] + + + American Men of Letters. + + + WASHINGTON IRVING. + + + + BY + + CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. + + + + + FIFTH THOUSAND. + + + + BOSTON: + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. + 11 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET, NEW YORK. + The Riverside Press, Cambridge. + 1884. + + + + + Copyright, 1881, + BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. + + _All rights reserved_. + + _The Riverside Press, Cambridge:_ + Electrotyped and printed by H.O. Houghton & Co. + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER I. PAGE + PRELIMINARY 1 + + CHAPTER II. + BOYHOOD 21 + + CHAPTER III. + MANHOOD: FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE 31 + + CHAPTER IV. + SOCIETY AND "SALMAGUNDI" 43 + + CHAPTER V. + THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD 58 + + CHAPTER VI. + LIFE IN EUROPE: LITERARY ACTIVITY 94 + + CHAPTER VII. + IN SPAIN 141 + + CHAPTER VIII. + RETURN TO AMERICA: SUNNYSIDE: THE MISSION TO + MADRID 158 + + CHAPTER IX. + THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS 190 + + CHAPTER X. + LAST YEARS: THE CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE 282 + + + + + WASHINGTON IRVING. + + CHAPTER I. + + PRELIMINARY. + + +It is over twenty years since the death of Washington Irving removed +that personal presence which is always a powerful, and sometimes the +sole, stimulus to the sale of an author's books, and which strongly +affects the contemporary judgment of their merits. It is nearly a +century since his birth, which was almost coeval with that of the +Republic, for it took place the year the British troops evacuated the +city of New York, and only a few months before General Washington +marched in at the head of the Continental army and took possession of +the metropolis. For fifty years Irving charmed and instructed the +American people, and was the author who held, on the whole, the first +place in their affections. As he was the first to lift American +literature into the popular respect of Europe, so for a long time he was +the chief representative of the American name in the world of letters. +During this period probably no citizen of the Republic, except the +Father of his Country, had so wide a reputation as his namesake, +Washington Irving. + +It is time to inquire what basis this great reputation had in enduring +qualities, what portion of it was due to local and favoring +circumstances, and to make an impartial study of the author's literary +rank and achievement. + +The tenure of a literary reputation is the most uncertain and +fluctuating of all. The popularity of an author seems to depend quite as +much upon fashion or whim, as upon a change in taste or in literary +form. Not only is contemporary judgment often at fault, but posterity is +perpetually revising its opinion. We are accustomed to say that the +final rank of an author is settled by the slow consensus of mankind in +disregard of the critics; but the rank is after all determined by the +few best minds of any given age, and the popular judgment has very +little to do with it. Immediate popularity, or currency, is a nearly +valueless criterion of merit. The settling of high rank even in the +popular mind does not necessarily give currency; the so-called best +authors are not those most widely read at any given time. Some who +attain the position of classics are subject to variations in popular and +even in scholarly favor or neglect. It happens to the princes of +literature to encounter periods of varying duration when their names are +revered and their books are not read. The growth, not to say the +fluctuation, of Shakespeare's popularity is one of the curiosities of +literary history. Worshiped by his contemporaries, apostrophized by +Milton only fourteen years after his death as the "dear son of memory, +great heir to fame,"-- + + "So sepulchred in such pomp dost lie, + That kings, for such a tomb, would wish to die,"-- + +he was neglected by the succeeding age, the subject of violent extremes +of opinion in the eighteenth century, and so lightly esteemed by some +that Hume could doubt if he were a poet "capable of furnishing a proper +entertainment to a refined and intelligent audience," and attribute to +the rudeness of his "disproportioned and misshapen" genius the "reproach +of barbarism" which the English nation had suffered from all its +neighbors. Only recently has the study of him by English scholars--I do +not refer to the verbal squabbles over the text--been proportioned to +his preëminence, and his fame is still slowly asserting itself among +foreign peoples. + +There are already signs that we are not to accept as the final judgment +upon the English contemporaries of Irving the currency their writings +have now. In the case of Walter Scott, although there is already visible +a reaction against a reaction, he is not, at least in America, read by +this generation as he was by the last. This faint reaction is no doubt a +sign of a deeper change impending in philosophic and metaphysical +speculation. An age is apt to take a lurch in a body one way or another, +and those most active in it do not always perceive how largely its +direction is determined by what are called mere systems of philosophy. +The novelist may not know whether he is steered by Kant, or Hegel, or +Schopenhauer. The humanitarian novel, the fictions of passion, of +realism, of doubt, the poetry and the essays addressed to the mood of +unrest, of questioning, to the scientific spirit and to the shifting +attitudes of social change and reform, claim the attention of an age +that is completely adrift in regard to the relations of the supernatural +and the material, the ideal and the real. It would be natural if in such +a time of confusion the calm tones of unexaggerated literary art should +be not so much heeded as the more strident voices. Yet when the passing +fashion of this day is succeeded by the fashion of another, that which +is most acceptable to the thought and feeling of the present may be +without an audience; and it may happen that few recent authors will be +read as Scott and the writers of the early part of this century will be +read. It may, however, be safely predicted that those writers of fiction +worthy to be called literary artists will best retain their hold who +have faithfully painted the manners of their own time. + +Irving has shared the neglect of the writers of his generation. It +would be strange, even in America, if this were not so. The development +of American literature (using the term in its broadest sense) in the +past forty years is greater than could have been expected in a nation +which had its ground to clear, its wealth to win, and its new +governmental experiment to adjust; if we confine our view to the last +twenty years, the national production is vast in amount and encouraging +in quality. It suffices to say of it here, in a general way, that the +most vigorous activity has been in the departments of history, of +applied science, and the discussion of social and economic problems. +Although pure literature has made considerable gains, the main +achievement has been in other directions. The audience of the literary +artist has been less than that of the reporter of affairs and +discoveries and the special correspondent. The age is too busy, too +harassed, to have time for literature; and enjoyment of writings like +those of Irving depends upon leisure of mind. The mass of readers have +cared less for form than for novelty and news and the satisfying of a +recently awakened curiosity. This was inevitable in an era of +journalism, one marked by the marvelous results attained in the fields +of religion, science, and art, by the adoption of the comparative +method. Perhaps there is no better illustration of the vigor and +intellectual activity of the age than a living English writer, who has +traversed and illuminated almost every province of modern thought, +controversy, and scholarship; but who supposes that Mr. Gladstone has +added anything to permanent literature? He has been an immense force in +his own time, and his influence the next generation will still feel and +acknowledge, while it reads not the writings of Mr. Gladstone but may be +those of the author of "Henry Esmond" and the biographer of "Rab and his +Friends." De Quincey divides literature into two sorts, the literature +of power and the literature of knowledge. The latter is of necessity for +to-day only, and must be revised to-morrow. The definition has scarcely +De Quincey's usual verbal felicity, but we can apprehend the distinction +he intended to make. + +It is to be noted also, and not with regard to Irving only, that the +attention of young and old readers has been so occupied and distracted +by the flood of new books, written with the single purpose of satisfying +the wants of the day, produced and distributed with marvelous cheapness +and facility that the standard works of approved literature remain for +the most part unread upon the shelves. Thirty years ago Irving was much +read in America by young people and his clear style helped to form a +good taste and correct literary habits. It is not so now. The +manufacturers of books, periodicals, and newspapers for the young keep +the rising generation fully occupied, with a result to its taste and +mental fibre which, to say the least of it, must be regarded with some +apprehension. The "plant," in the way of money and writing industry +invested in the production of juvenile literature, is so large and is so +permanent an interest, that it requires more discriminating +consideration than can be given to it in a passing paragraph. + +Besides this, and with respect to Irving in particular, there has been +in America a criticism--sometimes called the destructive, sometimes the +Donnybrook Fair--that found "earnestness" the only thing in the world +amusing, that brought to literary art the test of utility, and +disparaged what is called the "Knickerbocker School" (assuming Irving to +be the head of it) as wanting in purpose and virility, a merely romantic +development of the post-Revolutionary period. And it has been to some +extent the fashion to damn with faint admiration the pioneer if not the +creator of American literature as the "genial" Irving. + +Before I pass to an outline of the career of this representative +American author, it is necessary to refer for a moment to certain +periods, more or less marked, in our literature. I do not include in it +the works of writers either born in England or completely English in +training, method, and tradition, showing nothing distinctively American +in their writings except the incidental subject. The first authors whom +we may regard as characteristic of the new country--leaving out the +productions of speculative theology--devoted their genius to politics. +It is in the political writings immediately preceding and following the +Revolution--such as those of Hamilton, Madison, Jay, Franklin, +Jefferson--that the new birth of a nation of original force and ideas is +declared. It has been said, and I think the statement can be maintained, +that for any parallel to those treatises on the nature of government, in +respect to originality and vigor, we must go back to classic times. But +literature, that is, literature which is an end in itself and not a +means to something else, did not exist in America before Irving. Some +foreshadowings (the autobiographical fragment of Franklin was not +published till 1817) of its coming may be traced, but there can be no +question that his writings were the first that bore the national +literary stamp, that he first made the nation conscious of its gift and +opportunity, and that he first announced to trans-Atlantic readers the +entrance of America upon the literary field. For some time he was our +only man of letters who had a reputation beyond seas. + +Irving was not, however, the first American who made literature a +profession and attempted to live on its fruits. This distinction belongs +to Charles Brockden Brown, who was born in Philadelphia, January 17, +1771, and, before the appearance in a newspaper of Irving's juvenile +essays in 1802, had published several romances, which were hailed as +original and striking productions by his contemporaries, and even +attracted attention in England. As late as 1820 a prominent British +review gives Mr. Brown the first rank in our literature as an original +writer and characteristically American. The reader of to-day who has the +curiosity to inquire into the correctness of this opinion will, if he is +familiar with the romances of the eighteenth century, find little +originality in Brown's stories, and nothing distinctively American. The +figures who are moved in them seem to be transported from the pages of +foreign fiction to the New World, not as it was, but as it existed in +the minds of European sentimentalists. + +Mr. Brown received a fair education in a classical school in his native +city, and studied law, which he abandoned on the threshold of practice, +as Irving did, and for the same reason. He had the genuine literary +impulse, which he obeyed against all the arguments and entreaties of his +friends. Unfortunately, with a delicate physical constitution he had a +mind of romantic sensibility, and in the comparative inaction imposed by +his frail health he indulged in visionary speculation, and in solitary +wanderings which developed the habit of sentimental musing. It was +natural that such reveries should produce morbid romances. The tone of +them is that of the unwholesome fiction of his time, in which the +"seducer" is a prominent and recognized character in social life, and +female virtue is the frail sport of opportunity. Brown's own life was +fastidiously correct, but it is a curious commentary upon his estimate +of the natural power of resistance to vice in his time, that he regarded +his feeble health as good fortune, since it protected him from the +temptations of youth and virility. + +While he was reading law he constantly exercised his pen in the +composition of essays, some of which were published under the title of +the "Rhapsodist;" but it was not until 1797 that his career as an author +began, by the publication of "Alcuin: a Dialogue on the Rights of +Women." This and the romances which followed it show the powerful +influence upon him of the school of fiction of William Godwin, and the +movement of emancipation of which Mary Wollstonecraft was the leader. +The period of social and political ferment during which "Alcuin" was put +forth was not unlike that which may be said to have reached its height +in extravagance and millennial expectation in 1847-48. In "Alcuin" are +anticipated most of the subsequent discussions on the right of women to +property and to self-control, and the desirability of revising the +marriage relation. The injustice of any more enduring union than that +founded upon the inclination of the hour is as ingeniously urged in +"Alcuin" as it has been in our own day. + +Mr. Brown's reputation rests upon six romances: "Wieland," "Ormond," +"Arthur Mervyn," "Edgar Huntly," "Clara Howard," and "Jane Talbot." The +first five were published in the interval between the spring of 1798 and +the summer of 1801, in which he completed his thirtieth year. "Jane +Talbot" appeared somewhat later. In scenery and character, these +romances are entirely unreal. There is in them an affectation of +psychological purpose which is not very well sustained, and a somewhat +clumsy introduction of supernatural machinery. Yet they have a power of +engaging the attention in the rapid succession of startling and uncanny +incidents and in adventures in which the horrible is sometimes +dangerously near the ludicrous. Brown had not a particle of humor. Of +literary art there is little, of invention considerable; and while the +style is to a certain extent unformed and immature, it is neither feeble +nor obscure, and admirably serves the author's purpose of creating what +the children call a "crawly" impression. There is undeniable power in +many of his scenes, notably in the descriptions of the yellow fever in +Philadelphia, found in the romance of "Arthur Mervyn." There is, +however, over all of them a false and pallid light; his characters are +seen in a spectral atmosphere. If a romance is to be judged not by +literary rules, but by its power of making an impression upon the mind, +such power as a ghastly story has, told by the chimney-corner on a +tempestuous night, then Mr. Brown's romances cannot be dismissed without +a certain recognition. But they never represented anything +distinctively American, and their influence upon American literature is +scarcely discernible. + +Subsequently Mr. Brown became interested in political subjects, and +wrote upon them with vigor and sagacity. He was the editor of two +short-lived literary periodicals which were nevertheless useful in their +day: "The Monthly Magazine and American Review," begun in New York in +the spring of 1798, and ending in the autumn of 1800; and "The Literary +Magazine and American Register," which was established in Philadelphia +in 1803. It was for this periodical that Mr. Brown, who visited Irving +in that year, sought in vain to enlist the service of the latter, who, +then a youth of nineteen, had a little reputation as the author of some +humorous essays in the "Morning Chronicle" newspaper. + +Charles Brockden Brown died, the victim of a lingering consumption, in +1810, at the age of thirty-nine. In pausing for a moment upon his +incomplete and promising career, we should not forget to recall the +strong impression he made upon his contemporaries as a man of genius, +the testimony to the charm of his conversation and the goodness of his +heart, nor the pioneer service he rendered to letters before the +provincial fetters were at all loosened. + +The advent of Cooper, Bryant, and Halleck, was some twenty years after +the recognition of Irving, but thereafter the stars thicken in our +literary sky, and when in 1832 Irving returned from his long sojourn in +Europe, he found an immense advance in fiction, poetry, and historical +composition. American literature was not only born,--it was able to go +alone. We are not likely to overestimate the stimulus to this movement +given by Irving's example, and by his success abroad. His leadership is +recognized in the respectful attitude towards him of all his +contemporaries in America. And the cordiality with which he gave help +whenever it was asked, and his eagerness to acknowledge merit in others, +secured him the affection of all the literary class, which is popularly +supposed to have a rare appreciation of the defects of fellow craftsmen. + +The period from 1830 to 1860 was that of our greatest purely literary +achievement, and, indeed, most of the greater names of to-day were +familiar before 1850. Conspicuous exceptions are Motley and Parkman and +a few belles-lettres writers, whose novels and stories mark a distinct +literary transition since the War of the Rebellion. In the period from +1845 to 1860, there was a singular development of sentimentalism; it had +been growing before, it did not altogether disappear at the time named, +and it was so conspicuous that this may properly be called the +sentimental era in our literature. The causes of it, and its relation to +our changing national character, are worthy the study of the historian. +In politics, the discussion of constitutional questions, of tariffs and +finance, had given way to moral agitations. Every political movement was +determined by its relation to slavery. Eccentricities of all sorts were +developed. It was the era of "transcendentalism" in New England, of +"come-outers" there and elsewhere, of communistic experiments, of reform +notions about marriage, about woman's dress, about diet; through the +open door of abolitionism women appeared upon its platform, demanding a +various emancipation; the agitation for total abstinence from +intoxicating drinks got under full headway, urged on moral rather than +on the statistical and scientific grounds of to-day; reformed drunkards +went about from town to town depicting to applauding audiences the +horrors of delirium tremens,--one of these peripatetics led about with +him a goat, perhaps as a scapegoat and sin-offering; tobacco was as +odious as rum; and I remember that George Thompson, the eloquent apostle +of emancipation, during his tour in this country, when on one occasion +he was the cynosure of a protracted antislavery meeting at Peterboro, +the home of Gerrit Smith, deeply offended some of his co-workers, and +lost the admiration of many of his admirers, the maiden devotees of +green tea, by his use of snuff. To "lift up the voice" and wear longhair +were signs of devotion to a purpose. + +In that seething time, the lighter literature took a sentimental tone, +and either spread itself in manufactured fine writing, or lapsed into a +reminiscent and melting mood. In a pretty affectation, we were asked to +meditate upon the old garret, the deserted hearth, the old letters, the +old well-sweep, the dead baby, the little shoes; we were put into a mood +in which we were defenseless against the lukewarm flood of the Tupperean +Philosophy. Even the newspapers caught the bathetic tone. Every "local" +editor breathed his woe over the incidents of the police court, the +falling leaf, the tragedies of the boarding-house, in the most +lachrymose periods he could command, and let us never lack fine writing, +whatever might be the dearth of news. I need not say how suddenly and +completely this affectation was laughed out of sight by the coming of +the "humorous" writer, whose existence is justified by the excellent +service he performed in clearing the tearful atmosphere. His keen and +mocking method, which is quite distinct from the humor of Goldsmith and +Irving, and differs, in degree at least, from the comic almanac +exaggeration and coarseness which preceded it, puts its foot on every +bud of sentiment, holds few things sacred, and refuses to regard +anything in life seriously. But it has no mercy for any sham. + +I refer to this sentimental era--remembering that its literary +manifestation was only a surface disease, and recognizing fully the +value of the great moral movement in purifying the national +life--because many regard its literary weakness as a legitimate +outgrowth of the Knickerbocker School, and hold Irving in a manner +responsible for it. But I find nothing in the manly sentiment and true +tenderness of Irving to warrant the sentimental gush of his followers, +who missed his corrective humor as completely as they failed to catch +his literary art. Whatever note of localism there was in the +Knickerbocker School, however _dilettante_ and unfruitful it was, it was +not the legitimate heir of the broad and eclectic genius of Irving. The +nature of that genius we shall see in his life. + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + BOYHOOD. + + +Washington Irving was born in the city of New York, April 3, 1783. He +was the eighth son of William and Sarah Irving, and the youngest of +eleven children, three of whom died in infancy. His parents, though of +good origin, began life in humble circumstances. His father was born on +the island of Shapinska. His family, one of the most respectable in +Scotland, traced its descent from William De Irwyn, the secretary and +armor-bearer of Robert Bruce; but at the time of the birth of William +Irving its fortunes had gradually decayed, and the lad sought his +livelihood, according to the habit of the adventurous Orkney Islanders, +on the sea. + +It was during the French War, and while he was serving as a petty +officer in an armed packet plying between Falmouth and New York, that he +met Sarah Sanders, a beautiful girl, the only daughter of John and Anna +Sanders, who had the distinction of being the granddaughter of an +English curate. The youthful pair were married in 1761, and two years +after embarked for New York, where they landed July 18, 1763. Upon +settling in New York William Irving quit the sea and took to trade, in +which he was successful until his business was broken up by the +Revolutionary War. In this contest he was a staunch Whig, and suffered +for his opinions at the hands of the British occupants of the city, and +both he and his wife did much to alleviate the misery of the American +prisoners. In this charitable ministry his wife, who possessed a rarely +generous and sympathetic nature, was especially zealous, supplying the +prisoners with food from her own table, visiting those who were ill, and +furnishing them with clothing and other necessaries. + +Washington was born in a house on William Street, about half-way between +Fulton and John; the following year the family moved across the way into +one of the quaint structures of the time, its gable end with attic +window towards the street, the fashion of which, and very likely the +bricks, came from Holland. In this homestead the lad grew up, and it was +not pulled down till 1849, ten years before his death. The patriot army +occupied the city. "Washington's work is ended," said the mother, "and +the child shall be named after him." When the first President was again +in New York, the first seat of the new government, a Scotch maid-servant +of the family, catching the popular enthusiasm, one day followed the +hero into a shop and presented the lad to him. "Please, your honor," +said Lizzie, all aglow, "here's a bairn was named after you." And the +grave Virginian placed his hand on the boy's head and gave him his +blessing. The touch could not have been more efficacious, though it +might have lingered longer, if he had known he was propitiating his +future biographer. + +New York at the time of our author's birth was a rural city of about +twenty-three thousand inhabitants, clustered about the Battery. It did +not extend northward to the site of the present City Hall Park; and +beyond, then and for several years afterwards, were only country +residences, orchards, and corn-fields. The city was half burned down +during the war, and had emerged from it in a dilapidated condition. +There was still a marked separation between the Dutch and the English +residents, though the Irvings seem to have been on terms of intimacy +with the best of both nationalities. The habits of living were +primitive; the manners were agreeably free; conviviality at the table +was the fashion, and strong expletives had not gone out of use in +conversation. Society was the reverse of intellectual: the aristocracy +were the merchants and traders; what literary culture found expression +was formed on English models, dignified and plentifully garnished with +Latin and Greek allusions; the commercial spirit ruled, and the +relaxations and amusements partook of its hurry and excitement. In their +gay, hospitable, and mercurial character, the inhabitants were true +progenitors of the present metropolis. A newspaper had been established +in 1732, and a theatre had existed since 1750. Although the town had a +rural aspect, with its quaint dormer-window houses, its straggling lanes +and roads, and the water-pumps in the middle of the streets, it had the +aspirations of a city, and already much of the metropolitan air. + +These were the surroundings in which the boy's literary talent was to +develop. His father was a deacon in the Presbyterian church, a sedate, +God-fearing man, with the strict severity of the Scotch Covenanter, +serious in his intercourse with his family, without sympathy in the +amusements of his children; he was not without tenderness in his nature, +but the exhibition of it was repressed on principle,--a man of high +character and probity, greatly esteemed by his associates. He endeavored +to bring up his children in sound religious principles, and to leave no +room in their lives for triviality. One of the two weekly half-holidays +was required for the catechism, and the only relaxation from the three +church services on Sunday was the reading of "Pilgrim's Progress." This +cold and severe discipline at home would have been intolerable but for +the more lovingly demonstrative and impulsive character of the mother, +whose gentle nature and fine intellect won the tender veneration of her +children. Of the father they stood in awe; his conscientious piety +failed to waken any religious sensibility in them, and they revolted +from a teaching which seemed to regard everything that was pleasant as +wicked. The mother, brought up an Episcopalian, conformed to the +religious forms and worship of her husband but she was never in sympathy +with his rigid views. The children were repelled from the creed of their +father, and subsequently all of them except one became attached to the +Episcopal Church. Washington, in order to make sure of his escape, and +feel safe while he was still constrained to attend his father's church, +went stealthily to Trinity Church at an early age, and received the rite +of confirmation. The boy was full of vivacity, drollery, and innocent +mischief. His sportiveness and disinclination to religious seriousness +gave his mother some anxiety, and she would look at him, says his +biographer, with a half mournful admiration, and exclaim, "O Washington! +if you were only good!" He had a love of music, which became later in +life a passion, and great fondness for the theatre. The stolen delight +of the theatre he first tasted in company with a boy who was somewhat +his senior, but destined to be his literary comrade,--James K. Paulding, +whose sister was the wife of Irving's brother William. Whenever he could +afford this indulgence, he stole away early to the theatre in John +Street, remained until it was time to return to the family prayers at +nine, after which he would retire to his room, slip through his window +and down the roof to a back alley, and return to enjoy the after-piece. + +Young Irving's school education was desultory, pursued under several +more or less incompetent masters, and was over at the age of sixteen. +The teaching does not seem to have had much discipline or solidity; he +studied Latin a few months, but made no other incursion into the +classics. The handsome, tender-hearted, truthful, susceptible boy was no +doubt a dawdler in routine studies, but he assimilated what suited him. +He found his food in such pieces of English literature as were floating +about, in "Robinson Crusoe" and "Sinbad;" at ten he was inspired by a +translation of "Orlando Furioso;" he devoured books of voyages and +travel; he could turn a neat verse, and his scribbling propensities +were exercised in the composition of childish plays. The fact seems to +be that the boy was a dreamer and saunterer; he himself says that he +used to wander about the pier heads in fine weather, watch the ships +departing on long voyages, and dream of going to the ends of the earth. +His brothers Peter and John had been sent to Columbia College, and it is +probable that Washington would have had the same advantage if he had not +shown a disinclination to methodical study. At the age of sixteen he +entered a law office, but he was a heedless student, and never acquired +either a taste for the profession or much knowledge of law. While he sat +in the law office, he read literature, and made considerable progress in +his self-culture; but he liked rambling and society quite as well as +books. In 1798 we find him passing a summer holiday in Westchester +County, and exploring with his gun the Sleepy Hollow region which he was +afterwards to make an enchanted realm; and in 1800 he made his first +voyage up the Hudson, the beauties of which he was the first to +celebrate, on a visit to a married sister who lived in the Mohawk +Valley. In 1802 he became a law clerk in the office of Josiah Ogden +Hoffman, and began that enduring intimacy with the refined and charming +Hoffman family which was so deeply to influence all his life. His health +had always been delicate, and his friends were now alarmed by symptoms +of pulmonary weakness. This physical disability no doubt had much to do +with his disinclination to severe study. For the next two or three years +much time was consumed in excursions up the Hudson and the Mohawk, and +in adventurous journeys as far as the wilds of Ogdensburg and to +Montreal, to the great improvement of his physical condition, and in the +enjoyment of the gay society of Albany, Schenectady, Ballston, and +Saratoga Springs. These explorations and visits gave him material for +future use, and exercised his pen in agreeable correspondence; but his +tendency at this time, and for several years afterwards, was to the idle +life of a man of society. Whether the literary impulse which was born in +him would have ever insisted upon any but an occasional and fitful +expression, except for the necessities of his subsequent condition, is +doubtful. + +Irving's first literary publication was a series of letters, signed +Jonathan Oldstyle, contributed in 1802 to the "Morning Chronicle," a +newspaper then recently established by his brother Peter. The attention +that these audacious satires of the theatre, the actors, and their +audience attracted is evidence of the literary poverty of the period. +The letters are open imitations of the "Spectator" and the "Tatler," and +although sharp upon local follies are of no consequence at present +except as foreshadowing the sensibility and quiet humor of the future +author, and his chivalrous devotion to woman. What is worthy of note is +that a boy of nineteen should turn aside from his caustic satire to +protest against the cruel and unmanly habit of jesting at ancient +maidens. It was enough for him that they are women, and possess the +strongest claim upon our admiration, tenderness, and protection. + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + MANHOOD: FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE. + + +Irving's health, always delicate, continued so much impaired when he +came of age, in 1804, that his brothers determined to send him to +Europe. On the 19th of May he took passage for Bordeaux in a sailing +vessel, which reached the mouth of the Garonne on the 25th of June. His +consumptive appearance when he went on board caused the captain to say +to himself, "There's a chap who will go overboard before we get across;" +but his condition was much improved by the voyage. + +He stayed six weeks at Bordeaux to improve himself in the language, and +then set out for the Mediterranean. In the diligence he had some merry +companions, and the party amused itself on the way. It was their habit +to stroll about the towns in which they stopped, and talk with whomever +they met. Among his companions was a young French officer and an +eccentric, garrulous doctor from America. At Tonneins, on the Garonne, +they entered a house where a number of girls were quilting. The girls +gave Irving a needle and set him to work. He could not understand their +patois, and they could not comprehend his bad French, and they got on +very merrily. At last the little doctor told them that the interesting +young man was an English prisoner whom the French officer had in +custody. Their merriment at once gave place to pity. "Ah! le pauvre +garçon!" said one to another; "he is merry, however, in all his +trouble." "And what will they do with him?" asked a young woman. "Oh, +nothing of consequence," replied the doctor; "perhaps shoot him, or cut +off his head." The good souls were much distressed; they brought him +wine, loaded his pockets with fruit, and bade him good-by with a hundred +benedictions. Over forty years after, Irving made a detour, on his way +from Madrid to Paris, to visit Tonneins, drawn thither solely by the +recollection of this incident, vaguely hoping perhaps to apologize to +the tender-hearted villagers for the imposition. His conscience, had +always pricked him for it; "It was a shame," he said, "to leave them +with such painful impressions." The quilting party had dispersed by that +time. "I believe I recognized the house," he says; "and I saw two or +three old women who might once have formed part of the merry group of +girls; but I doubt whether they recognized, in the stout elderly +gentleman, thus rattling in his carriage through their streets, the pale +young English prisoner of forty years since." + +Bonaparte was emperor. The whole country was full of suspicion. The +police suspected the traveler, notwithstanding his passport, of being an +Englishman and a spy, and dogged him at every step. He arrived at +Avignon, full of enthusiasm at the thought of seeing the tomb of Laura. +"Judge of my surprise," he writes, "my disappointment, and my +indignation, when I was told that the church, tomb, and all were utterly +demolished in the time of the Revolution. Never did the Revolution, its +authors and its consequences, receive a more hearty and sincere +execration than at that moment. Throughout the whole of my journey I +had found reason to exclaim against it for depriving me of some valuable +curiosity or celebrated monument, but this was the severest +disappointment it had yet occasioned." This view of the Revolution is +very characteristic of Irving, and perhaps the first that would occur to +a man of letters. The journey was altogether disagreeable, even to a +traveler used to the rough jaunts in an American wilderness: the inns +were miserable; dirt, noise, and insolence reigned without control. But +it never was our author's habit to stroke the world the wrong way: "When +I cannot get a dinner to suit my taste, I endeavor to get a taste to +suit my dinner." And he adds: "There is nothing I dread more than to be +taken for one of the Smell-fungi of this world. I therefore endeavor to +be pleased with everything about me, and with the masters, mistresses, +and servants of the inns, particularly when I perceive they have 'all +the dispositions in the world' to serve me; as Sterne says, 'It is +enough for heaven and ought to be enough for me.'" + +The traveler was detained at Marseilles, and five weeks at Nice, on one +frivolous pretext of the police or another, and did not reach Genoa +till the 20th of October. At Genoa there was a delightful society, and +Irving seems to have been more attracted by that than by the historical +curiosities. His health was restored, and his spirits recovered +elasticity in the genial hospitality; he was surrounded by friends to +whom he became so much attached that it was with pain he parted from +them. The gayety of city life, the levees of the Doge, and the balls +were not unattractive to the handsome young man; but what made Genoa +seem like home to him was his intimacy with a few charming families, +among whom he mentions those of Mrs. Bird, Madame Gabriac, and Lady +Shaftesbury. From the latter he experienced the most cordial and +unreserved friendship; she greatly interested herself in his future, and +furnished him with letters from herself and the nobility to persons of +the first distinction in Florence, Rome, and Naples. + +Late in December Irving sailed for Sicily in a Genoese packet. Off the +island of Planoca it was overpowered and captured by a little pickaroon, +with lateen sails and a couple of guns, and a most villainous crew, in +poverty-stricken garments, rusty cutlasses in their hands and stilettos +and pistols stuck in their waistbands. The pirates thoroughly ransacked +the vessel, opened all the trunks and portmanteaus, but found little +that they wanted except brandy and provisions. In releasing the vessel, +the ragamuffins seem to have had a touch of humor, for they gave the +captain a "receipt" for what they had taken, and an order on the British +consul at Messina to pay for the same. This old-time courtesy was hardly +appreciated at the moment. + +Irving passed a couple of months in Sicily, exploring with some +thoroughness the ruins, and making several perilous inland trips, for +the country was infested by banditti. One journey from Syracuse through +the centre of the island revealed more wretchedness than Irving supposed +existed in the world. The half-starved peasants lived in wretched cabins +and often in caverns, amid filth and vermin. "God knows my mind never +suffered so much as on this journey," he writes, "when I saw such scenes +of want and misery continually before me, without the power of +effectually relieving them." His stay in the ports was made agreeable by +the officers of American ships cruising in those waters. Every ship was +a home, and every officer a friend. He had a boundless capacity for +good-fellowship. At Messina he chronicles the brilliant spectacle of +Lord Nelson's fleet passing through the straits in search of the French +fleet that had lately got out of Toulon. In less than a year, Nelson's +young admirer was one of the thousands that pressed to see the remains +of the great admiral as they lay in state at Greenwich, wrapped in the +flag that had floated at the mast-head of the Victory. + +From Sicily he passed over to Naples in a fruit boat which dodged the +cruisers, and reached Rome the last of March. Here he remained several +weeks, absorbed by the multitudinous attractions. In Italy the worlds of +music and painting were for the first time opened to him. Here he made +the acquaintance of Washington Allston, and the influence of this +friendship came near changing the whole course of his life. To return +home to the dry study of the law was not a pleasing prospect; the +masterpieces of art, the serenity of the sky, the nameless charm which +hangs about an Italian landscape, and Allston's enthusiasm as an artist, +nearly decided him to remain in Rome and adopt the profession of a +painter. But after indulging in this dream, it occurred to him that it +was not so much a natural aptitude for the art as the lovely scenery and +Allston's companionship that had attracted him to it. He saw something +of Roman society; Torlonia the banker was especially assiduous in his +attentions. It turned out when Irving came to make his adieus that +Torlonia had all along supposed him a relative of General Washington. +This mistake is offset by another that occurred later, after Irving had +attained some celebrity in England. An English lady passing through an +Italian gallery with her daughter stopped before a bust of Washington. +The daughter said, "Mother, who was Washington?" "Why, my dear, don't +you know?" was the astonished reply. "He wrote the 'Sketch-Book.'" It +was at the house of Baron von Humboldt, the Prussian minister, that +Irving first met Madame de Staël, who was then enjoying the celebrity +of "Delphine." He was impressed with her strength of mind, and somewhat +astounded at the amazing flow of her conversation, and the question upon +question with which she plied him. + +In May the wanderer was in Paris, and remained there four months, +studying French and frequenting the theatres with exemplary regularity. +Of his life in Paris there are only the meagrest reports, and he records +no observations upon political affairs. The town fascinated him more +than any other in Europe; he notes that the city is rapidly beautifying +under the emperor, that the people seem gay and happy, and _Vive la +bagatelle!_ is again the burden of their song. His excuse for remissness +in correspondence was, "I am a young man and in Paris." + +By way of the Netherlands he reached London in October and remained in +England till January. The attraction in London seems to have been the +theatre, where he saw John Kemble, Cooke, and Mrs. Siddons. Kemble's +acting seemed to him too studied and over-labored; he had the +disadvantage of a voice lacking rich, base tones. Whatever he did was +judiciously conceived and perfectly executed; it satisfied the head, but +rarely touched the heart. Only in the part of Zanga was the young critic +completely overpowered by his acting,--Kemble seemed to have forgotten +himself. Cooke, who had less range than Kemble, completely satisfied +Irving as Iago. Of Mrs. Siddons, who was then old, he scarcely dares to +give his impressions lest he should be thought extravagant. "Her looks," +he says, "her voice, her gestures, delighted me. She penetrated in a +moment to my heart. She froze and melted it by turns; a glance of her +eye, a start, an exclamation, thrilled through my whole frame. The more +I see her the more I admire her. I hardly breathe while she is on the +stage. She works up my feelings till I am like a mere child." Some years +later, after the publication of the "Sketch-Book," in a London assembly +Irving was presented to the tragedy queen, who had left the stage, but +had not laid aside its stately manner. She looked at him a moment, and +then in a deep-toned voice slowly enunciated, "You've made me weep." +The author was so disconcerted that he said not a word, and retreated in +confusion. After the publication of "Bracebridge Hall" he met her in +company again, and was persuaded to go through the ordeal of another +presentation. The stately woman fixed her eyes on him as before, and +slowly said, "You've made me weep again." This time the bashful author +acquitted himself with more honor. + +This first sojourn abroad was not immediately fruitful in a literary +way, and need not further detain us. It was the irresolute pilgrimage of +a man who had not yet received his vocation. Everywhere he was received +in the best society, and the charm of his manner and his ingenuous +nature made him everywhere a favorite. He carried that indefinable +passport which society recognizes and which needs no _visé_. He saw the +people who were famous, the women whose recognition is a social +reputation; he made many valuable friends; he frequented the theatre, he +indulged his passion for the opera; he learned how to dine, and to +appreciate the delights of a brilliant salon; he was picking up +languages; he was observing nature and men, and especially women. That +he profited by his loitering experience is plain enough afterward, but +thus far there is little to prophesy that Irving would be anything more +in life than a charming _flâneur_. + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + SOCIETY AND "SALMAGUNDI." + + +On Irving's return to America in February, 1806, with reëstablished +health, life did not at first take on a more serious purpose. He was +admitted to the bar, but he still halted.[1] Society more than ever +attracted him and devoured his time. He willingly accepted the office of +"champion at the tea-parties;" he was one of a knot of young fellows of +literary tastes and convivial habits, who delighted to be known as "The +Nine Worthies," or "Lads of Kilkenny." In his letters of this period I +detect a kind of callowness and affectation which is not discernible in +his foreign letters and journal. + + [Footnote 1: Irving once illustrated his legal acquirements at + this time by the relation of the following anecdote to his + nephew: Josiah Ogden Hoffman and Martin Wilkins, an effective + and witty advocate, had been appointed to examine students for + admission. One student acquitted himself very lamely, and at + the supper which it was the custom for the candidates to give + to the examiners, when they passed upon their several merits, + Hoffman paused in coming to this one, and turning to Wilkins + said, as if in hesitation, though all the while intending to + admit him, "Martin, I think he knows a _little_ law." "Make it + stronger, Jo," was the reply; "_d----d_ little."] + +These social worthies had jolly suppers at the humble taverns of the +city, and wilder revelries in an old country house on the Passaic, which +is celebrated in the "Salmagundi" papers as Cockloft Hall. We are +reminded of the change of manners by a letter of Mr. Paulding, one of +his comrades, written twenty years after, who recalls to mind the keeper +of a porter house, "who whilom wore a long coat, in the pockets whereof +he jingled two bushels of sixpenny pieces, and whose daughter played the +piano to the accompaniment of broiled oysters." There was some +affectation of roystering in all this; but it was a time of social +good-fellowship, and easy freedom of manners in both sexes. At the +dinners there was much sentimental and bacchanalian singing; it was +scarcely good manners not to get a little tipsy; and to be laid under +the table by the compulsory bumper was not to the discredit of a guest. +Irving used to like to repeat an anecdote of one of his early friends, +Henry Ogden, who had been at one of these festive meetings. He told +Irving the next day that in going home he had fallen through a grating +which had been carelessly left open, into a vault beneath. The solitude, +he said, was rather dismal at first, but several other of the guests +fell in, in the course of the evening, and they had on the whole a +pleasant night of it. + +These young gentlemen liked to be thought "sad dogs." That they were +less abandoned than they pretended to be the sequel of their lives +shows: among Irving's associates at this time who attained honorable +consideration were John and Gouverneur Kemble, Henry Brevoort, Henry +Ogden, James K. Paulding, and Peter Irving. The saving influence for all +of them was the refined households they frequented and the association +of women who were high-spirited without prudery, and who united purity +and simplicity with wit, vivacity, and charm of manner. There is some +pleasant correspondence between Irving and Miss Mary Fairlie, a belle of +the time, who married the tragedian, Thomas A. Cooper; the "fascinating +Fairlie," as Irving calls her, and the Sophie Sparkle of the +"Salmagundi." Irving's susceptibility to the charms and graces of +women--a susceptibility which continued always fresh--was tempered and +ennobled by the most chivalrous admiration for the sex as a whole. He +placed them on an almost romantic pinnacle, and his actions always +conformed to his romantic ideal, although in his writings he sometimes +adopts the conventional satire which was more common fifty years ago +than now. In a letter to Miss Fairlie, written from Richmond, where he +was attending the trial of Aaron Burr, he expresses his exalted opinion +of the sex. It was said in accounting for the open sympathy of the +ladies with the prisoner that Burr had always been a favorite with them; +"but I am not inclined," he writes, "to account for it in so illiberal a +manner; it results from that merciful, that heavenly disposition, +implanted in the female bosom, which ever inclines in favor of the +accused and the unfortunate. You will smile at the high strain in which +I have indulged; believe me, it is because I feel it; and I love your +sex ten times better than ever."[1] + + [Footnote 1: An amusing story in connection with this Richmond + visit illustrates the romantic phase of Irving's character. + Cooper, who was playing at the theatre, needed small-clothes + for one of his parts; Irving lent him a pair,--knee-breeches + being still worn,--and the actor carried them off to Baltimore. + From that city he wrote that he had found in the pocket an + emblem of love, a mysterious locket of hair in the shape of a + heart. The history of it is curious: when Irving sojourned at + Genoa he was much taken with the beauty of a young Italian + lady, the wife of a Frenchman. He had never spoken with her, + but one evening before his departing he picked up from the + floor her handkerchief which she had dropped, and with more + gallantry than honesty carried it off to Sicily. His pocket was + picked of the precious relic while he was attending a religious + function in Catania, and he wrote to his friend Storm, the + consul at Genoa, deploring his loss. The consul communicated + the sad misfortune to the lovely Bianca, for that was the + lady's name, who thereupon sent him a lock of her hair, with + the request that he would come to see her on his return. He + never saw her again, but the lock of hair was inclosed in a + locket and worn about his neck, in memory of a radiant vision + that had crossed his path and vanished.] + +Personally, Irving must have awakened a reciprocal admiration. A drawing +by Vanderlyn, made in Paris in 1805, and a portrait by Jarvis in 1809, +present him to us in the fresh bloom of manly beauty. The face has an +air of distinction and gentle breeding; the refined lines, the poetic +chin, the sensitive mouth, the shapely nose, the large dreamy eyes, the +intellectual forehead, and the clustering brown locks are our ideal of +the author of the "Sketch-Book" and the pilgrim in Spain. His +biographer, Mr. Pierre M. Irving, has given no description of his +appearance; but a relative, who saw much of our author in his latter +years, writes to me: "He had dark gray eyes; a handsome straight nose, +which might perhaps be called large; a broad, high, full forehead, and a +small mouth. I should call him of medium height, about five feet eight +and a half to nine inches, and inclined to be a trifle stout. There was +no peculiarity about his voice; but it was pleasant and had a good +intonation. His smile was exceedingly genial, lighting up his whole face +and rendering it very attractive; while, if he were about to say +anything humorous, it would beam forth from his eyes even before the +words were spoken. As a young man his face was exceedingly handsome, and +his head was well covered with dark hair; but from my earliest +recollection of him he wore neither whiskers nor moustache, but a dark +brown wig, which, although it made him look younger, concealed a +beautifully shaped head." We can understand why he was a favorite in the +society of Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, and Albany, as well as +of New York, and why he liked to linger here and there, sipping the +social sweets, like a man born to leisure and seemingly idle observation +of life. + +It was in the midst of these social successes, and just after his +admission to the bar, that Irving gave the first decided evidence of the +choice of a career. This was his association with his eldest brother, +William, and Paulding in the production of "Salmagundi," a semi-monthly +periodical, in small duodecimo sheets, which ran with tolerable +regularity through twenty numbers, and stopped in full tide of success, +with the whimsical indifference to the public which had characterized +its every issue. Its declared purpose was "simply to instruct the young, +reform the old, correct the town, and castigate the age." In manner and +purpose it was an imitation of the "Spectator" and the "Citizen of the +World," and it must share the fate of all imitations; but its wit was +not borrowed, and its humor was to some extent original; and so +perfectly was it adapted to local conditions that it may be profitably +read to-day as a not untrue reflection of the manners and spirit of the +time and city. Its amusing audacity and complacent superiority, the +mystery hanging about its writers, its affectation of indifference to +praise or profit, its fearless criticism, lively wit, and irresponsible +humor, piqued, puzzled, and delighted the town. From the first it was an +immense success; it had a circulation in other cities, and many +imitations of it sprung up. Notwithstanding many affectations and +puerilities it is still readable to Americans. Of course, if it were +offered now to the complex and sophisticated society of New York, it +would fail to attract anything like the attention it received in the +days of simplicity and literary dearth; but the same wit, insight, and +literary art, informed with the modern spirit and turned upon the +follies and "whim-whams" of the metropolis, would doubtless have a great +measure of success. In Irving's contributions to it may be traced the +germs of nearly everything that he did afterwards; in it he tried the +various stops of his genius; he discovered his own power; his career was +determined; thereafter it was only a question of energy or necessity. + +In the summer of 1808 there were printed at Ballston-Spa--then the +resort of fashion and the arena of flirtation--seven numbers of a +duodecimo bagatelle in prose and verse, entitled "The Literary Picture +Gallery and Admonitory Epistles to the Visitors of Ballston-Spa, by +Simeon Senex, Esquire." This piece of summer nonsense is not referred to +by any writer who has concerned himself about Irving's life, but there +is reason to believe that he was a contributor to it if not the +editor.[1] + + [Footnote 1: For these stray reminders of the old-time gayety + of Ballston-Spa, I am indebted to J. Carson Brevoort, Esq., + whose father was Irving's most intimate friend, and who told + him that Irving had a hand in them.] + +In these yellow pages is a melancholy reflection of the gayety and +gallantry of the Sans Souci hotel seventy years ago. In this "Picture +Gallery," under the thin disguise of initials, are the portraits of +well-known belles of New York whose charms of person and graces of mind +would make the present reader regret his tardy advent into this world, +did not the "Admonitory Epistles," addressed to the same sex, remind him +that the manners of seventy years ago left much to be desired. In +respect of the habit of swearing, "Simeon" advises "Myra" that if ladies +were to confine themselves to a single round oath, it would be quite +sufficient; and he objects, when he is at the public table, to the +conduct of his neighbor who carelessly took up "Simeon's" fork and used +it as a tooth-pick. All this, no doubt, passed for wit in the beginning +of the century. Punning, broad satire, exaggerated compliment, verse +which has love for its theme and the "sweet bird of Venus" for its +object, an affectation of gallantry and of _ennui_, with anecdotes of +distinguished visitors, out of which the screaming fun has quite +evaporated, make up the staple of these faded mementos of ancient +watering-place. Yet how much superior is our comedy of to-day? The +beauty and the charms of the women of two generations ago exist only in +tradition; perhaps we should give to the wit of that time equal +admiration if none of it had been preserved. + +Irving, notwithstanding the success of "Salmagundi," did not immediately +devote himself to literature, nor seem to regard his achievements in it +as anything more than aids to social distinction. He was then, as +always, greatly influenced by his surroundings. These were unfavorable +to literary pursuits. Politics was the attractive field for preferment +and distinction; and it is more than probable that, even after the +success of the Knickerbocker history, he would have drifted through +life, half lawyer and half placeman, if the associations and stimulus of +an old civilization, in his second European residence, had not fired his +ambition. Like most young lawyers with little law and less clients, he +began to dabble in local politics. The experiment was not much to his +taste, and the association and work demanded, at that time, of a ward +politician soon disgusted him. "We have toiled through the purgatory of +an election," he writes to the fair Republican, Miss Fairlie, who +rejoiced in the defeat he and the Federals had sustained:-- + + "What makes me the more outrageous is, that I got fairly drawn into + the vortex, and before the third day was expired, I was as deep in + mud and politics as ever a moderate gentleman would wish to be; and + I drank beer with the multitude; and I talked hand-bill fashion + with the demagogues; and I shook hands with the mob, whom my heart + abhorreth. 'Tis true, for the first two days I maintained my + coolness and indifference. The first day I merely hunted for whim, + character, and absurdity, according to my usual custom; the second + day being rainy, I sat in the bar-room at the Seventh Ward, and + read a volume of 'Galatea,' which I found on a shelf; but before I + had got through a hundred pages, I had three or four good Feds + sprawling round me on the floor, and another with his eyes half + shut, leaning on my shoulder in the most affectionate manner, and + spelling a page of the book as if it had been an electioneering + hand-bill. But the third day--ah! then came the tug of war. My + patriotism then blazed forth, and I determined to save my country! + Oh, my friend, I have been in such holes and corners; such filthy + nooks and filthy corners; sweep offices and oyster cellars! 'I have + sworn brother to a leash of drawers, and can drink with any tinker + in his own language during my life,'--faugh! I shall not be able to + bear the smell of small beer and tobacco for a month to come.... + Truly this saving one's country is a nauseous piece of business, + and if patriotism is such a dirty virtue,--prythee, no more of it." + +He unsuccessfully solicited some civil appointment at Albany, a very +modest solicitation, which was never renewed, and which did not last +long, for he was no sooner there than he was "disgusted by the servility +and duplicity and rascality witnessed among the swarm of scrub +politicians." There was a promising young artist at that time in Albany, +and Irving wishes he were a man of wealth, to give him a helping hand; a +few acts of munificence of this kind by rich nabobs, he breaks out, +"would be more pleasing in the sight of Heaven, and more to the glory +and advantage of their country, than building a dozen shingle church +steeples, or buying a thousand venal votes at an election." This was in +the "good old times!" + +Although a Federalist, and, as he described himself, "an admirer of +General Hamilton, and a partisan with him in politics," he accepted a +retainer from Burr's friends in 1807, and attended his trial in +Richmond, but more in the capacity of an observer of the scene than a +lawyer. He did not share the prevalent opinion of Burr's treason, and +regarded him as a man so fallen as to be shorn of the power to injure +the country, one for whom he could feel nothing but compassion. That +compassion, however, he received only from the ladies of the city, and +the traits of female goodness manifested then sunk deep into Irving's +heart. Without pretending, he says, to decide on Burr's innocence or +guilt, "his situation is such as should appeal eloquently to the +feelings of every generous bosom. Sorry am I to say the reverse has been +the fact: fallen, proscribed, pre-judged, the cup of bitterness has been +administered to him with an unsparing hand. It has almost been +considered as culpable to evince toward him the least sympathy or +support; and many a hollow-hearted caitiff have I seen, who basked in +the sunshine of his bounty while in power, who now skulked from his +side, and even mingled among the most clamorous of his enemies.... I bid +him farewell with a heavy heart, and he expressed with peculiar warmth +and feeling his sense of the interest I had taken in his fate. I never +felt in a more melancholy mood than when I rode from his solitary +prison." This is a good illustration of Irving's tender-heartedness; but +considering Burr's whole character, it is altogether a womanish case of +misplaced sympathy with the cool slayer of Alexander Hamilton. + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. + + +Not long after the discontinuance of "Salmagundi," Irving in connection +with his brother Peter projected the work that was to make him famous. +At first nothing more was intended than a satire upon the "Picture of +New York," by Dr. Samuel Mitchell, just then published. It was begun as +a mere burlesque upon pedantry and erudition, and was well advanced, +when Peter was called by his business to Europe, and its completion was +fortunately left to Washington. In his mind the idea expanded into a +different conception. He condensed the mass of affected learning, which +was their joint work, into five introductory chapters,--subsequently he +said it would have been improved if it had been reduced to one, and it +seems to me it would have been better if that one had been thrown +away,--and finished "A History of New York," by Diedrich Knickerbocker, +substantially as we now have it. This was in 1809, when Irving was +twenty-six years old. + +But before this humorous creation was completed, the author endured the +terrible bereavement which was to color all his life. He had formed a +deep and tender passion for Matilda Hoffman, the second daughter of +Jeremiah Ogden Hoffman, in whose family he had long been on a footing of +the most perfect intimacy, and his ardent love was fully reciprocated. +He was restlessly casting about for some assured means of livelihood +which would enable him to marry, and perhaps his distrust of a literary +career was connected with this desire, when after a short illness Miss +Hoffman died, in the eighteenth year of her age. Without being a +dazzling beauty, she was lovely in person and mind, with most engaging +manners, a refined sensibility, and a delicate and playful humor. The +loss was a crushing blow to Irving, from the effects of which he never +recovered, although time softened the bitterness of his grief into a +tender and sacred memory. He could never bear to hear her name spoken +even by his most intimate friends, or any allusion to her. Thirty years +after her death, it happened one evening at the house of Mr. Hoffman, +her father, that a granddaughter was playing for Mr. Irving, and in +taking her music from the drawer, a faded piece of embroidery was +brought forth. "Washington," said Mr. Hoffman, picking it up, "this is a +piece of poor Matilda's workmanship." The effect was electric. He had +been talking in the sprightliest mood before, but he sunk at once into +utter silence, and in a few moments got up and left the house. + +After his death, in a private repository of which he always kept the +key, was found a lovely miniature, a braid of fair hair, and a slip of +paper, on which was written in his own hand, "Matilda Hoffman;" and with +these treasures were several pages of a memorandum in ink long since +faded. He kept through life her Bible and Prayer Book; they were placed +nightly under his pillow in the first days of anguish that followed her +loss, and ever after they were the inseparable companions of all his +wanderings. In this memorandum--which was written many years +afterwards--we read the simple story of his love:-- + + "We saw each other every day, and I became excessively attached to + her. Her shyness wore off by degrees. The more I saw of her the + more I had reason to admire her. Her mind seemed to unfold leaf by + leaf, and every time to discover new sweetness. Nobody knew her so + well as I, for she was generally timid and silent; but I in a + manner studied her excellence. Never did I meet with more intuitive + rectitude of mind, more native delicacy, more exquisite propriety + in word, thought, and action, than in this young creature. I am not + exaggerating; what I say was acknowledged by all who knew her. Her + brilliant little sister used to say that people began by admiring + her, but ended by loving Matilda. For my part, I idolized her. I + felt at times rebuked by her superior delicacy and purity, and as + if I was a coarse, unworthy being in comparison." + +At this time Irving was much perplexed about his career. He had "a fatal +propensity to belles-lettres;" his repugnance to the law was such that +his mind would not take hold of the study; he anticipated nothing from +legal pursuits or political employment; he was secretly writing the +humorous history, but was altogether in a low-spirited and disheartened +state. I quote again from the memorandum:-- + + "In the mean time I saw Matilda every day, and that helped to + distract me. In the midst of this struggle and anxiety she was + taken ill with a cold. Nothing was thought of it at first; but she + grew rapidly worse, and fell into a consumption. I cannot tell you + what I suffered. The ills that I have undergone in this life have + been dealt out to me drop by drop, and I have tasted all their + bitterness. I saw her fade rapidly away; beautiful, and more + beautiful, and more angelical to the last. I was often by her + bedside; and in her wandering state of mind she would talk to me + with a sweet, natural, and affecting eloquence, that was + overpowering. I saw more of the beauty of her mind in that + delirious state than I had ever known before. Her malady was rapid + in its career, and hurried her off in two months. Her dying + struggles were painful and protracted. For three days and nights I + did not leave the house, and scarcely slept. I was by her when she + died; all the family were assembled round her, some praying, others + weeping, for she was adored by them all. I was the last one she + looked upon. I have told you as briefly as I could what, if I were + to tell with all the incidents and feelings that accompanied it, + would fill volumes. She was but about seventeen years old when she + died. + + "I cannot tell you what a horrid state of mind I was in for a long + time. I seemed to care for nothing; the world was a blank to me. I + abandoned all thoughts of the law. I went into the country, but + could not bear solitude, yet could not endure society. There was a + dismal horror continually in my mind, that made me fear to be + alone. I had often to get up in the night, and seek the bedroom of + my brother, as if the having a human being by me would relieve me + from the frightful gloom of my own thoughts. + + "Months elapsed before my mind would resume any tone; but the + despondency I had suffered for a long time in the course of this + attachment, and the anguish that attended its catastrophe, seemed + to give a turn to my whole character, and throw some clouds into my + disposition, which have ever since hung about it. When I became + more calm and collected, I applied myself, by way of occupation, to + the finishing of my work. I brought it to a close, as well as I + could, and published it; but the time and circumstances in which it + was produced rendered me always unable to look upon it with + satisfaction. Still it took with the public, and gave me celebrity, + as an original work was something remarkable and uncommon in + America. I was noticed, caressed, and, for a time, elevated by the + popularity I had gained. I found myself uncomfortable in my + feelings in New York, and traveled about a little. Wherever I went + I was overwhelmed with attentions; I was full of youth and + animation, far different from the being I now am, and I was quite + flushed with this early taste of public favor. Still, however, the + career of gayety and notoriety soon palled on me. I seemed to drift + about without aim or object, at the mercy of every breeze; my heart + wanted anchorage. I was naturally susceptible, and tried to form + other attachments, but my heart would not hold on; it would + continually recur to what it had lost; and whenever there was a + pause in the hurry of novelty and excitement, I would sink into + dismal dejection. For years I could not talk on the subject of this + hopeless regret; I could not even mention her name; but her image + was continually before me, and I dreamt of her incessantly." + +This memorandum, it subsequently appeared, was a letter, or a transcript +of it, addressed to a married lady, Mrs. Foster, in which the story of +his early love was related, in reply to her question why he had never +married. It was in the year 1823, the year after the publication of +"Bracebridge Hall," while he sojourned in Dresden, that he became +intimate with an English family residing there, named Foster, and +conceived for the daughter, Miss Emily Foster, a warm friendship and +perhaps a deep attachment. The letter itself, which for the first time +broke the guarded seclusion of Irving's heart, is evidence of the tender +confidence that existed between him and this family. That this intimacy +would have resulted in marriage, or an offer of marriage, if the lady's +affections had not been preoccupied, the Fosters seem to have believed. +In an unauthorized addition to the "Life and Letters," inserted in the +English edition without the knowledge of the American editor, with some +such headings as, "History of his First Love brought to us, and +returned," and "Irving's Second Attachment," the Fosters tell the +interesting story of Irving's life in Dresden, and give many of his +letters, and an account of his intimacy with the family. From this +account I quote:-- + + "Soon after this, Mr. Irving, who had again for long felt 'the + tenderest interest warm his bosom, and finally enthrall his whole + soul,' made one vigorous and valiant effort to free himself from a + hopeless and consuming attachment. My mother counseled him, I + believe, for the best, and he left Dresden on an expedition of + several weeks into a country he had long wished to see, though, in + the main, it disappointed him; and he started with young Colbourne + (son of General Colbourne) as his companion. Some of his letters on + this journey are before the public; and in the agitation and + eagerness he there described, on receiving and opening letters from + us, and the tenderness in his replies,--the longing to be once more + in the little Pavilion, to which we had moved in the beginning of + the summer,--the letters (though carefully guarded by the delicacy + of her who intrusted them to the editor, and alone retained among + many more calculated to lay bare his true feelings), even + fragmentary as they are, point out the truth. + + "Here is the key to the journey to Silesia, the return to Dresden, + and, finally, to the journey from Dresden to Rotterdam in our + company, first planned so as to part at Cassel, where Mr. Irving + had intended to leave us and go down the Rhine, but subsequently + could not find in his heart to part. Hence, after a night of pale + and speechless melancholy, the gay, animated, happy countenance + with which he sprang to our coachbox to take his old seat on it, + and accompany us to Rotterdam. There even could he not part, but + joined us in the steamboat; and, after bearing us company as far as + a boat could follow us, at last tore himself away, to bury himself + in Paris, and try to work.... + + "It was fortunate, perhaps, that this affection was returned by the + _warmest friendship_ only, since it was destined that the + accomplishment of his wishes was impossible, for many obstacles + which lay in his way; and it is with pleasure I can truly say that + in time he schooled himself to view, also with friendship only, one + who for some time past has been the wife of another." + +Upon the delicacy of this revelation the biographer does not comment, +but he says that the idea that Irving thought of marriage at that time +is utterly disproved by the following passage from the very manuscript +which he submitted to Mrs. Foster:-- + + "You wonder why I am not married. I have shown you why I was not + long since. When I had sufficiently recovered from that loss, I + became involved in ruin. It was not for a man broken down in the + world, to drag down any woman to his paltry circumstances. I was + too proud to tolerate the idea of ever mending my circumstances by + matrimony. My time has now gone by; and I have growing claims upon + my thoughts and upon my means, slender and precarious as they are. + I feel as if I already had a family to think and provide for." + +Upon the question of attachment and depression, Mr. Pierre Irving +says:-- + + "While the editor does not question Mr. Irving's great enjoyment of + his intercourse with the Fosters, or his deep regret at parting + from them, he is too familiar with his occasional fits of + depression to have drawn from their recurrence on his return to + Paris any such inference as that to which the lady alludes. Indeed, + his 'memorandum book' and letters show him to have had, at this + time, sources of anxiety of quite a different nature. The allusion + to his having 'to put once more to sea' evidently refers to his + anxiety on returning to his literary pursuits, after a season of + entire idleness." + +It is not for us to question the judgment of the biographer, with his +full knowledge of the circumstances and his long intimacy with his +uncle; yet it is evident that Irving was seriously impressed at Dresden, +and that he was very much unsettled until he drove away the impression +by hard work with his pen; and it would be nothing new in human nature +and experience if he had for a time yielded to the attractions of +loveliness and a most congenial companionship, and had returned again to +an exclusive devotion to the image of the early loved and lost. + +That Irving intended never to marry is an inference I cannot draw either +from his fondness for the society of women, from his interest in the +matrimonial projects of his friends and the gossip which has feminine +attractions for its food, or from his letters to those who had his +confidence. In a letter written from Birmingham, England, March 15, +1816, to his dear friend Henry Brevoort, who was permitted more than +perhaps any other person to see his secret heart, he alludes, with +gratification, to the report of the engagement of James Paulding, and +then says:-- + + "It is what we must all come to at last. I see you are hankering + after it, and I confess I have done so for a long time past. We + are, however, past that period [Irving was thirty-two] when a man + marries suddenly and inconsiderately. We may be longer making a + choice, and consulting the convenience and concurrence of easy + circumstances, but we shall both come to it sooner or later. I + therefore recommend you to marry without delay. You have sufficient + means, connected with your knowledge and habits of business, to + support a genteel establishment, and I am certain that as soon as + you are married you will experience a change in your ideas. All + those vagabond, roving propensities will cease. They are the + offspring of idleness of mind and a want of something to fix the + feelings. You are like a bark without an anchor, that drifts about + at the mercy of every vagrant breeze or trifling eddy. Get a wife, + and she'll anchor you. But don't marry a fool because she has a + pretty face, and don't seek after a great belle. Get such a girl as + Mary ----, or get her if you can; though I am afraid she has still + an unlucky kindness for poor ----, which will stand in the way of + her fortunes. I wish to God they were rich, and married, and + happy!" + +The business reverses which befell the Irving brothers, and which drove +Washington to the toil of the pen, and cast upon him heavy family +responsibilities, defeated his plans of domestic happiness in marriage. +It was in this same year, 1816, when the fortunes of the firm were daily +becoming more dismal, that he wrote to Brevoort, upon the report that +the latter was likely to remain a bachelor: "We are all selfish beings. +Fortune by her tardy favors and capricious freaks seems to discourage +all my matrimonial resolves, and if I am doomed to live an old bachelor, +I am anxious to have good company. I cannot bear that all my old +companions should launch away into the married state, and leave me alone +to tread this desolate and sterile shore." And, in view of a possible +life of scant fortune, he exclaims: "Thank Heaven, I was brought up in +simple and inexpensive habits, and I have satisfied myself that, if need +be, I can resume them without repining or inconvenience. Though I am +willing, therefore, that Fortune should shower her blessings upon me, +and think I can enjoy them as well as most men, yet I shall not make +myself unhappy if she chooses to be scanty, and shall take the position +allotted me with a cheerful and contented mind." + +When Irving passed the winter of 1823 in the charming society of the +Fosters at Dresden, the success of the "Sketch-Book" and "Bracebridge +Hall" had given him assurance of his ability to live comfortably by the +use of his pen. + +To resume. The preliminary announcement of the History was a humorous +and skillful piece of advertising. Notices appeared in the newspapers of +the disappearance from his lodging of "a small, elderly gentleman, +dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of +Knickerbocker." Paragraphs from week to week, purporting to be the +result of inquiry, elicited the facts that such an old gentleman had +been seen traveling north in the Albany stage; that his name was +Diedrich Knickerbocker; that he went away owing his landlord; and that +he left behind a very curious kind of a written book, which would be +sold to pay his bills if he did not return. So skillfully was this +managed that one of the city officials was on the point of offering a +reward for the discovery of the missing Diedrich. This little man in +knee-breeches and cocked hat was the germ of the whole "Knickerbocker +legend," a fantastic creation, which in a manner took the place of +history, and stamped upon the commercial metropolis of the New World the +indelible Knickerbocker name and character; and even now in the city it +is an undefined patent of nobility to trace descent from "an old +Knickerbocker family." + +The volume, which was first printed in Philadelphia, was put forth as a +grave history of the manners and government under the Dutch rulers, and +so far was the covert humor carried that it was dedicated to the New +York Historical Society. Its success was far beyond Irving's +expectation. It met with almost universal acclaim. It is true that some +of the old Dutch inhabitants who sat down to its perusal, expecting to +read a veritable account of the exploits of their ancestors, were +puzzled by the indirection of its commendation; and several excellent +old ladies of New York and Albany were in blazing indignation at the +ridicule put upon the old Dutch people, and minded to ostracize the +irreverent author from all social recognition. As late as 1818, in an +address before the Historical Society, Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck, Irving's +friend, showed the deep irritation the book had caused, by severe +strictures on it as a "coarse caricature." But the author's winning ways +soon dissipated the social cloud, and even the Dutch critics were +erelong disarmed by the absence of all malice in the gigantic humor of +the composition. One of the first foreigners to recognize the power and +humor of the book was Walter Scott. "I have never," he wrote, "read +anything so closely resembling the style of Dean Swift as the annals of +Diedrich Knickerbocker. I have been employed these few evenings in +reading them aloud to Mrs. S. and two ladies who are our guests, and our +sides have been absolutely sore with laughing. I think, too, there are +passages which indicate that the author possesses power of a different +kind, and has some touches which remind me of Sterne." + +The book is indeed an original creation, and one of the few masterpieces +of humor. In spontaneity, freshness, breadth of conception, and joyous +vigor, it belongs to the spring-time of literature. It has entered into +the popular mind as no other American book ever has, and it may be said +to have created a social realm which, with all its whimsical conceit, +has almost historical solidity. The Knickerbocker pantheon is almost as +real as that of Olympus. The introductory chapters are of that +elephantine facetiousness which pleased our great-grandfathers, but +which is exceedingly tedious to modern taste; and the humor of the book +occasionally has a breadth that is indelicate to our apprehension, +though it perhaps did not shock our great-grandmothers. But, +notwithstanding these blemishes, I think the work has more enduring +qualities than even the generation which it first delighted gave it +credit for. The world, however, it must be owned, has scarcely yet the +courage of its humor, and dullness still thinks it necessary to +apologize for anything amusing. There is little doubt that Irving +himself supposed that his serious work was of more consequence to the +world. + +It seems strange that after this success Irving should have hesitated to +adopt literature as his profession. But for two years, and with leisure, +he did nothing. He had again some hope of political employment in a +small way; and at length he entered into a mercantile partnership with +his brothers, which was to involve little work for him, and a share of +the profits that should assure his support, and leave him free to follow +his fitful literary inclinations. Yet he seems to have been mainly +intent upon society and the amusements of the passing hour, and, without +the spur of necessity to his literary capacity, he yielded to the +temptations of indolence, and settled into the unpromising position of a +"man about town." Occasionally, the business of his firm and that of +other importing merchants being imperiled by some threatened action of +Congress, Irving was sent to Washington to look after their interests. +The leisurely progress he always made to the capital through the +seductive society of Philadelphia and Baltimore did not promise much +business dispatch. At the seat of government he was certain to be +involved in a whirl of gayety. His letters from Washington are more +occupied with the odd characters he met than with the measures of +legislation. These visits greatly extended his acquaintance with the +leading men of the country; his political leanings did not prevent an +intimacy with the President's family, and Mrs. Madison and he were sworn +friends. + +It was of the evening of his first arrival in Washington that he writes: +"I emerged from dirt and darkness into the blazing splendor of Mrs. +Madison's drawing-room. Here I was most graciously received; found a +crowded collection of great and little men, of ugly old women and +beautiful young ones, and in ten minutes was hand and glove with half +the people in the assemblage. Mrs. Madison is a fine, portly, buxom +dame, who has a smile and a pleasant word for everybody. Her sisters, +Mrs. Cutts and Mrs. Washington, are like two merry wives of Windsor; but +as to Jemmy Madison,--oh, poor Jemmy!--he is but a withered little +apple-john." + +Odd characters congregated then in Washington as now. One honest fellow, +who, by faithful fagging at the heels of Congress, had obtained a +profitable post under government, shook Irving heartily by the hand, and +professed himself always happy to see anybody that came from New York; +"somehow or another, it was _natteral_ to him," being the place where he +was _first_ born. Another fellow-townsman was "endeavoring to obtain a +deposit in the Mechanics' Bank, in case the United States Bank does not +obtain a charter. He is as deep as usual; shakes his head and winks +through his spectacles at everybody he meets. He swore to me the other +day that he had not told anybody what his opinion was,--whether the bank +ought to have a charter or not. Nobody in Washington knew what his +opinion was--not one--nobody; he defied any one to say what it +was--'anybody--damn the one! No, sir, nobody knows;' and if he had added +nobody cares, I believe honest ---- would have been exactly in the +right. Then there's his brother George: 'Damn that fellow,--knows eight +or nine languages; yes, sir, nine languages,--Arabic, Spanish, Greek, +Ital--And there's his wife, now,--she and Mrs. Madison are always +together. Mrs. Madison has taken a great fancy to her little daughter. +Only think, sir, that child is only six years old, and talks the Italian +like a book, by ----; little devil learnt it from an Italian +servant,--damned clever fellow; lived with my brother George ten years. +George says he would not part with him for all Tripoli,'" etc. + +It was always difficult for Irving, in those days, to escape from the +genial blandishments of Baltimore and Philadelphia. Writing to Brevoort +from Philadelphia, March 16, 1811, he says: "The people of Baltimore are +exceedingly social and hospitable to strangers, and I saw that if I once +let myself get into the stream I should not be able to get out under a +fortnight at least; so, being resolved to push home as expeditiously as +was honorably possible, I resisted the world, the flesh, and the devil +at Baltimore; and after three days' and nights' stout carousal, and a +fourth's sickness, sorrow, and repentance, I hurried off from that +sensual city." + +Jarvis, the artist, was at that time the eccentric and elegant lion of +society in Baltimore. "Jack Randolph" had recently sat to him for his +portrait. "By the bye [the letter continues] that little 'hydra and +chimera dire,' Jarvis, is in prodigious circulation at Baltimore. The +gentlemen have all voted him a rare wag and most brilliant wit; and the +ladies pronounce him one of the queerest, ugliest, most agreeable little +creatures in the world. The consequence is there is not a ball, +tea-party, concert, supper, or other private regale but that Jarvis is +the most conspicuous personage; and as to a dinner, they can no more do +without him than they could without Friar John at the roystering revels +of the renowned Pantagruel." Irving gives one of his _bon mots_ which +was industriously repeated at all the dinner tables, a profane sally, +which seemed to tickle the Baltimoreans exceedingly. Being very much +importuned to go to church, he resolutely refused, observing that it was +the same thing whether he went or stayed at home. "If I don't go," said +he, "the minister says I'll be d----d, and I'll be d----d if I do go." + +This same letter contains a pretty picture, and the expression of +Irving's habitual kindly regard for his fellow-men:-- + + "I was out visiting with Ann yesterday, and met that little + assemblage of smiles and fascinations, Mary Jackson. She was + bounding with youth, health, and innocence, and good humor. She had + a pretty straw hat, tied under her chin with a pink ribbon, and + looked like some little woodland nymph, just turned out by spring + and fine weather. God bless her light heart, and grant it may never + know care or sorrow! It's enough to cure spleen and melancholy only + to look at her. + + "Your familiar pictures of home made me extremely desirous again + to be there.... I shall once more return to sober life, satisfied + with having secured three months of sunshine in this valley of + shadows and darkness. In this space of time I have seen + considerable of the world, but I am sadly afraid I have not grown + wiser thereby, inasmuch as it has generally been asserted by the + sages of every age that wisdom consists in a knowledge of the + wickedness of mankind, and the wiser a man grows the more + discontented he becomes with those around him. Whereas, woe is me, + I return in infinitely better humor with the world than I ever was + before, and with a most melancholy good opinion and good will for + the great mass of my fellow-creatures!" + +Free intercourse with men of all parties, he thought, tends to divest a +man's mind of party bigotry. + + "One day [he writes] I am dining with a knot of honest, furious + Federalists, who are damning all their opponents as a set of + consummate scoundrels, panders of Bonaparte, etc. The next day I + dine, perhaps, with some of the very men I have heard thus + anathematized, and find them equally honest, warm, and indignant; + and if I take their word for it, I had been dining the day before + with some of the greatest knaves in the nation, men absolutely paid + and suborned by the British government." + +His friends at this time attempted to get him appointed secretary of +legation to the French mission, under Joel Barlow, then minister, but he +made no effort to secure the place. Perhaps he was deterred by the +knowledge that the author of "The Columbiad" suspected him, though +unjustly, of some strictures on his great epic. He had in mind a book of +travel in his own country, in which he should sketch manners and +characters; but nothing came of it. The peril to trade involved in the +War of 1812 gave him some forebodings, and aroused him to exertion. He +accepted the editorship of a periodical called "Select Reviews," +afterwards changed to the "Analectic Magazine," for which he wrote +sketches, some of which were afterwards put into the "Sketch-Book," and +several reviews and naval biographies. A brief biography of Thomas +Campbell was also written about this time, as introductory to an edition +of "Gertrude of Wyoming." But the slight editorial care required by the +magazine was irksome to a man who had an unconquerable repugnance to +all periodical labor. + +In 1813 Francis Jeffrey made a visit to the United States. Henry +Brevoort, who was then in London, wrote an anxious letter to Irving to +impress him with the necessity of making much of Mr. Jeffrey. "It is +essential," he says, "that Jeffrey may imbibe a just estimate of the +United States and its inhabitants; he goes out strongly biased in our +favor, and the influence of his good opinion upon his return to this +country will go far to efface the calumnies and the absurdities that +have been laid to our charge by ignorant travelers. Persuade him to +visit Washington, and by all means to see the Falls of Niagara." The +impression seems to have prevailed that if Englishmen could be made to +take a just view of the Falls of Niagara the misunderstandings between +the two countries would be reduced. Peter Irving, who was then in +Edinburgh, was impressed with the brilliant talent of the editor of the +"Review," disguised as it was by affectation, but he said he "would not +give the Minstrel for a wilderness of Jeffreys." + +The years from 1811 to 1815, when he went abroad for the second time, +were passed by Irving in a sort of humble waiting on Providence. His +letters to Brevoort during this period are full of the _ennui_ of +irresolute youth. He idled away weeks and months in indolent enjoyment +in the country; he indulged his passion for the theatre when opportunity +offered; and he began to be weary of a society which offered little +stimulus to his mind. His was the temperament of the artist, and America +at that time had little to evoke or to satisfy the artistic feeling. +There were few pictures and no galleries; there was no music, except the +amateur torture of strings which led the country dance, or the martial +inflammation of fife and drum, or the sentimental dawdling here and +there over the ancient harpsichord, with the songs of love, and the +broad or pathetic staves and choruses of the convivial table; and there +was no literary atmosphere. + +After three months of indolent enjoyment in the winter and spring of +1811, Irving is complaining to Brevoort in June of the enervation of his +social life: "I do want most deplorably to apply my mind to something +that will arouse and animate it; for at present it is very indolent and +relaxed, and I find it very difficult to shake off the lethargy that +enthralls it. This makes me restless and dissatisfied with myself, and I +am convinced I shall not feel comfortable and contented until my mind is +fully employed. Pleasure is but a transient stimulus, and leaves the +mind more enfeebled than before. Give me rugged toils, fierce +disputation, wrangling controversy, harassing research,--give me +anything that calls forth the energies of the mind; but for Heaven's +sake shield me from those calms, those tranquil slumberings, those +enervating triflings, those siren blandishments, that I have for some +time indulged in, which lull the mind into complete inaction, which +benumb its powers, and cost it such painful and humiliating struggles to +regain its activity and independence!" + +Irving at this time of life seemed always waiting by the pool for some +angel to come and trouble the waters. To his correspondent, who was in +the wilds of Michilimackinac, he continues to lament his morbid +inability. The business in which his thriving brothers were engaged was +the importation and sale of hardware and cutlery, and that spring his +services were required at the "store." "By all the martyrs of Grub +Street [he exclaims], I'd sooner live in a garret, and starve into the +bargain, than follow so sordid, dusty, and soul-killing a way of life, +though certain it would make me as rich as old Croesus, or John Jacob +Astor himself!" The sparkle of society was no more agreeable to him than +the rattle of cutlery. "I have scarcely [he writes] seen anything of the +----s since your departure; business and an amazing want of inclination +have kept me from their threshold. Jim, that sly poacher, however, +prowls about there, and vitrifies his heart by the furnace of their +charms. I accompanied him there on Sunday evening last, and found the +Lads and Miss Knox with them. S---- was in great spirits, and played the +sparkler with such great success as to silence the whole of us excepting +Jim, who was the _agreeable rattle_ of the evening. God defend me from +such vivacity as hers, in future,--such smart speeches without meaning, +such bubble and squeak nonsense! I'd as lieve stand by a frying-pan for +an hour and listen to the cooking of apple fritters. After two hours' +dead silence and suffering on my part I made out to drag him off, and +did not stop running until I was a mile from the house." Irving gives +his correspondent graphic pictures of the social warfare in which he was +engaged, the "host of rascally little tea-parties" in which he was +entangled; and some of his portraits of the "divinities," the +"blossoms," and the beauties of that day would make the subjects of them +flutter with surprise in the church-yards where they lie. The writer was +sated with the "tedious commonplace of fashionable society," and +languishing to return to his books and his pen. + +In March, 1812, in the shadow of the war and the depression of business, +Irving was getting out a new edition of the "Knickerbocker," which +Inskeep was to publish, agreeing to pay $1,200 at six months for an +edition of fifteen hundred. The modern publisher had not then arisen and +acquired a proprietary right in the brains of the country, and the +author made his bargains like an independent being who owned himself. + +Irving's letters of this period are full of the gossip of the town and +the matrimonial fate of his acquaintances. The fascinating Mary Fairlie +is at length married to Cooper, the tragedian, with the opposition of +her parents, after a dismal courtship and a cloudy prospect of +happiness. "Goodhue is engaged to Miss Clarkson, the sister to the +pretty one. The engagement suddenly took place as they walked from +church on Christmas Day, and report says the action was shorter than any +of our naval victories, for the lady struck on the first broadside." The +war colored all social life and conversation. "This war [the letter is +to Brevoort, who is in Europe] has completely changed the face of things +here. You would scarcely recognize our old peaceful city. Nothing is +talked of but armies, navies, battles, etc." The same phenomenon was +witnessed then that was observed in the war for the Union: "Men who had +loitered about, the hangers-on and encumbrances of society, have all at +once risen to importance, and been the only useful men of the day." The +exploits of our young navy kept up the spirits of the country. There was +great rejoicing when the captured frigate Macedonian was brought into +New York, and was visited by the curious as she lay wind-bound above +Hell Gate. "A superb dinner was given to the naval heroes, at which all +the great eaters and drinkers of the city were present. It was the +noblest entertainment of the kind I ever witnessed. On New Year's Eve a +grand ball was likewise given, where there was a vast display of great +and little people. The Livingstons were there in all their glory. Little +Rule Britannia made a gallant appearance at the head of a train of +beauties, among whom were the divine H----, who looked very inviting, +and the little Taylor, who looked still more so. Britannia was +gorgeously dressed in a queer kind of hat of stiff purple and silver +stuff, that had marvelously the appearance of copper, and made us +suppose that she had procured the real Mambrino helmet. Her dress was +trimmed with what we simply mistook for scalps, and supposed it was in +honor of the nation; but we blushed at our ignorance on discovering that +it was a gorgeous trimming of marten tips. Would that some eminent +furrier had been there to wonder and admire!" + +With a little business and a good deal of loitering, waiting upon the +whim of his pen, Irving passed the weary months of the war. As late as +August, 1814, he is still giving Brevoort, who has returned, and is at +Rockaway Beach, the light gossip of the town. It was reported that +Brevoort and Dennis had kept a journal of their foreign travel, "which +is so exquisitely humorous that Mrs. Cooper, on only looking at the +first word, fell into a fit of laughing that lasted half an hour." +Irving is glad that he cannot find Brevoort's flute, which the latter +requested should be sent to him: "I do not think it would be an innocent +amusement for you, as no one has a right to entertain himself at the +expense of others." In such dallying and badinage the months went on, +affairs every day becoming more serious. Appended to a letter of +September 9, 1814, is a list of twenty well-known mercantile houses that +had failed within the preceding three weeks. Irving himself, shortly +after this, enlisted in the war, and his letters thereafter breathe +patriotic indignation at the insulting proposals of the British and +their rumored attack on New York, and all his similes, even those having +love for their subject, are martial and bellicose. Item: "The gallant +Sam has fairly changed front, and, instead of laying siege to Douglas +castle, has charged sword in hand, and carried little Cooper's +entrenchments." + +As a Federalist and an admirer of England, Irving had deplored the war, +but his sympathies were not doubtful after it began, and the burning of +the national Capitol by General Ross aroused him to an active +participation in the struggle. He was descending the Hudson in a +steamboat when the tidings first reached him. It was night, and the +passengers had gone into the cabin, when a man came on board with the +news, and in the darkness related the particulars: the burning of the +President's house and government offices, and the destruction of the +Capitol, with the library and public archives. In the momentary silence +that followed, somebody raised his voice, and in a tone of complacent +derision "wondered what _Jimmy_ Madison would say now." "Sir," cried +Mr. Irving, in a burst of indignation that overcame his habitual +shyness, "do you seize upon such a disaster only for a sneer? Let me +tell you, sir, it is not now a question about _Jimmy_ Madison or _Jimmy_ +Armstrong. The pride and honor of the nation are wounded; the country is +insulted and disgraced by this barbarous success, and every loyal +citizen would feel the ignominy and be earnest to avenge it." There was +an outburst of applause, and the sneerer was silenced. "I could not see +the fellow," said Mr. Irving, in relating the anecdote, "but I let fly +at him in the dark." + +The next day he offered his services to Governor Tompkins, and was made +the governor's aid and military secretary, with the right to be +addressed as Col. Washington Irving. He served only four months in this +capacity, when Governor Tompkins was called to the session of the +legislature at Albany. Irving intended to go to Washington and apply for +a commission in the regular army, but he was detained at Philadelphia by +the affairs of his magazine, until news came in February, 1815, of the +close of the war. In May of that year he embarked for England to visit +his brother, intending only a short sojourn. He remained abroad +seventeen years. + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + LIFE IN EUROPE: LITERARY ACTIVITY. + + +When Irving sailed from New York, it was with lively anticipations of +witnessing the stirring events to follow the return of Bonaparte from +Elba. When he reached Liverpool the curtain had fallen in Bonaparte's +theatre. The first spectacle that met the traveler's eye was the mail +coaches, darting through the streets, decked with laurel and bringing +the news of Waterloo. As usual, Irving's sympathies were with the +unfortunate. "I think," he says, writing of the exile of St. Helena, +"the cabinet has acted with littleness toward him. In spite of all his +misdeeds he is a noble fellow [_pace_ Madame de Rémusat], and I am +confident will eclipse, in the eyes of posterity, all the crowned +wiseacres that have crushed him by their overwhelming confederacy. If +anything could place the Prince Regent in a more ridiculous light, it is +Bonaparte suing for his magnanimous protection. Every compliment paid +to this bloated sensualist, this inflation of sack and sugar, turns to +the keenest sarcasm." + +After staying a week with his brother Peter, who was recovering from an +indisposition, Irving went to Birmingham, the residence of his +brother-in-law, Henry Van Wart, who had married his youngest sister, +Sarah; and from thence to Sydenham, to visit Campbell. The poet was not +at home. To Mrs. Campbell Irving expressed his regret that her husband +did not attempt something on a grand scale. + + "'It is unfortunate for Campbell,' said she, 'that he lives in the + same age with Scott and Byron.' I asked why. 'Oh,' said she, 'they + write so much and so rapidly. Mr. Campbell writes slowly, and it + takes him some time to get under way; and just as he has fairly + begun out comes one of their poems, that sets the world agog, and + quite daunts him, so that he throws by his pen in despair.' I + pointed out the essential difference in their kinds of poetry, and + the qualities which insured perpetuity to that of her husband. 'You + can't persuade Campbell of that,' said she. 'He is apt to + undervalue his own works, and to consider his own little lights + put out, whenever they come blazing out with their great torches.' + + "I repeated the conversation to Scott some time afterward, and it + drew forth a characteristic comment. 'Pooh!' said he, good + humoredly; 'how can Campbell mistake the matter so much? Poetry + goes by quality, not by bulk. My poems are mere cairngorms, wrought + up, perhaps, with a cunning hand, and may pass well in the market + as long as cairngorms are the fashion; but they are mere Scotch + pebbles, after all. Now, Tom Campbell's are real diamonds, and + diamonds of the first water.'" + +Returning to Birmingham, Irving made excursions to Kenilworth, Warwick, +and Stratford-on-Avon, and a tour through Wales with James Renwick, a +young American of great promise, who at the age of nineteen had for a +time filled the chair of natural philosophy in Columbia College. He was +a son of Mrs. Jane Renwick, a charming woman and a life-long friend of +Irving, the daughter of the Rev. Andrew Jeffrey, of Lochmaben, Scotland, +and famous in literature as "The Blue-Eyed Lassie" of Burns. From +another song, "When first I saw my Jeanie's Face," which does not +appear in the poet's collected works, the biographer quotes:-- + + "But, sair, I doubt some happier swain + Has gained my Jeanie's favor; + If sae, may every bliss be hers, + Tho' I can never have her. + + "But gang she east, or gang she west, + 'Twixt Nith and Tweed all over, + While men have eyes, or ears, or taste, + She'll always find a lover." + +During Irving's protracted stay in England he did not by any means lose +his interest in his beloved New York and the little society that was +always dear to him. He relied upon his friend Brevoort to give him the +news of the town, and in return he wrote long letters,--longer and more +elaborate and formal than this generation has leisure to write or to +read; letters in which the writer laid himself out to be entertaining, +and detailed his emotions and state of mind as faithfully as his travels +and outward experiences. + +No sooner was our war with England over than our navy began to make a +reputation for itself in the Mediterranean. In his letter of August, +1815, Irving dwells with pride on Decatur's triumph over the Algerine +pirates. He had just received a letter from that "worthy little tar, +Jack Nicholson," dated on board the Flambeau, off Algiers. In it +Nicholson says that "they fell in with and captured the admiral's ship, +and _killed him_." Upon which Irving remarks: "As this is all that +Jack's brevity will allow him to say on the subject, I should be at a +loss to know whether they killed the admiral _before_ or _after_ his +capture. The well-known humanity of our tars, however, induces me to the +former conclusion." Nicholson, who has the honor of being alluded to in +"The Croakers," was always a great favorite with Irving. His gallantry +on shore was equal to his bravery at sea, but unfortunately his +diffidence was greater than his gallantry; and while his susceptibility +to female charms made him an easy and a frequent victim, he could never +muster the courage to declare his passion. Upon one occasion, when he +was desperately enamored of a lady whom he wished to marry, he got +Irving to write for him a love-letter, containing an offer of his heart +and hand. The enthralled but bashful sailor carried the letter in his +pocket till it was worn out, without ever being able to summon pluck +enough to deliver it. + +While Irving was in Wales the Wiggins family and Madame Bonaparte passed +through Birmingham, on their way to Cheltenham. Madame was still +determined to assert her rights as a Bonaparte. Irving cannot help +expressing sympathy for Wiggins: "The poor man has his hands full, with +such a bevy of beautiful women under his charge, and all doubtless bent +on pleasure and admiration." He hears, however, nothing further of her, +except the newspapers mention her being at Cheltenham. "There are so +many stars and comets thrown out of their orbits, and whirling about the +world at present, that a little star like Madame Bonaparte attracts but +slight attention, even though she draw after her so sparkling a tail as +the Wiggins family." In another letter he exclaims: "The world is surely +topsy-turvy, and its inhabitants shaken out of place: emperors and +kings, statesmen and philosophers, Bonaparte, Alexander, Johnson, and +the Wigginses, all strolling about the face of the earth." + +The business of the Irving brothers soon absorbed all Washington's time +and attention. Peter was an invalid, and the whole weight of the +perplexing affairs of the failing firm fell upon the one who detested +business, and counted every hour lost that he gave to it. His letters +for two years are burdened with harassments in uncongenial details and +unsuccessful struggles. Liverpool, where he was compelled to pass most +of his time, had few attractions for him, and his low spirits did not +permit him to avail himself of such social advantages as were offered. +It seems that our enterprising countrymen flocked abroad, on the +conclusion of peace. "This place [writes Irving] swarms with Americans. +You never saw a more motley race of beings. Some seem as if just from +the woods, and yet stalk about the streets and public places with all +the easy nonchalance that they would about their own villages. Nothing +can surpass the dauntless independence of all form, ceremony, fashion, +or reputation of a downright, unsophisticated American. Since the war, +too, particularly, our lads seem to think they are 'the salt of the +earth' and the legitimate lords of creation. It would delight you to +see some of them playing Indian when surrounded by the wonders and +improvements of the Old World. It is impossible to match these fellows +by anything this side the water. Let an Englishman talk of the battle of +Waterloo, and they will immediately bring up New Orleans and Plattsburg. +A thoroughbred, thoroughly appointed soldier is nothing to a Kentucky +rifleman," etc., etc. In contrast to this sort of American was Charles +King, who was then abroad: "Charles is exactly what an American should +be abroad: frank, manly, and unaffected in his habits and manners, +liberal and independent in his opinions, generous and unprejudiced in +his sentiments towards other nations, but most loyally attached to his +own." There was a provincial narrowness at that date and long after in +America, which deprecated the open-minded patriotism of King and of +Irving as it did the clear-sighted loyalty of Fenimore Cooper. + +The most anxious time of Irving's life was the winter of 1815-16. The +business worry increased. He was too jaded with the din of pounds, +shillings, and pence to permit his pen to invent facts or to adorn +realities. Nevertheless, he occasionally escapes from the tread-mill. In +December he is in London, and entranced with the acting of Miss O'Neil. +He thinks that Brevoort, if he saw her, would infallibly fall in love +with this "divine perfection of a woman." He writes: "She is, to my +eyes, the most soul-subduing actress I ever saw; I do not mean from her +personal charms, which are great, but from the truth, force, and pathos +of her acting. I have never been so completely melted, moved, and +overcome at a theatre as by her performances.... Kean, the prodigy, is +to me insufferable. He is vulgar, full of trick, and a complete +mannerist. This is merely my opinion. He is cried up as a second +Garrick, as a reformer of the stage, etc. It may be so. He may be right, +and all the other actors wrong. This is certain: he is either very good +or very bad. I think decidedly the latter; and I find no medium opinions +concerning him. I am delighted with Young, who acts with great judgment, +discrimination, and feeling. I think him much the best actor at present +on the English stage.... In certain characters, such as may be classed +with Macbeth, I do not think that Cooper has his equal in England. Young +is the only actor I have seen who can compare with him." Later, Irving +somewhat modified his opinion of Kean. He wrote to Brevoort: "Kean is a +strange compound of merits and defects. His excellence consists in +sudden and brilliant touches, in vivid exhibitions of passion and +emotion. I do not think him a discriminating actor, or critical either +at understanding or delineating character; but he produces effects which +no other actor does." + +In the summer of 1816, on his way from Liverpool to visit his sister's +family at Birmingham, Irving tarried for a few days at a country place +near Shrewsbury on the border of Wales, and while there encountered a +character whose portrait is cleverly painted. It is interesting to +compare this first sketch with the elaboration of it in the essay on The +Angler in the "Sketch-Book." + + "In one of our morning strolls [he writes, July 15th] along the + banks of the Aleen, a beautiful little pastoral stream that rises + among the Welsh mountains and throws itself into the Dee, we + encountered a veteran angler of old Isaac Walton's school. He was + an old Greenwich out-door pensioner, had lost one leg in the battle + of Camperdown, had been in America in his youth, and indeed had + been quite a rover, but for many years past had settled himself + down in his native village, not far distant, where he lived very + independently on his pension and some other small annual sums, + amounting in all to about £40. His great hobby, and indeed the + business of his life, was to angle. I found he had read Isaac + Walton very attentively; he seemed to have imbibed all his + simplicity of heart, contentment of mind, and fluency of tongue. We + kept company with him almost the whole day, wandering along the + beautiful banks of the river, admiring the ease and elegant + dexterity with which the old fellow managed his angle, throwing the + fly with unerring certainty at a great distance and among + overhanging bushes, and waving it gracefully in the air, to keep it + from entangling, as he stumped with his staff and wooden leg from + one bend of the river to another. He kept up a continual flow of + cheerful and entertaining talk, and what I particularly liked him + for was, that though we tried every way to entrap him into some + abuse of America and its inhabitants, there was no getting him to + utter an ill-natured word concerning us. His whole conversation and + deportment illustrated old Isaac's maxims as to the benign + influence of angling over the human heart.... I ought to mention + that he had two companions--one, a ragged, picturesque varlet, that + had all the air of a veteran poacher, and I warrant would find any + fish-pond in the neighborhood in the darkest night; the other was a + disciple of the old philosopher, studying the art under him, and + was son and heir apparent to the landlady of the village tavern." + +A contrast to this pleasing picture is afforded by some character +sketches at the little watering-place of Buxton, which our kindly +observer visited the same year. + + "At the hotel where we put up [he writes] we had a most singular + and whimsical assemblage of beings. I don't know whether you were + ever at an English watering-place, but if you have not been, you + have missed the best opportunity of studying English oddities, both + moral and physical. I no longer wonder at the English being such + excellent caricaturists, they have such an inexhaustible number and + variety of subjects to study from. The only care should be not to + follow fact too closely, for I'll swear I have met with characters + and figures that would be condemned as extravagant, if faithfully + delineated by pen or pencil. At a watering-place like Buxton, where + people really resort for health, you see the great tendency of the + English to run into excrescences and bloat out into grotesque + deformities. As to noses, I say nothing of them, though we had + every variety: some snubbed and turned up, with distended nostrils, + like a dormer window on the roof of a house; others convex and + twisted like a buck-handled knife; and others magnificently + efflorescent, like a full-blown cauliflower. But as to the persons + that were attached to these noses, fancy any distortion, + protuberance, and fungous embellishment that can be produced in the + human form by high and gross feeding, by the bloating operations of + malt liquors, and by the rheumy influence of a damp, foggy, + vaporous climate. One old fellow was an exception to this, for + instead of acquiring that expansion and sponginess to which old + people are prone in this country, from the long course of internal + and external soakage they experience, he had grown dry and stiff in + the process of years. The skin of his face had so shrunk away that + he could not close eyes or mouth--the latter, therefore, stood on a + perpetual ghastly grin, and the former on an incessant stare. He + had but one serviceable joint in his body, which was at the bottom + of the backbone, and that creaked and grated whenever he bent. He + could not raise his feet from the ground, but skated along the + drawing-room carpet whenever he wished to ring the bell. The only + sign of moisture in his whole body was a pellucid drop that I + occasionally noticed on the end of a long, dry nose. He used + generally to shuffle about in company with a little fellow that was + fat on one side and lean on the other. That is to say, he was + warped on one side as if he had been scorched before the fire; he + had a wry neck, which made his head lean on one shoulder; his hair + was smugly powdered, and he had a round, smirking, smiling, apple + face, with a bloom on it like that of a frost-bitten leaf in + autumn. We had an old, fat general by the name of Trotter, who had, + I suspect, been promoted to his high rank to get him out of the way + of more able and active officers, being an instance that a man may + occasionally rise in the world through absolute lack of merit. I + could not help watching the movements of this redoubtable old Hero, + who, I'll warrant, has been the champion and safeguard of half the + garrison towns in England, and fancying to myself how Bonaparte + would have delighted in having such toast-and-butter generals to + deal with. This old cad is doubtless a sample of those generals + that flourished in the old military school, when armies would + manoeuvre and watch each other for months; now and then have a + desperate skirmish, and, after marching and countermarching about + the 'Low Countries' through a glorious campaign, retire on the + first pinch of cold weather into snug winter quarters in some fat + Flemish town, and eat and drink and fiddle through the winter. + Boney must have sadly disconcerted the comfortable system of these + old warriors by the harrowing, restless, cut-and-slash mode of + warfare that he introduced. He has put an end to all the old _carte + and tierce_ system in which the cavaliers of the old school fought + so decorously, as it were with a small sword in one hand and a + chapeau bras in the other. During his career there has been a sad + laying on the shelf of old generals who could not keep up with the + hurry, the fierceness and dashing of the new system; and among the + number I presume has been my worthy house-mate, old Trotter. The + old gentleman, in spite of his warlike title, had a most pacific + appearance. He was large and fat, with a broad, hazy, muffin face, + a sleepy eye, and a full double chin. He had a deep ravine from + each corner of his mouth, not occasioned by any irascible + contraction of the muscles, but apparently the deep-worn channels + of two rivulets of gravy that oozed out from the huge mouthfuls + that he masticated. But I forbear to dwell on the odd beings that + were congregated together in one hotel. I have been thus prolix + about the old general because you desired me in one of your letters + to give you ample details whenever I happened to be in company with + the 'great and glorious,' and old Trotter is more deserving of the + epithet than any of the personages I have lately encountered." + +It was at the same resort of fashion and disease that Irving observed a +phenomenon upon which Brevoort had commented as beginning to be +noticeable in America. + + "Your account [he writes] of the brevity of the old lady's nether + garments distresses me.... I cannot help observing that this + fashion of short skirts must have been invented by the French + ladies as a complete trick upon John Bull's 'woman-folk.' It was + introduced just at the time the English flocked in such crowds to + Paris. The French women, you know, are remarkable for pretty feet + and ankles, and can display them in perfect security. The English + are remarkable for the contrary. Seeing the proneness of the + English women to follow French fashions, they therefore led them + into this disastrous one, and sent them home with their petticoats + up to their knees, exhibiting such a variety of sturdy little legs + as would have afforded Hogarth an ample choice to match one of his + assemblages of queer heads. It is really a great source of + curiosity and amusement on the promenade of a watering-place to + observe the little sturdy English women, trudging about in their + stout leather shoes, and to study the various 'understandings' + betrayed to view by this mischievous fashion." + +The years passed rather wearily in England. Peter continued to be an +invalid, and Washington himself, never robust, felt the pressure more +and more of the irksome and unprosperous business affairs. Of his own +want of health, however, he never complains; he maintains a patient +spirit in the ill turns of fortune, and his impatience in the business +complications is that of a man hindered from his proper career. The +times were depressing. + + "In America [he writes to Brevoort] you have financial + difficulties, the embarrassments of trade, the distress of + merchants, but here you have what is far worse, the distress of the + poor--not merely mental sufferings, but the absolute miseries of + nature: hunger, nakedness, wretchedness of all kinds that the + laboring people in this country are liable to. In the best of times + they do but subsist, but in adverse times they starve. How the + country is to extricate itself from its present embarrassment, how + it is to escape from the poverty that seems to be overwhelming it, + and how the government is to quiet the multitudes that are already + turbulent and clamorous, and are yet but in the beginning of their + real miseries, I cannot conceive." + +The embarrassments of the agricultural and laboring classes and of the +government were as serious in 1816 as they have again become in 1881. + +During 1817 Irving was mostly in the depths of gloom, a prey to the +monotony of life and torpidity of intellect. Rays of sunlight pierce the +clouds occasionally. The Van Wart household at Birmingham was a frequent +refuge for him, and we have pretty pictures of the domestic life there; +glimpses of Old Parr, whose reputation as a gourmand was only second to +his fame as a Grecian, and of that delightful genius, the Rev. Rann +Kennedy, who might have been famous if he had ever committed to paper +the long poems that he carried about in his head, and the engaging sight +of Irving playing the flute for the little Van Warts to dance. During +the holidays Irving paid another visit to the haunts of Isaac Walton, +and his description of the adventures and mishaps of a pleasure party +on the banks of the Dove suggest that the incorrigible bachelor was +still sensitive to the allurements of life, and liable to wander over +the "dead-line" of matrimonial danger. He confesses that he was all day +in Elysium. "When we had descended from the last precipice," he says, +"and come to where the Dove flowed musically through a verdant +meadow--then--fancy me, oh, thou 'sweetest of poets,' wandering by the +course of this romantic stream--a lovely girl hanging on my arm, +pointing out the beauties of the surrounding scenery, and repeating in +the most dulcet voice tracts of heaven-born poetry. If a strawberry +smothered in cream has any consciousness of its delicious situation, it +must feel as I felt at that moment." Indeed, the letters of this doleful +year are enlivened by so many references to the graces and attractions +of lovely women, seen and remembered, that insensibility cannot be +attributed to the author of the "Sketch-Book." + +The death of Irving's mother in the spring of 1817 determined him to +remain another year abroad. Business did not improve. His +brother-in-law Van Wart called a meeting of his creditors, the Irving +brothers floundered on into greater depths of embarrassment, and +Washington, who could not think of returning home to face poverty in New +York, began to revolve a plan that would give him a scanty but +sufficient support. The idea of the "Sketch-Book" was in his mind. He +had as yet made few literary acquaintances in England. It is an +illustration of the warping effect of friendship upon the critical +faculty that his opinion of Moore at this time was totally changed by +subsequent intimacy. At a later date the two authors became warm friends +and mutual admirers of each other's productions. In June, 1817, "Lalla +Rookh" was just from the press, and Irving writes to Brevoort: "Moore's +new poem is just out. I have not sent it to you, for it is dear and +worthless. It is written in the most effeminate taste, and fit only to +delight boarding-school girls and lads of nineteen just in their first +loves. Moore should have kept to songs and epigrammatic conceits. His +stream of intellect is too small to bear expansion--it spreads into +mere surface." Too much cream for the strawberry! + +Notwithstanding business harassments in the summer and fall of 1817 he +found time for some wandering about the island; he was occasionally in +London, dining at Murray's, where he made the acquaintance of the elder +D'Israeli and other men of letters (one of his notes of a dinner at +Murray's is this: "Lord Byron told Murray that he was much happier after +breaking with Lady Byron--he hated this still, quiet life"); he was +publishing a new edition of the "Knickerbocker," illustrated by Leslie +and Allston; and we find him at home in the friendly and brilliant +society of Edinburgh; both the magazine publishers, Constable and +Blackwood, were very civil to him, and Mr. Jeffrey (Mrs. Renwick was his +sister) was very attentive; and he passed some days with Walter Scott, +whose home life he so agreeably describes in his sketch of "Abbotsford." +He looked back longingly to the happy hours there (he writes to his +brother): "Scott reading, occasionally, from 'Prince Arthur'; telling +border stories or characteristic anecdotes; Sophy Scott singing with +charming _naïveté_ a little border song; the rest of the family disposed +in listening groups, while greyhounds, spaniels, and cats bask in +unbounded indulgence before the fire. Everything about Scott is perfect +character and picture." + +In the beginning of 1818 the business affairs of the brothers became so +irretrievably involved that Peter and Washington went through the +humiliating experience of taking the bankrupt act. Washington's +connection with the concern was little more than nominal, and he felt +small anxiety for himself, and was eager to escape from an occupation +which had taken all the elasticity out of his mind. But on account of +his brothers, in this dismal wreck of a family connection, his soul was +steeped in bitterness. Pending the proceedings of the commissioners, he +shut himself up day and night to the study of German, and while waiting +for the examination used to walk up and down the room, conning over the +German verbs. + +In August he went up to London and cast himself irrevocably upon the +fortune of his pen. He had accumulated some materials, and upon these +he set to work. Efforts were made at home to procure for him the +position of Secretary of Legation in London, which drew from him the +remark, when they came to his knowledge, that he did not like to have +his name hackneyed about among the office-seekers in Washington. +Subsequently his brother William wrote him that Commodore Decatur was +keeping open for him the office of Chief Clerk in the Navy Department. +To the mortification and chagrin of his brothers, Washington declined +the position. He was resolved to enter upon no duties that would +interfere with his literary pursuits. + +This resolution, which exhibited a modest confidence in his own powers, +and the energy with which he threw himself into his career, showed the +fibre of the man. Suddenly, by the reverse of fortune, he who had been +regarded as merely the ornamental genius of the family became its stay +and support. If he had accepted the aid of his brothers, during the +experimental period of his life, in the loving spirit of confidence in +which it was given, he was not less ready to reverse the relations when +the time came; the delicacy with which his assistance was rendered, the +scrupulous care taken to convey the feeling that his brothers were doing +him a continued favor in sharing his good fortune, and their own +unjealous acceptance of what they would as freely have given if +circumstances had been different, form one of the pleasantest instances +of brotherly concord and self-abnegation. I know nothing more admirable +than the life-long relations of this talented and sincere family. + +Before the "Sketch-Book" was launched, and while Irving was casting +about for the means of livelihood, Walter Scott urged him to take the +editorship of an Anti-Jacobin periodical in Edinburgh. This he declined +because he had no taste for politics, and because he was averse to +stated, routine literary work. Subsequently Mr. Murray offered him a +salary of a thousand guineas to edit a periodical to be published by +himself. This was declined, as also was another offer to contribute to +the "London Quarterly" with the liberal pay of one hundred guineas an +article. For the "Quarterly" he would not write, because, he says, "it +has always been so hostile to my country, I cannot draw a pen in its +service." This is worthy of note in view of a charge made afterwards, +when he was attacked for his English sympathies, that he was a frequent +contributor to this anti-American review. His sole contributions to it +were a gratuitous review of the book of an American author, and an +explanatory article, written at the desire of his publisher, on the +"Conquest of Granada." It is not necessary to dwell upon the small +scandal about Irving's un-American feeling. If there was ever a man who +loved his country and was proud of it; whose broad, deep, and strong +patriotism did not need the saliency of ignorant partisanship, it was +Washington Irving. He was like his namesake an American, and with the +same pure loyalty and unpartisan candor. + +The first number of the "Sketch-Book" was published in America in May, +1819. Irving was then thirty-six years old. The series was not completed +till September, 1820. The first installment was carried mainly by two +papers, "The Wife" and "Rip Van Winkle;" the one full of tender pathos +that touched all hearts, because it was recognized as a genuine +expression of the author's nature; and the other a happy effort of +imaginative humor,--one of those strokes of genius that recreate the +world and clothe it with the unfading hues of romance; the theme was an +old-world echo, transformed by genius into a primal story that will +endure as long as the Hudson flows through its mountains to the sea. A +great artist can paint a great picture on a small canvas. + +The "Sketch-Book" created a sensation in America, and the echo of it was +not long in reaching England. The general chorus of approval and the +rapid sale surprised Irving, and sent his spirits up, but success had +the effect on him that it always has on a fine nature. He writes to +Leslie: "Now you suppose I am all on the alert, and full of spirit and +excitement. No such thing. I am just as good for nothing as ever I was; +and, indeed, have been flurried and put out of my way by these puffings. +I feel something as I suppose you did when your picture met with +success,--anxious to do something better, and at a loss what to do." + +It was with much misgiving that Irving made this venture. "I feel great +diffidence," he writes Brevoort, March 3, 1819, "about this reappearance +in literature. I am conscious of my imperfections, and my mind has been +for a long time past so pressed upon and agitated by various cares and +anxieties, that I fear it has lost much of its cheerfulness and some of +its activity. I have attempted no lofty theme, nor sought to look wise +and learned, which appears to be very much the fashion among our +American writers at present. I have preferred addressing myself to the +feelings and fancy of the reader more than to his judgment. My writings +may appear, therefore, light and trifling in our country of philosophers +and politicians. But if they possess merit in the class of literature to +which they belong, it is all to which I aspire in the work. I seek only +to blow a flute accompaniment in the national concert, and leave others +to play the fiddle and French-horn." This diffidence was not assumed. +All through his career, a breath of criticism ever so slight acted +temporarily like a hoar-frost upon his productive power. He always saw +reasons to take sides with his critic. Speaking of "vanity" in a letter +of March, 1820, when Scott and Lockhart and all the Reviews were in a +full chorus of acclaim, he says: "I wish I did possess more of it, but +it seems my curse at present to have anything but confidence in myself +or pleasure in anything I have written." + +In a similar strain he had written, in September, 1819, on the news of +the cordial reception of the "Sketch-Book" in America:-- + + "The manner in which the work has been received and the eulogiums + that have been passed upon it in the American papers and periodical + works, have completely overwhelmed me. They go far, _far_ beyond my + most sanguine expectations, and indeed are expressed with such + peculiar warmth and kindness as to affect me in the tenderest + manner. The receipt of your letter, and the reading of some of the + criticisms this morning, have rendered me nervous for the whole + day. I feel almost appalled by such success, and fearful that it + cannot be real, or that it is not fully merited, or that I shall + not act up to the expectations that may be formed. We are + whimsically constituted beings. I had got out of conceit of all + that I had written, and considered it very questionable stuff; and + now that it is so extravagantly bepraised, I begin to feel afraid + that I shall not do as well again. However, we shall see as we get + on. As yet I am extremely irregular and precarious in my fits of + composition. The least thing puts me out of the vein, and even + applause flurries me and prevents my writing, though of course it + will ultimately be a stimulus.... + + "I have been somewhat touched by the manner in which my writings + have been noticed in the 'Evening Post.' I had considered Coleman + as cherishing an ill-will toward me, and, to tell the truth, have + not always been the most courteous in my opinions concerning him. + It is a painful thing either to dislike others or to fancy they + dislike us, and I have felt both pleasure and self-reproach at + finding myself so mistaken with respect to Mr. Coleman. I like to + out with a good feeling as soon as it rises, and so I have dropt + Coleman a line on the subject. + + "I hope you will not attribute all this sensibility to the kind + reception I have met to an author's vanity. I am sure it proceeds + from very different sources. Vanity could not bring the tears into + my eyes as they have been brought by the kindness of my countrymen. + I have felt cast down, blighted, and broken-spirited, and these + sudden rays of sunshine agitate me more than they revive me. I + hope--I hope I may yet do something more worthy of the + appreciation lavished on me." + +Irving had not contemplated publishing in England, but the papers began +to be reprinted, and he was obliged to protect himself. He offered the +sketches to Murray, the princely publisher, who afterwards dealt so +liberally with him, but the venture was declined in a civil note, +written in that charming phraseology with which authors are familiar, +but which they would in vain seek to imitate. Irving afterwards greatly +prized this letter. He undertook the risks of the publication himself, +and the book sold well, although "written by an author the public knew +nothing of, and published by a bookseller who was going to ruin." In a +few months Murray, who was thereafter proud to be Irving's publisher, +undertook the publication of the two volumes of the "Sketch-Book," and +also of the "Knickerbocker" history, which Mr. Lockhart had just been +warmly praising in "Blackwood's." Indeed, he bought the copyright of the +"Sketch-Book" for two hundred pounds. The time for the publisher's +complaisance had arrived sooner even than Scott predicted in one of his +kindly letters to Irving, "when + + 'Your name is up and may go + From Toledo to Madrid.'" + +Irving passed five years in England. Once recognized by the literary +world, whatever was best in the society of letters and of fashion was +open to him. He was a welcome guest in the best London houses, where he +met the foremost literary personages of the time, and established most +cordial relations with many of them; not to speak of statesmen, +soldiers, and men and women of fashion, there were the elder D'Israeli, +Southey, Campbell, Hallam, Gifford, Milman, Foscolo, Rogers, Scott, and +Belzoni fresh from his Egyptian explorations. In Irving's letters this +old society passes in review: Murray's drawing-rooms; the amusing +blue-stocking coteries of fashion of which Lady Caroline Lamb was a +promoter; the Countess of Besborough's, at whose house The Duke could be +seen; the Wimbledon country seat of Lord and Lady Spence; Belzoni, a +giant of six feet five, the centre of a group of eager auditors of the +Egyptian marvels; Hallam, affable and unpretending, and a copious +talker; Gifford, a small, shriveled, deformed man of sixty, with +something of a humped back, eyes that diverge, and a large mouth, +reclining on a sofa, propped up by cushions, with none of the petulance +that you would expect from his Review, but a mild, simple, unassuming +man,--he it is who prunes the contributions and takes the sting out of +them (one would like to have seen them before the sting was taken out); +and Scott, the right honest-hearted, entering into the passing scene +with the hearty enjoyment of a child, to whom literature seems a sport +rather than a labor or ambition, an author void of all the petulance, +egotism, and peculiarities of the craft. We have Moore's authority for +saying that the literary dinner described in the "The Tales of a +Traveller," whimsical as it seems and pervaded by the conventional +notion of the relations of publishers and authors, had a personal +foundation. Irving's satire of both has always the old-time Grub Street +flavor, or at least the reminiscent tone, which is, by the way, quite +characteristic of nearly everything that he wrote about England. He was +always a little in the past tense. Buckthorne's advice to his friend +is, never to be eloquent to an author except in praise of his own works, +or, what is nearly as acceptable, in disparagement of the work of his +contemporaries. "If ever he speaks favorably of the productions of a +particular friend, dissent boldly from him; pronounce his friend to be a +blockhead; never fear his being vexed. Much as people speak of the +irritability of authors, I never found one to take offense at such +contradictions. No, no, sir, authors are particularly candid in +admitting the faults of their friends." At the dinner Buckthorne +explains the geographical boundaries in the land of literature: you may +judge tolerably well of an author's popularity by the wine his +bookseller gives him. "An author crosses the port line about the third +edition, and gets into claret; and when he has reached the sixth or +seventh, he may revel in champagne and burgundy." The two ends of the +table were occupied by the two partners, one of whom laughed at the +clever things said by the poet, while the other maintained his +sedateness and kept on carving. "His gravity was explained to us by my +friend Buckthorne. He informed me that the concerns of the house were +admirably distributed among the partners. Thus, for instance, said he, +the grave gentleman is the carving partner, who attends to the joints; +and the other is the laughing partner, who attends to the jokes." If any +of the jokes from the lower end of the table reached the upper end, they +seldom produced much effect. "Even the laughing partner did not think it +necessary to honor them with a smile; which my neighbor Buckthorne +accounted for by informing me that there was a certain degree of +popularity to be obtained before a bookseller could afford to laugh at +an author's jokes." + +In August, 1820, we find Irving in Paris, where his reputation secured +him a hearty welcome: he was often at the Cannings' and at Lord +Holland's; Talma, then the king of the stage, became his friend, and +there he made the acquaintance of Thomas Moore, which ripened into a +familiar and lasting friendship. The two men were drawn to each other; +Irving greatly admired the "noble-hearted, manly, spirited little +fellow, with a mind as generous as his fancy is brilliant." Talma was +playing Hamlet to overflowing houses, which hung on his actions with +breathless attention, or broke into ungovernable applause; ladies were +carried fainting from the boxes. The actor is described as short in +stature, rather inclined to fat, with a large face and a thick neck; his +eyes are bluish, and have a peculiar cast in them at times. He said to +Irving that he thought the French character much changed--graver; the +day of the classic drama, mere declamation and fine language, had gone +by; the Revolution had taught them to demand real life, incident, +passion, character. Irving's life in Paris was gay enough, and seriously +interfered with his literary projects. He had the fortunes of his +brother Peter on his mind also, and invested his earnings, then and for +some years after, in enterprises for his benefit that ended in +disappointment. + +The "Sketch-Book" was making a great fame for him in England. Jeffrey, +in the "Edinburgh Review," paid it a most flattering tribute, and even +the savage "Quarterly" praised it. A rumor attributed it to Scott, who +was always masquerading; at least, it was said, he might have revised +it, and should have the credit of its exquisite style. This led to a +sprightly correspondence between Lady Littleton, the daughter of Earl +Spencer, one of the most accomplished and lovely women of England, and +Benjamin Rush, Minister to the Court of St. James, in the course of +which Mr. Rush suggested the propriety of giving out under his official +seal that Irving was the author of "Waverley." "Geoffrey Crayon is the +most fashionable fellow of the day," wrote the painter Leslie. Lord +Byron, in a letter to Murray, underscored his admiration of the author, +and subsequently said to an American: "His Crayon,--I know it by heart; +at least, there is not a passage that I cannot refer to immediately." +And afterwards he wrote to Moore, "His writings are my delight." There +seemed to be, as some one wrote, "a kind of conspiracy to hoist him over +the heads of his contemporaries." Perhaps the most satisfactory evidence +of his popularity was his publisher's enthusiasm. The publisher is an +infallible contemporary barometer. + +It is worthy of note that an American should have captivated public +attention at the moment when Scott and Byron were the idols of the +English-reading world. + +In the following year Irving was again in England, visiting his sister +in Birmingham, and tasting moderately the delights of London. He was, +indeed, something of an invalid. An eruptive malady,--the revenge of +nature, perhaps, for defeat in her earlier attack on his +lungs,--appearing in his ankles, incapacitated him for walking, +tormented him at intervals, so that literary composition was impossible, +sent him on pilgrimages to curative springs, and on journeys undertaken +for distraction and amusement, in which all work except that of seeing +and absorbing material had to be postponed. He was subject to this +recurring invalidism all his life, and we must regard a good part of the +work he did as a pure triumph of determination over physical +discouragement. This year the fruits of his interrupted labor appeared +in "Bracebridge Hall," a volume that was well received, but did not add +much to his reputation, though it contained "Dolph Heyliger," one of his +most characteristic Dutch stories, and the "Stout Gentleman," one of +his daintiest and most artistic bits of restrained humor.[1] + + [Footnote 1: I was once [says his biographer] reading aloud in + his presence a very flattering review of his works, which had + been sent him by the critic in 1848, and smiled as I came to + this sentence: "His most comical pieces have always a serious + end in view." "You laugh," said he, with that air of whimsical + significance so natural to him, "but it is true. I have kept + that to myself hitherto, but that man has found me out. He has + detected the moral of the _Stout Gentleman_."] + +Irving sought relief from his malady by an extended tour in Germany. He +sojourned some time in Dresden, whither his reputation had preceded him, +and where he was cordially and familiarly received, not only by the +foreign residents, but at the prim and antiquated little court of King +Frederick Augustus and Queen Amalia. Of Irving at this time Mrs. Emily +Fuller (_née_ Foster), whose relations with him have been referred to, +wrote in 1860:-- + + "He was thoroughly a gentleman, not merely in external manners and + look, but to the inner-most fibres and core of his heart: + sweet-tempered, gentle, fastidious, sensitive, and gifted with the + warmest affections; the most delightful and invariably interesting + companion; gay and full of humor, even in spite of occasional fits + of melancholy, which he was, however, seldom subject to when with + those he liked; a gift of conversation that flowed like a full + river in sunshine,--bright, easy, and abundant." + +Those were pleasant days at Dresden, filled up with the society of +bright and warm-hearted people, varied by royal boar hunts, stiff +ceremonies at the little court, tableaux, and private theatricals, yet +tinged with a certain melancholy, partly constitutional, that appears in +most of his letters. His mind was too unsettled for much composition. He +had little self-confidence, and was easily put out by a breath of +adverse criticism. At intervals he would come to the Fosters to read a +manuscript of his own. + + "On these occasions strict orders were given that no visitor should + be admitted till the last word had been read, and the whole praised + or criticised, as the case may be. Of criticism, however, we were + very spare, as a slight word would put him out of conceit of a + whole work. One of the best things he has published was thrown + aside, unfinished, for years, because the friend to whom he read + it, happening, unfortunately, not to be well, and sleepy, did not + seem to take the interest in it he expected. Too easily + discouraged, it was not till the latter part of his career that he + ever appreciated himself as an author. One condemning whisper + sounded louder in his ear than the plaudits of thousands." + +This from Miss Emily Foster, who elsewhere notes his kindliness in +observing life:-- + + "Some persons, in looking upon life, view it as they would view a + picture, with a stern and criticising eye. He also looks upon life + as a picture, but to catch its beauties, its lights,--not its + defects and shadows. On the former he loves to dwell. He has a + wonderful knack at shutting his eyes to the sinister side of + anything. Never beat a more kindly heart than his; alive to the + sorrows, but not to the faults, of his friends, but doubly alive to + their virtues and goodness. Indeed, people seemed to grow more good + with one so unselfish and so gentle." + +In London, some years later:-- + + "He was still the same; time changed him very little. His + conversation was as interesting as ever [he was always an excellent + relater]; his dark gray eyes still full of varying feeling; his + smile half playful, half melancholy, but ever kind. All that was + mean, or envious, or harsh, he seemed to turn from so completely + that, when with him, it seemed that such things were not. All + gentle and tender affections, Nature in her sweetest or grandest + moods, pervaded his whole imagination, and left no place for low or + evil thoughts; and when in good spirits, his humor, his droll + descriptions, and his fun would make the gravest or the saddest + laugh." + +As to Irving's "state of mind" in Dresden, it is pertinent to quote a +passage from what we gather to be a journal kept by Miss Flora Foster:-- + + "He has written. He has confessed to my mother, as to a true and + dear friend, his love for E----, and his conviction of its utter + hopelessness. He feels himself unable to combat it. He thinks he + must try, by absence, to bring more peace to his mind. Yet he + cannot bear to give up our friendship,--an intercourse become so + dear to him, and so necessary to his daily happiness. Poor Irving!" + +It is well for our peace of mind that we do not know what is going down +concerning us in "journals." On his way to the Herrnhuthers, Mr. Irving +wrote to Mrs. Foster:-- + + "When I consider how I have trifled with my time, suffered painful + vicissitudes of feeling, which for a time damaged both mind and + body,--when I consider all this, I reproach myself that I did not + listen to the first impulse of my mind, and abandon Dresden long + since. And yet I think of returning! Why should I come back to + Dresden? The very inclination that dooms me thither should furnish + reasons for my staying away." + +In this mood, the Herrnhuthers, in their right-angled, whitewashed +world, were little attractive. + + "If the Herrnhuthers were right in their notions, the world would + have been laid out in squares and angles and right lines, and + everything would have been white and black and snuff-color, as they + have been clipped by these merciless retrenchers of beauty and + enjoyment. And then their dormitories! Think of between one and two + hundred of these simple gentlemen cooped up at night in one great + chamber! What a concert of barrel-organs in this great resounding + saloon! And then their plan of marriage! The very birds of the air + choose their mates from preference and inclination; but this + detestable system of _lot_! The sentiment of love may be, and is, + in a great measure, a fostered growth of poetry and romance, and + balderdashed with false sentiment; but with all its vitiations, it + is the beauty and the charm, the flavor and the fragrance, of all + intercourse between man and woman; it is the rosy cloud in the + morning of life; and if it does too often resolve itself into the + shower, yet, to my mind, it only makes our nature more fruitful in + what is excellent and amiable." + +Better suited him Prague, which is certainly a part of the "naughty +world" that Irving preferred:-- + + "Old Prague still keeps up its warrior look, and swaggers about + with its rusty corselet and helm, though both sadly battered. There + seems to me to be an air of style and fashion about the first + people of Prague, and a good deal of beauty in the fashionable + circle. This, perhaps, is owing to my contemplating it from a + distance, and my imagination lending it tints occasionally. Both + actors and audience, contemplated from the pit of a theatre, look + better than when seen in the boxes and behind the scenes. I like to + contemplate society in this way occasionally, and to dress it up by + the help of fancy, to my own taste. When I get in the midst of it, + it is too apt to lose its charm, and then there is the trouble and + _ennui_ of being obliged to take an active part in the farce; but + to be a mere spectator is amusing. I am glad, therefore, that I + brought no letters to Prague. I shall leave it with a favorable + idea of its society and manners, from knowing nothing accurate of + either; and with a firm belief that every pretty woman I have seen + is an angel, as I am apt to think every pretty woman, until I have + found her out." + +In July, 1823, Irving returned to Paris, to the society of the Moores +and the fascinations of the gay town, and to fitful literary work. Our +author wrote with great facility and rapidity when the inspiration was +on him, and produced an astonishing amount of manuscript in a short +period; but he often waited and fretted through barren weeks and months +for the movement of his fitful genius. His mind was teeming constantly +with new projects, and nothing could exceed his industry when once he +had taken a work in hand; but he never acquired the exact methodical +habits which enable some literary men to calculate their power and +quantity of production as accurately as that of a cotton mill. + +The political changes in France during the period of Irving's long +sojourn in Paris do not seem to have taken much of his attention. In a +letter dated October 5, 1824, he says: "We have had much bustle in Paris +of late, between the death of one king and the succession of another. I +have become a little callous to public sights, but have, +notwithstanding, been to see the funeral of the late king, and the +entrance into Paris of the present one. Charles X. begins his reign in a +very conciliating manner, and is really popular. The Bourbons have +gained great accession of power within a few years." + +The succession of Charles X. was also observed by another foreigner, who +was making agreeable personal notes at that time in Paris, but who is +not referred to by Irving, who for some unexplained reason failed to +meet the genial Scotsman at breakfast. Perhaps it is to his failure to +do so that he owes the semi-respectful reference to himself in Carlyle's +"Reminiscences." Lacking the stimulus to his vocabulary of personal +acquaintance, Carlyle simply wrote: "Washington Irving was said to be in +Paris, a kind of lion at that time, whose books I somewhat esteemed. +One day the Emerson-Tennant people bragged that they had engaged him to +breakfast with us at a certain _café_ next morning. We all attended +duly, Strackey among the rest, but no Washington came. 'Couldn't rightly +come,' said Malcolm to me in a judicious _aside_, as we cheerfully +breakfasted without him. I never saw Washington at all, but still have a +mild esteem of the good man." This ought to be accepted as evidence of +Carlyle's disinclination to say ill-natured things of those he did not +know. + +The "Tales of a Traveller" appeared in 1824. In the author's opinion, +with which the best critics agreed, it contained some of his best +writing. He himself said in a letter to Brevoort, "There was more of an +artistic touch about it, though this is not a thing to be appreciated by +the many." It was rapidly written. The movement has a delightful +spontaneity, and it is wanting in none of the charms of his style, +unless, perhaps, the style is over-refined; but it was not a novelty, +and the public began to criticise and demand a new note. This may have +been one reason why he turned to a fresh field and to graver themes. +For a time he busied himself on some American essays of a semi-political +nature, which were never finished, and he seriously contemplated a Life +of Washington; but all these projects were thrown aside for one that +kindled his imagination,--the Life of Columbus; and in February, 1826, +he was domiciled at Madrid, and settled down to a long period of +unremitting and intense labor. + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + IN SPAIN. + + +Irving's residence in Spain, which was prolonged till September, 1829, +was the most fruitful period in his life, and of considerable +consequence to literature. It is not easy to overestimate the debt of +Americans to the man who first opened to them the fascinating domain of +early Spanish history and romance. We can conceive of it by reflecting +upon the blank that would exist without "The Alhambra," "The Conquest of +Granada," "The Legends of the Conquest of Spain," and I may add the +popular loss if we had not "The Lives of Columbus and his Companions." +Irving had the creative touch, or at least the magic of the pen, to give +a definite, universal, and romantic interest to whatever he described. +We cannot deny him that. A few lines about the inn of the Red Horse at +Stratford-on-Avon created a new object of pilgrimage right in the +presence of the house and tomb of the poet. And how much of the romantic +interest of all the English-reading world in the Alhambra is due to him; +the name invariably recalls his own, and every visitor there is +conscious of his presence. He has again and again been criticised almost +out of court, and written down to the rank of the mere idle humorist; +but as often as I take up "The Conquest of Granada" or "The Alhambra" I +am aware of something that has eluded the critical analysis, and I +conclude that if one cannot write for the few it may be worth while to +write for the many. + +It was Irving's intention, when he went to Madrid, merely to make a +translation of some historical documents which were then appearing, +edited by M. Navarrete, from the papers of Bishop Las Casas and the +journals of Columbus, entitled "The Voyages of Columbus." But when he +found that this publication, although it contained many documents, +hitherto unknown, that threw much light on the discovery of the New +World, was rather a rich mass of materials for a history than a history +itself, and that he had access in Madrid libraries to great collections +of Spanish colonial history, he changed his plan, and determined to +write a Life of Columbus. His studies for this led him deep into the old +chronicles and legends of Spain, and out of these, with his own travel +and observation, came those books of mingled fables, sentiment, fact, +and humor which are after all the most enduring fruits of his residence +in Spain. + +Notwithstanding his absorption in literary pursuits, Irving was not +denied the charm of domestic society, which was all his life his chief +delight. The house he most frequented in Madrid was that of Mr. +D'Oubril, the Russian Minister. In his charming household were Madame +D'Oubril and her niece, Mademoiselle Antoinette Bollviller, and Prince +Dolgorouki, a young _attaché_ of the legation. His letters to Prince +Dolgorouki and to Mademoiselle Antoinette give a most lively and +entertaining picture of his residence and travels in Spain. In one of +them to the prince, who was temporarily absent from the city, we have +glimpses of the happy hours, the happiest of all hours, passed in this +refined family circle. Here is one that exhibits the still fresh +romance in the heart of forty-four years:-- + + "Last evening, at your house, we had one of the most lovely + tableaux I ever beheld. It was the conception of Murillo, + represented by Madame A----. Mademoiselle Antoinette arranged the + tableau with her usual good taste, and the effect was enchanting. + It was more like a vision of something spiritual and celestial than + a representation of anything merely mortal; or rather it was woman + as in my romantic days I have been apt to imagine her, approaching + to the angelic nature. I have frequently admired Madame A----as a + mere beautiful woman, when I have seen her dressed up in the + fantastic attire of the _mode_; but here I beheld her elevated into + a representative of the divine purity and grace, exceeding even the + _beau idéal_ of the painter, for she even surpassed in beauty the + picture of Murillo. I felt as if I could have knelt down and + worshiped her. Heavens! what power women would have over us, if + they knew how to sustain the attractions which nature has bestowed + upon them, and which we are so ready to assist by our imaginations! + For my part, I am superstitious in my admiration of them, and like + to walk in a perpetual delusion, decking them out as divinities. I + thank no one to undeceive me, and to prove that they are mere + mortals." + +And he continues in another strain:-- + + How full of interest everything is connected with the old times in + Spain! I am more and more delighted with the old literature of the + country, its chronicles, plays, and romances. It has the wild vigor + and luxuriance of the forests of my native country, which, however + savage and entangled, are more captivating to my imagination than + the finest parks and cultivated woodlands. + + "As I live in the neighborhood of the library of the Jesuits' + College of St. Isidoro, I pass most of my mornings there. You + cannot think what a delight I feel in passing through its + galleries, filled with old parchment-bound books. It is a perfect + wilderness of curiosity to me. What a deep-felt, quiet luxury there + is in delving into the rich ore of these old, neglected volumes! + How these hours of uninterrupted intellectual enjoyment, so + tranquil and independent, repay one for the _ennui_ and + disappointment too often experienced in the intercourse of society! + How they serve to bring back the feelings into a harmonious tone, + after being jarred and put out of tune by the collisions with the + world!" + +With the romantic period of Spanish history Irving was in ardent +sympathy. The story of the Saracens entranced his mind; his imagination +disclosed its Oriental quality while he pored over the romance and the +ruin of that land of fierce contrasts, of arid wastes beaten by the +burning sun, valleys blooming with intoxicating beauty, cities of +architectural splendor and picturesque squalor. It is matter of regret +that he, who seemed to need the southern sun to ripen his genius, never +made a pilgrimage into the East, and gave to the world pictures of the +lands that he would have touched with the charm of their own color and +the witchery of their own romance. + +I will quote again from the letters, for they reveal the man quite as +well as the more formal and better known writings. His first sight of +the Alhambra is given in a letter to Mademoiselle Bollviller:-- + + "Our journey through La Mancha was cold and uninteresting, + excepting when we passed through the scenes of some of the exploits + of Don Quixote. We were repaid, however, by a night amidst the + scenery of the Sierra Morena, seen by the light of the full moon. I + do not know how this scenery would appear in the daytime, but by + moonlight it is wonderfully wild and romantic, especially after + passing the summit of the Sierra. As the day dawned we entered the + stern and savage defiles of the Despeña Perros, which equals the + wild landscapes of Salvator Rosa. For some time we continued + winding along the brinks of precipices, overhung with cragged and + fantastic rocks; and after a succession of such rude and sterile + scenes we swept down to Carolina, and found ourselves in another + climate. The orange-trees, the aloes, and myrtle began to make + their appearance; we felt the warm temperature of the sweet South, + and began to breathe the balmy air of Andalusia. At Andujar we were + delighted with the neatness and cleanliness of the houses, the + _patios_ planted with orange and citron trees, and refreshed by + fountains. We passed a charming evening on the banks of the famous + Guadalquivir, enjoying the mild, balmy air of a southern evening, + and rejoicing in the certainty that we were at length in this land + of promise.... + + "But Granada, _bellissima_ Granada! Think what must have been our + delight when, after passing the famous bridge of Pinos, the scene + of many a bloody encounter between Moor and Christian, and + remarkable for having been the place where Columbus was overtaken + by the messenger of Isabella, when about to abandon Spain in + despair, we turned a promontory of the arid mountains of Elvira, + and Granada, with its towers, its Alhambra, and its snowy + mountains, burst upon our sight! The evening sun shone gloriously + upon its red towers as we approached it, and gave a mellow tone to + the rich scenery of the vega. It was like the magic glow which + poetry and romance have shed over this enchanting place.... + + "The more I contemplate these places, the more my admiration is + awakened for the elegant habits and delicate taste of the Moorish + monarchs. The delicately ornamented walls; the aromatic groves, + mingling with the freshness and the enlivening sounds of fountains + and rivers of water; the retired baths, bespeaking purity and + refinement; the balconies and galleries, open to the fresh mountain + breeze, and overlooking the loveliest scenery of the valley of the + Darro and the magnificent expanse of the vega,--it is impossible to + contemplate this delicious abode and not feel an admiration of the + genius and the poetical spirit of those who first devised this + earthly paradise. There is an intoxication of heart and soul in + looking over such scenery at this genial season. All nature is just + teeming with new life, and putting on the first delicate verdure + and bloom of spring. The almond-trees are in blossom; the fig-trees + are beginning to sprout; everything is in the tender bud, the + young leaf, or the half-open flower. The beauty of the season is + but half developed, so that while there is enough to yield present + delight there is the flattering promise of still further enjoyment. + Good heavens! after passing two years amidst the sunburnt wastes of + Castile, to be let loose to rove at large over this fragrant and + lovely land!" + +It was not easy, however, even in the Alhambra, perfectly to call up the +past:-- + + "The verity of the present checks and chills the imagination in its + picturings of the past. I have been trying to conjure up images of + Boabdil passing in regal splendor through these courts; of his + beautiful queen; of the Abencerrages, the Gomares, and the other + Moorish cavaliers, who once filled these halls with the glitter of + arms and the splendor of Oriental luxury; but I am continually + awakened from my reveries by the jargon of an Andalusian peasant + who is setting out rose-bushes, and the song of a pretty Andalusian + girl who shows the Alhambra, and who is chanting a little romance + that has probably been handed down from generation to generation + since the time of the Moors." + +In another letter, written from Seville, he returns to the subject of +the Moors. He is describing an excursion to Alcala de la Guadayra:-- + + "Nothing can be more charming than the windings of the little river + among banks hanging with gardens and orchards of all kinds of + delicate southern fruits, and tufted with flowers and aromatic + plants. The nightingales throng this lovely little valley as + numerously as they do the gardens of Aranjuez. Every bend of the + river presents a new landscape, for it is beset by old Moorish + mills of the most picturesque forms, each mill having an embattled + tower,--a memento of the valiant tenure by which those gallant + fellows, the Moors, held this earthly paradise, having to be ready + at all times for war, and as it were to work with one hand and + fight with the other. It is impossible to travel about Andalusia + and not imbibe a kind feeling for those Moors. They deserved this + beautiful country. They won it bravely; they enjoyed it generously + and kindly. No lover ever delighted more to cherish and adorn a + mistress, to heighten and illustrate her charms, and to vindicate + and defend her against all the world than did the Moors to + embellish, enrich, elevate, and defend their beloved Spain. + Everywhere I meet traces of their sagacity, courage, urbanity, high + poetical feeling, and elegant taste. The noblest institutions in + this part of Spain, the best inventions for comfortable and + agreeable living, and all those habitudes and customs which throw a + peculiar and Oriental charm over the Andalusian mode of living may + be traced to the Moors. Whenever I enter these beautiful marble + _patios_, set out with shrubs and flowers, refreshed by fountains, + sheltered with awnings from the sun; where the air is cool at + noonday, the ear delighted in sultry summer by the sound of falling + water; where, in a word, a little paradise is shut up within the + walls of home, I think on the poor Moors, the inventors of all + these delights. I am at times almost ready to join in sentiment + with a worthy friend and countryman of mine whom I met in Malaga, + who swears the Moors are the only people that ever deserved the + country, and prays to Heaven that they may come over from Africa + and conquer it again." + +In a following paragraph we get a glimpse of a world, however, that the +author loves still more:-- + + "Tell me everything about the children. I suppose the discreet + princess will soon consider it an indignity to be ranked among the + number. I am told she is growing with might and main, and is + determined not to stop until she is a woman outright. I would give + all the money in my pocket to be with those dear little women at + the round table in the saloon, or on the grass-plot in the garden, + to tell them some marvelous tales." + +And again:-- + + "Give my love to all my dear little friends of the round table, + from the discreet princess down to the little blue-eyed boy. Tell + _la petite Marie_ that I still remain true to her, though + surrounded by all the beauties of Seville; and that I swear (but + this she must keep between ourselves) that there is not a little + woman to compare with her in all Andalusia." + +The publication of "The Life of Columbus," which had been delayed by +Irving's anxiety to secure historical accuracy in every detail, did not +take place till February, 1828. For the English copyright Mr. Murray +paid him £3,150. He wrote an abridgment of it, which he presented to his +generous publisher, and which was a very profitable book (the first +edition of ten thousand copies sold immediately). This was followed by +the "Companions," and by "The Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada," for +which he received two thousand guineas. "The Alhambra" was not published +till just before Irving's return to America, in 1832, and was brought +out by Mr. Bentley, who bought it for one thousand guineas. + +"The Conquest of Granada," which I am told Irving in his latter years +regarded as the best of all his works, was declared by Coleridge "a +_chef-d'oeuvre_ of its kind." I think it bears re-reading as well as any +of the Spanish books. Of the reception of the "Columbus" the author was +very doubtful. Before it was finished he wrote:-- + + "I have lost confidence in the favorable disposition of my + countrymen, and look forward to cold scrutiny and stern criticism, + and this is a line of writing in which I have not hitherto + ascertained my own powers. Could I afford it, I should like to + write, and to lay my writings aside when finished. There is an + independent delight in study and in the creative exercise of the + pen; we live in a world of dreams, but publication lets in the + noisy rabble of the world, and there is an end of our dreaming." + +In a letter to Brevoort, February 23, 1828, he fears that he can never +regain + + "That delightful confidence which I once enjoyed of not the good + opinion, but the good will, of my countrymen. To me it is always + ten times more gratifying to be liked than to be admired; and I + confess to you, though I am a little too proud to confess it to the + world, the idea that the kindness of my countrymen toward me was + withering caused me for a long time the most weary depression of + spirits, and disheartened me from making any literary exertions." + +It has been a popular notion that Irving's career was uniformly one of +ease. In this same letter he exclaims: "With all my exertions, I seem +always to keep about up to my chin in troubled water, while the world, I +suppose, thinks I am sailing smoothly, with wind and tide in my favor." + +In a subsequent letter to Brevoort, dated at Seville, December 26, 1828, +occurs almost the only piece of impatience and sarcasm that this long +correspondence affords. "Columbus" had succeeded beyond his expectation, +and its popularity was so great that some enterprising American had +projected an abridgment, which it seems would not be protected by the +copyright of the original. Irving writes:-- + + "I have just sent to my brother an abridgment of 'Columbus' to be + published immediately, as I find some paltry fellow is pirating an + abridgment. Thus every line of life has its depredation. 'There be + land rats and water rats, land pirates and water pirates,--I mean + thieves,' as old Shylock says. I feel vexed at this shabby attempt + to purloin this work from me, it having really cost me more toil + and trouble than all my other productions, and being one that I + trusted would keep me current with my countrymen; but we are making + rapid advances in literature in America, and have already attained + many of the literary vices and diseases of the old countries of + Europe. We swarm with reviewers, though we have scarce original + works sufficient for them to alight and prey upon, and we closely + imitate all the worst tricks of the trade and of the craft in + England. Our literature, before long, will be like some of those + premature and aspiring whipsters, who become old men before they + are young ones, and fancy they prove their manhood by their + profligacy and their diseases." + +But the work had an immediate, continued, and deserved success. It was +critically contrasted with Robertson's account of Columbus, and it is +open to the charge of too much rhetorical color here and there, and it +is at times too diffuse; but its substantial accuracy is not questioned, +and the glow of the narrative springs legitimately from the romance of +the theme. Irving understood, what our later historians have fully +appreciated, the advantage of vivid individual portraiture in historical +narrative. His conception of the character and mission of Columbus is +largely outlined, but firmly and most carefully executed, and is one of +the noblest in literature. I cannot think it idealized, though it +required a poetic sensibility to enter into sympathy with the +magnificent dreamer, who was regarded by his own generation as the fool +of an idea. A more prosaic treatment would have utterly failed to +represent that mind, which existed from boyhood in an ideal world, and, +amid frustrated hopes, shattered plans, and ignoble returns for his +sacrifices, could always rebuild its glowing projects, and conquer +obloquy and death itself with immortal anticipations. + +Towards the close of his residence in Spain, Irving received +unexpectedly the appointment of Secretary of Legation to the Court of +St. James, at which Louis McLane was American Minister; and after some +hesitation, and upon the urgency of his friends, he accepted it. He was +in the thick of literary projects. One of these was the History of the +Conquest of Mexico, which he afterwards surrendered to Mr. Prescott and +another was the "Life of Washington," which was to wait many years for +fulfillment. His natural diffidence and his reluctance to a routine life +made him shrink from the diplomatic appointment; but once engaged in it, +and launched again in London society, he was reconciled to the +situation. Of honors there was no lack, nor of the adulation of social +and literary circles. In April, 1830, the Royal Society of Literature +awarded him one of the two annual gold medals placed at the disposal of +the society by George IV., to be given to authors of literary works of +eminent merit, the other being voted to the historian Hallam; and this +distinction was followed by the degree of D.C.L. from the University of +Oxford,--a title which the modest author never used. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + RETURN TO AMERICA: SUNNYSIDE: THE MISSION TO MADRID. + + +In 1831 Mr. Irving was thrown, by his diplomatic position, into the +thick of the political and social tumult, when the Reform Bill was +pending and war was expected in Europe. It is interesting to note that +for a time he laid aside his attitude of the dispassionate observer, and +caught the general excitement. He writes in March, expecting that the +fate of the cabinet will be determined in a week, looking daily for +decisive news from Paris, and fearing dismal tidings from Poland. +"However," he goes on to say in a vague way, "the great cause of all the +world will go on. What a stirring moment it is to live in! I never took +such intense interest in newspapers. It seems to me as if life were +breaking out anew with me, or that I were entering upon quite a new and +almost unknown career of existence, and I rejoice to find my +sensibilities, which were waning as to many objects of past interest, +reviving with all their freshness and vivacity at the scenes and +prospects opening around me." He expects the breaking of the thralldom +of falsehood woven over the human mind; and, more definitely, hopes that +the Reform Bill will prevail. Yet he is oppressed by the gloom hanging +over the booksellers' trade, which he thinks will continue until reform +and cholera have passed away. + +During the last months of his residence in England, the author renewed +his impressions of Stratford (the grateful landlady of the Red Horse Inn +showed him a poker which was locked up among the treasures of her house, +on which she had caused to be engraved "Geoffrey Crayon's Sceptre"); +spent some time at Newstead Abbey; and had the sorrowful pleasure in +London of seeing Scott once more, and for the last time. The great +novelist, in the sad eclipse of his powers, was staying in the city, on +his way to Italy, and Mr. Lockhart asked Irving to dine with him. It was +but a melancholy repast. "Ah," said Scott, as Irving gave him his arm, +after dinner, "the times are changed, my good fellow, since we went over +the Eildon Hills together. It is all nonsense to tell a man that his +mind is not affected when his body is in this state." + +Irving retired from the legation in September, 1831, to return home, the +longing to see his native land having become intense; but his arrival in +New York was delayed till May, 1832. + +If he had any doubts of the sentiments of his countrymen toward him, his +reception in New York dissipated them. America greeted her most famous +literary man with a spontaneous outburst of love and admiration. The +public banquet in New York, that was long remembered for its brilliancy, +was followed by the tender of the same tribute in other cities,--an +honor which his unconquerable shrinking from this kind of publicity +compelled him to decline. The "Dutch Herodotus, Diedrich Knickerbocker," +to use the phrase of a toast, having come out of one such encounter with +fair credit, did not care to tempt Providence further. The thought of +making a dinner-table speech threw him into a sort of whimsical +panic,--a noble infirmity, which characterized also Hawthorne and +Thackeray. + +The enthusiasm manifested for the homesick author was equaled by his own +for the land and the people he supremely loved. Nor was his surprise at +the progress made during seventeen years less than his delight in it. +His native place had become a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants; +the accumulation of wealth and the activity of trade astonished him, and +the literary stir was scarcely less unexpected. The steamboat had come +to be used, so that he seemed to be transported from place to place by +magic; and on a near view the politics of America seemed not less +interesting than those of Europe. The nullification battle was set; the +currency conflict still raged; it was a time of inflation and land +speculation; the West, every day more explored and opened, was the land +of promise for capital and energy. Fortunes were made in a day by buying +lots in "paper towns." Into some of these speculations Irving put his +savings; the investments were as permanent as they were unremunerative. + +Irving's first desire, however, on his recovery from the state of +astonishment into which these changes plunged him, was to make himself +thoroughly acquainted with the entire country and its development. To +this end he made an extended tour in the South and West, which passed +beyond the bounds of frontier settlement. The fruit of his excursion +into the Pawnee country, on the waters of the Arkansas, a region +untraversed by white men, except solitary trappers, was "A Tour on the +Prairies," a sort of romance of reality, which remains to-day as good a +description as we have of hunting adventure on the plains. It led also +to the composition of other books on the West, which were more or less +mere pieces of book-making for the market. + +Our author was far from idle. Indeed, he could not afford to be. +Although he had received considerable sums from his books, and perhaps +enough for his own simple wants, the responsibility of the support of +his two brothers, Peter and Ebenezer, and several nieces, devolved upon +him. And, besides, he had a longing to make himself a home, where he +could pursue his calling undisturbed, and indulge the sweets of domestic +and rural life, which of all things lay nearest his heart. And these +two undertakings compelled him to be diligent with his pen to the end of +his life. The spot he chose for his "Roost" was a little farm on the +bank of the river at Tarrytown, close to his old Sleepy Hollow haunt, +one of the loveliest, if not the most picturesque, situations on the +Hudson. At first he intended nothing more than a summer retreat, +inexpensive and simply furnished. But his experience was that of all who +buy, and renovate, and build. The farm had on it a small stone Dutch +cottage, built about a century before, and inhabited by one of the Van +Tassels. This was enlarged, still preserving the quaint Dutch +characteristics; it acquired a tower and a whimsical weathercock, the +delight of the owner ("it was brought from Holland by Gill Davis, the +King of Coney Island, who says he got it from a windmill which they were +demolishing at the gate of Rotterdam, which windmill has been mentioned +in 'Knickerbocker'"), and became one of the most snug and picturesque +residences on the river. When the slip of Melrose ivy, which was +brought over from Scotland by Mrs. Renwick and given to the author, had +grown and well overrun it, the house, in the midst of sheltering groves +and secluded walks, was as pretty a retreat as a poet could desire. But +the little nook proved to have an insatiable capacity for swallowing up +money, as the necessities of the author's establishment increased: there +was always something to be done to the grounds; some alterations in the +house; a green-house, a stable, a gardener's cottage, to be built,--and +to the very end the outlay continued. The cottage necessitated economy +in other personal expenses, and incessant employment of his pen. But +Sunnyside, as the place was named, became the dearest spot on earth to +him; it was his residence, from which he tore himself with reluctance, +and to which he returned with eager longing; and here, surrounded by +relatives whom he loved, he passed nearly all the remainder of his +years, in as happy conditions, I think, as a bachelor ever enjoyed. His +intellectual activity was unremitting, he had no lack of friends, there +was only now and then a discordant note in the general estimation of his +literary work, and he was the object of the most tender care from his +nieces. Already, he writes, in October, 1838, "my little cottage is well +stocked. I have Ebenezer's five girls, and himself also, whenever he can +be spared from town; sister Catherine and her daughter; Mr. Davis +occasionally, with casual visits from all the rest of our family +connection. The cottage, therefore, is never lonely." I like to dwell in +thought upon this happy home, a real haven of rest after many +wanderings; a seclusion broken only now and then by enforced absence, +like that in Madrid as minister, but enlivened by many welcome guests. +Perhaps the most notorious of these was a young Frenchman, a "somewhat +quiet guest," who, after several months' imprisonment on board a French +man-of-war, was set on shore at Norfolk, and spent a couple of months in +New York and its vicinity, in 1837. This visit was vividly recalled to +Irving in a letter to his sister, Mrs. Storrow, who was in Paris in +1853, and had just been presented at court:-- + + "Louis Napoleon and Eugénie Montijo, Emperor and Empress of France! + one of whom I have had a guest at my cottage on the Hudson; the + other, whom, when a child, I have had on my knee at Granada. It + seems to cap the climax of the strange dramas of which Paris has + been the theatre during my life-time. I have repeatedly thought + that each grand _coup de théâtre_ would be the last that would + occur in my time; but each has been succeeded by another equally + striking; and what will be the next, who can conjecture? + + "The last time I saw Eugénie Montijo she was one of the reigning + belles of Madrid; and she and her giddy circle had swept away my + charming young friend, the beautiful and accomplished ---- ----, + into their career of fashionable dissipation. Now Eugénie is upon a + throne, and ---- a voluntary recluse in a convent of one of the + most rigorous orders! Poor ----! Perhaps, however, her fate may + ultimately be the happiest of the two. 'The storm' with her 'is + o'er, and she's at rest;' but the other is launched upon a + returnless shore, on a dangerous sea, infamous for its tremendous + shipwrecks. Am I to live to see the catastrophe of her career, and + the end of this suddenly conjured-up empire, which seems to be of + 'such stuff as dreams are made of'?" + +As we have seen, the large sums Irving earned by his pen were not spent +in selfish indulgence. His habits and tastes were simple, and little +would have sufficed for his individual needs. He cared not much for +money, and seemed to want it only to increase the happiness of those who +were confided to his care. A man less warm-hearted and more selfish, in +his circumstances, would have settled down to a life of more ease and +less responsibility. + +To go back to the period of his return to America. He was now past +middle life, having returned to New York in his fiftieth year. But he +was in the full flow of literary productiveness. I have noted the dates +of his achievements, because his development was somewhat tardy compared +with that of many of his contemporaries; but he had the "staying" +qualities. The first crop of his mind was of course the most original; +time and experience had toned down his exuberant humor; but the spring +of his fancy was as free, his vigor was not abated, and his art was more +refined. Some of his best work was yet to be done. And it is worthy of +passing mention, in regard to his later productions, that his admirable +sense of literary proportion, which is wanting in many good writers, +characterized his work to the end. + +High as his position was as a man of letters at this time, the +consideration in which he was held was much broader than that,--it was +that of one of the first citizens of the Republic. His friends, readers, +and admirers were not merely the literary class and the general public, +but included nearly all the prominent statesmen of the time. Almost any +career in public life would have been open to him if he had lent an ear +to their solicitations. But political life was not to his taste, and it +would have been fatal to his sensitive spirit. It did not require much +self-denial, perhaps, to decline the candidacy for mayor of New York, or +the honor of standing for Congress; but he put aside also the +distinction of a seat in Mr. Van Buren's Cabinet as Secretary of the +Navy. His main reason for declining it, aside from a diffidence in his +own judgment in public matters, was his dislike of the turmoil of +political life in Washington, and his sensitiveness to personal attacks +which beset the occupants of high offices. But he also had come to a +political divergence with Mr. Van Buren. He liked the man,--he liked +almost everybody,--and esteemed him as a friend, but he apprehended +trouble from the new direction of the party in power. Irving was almost +devoid of party prejudice, and he never seemed to have strongly marked +political opinions. Perhaps his nearest confession to a creed is +contained in a letter he wrote to a member of the House of +Representatives, Gouverneur Kemble, a little time before the offer of a +position in the cabinet, in which he said that he did not relish some +points of Van Buren's policy, nor believe in the honesty of some of his +elbow counselors. I quote a passage from it:-- + + "As far as I know my own mind, I am thoroughly a republican, and + attached, from complete conviction, to the institutions of my + country; but I am a republican without gall, and have no bitterness + in my creed. I have no relish for Puritans, either in religion or + politics, who are for pushing principles to an extreme, and for + overturning everything that stands in the way of their own zealous + career.... Ours is a government of compromise. We have several + great and distinct interests bound up together, which, if not + separately consulted and severally accommodated may harass and + impair each other.... I always distrust the soundness of political + councils that are accompanied by acrimonious and disparaging + attacks upon any great class of our fellow-citizens. Such are those + urged to the disadvantage of the great trading and financial + classes of our country." + +During the ten years preceding his mission to Spain, Irving kept fagging +away at the pen, doing a good deal of miscellaneous and ephemeral work. +Among his other engagements was that of regular contributor to the +"Knickerbocker Magazine," for a salary of two thousand dollars. He wrote +the editor that he had observed that man, as he advances in life, is +subject to a plethora of the mind, occasioned by an accumulation of +wisdom upon the brain, and that he becomes fond of telling long stories +and doling out advice, to the annoyance of his friends. To avoid +becoming the bore of the domestic circle, he proposed to ease off this +surcharge of the intellect by inflicting his tediousness on the public +through the pages of the periodical. The arrangement brought reputation +to the magazine (which was published in the days when the honor of +being in print was supposed by the publisher to be ample compensation to +the scribe), but little profit to Mr. Irving. During this period he +interested himself in an international copyright, as a means of +fostering our young literature. He found that a work of merit, written +by an American who had not established a commanding name in the market, +met very cavalier treatment from our publishers, who frankly said that +they need not trouble themselves about native works, when they could +pick up every day successful books from the British press, for which +they had to pay no copyright. Irving's advocacy of the proposed law was +entirely unselfish, for his own market was secure. + +His chief works in these ten years were, "A Tour on the Prairies," +"Recollections of Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey," "The Legends of the +Conquest of Spain," "Astoria" (the heavy part of the work of it was done +by his nephew Pierre), "Captain Bonneville," and a number of graceful +occasional papers, collected afterwards under the title of "Wolfert's +Roost." Two other books may properly be mentioned here, although they +did not appear until after his return from his absence of four years and +a half at the court of Madrid; these are the "Biography of Goldsmith" +and "Mahomet and his Successors." At the age of sixty-six, he laid aside +the "Life of Washington," on which he was engaged, and rapidly "threw +off" these two books. The "Goldsmith" was enlarged from a sketch he had +made twenty-five years before. It is an exquisite, sympathetic piece of +work, without pretension or any subtle verbal analysis, but on the whole +an excellent interpretation of the character. Author and subject had +much in common: Irving had at least a kindly sympathy for the +vagabondish inclinations of his predecessor, and with his humorous and +cheerful regard of the world; perhaps it is significant of a deeper +unity in character that both, at times, fancied they could please an +intolerant world by attempting to play the flute. The "Mahomet" is a +popular narrative, which throws no new light on the subject; it is +pervaded by the author's charm of style and equity of judgment, but it +lacks the virility of Gibbon's masterly picture of the Arabian prophet +and the Saracenic onset. + +We need not dwell longer upon this period. One incident of it, however, +cannot be passed in silence: that was the abandonment of his life-long +project of writing the History of the Conquest of Mexico to Mr. William +H. Prescott. It had been a scheme of his boyhood; he had made +collections of materials for it during his first residence in Spain; and +he was actually and absorbedly engaged in the composition of the first +chapters, when he was sounded by Mr. Cogswell, of the Astor Library, in +behalf of Mr. Prescott. Some conversation showed that Mr. Prescott was +contemplating the subject upon which Mr. Irving was engaged, and the +latter instantly authorized Mr. Cogswell to say that he abandoned it. +Although our author was somewhat far advanced, and Mr. Prescott had not +yet collected his materials, Irving renounced the glorious theme in such +a manner that Prescott never suspected the pain and loss it cost him, +nor the full extent of his own obligation. Some years afterwards Irving +wrote to his nephew that in giving it up he in a manner gave up his +bread, as he had no other subject to supply its place: "I was," he +wrote, "dismounted from my _cheval de bataille_, and have never been +completely mounted since." But he added that he was not sorry for the +warm impulse that induced him to abandon the subject, and that Mr. +Prescott's treatment of it had justified his opinion of him. +Notwithstanding Prescott's very brilliant work, we cannot but feel some +regret that Irving did not write a Conquest of Mexico. His method, as he +outlined it, would have been the natural one. Instead of partially +satisfying the reader's curiosity in a preliminary essay, in which the +Aztec civilization was exposed, Irving would have begun with the entry +of the conquerors, and carried his reader step by step onward, letting +him share all the excitement and surprise of discovery which the +invaders experienced, and learn of the wonders of the country in the +manner most likely to impress both the imagination and the memory; and +with his artistic sense of the value of the picturesque he would have +brought into strong relief the _dramatis personĉ_ of the story. + +In 1842, Irving was tendered the honor of the mission to Madrid. It was +an entire surprise to himself and to his friends. He came to look upon +this as the "crowning honor of his life," and yet when the news first +reached him he paced up and down his room, excited and astonished, +revolving in his mind the separation from home and friends, and was +heard murmuring, half to himself and half to his nephew, "It is +hard,--very hard; yet I must try to bear it. God tempers the wind to the +shorn lamb." His acceptance of the position was doubtless influenced by +the intended honor to his profession, by the gratifying manner in which +it came to him, by his desire to please his friends, and the belief, +which was a delusion, that diplomatic life in Madrid would offer no +serious interruption to his "Life of Washington," in which he had just +become engaged. The nomination, the suggestion of Daniel Webster, +Tyler's Secretary of State, was cordially approved by the President and +cabinet, and confirmed almost by acclamation in the Senate. "Ah," said +Mr. Clay, who was opposing nearly all the President's appointments, +"this is a nomination everybody will concur in!" "If a person of more +merit and higher qualification," wrote Mr. Webster in his official +notification, "had presented himself, great as is my personal regard +for you, I should have yielded it to higher considerations." No other +appointment could have been made so complimentary to Spain, and it +remains to this day one of the most honorable to his own country. + +In reading Irving's letters written during his third visit abroad, you +are conscious that the glamour of life is gone for him, though not his +kindliness towards the world, and that he is subject to few illusions; +the show and pageantry no longer enchant,--they only weary. The novelty +was gone, and he was no longer curious to see great sights and great +people. He had declined a public dinner in New York, and he put aside +the same hospitality offered by Liverpool and by Glasgow. In London he +attended the Queen's grand fancy ball, which surpassed anything he had +seen in splendor and picturesque effect. "The personage," he writes, +"who appeared least to enjoy the scene seemed to me to be the little +Queen herself. She was flushed and heated, and evidently fatigued and +oppressed with the state she had to keep up and the regal robes in +which she was arrayed, and especially by a crown of gold, which weighed +heavy on her brow, and to which she was continually raising her hand to +move it slightly when it pressed. I hope and trust her real crown sits +easier." The bearing of Prince Albert he found prepossessing, and he +adds, "He speaks English very well;" as if that were a useful +accomplishment for an English Prince Consort. His reception at court and +by the ministers and diplomatic corps was very kind, and he greatly +enjoyed meeting his old friends, Leslie, Rogers, and Moore. At Paris, in +an informal presentation to the royal family, he experienced a very +cordial welcome from the King and Queen and Madame Adelaide, each of +whom took occasion to say something complimentary about his writings; +but he escaped as soon as possible from social engagements. "Amidst all +the splendors of London and Paris, I find my imagination refuses to take +fire, and my heart still yearns after dear little Sunnyside." Of an +anxious friend in Paris, who thought Irving was ruining his prospects by +neglecting to leave his card with this or that duchess who had sought +his acquaintance, he writes: "He attributes all this to very excessive +modesty, not dreaming that the empty intercourse of saloons with people +of rank and fashion could be a bore to one who has run the rounds of +society for the greater part of half a century, and who likes to consult +his own humor and pursuits." + +When Irving reached Madrid the affairs of the kingdom had assumed a +powerful dramatic interest, wanting in none of the romantic elements +that characterize the whole history of the peninsula. "The future career +[he writes] of this gallant soldier, Espartero, whose merits and +services have placed him at the head of the government, and the future +fortunes of these isolated little princesses, the Queen and her sister, +have an uncertainty hanging about them worthy of the fifth act in a +melodrama." The drama continued, with constant shifting of scene, as +long as Irving remained in Spain, and gave to his diplomatic life +intense interest, and at times perilous excitement. His letters are full +of animated pictures of the changing progress of the play; and although +they belong rather to the gossip of history than to literary biography, +they cannot be altogether omitted. The duties which the minister had to +perform were unusual, delicate, and difficult; but I believe he +acquitted himself of them with the skill of a born diplomatist. When he +went to Spain before, in 1826, Ferdinand VII. was, by aid of French +troops, on the throne, the liberties of the kingdom were crushed, and +her most enlightened men were in exile. While he still resided there, in +1829, Ferdinand married, for his fourth wife, Maria Christina, sister of +the King of Naples, and niece of the Queen of Louis Philippe. By her he +had two daughters, his only children. In order that his own progeny +might succeed him, he set aside the Salique law (which had been imposed +by France) just before his death, in 1833, and revived the old Spanish +law of succession. His eldest daughter, then three years old, was +proclaimed Queen, by the name of Isabella II., and her mother guardian +during her minority, which would end at the age of fourteen. Don Carlos, +the king's eldest brother, immediately set up the standard of rebellion, +supported by the absolutist aristocracy, the monks, and a great part of +the clergy. The liberals rallied to the Queen. The Queen Regent did +not, however, act in good faith with the popular party: she resisted all +salutary reform, would not restore the Constitution of 1812 until +compelled to by a popular uprising, and disgraced herself by a +scandalous connection with one Muños, one of the royal body guards. She +enriched this favorite and amassed a vast fortune for herself, which she +sent out of the country. In 1839, when Don Carlos was driven out of the +country by the patriot soldier Espartero, she endeavored to gain him +over to her side, but failed. Espartero became Regent, and Maria +Christina repaired to Paris, where she was received with great +distinction by Louis Philippe, and Paris became the focus of all sorts +of machinations against the constitutional government of Spain, and of +plots for its overthrow. One of these had just been defeated at the time +of Irving's arrival. It was a desperate attempt of a band of soldiers of +the rebel army to carry off the little Queen and her sister, which was +frustrated only by the gallant resistance of the halberdiers in the +palace. The little princesses had scarcely recovered from the horror of +this night attack when our minister presented his credentials to the +Queen through the Regent, thus breaking a diplomatic dead-lock, in which +he was followed by all the other embassies except the French. I take +some passages from the author's description of his first audience at the +royal palace:-- + + "We passed through the spacious court, up the noble staircase, and + through the long suites of apartments of this splendid edifice, + most of them silent and vacant, the casements closed to keep out + the heat, so that a twilight reigned throughout the mighty pile, + not a little emblematical of the dubious fortunes of its inmates. + It seemed more like traversing a convent than a palace. I ought to + have mentioned that in ascending the grand staircase we found the + portal at the head of it, opening into the royal suite of + apartments, still bearing the marks of the midnight attack upon the + palace in October last, when an attempt was made to get possession + of the persons of the little Queen and her sister, to carry them + off.... The marble casements of the doors had been shattered in + several places, and the double doors themselves pierced all over + with bullet holes, from the musketry that played upon them from the + staircase during that eventful night. What must have been the + feelings of those poor children, on listening, from their + apartment, to the horrid tumult, the outcries of a furious + multitude, and the reports of fire-arms echoing and reverberating + through the vaulted halls and spacious courts of this immense + edifice, and dubious whether their own lives were not the object of + the assault! + + "After passing through various chambers of the palace, now silent + and sombre, but which I had traversed in former days, on grand + court occasions in the time of Ferdinand VII., when they were + glittering with all the splendor of a court, we paused in a great + saloon, with high-vaulted ceiling incrusted with florid devices in + porcelain, and hung with silken tapestry, but all in dim twilight, + like the rest of the palace. At one end of the saloon the door + opened to an almost interminable range of other chambers, through + which, at a distance, we had a glimpse of some indistinct figures + in black. They glided into the saloon slowly, and with noiseless + steps. It was the little Queen, with her governess, Madame Mina, + widow of the general of that name, and her guardian, the excellent + Arguelles, all in deep mourning for the Duke of Orleans. The little + Queen advanced some steps within the saloon and then paused. Madame + Mina took her station a little distance behind her. The Count + Almodovar then introduced me to the Queen in my official capacity, + and she received me with a grave and quiet welcome, expressed in a + very low voice. She is nearly twelve years of age, and is + sufficiently well grown for her years. She had a somewhat fair + complexion, quite pale, with bluish or light gray eyes; a grave + demeanor, but a graceful deportment. I could not but regard her + with deep interest, knowing what important concerns depended upon + the life of this fragile little being, and to what a stormy and + precarious career she might be destined. Her solitary position, + also, separated from all her kindred except her little sister, a + mere effigy of royalty in the hands of statesmen, and surrounded by + the formalities and ceremonials of state, which spread sterility + around the occupant of a throne." + +I have quoted this passage not more on account of its intrinsic +interest, than as a specimen of the author's consummate art of conveying +an impression by what I may call the tone of his style; and this appears +in all his correspondence relating to this picturesque and eventful +period. During the four years of his residence the country was in a +constant state of excitement and often of panic. Armies were marching +over the kingdom. Madrid was in a state of siege, expecting an assault +at one time; confusion reigned amid the changing adherents about the +person of the child Queen. The duties of a minister were perplexing +enough, when the Spanish government was changing its character and its +_personnel_ with the rapidity of shifting scenes in a pantomime. "This +consumption of ministers," wrote Irving to Mr. Webster, "is appalling. +To carry on a negotiation with such transient functionaries is like +bargaining at the window of a railroad car: before you can get a reply +to a proposition the other party is out of sight." + +Apart from politics, Irving's residence was full of half-melancholy +recollections and associations. In a letter to his old comrade Prince +Dolgorouki, then Russian Minister at Naples, he recalls the days of +their delightful intercourse at the D'Oubrils:-- + + "Time dispels charms and illusions. You remember how much I was + struck with a beautiful young woman (I will not mention names) who + appeared in a tableau as Murillo's Virgin of the Assumption? She + was young, recently married, fresh and unhackneyed in society, and + my imagination decked her out with everything that was pure, + lovely, innocent, and angelic in womanhood. She was pointed out to + me in the theatre shortly after my arrival in Madrid. I turned with + eagerness to the original of the picture that had ever remained + hung up in sanctity in my mind. I found her still handsome, though + somewhat matronly in appearance, seated, _with her daughters,_ in + the box of a fashionable nobleman, younger than herself, rich in + purse but poor in intellect, and who was openly and notoriously her + _cavalier servante_. The charm was broken, the picture fell from + the wall. She may have the customs of a depraved country and + licentious state of society to excuse her; but I can never think of + her again in the halo of feminine purity and loveliness that + surrounded the Virgin of Murillo." + +During Irving's ministry he was twice absent, briefly in Paris and +London, and was called to the latter place for consultation in regard to +the Oregon boundary dispute, in the settlement of which he rendered +valuable service. Space is not given me for further quotations from +Irving's brilliant descriptions of court, characters, and society in +that revolutionary time, nor of his half-melancholy pilgrimage to the +southern scenes of his former reveries. But I will take a page from a +letter to his sister, Mrs. Paris, describing his voyage from Barcelona +to Marseilles, which exhibits the lively susceptibility of the author +and diplomat who was then in his sixty-first year:-- + + "While I am writing at a table in the cabin, I am sensible of the + power of a pair of splendid Spanish eyes which are occasionally + flashing upon me, and which almost seem to throw a light upon the + paper. Since I cannot break the spell, I will describe the owner of + them. She is a young married lady, about four or five and twenty, + middle sized, finely modeled, a Grecian outline of face, a + complexion sallow yet healthful, raven black hair, eyes dark, + large, and beaming, softened by long eyelashes, lips full and rosy + red, yet finely chiseled, and teeth of dazzling whiteness. She is + dressed in black, as if in mourning; on one hand is a black glove; + the other hand, ungloved, is small, exquisitely formed, with taper + fingers and blue veins. She has just put it up to adjust her + clustering black locks. I never saw female hand more exquisite. + Really, if I were a young man, I should not be able to draw the + portrait of this beautiful creature so calmly. + + "I was interrupted in my letter writing, by an observation of the + lady whom I was describing. She had caught my eye occasionally, as + it glanced from my letter toward her. 'Really, Señor,' said she, at + length, with a smile, 'one would think you were a painter taking my + likeness.' I could not resist the impulse. 'Indeed,' said I, 'I am + taking it; I am writing to a friend the other side of the world, + discussing things that are passing before me, and I could not help + noting down one of the best specimens of the country that I had met + with.' A little bantering took place between the young lady, her + husband, and myself, which ended in my reading off, as well as I + could into Spanish, the description I had just written down. It + occasioned a world of merriment, and was taken in excellent part. + The lady's cheek, for once, mantled with the rose. She laughed, + shook her head, and said I was a very fanciful portrait painter; + and the husband declared that, if I would stop at St. Filian, all + the ladies in the place would crowd to have their portraits + taken,--my pictures were so flattering. I have just parted with + them. The steamship stopped in the open sea, just in front of the + little bay of St. Filian; boats came off from shore for the party. + I helped the beautiful original of the portrait into the boat, and + promised her and her husband if ever I should come to St. Filian I + would pay them a visit. The last I noticed of her was a Spanish + farewell wave of her beautiful white hand, and the gleam of her + dazzling teeth as she smiled adieu. So there's a very tolerable + touch of romance for a gentleman of my years." + +When Irving announced his recall from the court of Madrid, the young +Queen said to him in reply: "You may take with you into private life the +intimate conviction that your frank and loyal conduct has contributed to +draw closer the amicable relations which exist between North America and +the Spanish nation, and that your distinguished personal merits have +gained in my heart the appreciation which you merit by more than one +title." The author was anxious to return. From the midst of court life +in April, 1845, he had written: "I long to be once more back at dear +little Sunnyside, while I have yet strength and good spirits to enjoy +the simple pleasures of the country, and to rally a happy family group +once more about me. I grudge every year of absence that rolls by. +To-morrow is my birthday. I shall then be sixty-two years old. The +evening of life is fast drawing over me; still I hope to get back among +my friends while there is a little sunshine left." + +It was the 19th of September, 1846, says his biographer, "when the +impatient longing of his heart was gratified, and he found himself +restored to his home for the thirteen years of happy life still +remaining to him." + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. + + +The Knickerbocker's "History of New York" and the "Sketch-Book" never +would have won for Irving the gold medal of the Royal Society of +Literature, or the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford. + +However much the world would have liked frankly to honor the writer for +that which it most enjoyed and was under most obligations for, it would +have been a violent shock to the constitution of things to have given +such honor to the mere humorist and the writer of short sketches. The +conventional literary proprieties must be observed. Only some laborious, +solid, and improving work of the pen could sanction such distinction,--a +book of research or an historical composition. It need not necessarily +be dull, but it must be grave in tone and serious in intention, in order +to give the author high recognition. + +Irving himself shared this opinion. He hoped, in the composition of his +"Columbus" and his "Washington," to produce works which should justify +the good opinion his countrymen had formed of him, should reasonably +satisfy the expectations excited by his lighter books, and lay for him +the basis of enduring reputation. All that he had done before was the +play of careless genius, the exercise of frolicsome fancy, which might +amuse and perhaps win an affectionate regard for the author, but could +not justify a high respect or secure a permanent place in literature. +For this, some work of scholarship and industry was needed. + +And yet everybody would probably have admitted that there was but one +man then living who could have created and peopled the vast and humorous +world of the Knickerbockers; that all the learning of Oxford and +Cambridge together would not enable a man to draw the whimsical portrait +of Ichabod Crane, or to outline the fascinating legend of Rip Van +Winkle; while Europe was full of scholars of more learning than Irving, +and writers of equal skill in narrative, who might have told the story +of Columbus as well as he told it and perhaps better. The +under-graduates of Oxford who hooted their admiration of the shy author +when he appeared in the theatre to receive his complimentary degree +perhaps understood this, and expressed it in their shouts of "Diedrich +Knickerbocker," "Ichabod Crane," "Rip Van Winkle." + +Irving's "gift" was humor; and allied to this was sentiment. These +qualities modified and restrained each other; and it was by these that +he touched the heart. He acquired other powers which he himself may have +valued more highly, and which brought him more substantial honors; but +the historical compositions, which he and his contemporaries regarded as +a solid basis of fame, could be spared without serious loss, while the +works of humor, the first fruits of his genius, are possessions in +English literature the loss of which would be irreparable. The world may +never openly allow to humor a position "above the salt," but it clings +to its fresh and original productions, generation after generation, +finding room for them in its accumulating literary baggage, while more +"important" tomes of scholarship and industry strew the line of its +march. + +I feel that this study of Irving as a man of letters would be +incomplete, especially for the young readers of this generation, if it +did not contain some more extended citations from those works upon which +we have formed our estimate of his quality. We will take first a few +passages from the "History of New York." + + * * * * * + +It has been said that Irving lacked imagination. That, while he had +humor and feeling and fancy, he was wanting in the higher quality, which +is the last test of genius. We have come to attach to the word +"imagination" a larger meaning than the mere reproduction in the mind of +certain absent objects of sense that have been perceived; there must be +a suggestion of something beyond these, and an ennobling suggestion, if +not a combination, that amounts to a new creation. Now, it seems to me +that the transmutation of the crude and theretofore unpoetical +materials, which he found in the New World, into what is as absolute a +creation as exists in literature, was a distinct work of the +imagination. Its humorous quality does not interfere with its largeness +of outline, nor with its essential poetic coloring. For, whimsical and +comical as is the "Knickerbocker" creation, it is enlarged to the +proportion of a realm, and over that new country of the imagination is +always the rosy light of sentiment. + +This largeness of modified conception cannot be made apparent in such +brief extracts as we can make, but they will show its quality and the +author's humor. The Low-Dutch settlers of the Nieuw Nederlandts are +supposed to have sailed from Amsterdam in a ship called the Goede Vrouw, +built by the carpenters of that city, who always model their ships on +the fair forms of their countrywomen. This vessel, whose beauteous model +was declared to be the greatest belle in Amsterdam, had one hundred feet +in the beam, one hundred feet in the keel, and one hundred feet from the +bottom of the stern-post to the taffrail. Those illustrious adventurers +who sailed in her landed on the Jersey flats, preferring a marshy +ground, where they could drive piles and construct dykes. They made a +settlement at the Indian village of Communipaw, the egg from which was +hatched the mighty city of New York. In the author's time this place had +lost its importance:-- + + "Communipaw is at present but a small village pleasantly situated, + among rural scenery, on that beauteous part of the Jersey shore + which was known in ancient legends by the name of Pavonia,[1] and + commands a grand prospect of the superb bay of New York. It is + within but half an hour's sail of the latter place, provided you + have a fair wind, and may be distinctly seen from the city. Nay, it + is a well-known fact, which I can testify from my own experience, + that on a clear still summer evening, you may hear, from the + Battery of New York, the obstreperous peals of broad-mouthed + laughter of the Dutch negroes at Communipaw, who, like most other + negroes, are famous for their risible powers. This is peculiarly + the case on Sunday evenings, when, it is remarked by an ingenious + and observant philosopher who has made great discoveries in the + neighborhood of this city, that they always laugh loudest, which he + attributes to the circumstance of their having their holiday + clothes on. + + "These negroes, in fact, like the monks of the dark ages, engross + all the knowledge of the place, and being infinitely more + adventurous and more knowing than their masters, carry on all the + foreign trade; making frequent voyages to town in canoes loaded + with oysters, buttermilk, and cabbages. They are great astrologers, + predicting the different changes of weather almost as accurately as + an almanac; they are moreover exquisite performers on + three-stringed fiddles; in whistling they almost boast the + far-famed powers of Orpheus's lyre, for not a horse or an ox in the + place, when at the plough or before the wagon, will budge a foot + until he hears the well-known whistle of his black driver and + companion. And from their amazing skill at casting up accounts upon + their fingers, they are regarded with as much veneration us were + the disciples of Pythagoras of yore, when initiated into the sacred + quaternary of numbers. + + "As to the honest burghers of Communipaw, like wise men and sound + philosophers, they never look beyond their pipes, nor trouble their + heads about any affairs out of their immediate neighborhood; so + that they live in profound and enviable ignorance of all the + troubles, anxieties, and revolutions of this distracted planet. I + am even told that many among them do verily believe that Holland, + of which they have heard so much from tradition, is situated + somewhere on Long Island,--that _Spiking-devil_ and _the Narrows_ + are the two ends of the world,--that the country is still under the + dominion of their High Mightinesses,--and that the city of New York + still goes by the name of Nieuw Amsterdam. They meet every Saturday + afternoon at the only tavern in the place, which bears as a sign a + square-headed likeness of the Prince of Orange, where they smoke a + silent pipe, by way of promoting social conviviality, and + invariably drink a mug of cider to the success of Admiral Van + Tromp, who they imagine is still sweeping the British channel with + a broom at his mast-head. + + "Communipaw, in short, is one of the numerous little villages in + the vicinity of this most beautiful of cities, which are so many + strongholds and fastnesses, whither the primitive manners of our + Dutch forefathers have retreated, and where they are cherished with + devout and scrupulous strictness. The dress of the original + settlers is handed down inviolate, from father to son: the + identical broad-brimmed hat, broad-skirted coat, and broad-bottomed + breeches, continue from generation to generation; and several + gigantic knee-buckles of massy silver are still in wear, that made + gallant display in the days of the patriarchs of Communipaw. The + language likewise continues unadulterated by barbarous innovations; + and so critically correct is the village schoolmaster in his + dialect, that his reading of a Low-Dutch psalm has much the same + effect on the nerves as the filing of a handsaw." + + [Footnote 1: Pavonia in the ancient maps, is given to a tract + of country extending from about Hoboken to Amboy.] + +The early prosperity of this settlement is dwelt on with satisfaction by +the author:-- + + "The neighboring Indians in a short time became accustomed to the + uncouth sound of the Dutch language, and an intercourse gradually + took place between them and the new-comers. The Indians were much + given to long talks, and the Dutch to long silence;--in this + particular, therefore, they accommodated each other completely. The + chiefs would make long speeches about the big bull, the Wabash, and + the Great Spirit, to which the others would listen very + attentively, smoke their pipes, and grunt _yah, mynher_,--whereat + the poor savages were wondrously delighted. They instructed the new + settlers in the best art of curing and smoking tobacco, while the + latter, in return, made them drunk with true Hollands,--and then + taught them the art of making bargains. + + "A brisk trade for furs was soon opened; the Dutch traders were + scrupulously honest in their dealings and purchased by weight, + establishing it as an invariable table of avoirdupois, that the + hand of a Dutchman weighed one pound, and his foot two pounds. It + is true, the simple Indians were often puzzled by the great + disproportion between bulk and weight, for let them place a bundle + of furs, never so large, in one scale, and a Dutchman put his hand + or foot in the other, the bundle was sure to kick the beam;--never + was a package of furs known to weigh more than two pounds in the + market of Communipaw! + + "This is a singular fact,--but I have it direct from my + great-great-grandfather, who had risen to considerable importance + in the colony, being promoted to the office of weigh-master, on + account of the uncommon heaviness of his foot. + + "The Dutch possessions in this part of the globe began now to + assume a very thriving appearance, and were comprehended under the + general title of Nieuw Nederlandts, on account, as the Sage Vander + Donck observes, of their great resemblance to the Dutch + Netherlands,--which indeed was truly remarkable, excepting that the + former were rugged and mountainous, and the latter level and + marshy. About this time the tranquillity of the Dutch colonists was + doomed to suffer a temporary interruption. In 1614, Captain Sir + Samuel Argal, sailing under a commission from Dale, governor of + Virginia, visited the Dutch settlements on Hudson River, and + demanded their submission to the English crown and Virginian + dominion. To this arrogant demand, as they were in no condition to + resist it, they submitted for the time, like discreet and + reasonable men. + + "It does not appear that the valiant Argal molested the settlement + of Communipaw; on the contrary, I am told that when his vessel + first hove in sight, the worthy burghers were seized with such a + panic, that they fell to smoking their pipes with astonishing + vehemence; insomuch that they quickly raised a cloud, which, + combining with the surrounding woods and marshes, completely + enveloped and concealed their beloved village, and overhung the + fair regions of Pavonia--so that the terrible Captain Argal passed + on totally unsuspicious that a sturdy little Dutch settlement lay + snugly couched in the mud, under cover of all this pestilent vapor. + In commemoration of this fortunate escape, the worthy inhabitants + have continued to smoke, almost without intermission, unto this + very day; which is said to be the cause of the remarkable fog which + often hangs over Communipaw of a clear afternoon." + +The golden age of New York was under the reign of Walter Van Twiller, +the first governor of the province, and the best it ever had. In his +sketch of this excellent magistrate Irving has embodied the abundance +and tranquillity of those halcyon days:-- + + "The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from a + long line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away + their lives, and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in + Rotterdam; and who had comported themselves with such singular + wisdom and propriety, that they were never either heard or talked + of--which, next to being universally applauded, should be the + object of ambition of all magistrates and rulers. There are two + opposite ways by which some men make a figure in the world: one, by + talking faster than they think, and the other, by holding their + tongues and not thinking at all. By the first, many a smatterer + acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts; by the other, many + a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be + considered the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual + remark, which I would not, for the universe, have it thought I + apply to Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up + within himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke, except in + monosyllables; but then it was allowed he seldom said a foolish + thing. So invincible was his gravity that he was never known to + laugh or even to smile through the whole course of a long and + prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered in his presence, that + set light-minded hearers in a roar, it was observed to throw him + into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he would deign to inquire + into the matter, and when, after much explanation, the joke was + made as plain as a pike-staff, he would continue to smoke his pipe + in silence, and at length, knocking out the ashes, would exclaim, + 'Well! I see nothing in all that to laugh about.' + + "With all his reflective habits, he never made up his mind on a + subject. His adherents accounted for this by the astonishing + magnitude of his ideas. He conceived every subject on so grand a + scale that he had not room in his head to turn it over and examine + both sides of it. Certain it is, that, if any matter were + propounded to him on which ordinary mortals would rashly determine + at first glance, he would put on a vague, mysterious look, shake + his capacious head, smoke some time in profound silence, and at + length observe, that 'he had his doubts about the matter'; which + gained him the reputation of a man slow of belief and not easily + imposed upon. What is more, it has gained him a lasting name; for + to this habit of the mind has been attributed his surname of + Twiller; which is said to be a corruption of the original Twijfler, + or, in plain English, _Doubter_. + + "The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed and + proportioned, as though it had been moulded by the hands of some + cunning Dutch statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur. + He was exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five + inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such + stupendous dimensions, that dame Nature, with all her sex's + ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck capable of + supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined the attempt, and + settled it firmly on the top of his backbone, just between the + shoulders. His body was oblong and particularly capacious at + bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was + a man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of + walking. His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the + weight they had to sustain; so that when erect he had not a little + the appearance of a beer-barrel on skids. His face, that infallible + index of the mind, presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by any of + those lines and angles which disfigure the human countenance with + what is termed expression. Two small gray eyes twinkled feebly in + the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a hazy firmament, + and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll of + everything that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and + streaked with dusky red, like a spitzenberg apple. + + "His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four + stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and + doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the + four-and-twenty. Such was the renowned Wouter Van Twiller,--a true + philosopher, for his mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly + settled below, the cares and perplexities of this world. He had + lived in it for years, without feeling the least curiosity to know + whether the sun revolved round it, or it round the sun; and he had + watched, for at least half a century, the smoke curling from his + pipe to the ceiling, without once troubling his head with any of + those numerous theories by which a philosopher would have perplexed + his brain, in accounting for its rising above the surrounding + atmosphere. + + "In his council he presided with great state and solemnity. He sat + in a huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of the + Hague, fabricated by an experienced timmerman of Amsterdam, and + curiously carved about the arms and feet into exact imitations of + gigantic eagle's claws. Instead of a sceptre, he swayed a long + Turkish pipe, wrought with jasmin and amber, which had been + presented to a stadtholder of Holland at the conclusion of a treaty + with one of the petty Barbary powers. In this stately chair would + he sit, and this magnificent pipe would he smoke, shaking his + right knee with a constant motion, and fixing his eye for hours + together upon a little print of Amsterdam, which hung in a black + frame against the opposite wall of the council-chamber. Nay, it has + even been said, that when any deliberation of extraordinary length + and intricacy was on the carpet, the renowned Wouter would shut his + eyes for full two hours at a time, that he might not be disturbed + by external objects; and at such times the internal commotion of + his mind was evinced by certain regular guttural sounds, which his + admirers declared were merely the noise of conflict, made by his + contending doubts and opinions.... + + "I have been the more anxious to delineate fully the person and + habits of Wouter Van Twiller, from the consideration that he was + not only the first but also the best governor that ever presided + over this ancient and respectable province; and so tranquil and + benevolent was his reign, that I do not find throughout the whole + of it a single instance of any offender being brought to + punishment,--a most indubitable sign of a merciful governor, and a + case unparalleled, excepting in the reign of the illustrious King + Log, from whom, it is hinted, the renowned Van Twiller was a lineal + descendant. + + "The very outset of the career of this excellent magistrate was + distinguished by an example of legal acumen that gave flattering + presage of a wise and equitable administration. The morning after + he had been installed in office, and at the moment that he was + making his breakfast from a prodigious earthen dish, filled with + milk and Indian pudding, he was interrupted by the appearance of + Wandle Schoonhoven, a very important old burgher of New Amsterdam, + who complained bitterly of one Barent Bleecker, inasmuch as he + refused to come to a settlement of accounts, seeing that there was + a heavy balance in favor of the said Wandle. Governor Van Twiller, + as I have already observed, was a man of few words; he was likewise + a mortal enemy to multiplying writings--or being disturbed at his + breakfast. Having listened attentively to the statement of Wandle + Schoonhoven, giving an occasional grunt, as he shoveled a spoonful + of Indian pudding into his mouth,--either as a sign that he + relished the dish, or comprehended the story,--he called unto him + his constable, and pulling out of his breeches-pocket a huge + jack-knife, dispatched it after the defendant as a summons, + accompanied by his tobacco-box as a warrant. + + "This summary process was as effectual in those simple days as was + the seal-ring of the great Haroun Alraschid among the true + believers. The two parties being confronted before him, each + produced a book of accounts, written in a language and character + that would have puzzled any but a High-Dutch commentator, or a + learned decipherer of Egyptian obelisks. The sage Wouter took them + one after the other, and having poised them in his hands, and + attentively counted over the number of leaves, fell straightway + into a very great doubt, and smoked for half an hour without saying + a word; at length, laying his finger beside his nose, and shutting + his eyes for a moment, with the air of a man who has just caught a + subtle idea by the tail, he slowly took his pipe from his mouth, + puffed forth a column of tobacco-smoke, and with marvelous gravity + and solemnity pronounced, that, having carefully counted over the + leaves and weighed the books, it was found, that one was just as + thick and as heavy as the other: therefore, it was the final + opinion of the court that the accounts were equally balanced: + therefore, Wandle should give Barent a receipt, and Barent should + give Wandle a receipt, and the constable should pay the costs. + + "This decision, being straightway made known, diffused general joy + throughout New Amsterdam, for the people immediately perceived that + they had a very wise and equitable magistrate to rule over them. + But its happiest effect was, that not another lawsuit took place + throughout the whole of his administration; and the office of + constable fell into such decay, that there was not one of those + losel scouts known in the province for many years. I am the more + particular in dwelling on this transaction, not only because I deem + it one of the most sage and righteous judgments on record, and well + worthy the attention of modern magistrates, but because it was a + miraculous event in the history of the renowned Wouter--being the + only time he was ever known to come to a decision in the whole + course of his life." + +This peaceful age ended with the accession of William the Testy, and the +advent of the enterprising Yankees. During the reigns of William Kieft +and Peter Stuyvesant, between the Yankees of the Connecticut and the +Swedes of the Delaware, the Dutch community knew no repose, and the +"History" is little more than a series of exhausting sieges and +desperate battles, which would have been as heroic as any in history if +they had been attended with loss of life. The forces that were gathered +by Peter Stuyvesant for the expedition to avenge upon the Swedes the +defeat at Fort Casimir, and their appearance on the march, give some +notion of the military prowess of the Dutch. Their appearance, when they +were encamped on the Bowling Green, recalls the Homeric age:-- + + "In the centre, then, was pitched the tent of the men of battle of + the Manhattoes, who, being the inmates of the metropolis, composed + the lifeguards of the governor. These were commanded by the valiant + Stoffel Brinkerhoof, who, whilom had acquired such immortal fame at + Oyster Bay; they displayed as a standard a beaver _rampant_ on a + field of orange, being the arms of the province, and denoting the + persevering industry and the amphibious origin of the Nederlands. + + "On their right hand might be seen the vassals of that renowned + Mynheer, Michael Paw, who lorded it over the fair regions of + ancient Pavonia, and the lands away south even unto the Navesink + mountains, and was moreover patroon of Gibbet Island. His standard + was borne by his trusty squire, Cornelius Van Vorst; consisting of + a huge oyster _recumbent_ upon a sea-green field; being the + armorial bearings of his favorite metropolis Communipaw. He brought + to the camp a stout force of warriors, heavily armed, being each + clad in ten pair of linsey-woolsey breeches, and overshadowed by + broad-brimmed beavers, with short pipes twisted in their hat-bands. + These were the men who vegetated in the mud along the shores of + Pavonia, being of the race of genuine copperheads, and were fabled + to have sprung from oysters. + + "At a little distance was encamped the tribe of warriors who came + from the neighborhood of Hell-gate. These were commanded by the Suy + Dams, and the Van Dams,--incontinent hard swearers, as their names + betoken. They were terrible looking fellows, clad in broad-skirted + gaberdines, of that curious colored cloth called thunder and + lightning,--and bore as a standard three devil's darning-needles, + _volant_, in a flame-colored field. + + "Hard by was the tent of the men of battle from the marshy borders + of the Waale-Boght and the country thereabouts. These were of a + sour aspect, by reason that they lived on crabs, which abound in + these parts. They were the first institutors of that honorable + order of knighthood called _Fly-market shirks_, and, if tradition + speak true, did likewise introduce the far-famed step in dancing + called 'double trouble.' They were commanded by the fearless + Jacobus Varra Vanger,--and had, moreover, a jolly band of + Breuckelen ferry-men, who performed a brave concerto on conch + shells. + + "But I refrain from pursuing this minute description which goes on + to describe the warriors of Bloemen-dael, and Weehawk, and + Hoboken, and sundry other places, well known in history and song; + for now do the notes of martial music alarm the people of New + Amsterdam, sounding afar from beyond the walls of the city. But + this alarm was in a little while relieved, for lo! from the midst + of a vast cloud of dust, they recognized the brimstone-colored + breeches and splendid silver leg of Peter Stuyvesant, glaring in + the sunbeams; and beheld him approaching at the head of a + formidable army, which he had mustered along the banks of the + Hudson. And here the excellent but anonymous writer of the + Stuyvesant manuscript breaks out into a brave and glorious + description of the forces, as they defiled through the principal + gate of the city, that stood by the head of Wall Street. + + "First of all came the Van Bummels, who inhabit the pleasant + borders of the Bronx: these were short fat men, wearing exceeding + large trunk-breeches, and were renowned for feats of the trencher. + They were the first inventors of suppawn, or mush and milk.--Close + in their rear marched the Van Vlotens, of Kaatskill, horrible + quaffers of new cider, and arrant braggarts in their liquor.--After + them came the Van Pelts of Groodt Esopus, dexterous horsemen, + mounted upon goodly switch-tailed steeds of the Esopus breed. These + were mighty hunters of minks and musk-rats, whence came the word + _Peltry_.--Then the Van Nests of Kinderhoeck, valiant robbers of + birds'-nests, as their name denotes. To these, if report may be + believed, are we indebted for the invention of slap-jacks, or + buckwheat-cakes.--Then the Van Higginbottoms, of Wapping's creek. + These came armed with ferules and birchen rods, being a race of + schoolmasters, who first discovered the marvelous sympathy between + the seat of honor and the seat of intellect,--and that the shortest + way to get knowledge into the head was to hammer it into the + bottom.--Then the Van Grolls, of Antony's Nose, who carried their + liquor in fair round little pottles, by reason they could not bouse + it out of their canteens, having such rare long noses.--Then the + Gardeniers, of Hudson and thereabouts, distinguished by many + triumphant feats, such as robbing water-melon patches, smoking + rabbits out of their holes, and the like, and by being great lovers + of roasted pigs' tails. These were the ancestors of the renowned + congressman of that name.--Then the Van Hoesens, of Sing-Sing, + great choristers and players upon the jews-harp. These marched two + and two, singing the great song of St. Nicholas.--Then the + Couenhovens, of Sleepy Hollow. These gave birth to a jolly race of + publicans, who first discovered the magic artifice of conjuring a + quart of wine into a pint bottle.--Then the Van Kortlandts, who + lived on the wild banks of the Croton, and were great killers of + wild ducks, being much spoken of for their skill in shooting with + the long bow.--Then the Van Bunschotens, of Nyack and Kakiat, who + were the first that did ever kick with the left foot. They were + gallant bushwhackers and hunters of raccoons by moonlight.--Then + the Van Winkles, of Haerlem, potent suckers of eggs, and noted for + running of horses, and running up of scores at taverns. They were + the first that ever winked with both eyes at once.--Lastly came the + KNICKERBOCKERS, of the great town of Scaghtikoke, where the folk + lay stones upon the houses in windy weather, lest they should be + blown away. These derive their name, as some say, from _Knicker_, + to shake, and _Beker_, a goblet, indicating thereby that they were + sturdy toss-pots of yore; but, in truth, it was derived from + _Knicker_, to nod, and _Boeken_, books: plainly meaning that they + were great nodders or dozers over books. From them did descend the + writer of this history." + +In the midst of Irving's mock-heroics, he always preserves a substratum +of good sense. An instance of this is the address of the redoubtable +wooden-legged governor, on his departure at the head of his warriors to +chastise the Swedes:-- + + "Certain it is, not an old woman in New Amsterdam but considered + Peter Stuyvesant as a tower of strength, and rested satisfied that + the public welfare was secure so long as he was in the city. It is + not surprising, then, that they looked upon his departure as a sore + affliction. With heavy hearts they draggled at the heels of his + troop, as they marched down to the river-side to embark. The + governor, from the stern of his schooner, gave a short but truly + patriarchal address to his citizens, wherein he recommended them to + comport like loyal and peaceable subjects--to go to church + regularly on Sundays, and to mind their business all the week + besides. That the women should be dutiful and affectionate to their + husbands,--looking after nobody's concerns but their + own,--eschewing all gossipings and morning gaddings,--and carrying + short tongues and long petticoats. That the men should abstain from + intermeddling in public concerns, intrusting the cares of + government to the officers appointed to support them,--staying at + home, like good citizens, making money for themselves, and getting + children for the benefit of their country. That the burgomasters + should look well to the public interest,--not oppressing the poor + nor indulging the rich,--not tasking their ingenuity to devise new + laws, but faithfully enforcing those which were already + made,--rather bending their attention to prevent evil than to + punish it; ever recollecting that civil magistrates should consider + themselves more as guardians of public morals than rat-catchers + employed to entrap public delinquents. Finally, he exhorted them, + one and all, high and low, rich and poor, to conduct themselves _as + well as they could_, assuring them that if they faithfully and + conscientiously complied with this golden rule, there was no danger + but that they would all conduct themselves well enough. This done, + he gave them a paternal benediction, the sturdy Antony sounded a + most loving farewell with his trumpet, the jolly crews put up a + shout of triumph, and the invincible armada swept off proudly down + the bay." + +The account of an expedition against Fort Christina deserves to be +quoted in full, for it is an example of what war might be, full of +excitement, and exercise, and heroism, without danger to life. We take +up the narrative at the moment when the Dutch host,-- + + "Brimful of wrath and cabbage,"-- + +and excited by the eloquence of the mighty Peter, lighted their pipes, +and charged upon the fort. + + "The Swedish garrison, ordered by the cunning Risingh not to fire + until they could distinguish the whites of their assailants' eyes, + stood in horrid silence on the covert-way, until the eager Dutchmen + had ascended the glacis. Then did they pour into them such a + tremendous volley, that the very hills quaked around, and were + terrified even unto an incontinence of water, insomuch that certain + springs burst forth from their sides, which continue to run unto + the present day. Not a Dutchman but would have bitten the dust + beneath that dreadful fire, had not the protecting Minerva kindly + taken care that the Swedes should, one and all, observe their usual + custom of shutting their eyes and turning away their heads at the + moment of discharge. + + "The Swedes followed up their fire by leaping the counterscarp, and + falling tooth and nail upon the foe with curious outcries. And now + might be seen prodigies of valor, unmatched in history or song. + Here was the sturdy Stoffel Brinkerhoff brandishing his + quarter-staff, like the giant Blanderon his oak-tree (for he + scorned to carry any other weapon), and drumming a horrific tune + upon the hard heads of the Swedish soldiery. There were the Van + Kortlandts, posted at a distance, like the Locrian archers of yore, + and plying it most potently with the long-bow, for which they were + so justly renowned. On a rising knoll were gathered the valiant + men of Sing-Sing, assisting marvelously in the fight by chanting + the great song of St. Nicholas; but as to the Gardeniers of Hudson, + they were absent on a marauding party, laying waste the neighboring + water-melon patches. + + "In a different part of the field were the Van Grolls of Antony's + Nose, struggling to get to the thickest of the fight, but horribly + perplexed in a defile between two hills, by reason of the length of + their noses. So also the Van Bunschotens of Nyack and Kakiat, so + renowned for kicking with the left foot, were brought to a stand + for want of wind, in consequence of the hearty dinner they had + eaten, and would have been put to utter rout but for the arrival of + a gallant corps of voltigeurs, composed of the Hoppers, who + advanced nimbly to their assistance on one foot. Nor must I omit to + mention the valiant achievements of Antony Van Corlear, who, for a + good quarter of an hour, waged stubborn fight with a little pursy + Swedish drummer, whose hide he drummed most magnificently, and whom + he would infallibly have annihilated on the spot, but that he had + come into the battle with no other weapon but his trumpet. + + "But now the combat thickened. On came the mighty Jacobus Varra + Vanger and the fighting-men of the Wallabout; after them thundered + the Van Pelts of Esopus, together with the Van Rippers and the Van + Brunts, bearing down all before them; then the Suy Dams, and the + Van Dams, pressing forward with many a blustering oath, at the head + of the warriors of Hell-gate, clad in their thunder-and-lightning + gaberdines; and lastly, the standard-bearers and body-guard of + Peter Stuyvesant, bearing the great beaver of the Manhattoes. + + "And now commenced the horrid din, the desperate struggle, the + maddening ferocity, the frantic desperation, the confusion and + self-abandonment of war. Dutchman and Swede commingled, tugged, + panted, and blowed. The heavens were darkened with a tempest of + missives. Bang! went the guns; whack! went the broad-swords; thump! + went the cudgels; crash! went the musket-stocks; blows, kicks, + cuffs, scratches, black eyes and bloody noses swelling the horrors + of the scene! Thick thwack, cut and hack, helter-skelter, + higgledy-piggledy, hurly-burly, head-over-heels, rough-and-tumble! + Dunder and blixum! swore the Dutchmen; splitter and splutter! cried + the Swedes. Storm the works! shouted Hardkoppig Peter. Fire the + mine! roared stout Risingh. Tanta-rar-ra-ra! twanged the trumpet of + Antony Van Corlear;--until all voice and sound became + unintelligible,--grunts of pain, yells of fury, and shouts of + triumph mingling in one hideous clamor. The earth shook as if + struck with a paralytic stroke; trees shrunk aghast, and withered + at the sight; rocks burrowed in the ground like rabbits; and even + Christina Creek turned from its course and ran up a hill in + breathless terror! + + "Long hung the contest doubtful; for though a heavy shower of rain, + sent by the "cloud-compelling Jove," in some measure cooled their + ardor, as doth a bucket of water thrown on a group of fighting + mastiffs, yet did they but pause for a moment, to return with + tenfold fury to the charge. Just at this juncture a vast and dense + column of smoke was seen slowly rolling toward the scene of battle. + The combatants paused for a moment, gazing in mute astonishment, + until the wind, dispelling the murky cloud, revealed the flaunting + banner of Michael Paw, the Patroon of Communipaw. That valiant + chieftain came fearlessly on at the head of a phalanx of oyster-fed + Pavonians and a _corps de reserve_ of the Van Arsdales and Van + Bummels, who had remained behind to digest the enormous dinner they + had eaten. These now trudged manfully forward, smoking their pipes + with outrageous vigor, so as to raise the awful cloud that has been + mentioned, but marching exceedingly slow, being short of leg, and + of great rotundity in the belt. + + "And now the deities who watched over the fortunes of the + Nederlanders having unthinkingly left the field, and stepped into a + neighboring tavern to refresh themselves with a pot of beer, a + direful catastrophe had wellnigh ensued. Scarce had the myrmidons + of Michael Paw attained the front of battle, when the Swedes, + instructed by the cunning Risingh, leveled a shower of blows full + at their tobacco-pipes. Astounded at this assault, and dismayed at + the havoc of their pipes, these ponderous warriors gave way, and + like a drove of frightened elephants broke through the ranks of + their own army. The little Hoppers were borne down in the surge; + the sacred banner emblazoned with the gigantic oyster of Communipaw + was trampled in the dirt; on blundered and thundered the + heavy-sterned fugitives, the Swedes pressing on their rear and + applying their feet _a parte poste_ of the Van Arsdales and the Van + Bummels with a vigor that prodigiously accelerated their movements; + nor did the renowned Michael Paw himself fail to receive divers + grievous and dishonorable visitations of shoe-leather. + + "But what, oh Muse! was the rage of Peter Stuyvesant, when from + afar he saw his army giving way! In the transports of his wrath he + sent forth a roar, enough to shake the very hills. The men of the + Manhattoes plucked up new courage at the sound, or, rather, they + rallied at the voice of their leader, of whom they stood more in + awe than of all the Swedes in Christendom. Without waiting for + their aid, the daring Peter dashed, sword in hand, into the + thickest of the foe. Then might be seen achievements worthy of the + days of the giants. Wherever he went the enemy shrank before him; + the Swedes fled to right and left, or were driven, like dogs, into + their own ditch; but as he pushed forward, singly with headlong + courage, the foe closed behind and hung upon his rear. One aimed a + blow full at his heart; but the protecting power which watches over + the great and good turned aside the hostile blade and directed it + to a side-pocket, where reposed an enormous iron tobacco-box, + endowed, like the shield of Achilles, with supernatural powers, + doubtless from bearing the portrait of the blessed St. Nicholas. + Peter Stuyvesant turned like an angry bear upon the foe, and + seizing him, as he fled, by an immeasurable queue, 'Ah, whoreson + caterpillar,' roared he, 'here's what shall make worms' meat of + thee!' so saying he whirled his sword and dealt a blow that would + have decapitated the varlet, but that the pitying steel struck + short and shaved the queue forever from his crown. At this moment + an arquebusier leveled his piece from a neighboring mound, with + deadly aim; but the watchful Minerva, who had just stopped to tie + up her garter, seeing the peril of her favorite hero, sent old + Boreas with his bellows, who, as the match descended to the pan, + gave a blast that blew the priming from the touch-hole. + + "Thus waged the fight, when the stout Risingh, surveying the field + from the top of a little ravelin, perceived his troops banged, + beaten, and kicked by the invincible Peter. Drawing his falchion, + and uttering a thousand anathemas, he strode down to the scene of + combat with some such thundering strides as Jupiter is said by + Hesiod to have taken when he strode down the spheres to hurl his + thunder-bolts at the Titans. + + "When the rival heroes came face to face, each made a prodigious + start in the style of a veteran stage-champion. Then did they + regard each other for a moment with the bitter aspect of two + furious ram-cats on the point of a clapper-clawing. Then did they + throw themselves into one attitude, then into another, striking + their swords on the ground, first on the right side, then on the + left: at last at it they went with incredible ferocity. Words + cannot tell the prodigies of strength and valor displayed in this + direful encounter,--an encounter compared to which the far-famed + battles of Ajax with Hector, of Ĉneas with Turnus, Orlando with + Rodomont, Guy of Warwick with Colbrand the Dane, or of that + renowned Welsh knight, Sir Owen of the Mountains, with the giant + Guylon, were all gentle sports and holiday recreations. At length + the valiant Peter, watching his opportunity, aimed a blow enough to + cleave his adversary to the very chine; but Risingh, nimbly raising + his sword, warded it off so narrowly, that, glancing on one side, + it shaved away a huge canteen in which he carried his + liquor,--thence pursuing its trenchant course, it severed off a + deep coat-pocket, stored with bread and cheese,--which provant, + rolling among the armies, occasioned a fearful scrambling between + the Swedes and Dutchmen, and made the general battle to wax more + furious than ever. + + "Enraged to see his military stores laid waste, the stout Risingh, + collecting all his forces, aimed a mighty blow full at the hero's + crest. In vain did his fierce little cocked hat oppose its course. + The biting steel clove through the stubborn ram beaver, and would + have cracked the crown of any one not endowed with supernatural + hardness of head; but the brittle weapon shivered in pieces on the + skull of Hardkoppig Piet, shedding a thousand sparks, like beams of + glory, round his grizzly visage. + + "The good Peter reeled with the blow, and turning up his eyes + beheld a thousand suns, besides moons and stars, dancing about the + firmament; at length, missing his footing, by reason of his wooden + leg, down he came on his seat of honor with a crash which shook the + surrounding hills, and might have wrecked his frame, had he not + been received into a cushion softer than velvet, which Providence, + or Minerva, or St. Nicholas, or some cow, had benevolently prepared + for his reception. + + "The furious Risingh, in despite of the maxim, cherished by all + true knights, that 'fair play is a jewel,' hastened to take + advantage of the hero's fall; but, as he stooped to give a fatal + blow, Peter Stuyvesant dealt him a thwack over the sconce with his + wooden leg, which set a chime of bells ringing triple bob-majors in + his cerebellum. The bewildered Swede staggered with the blow, and + the wary Peter seizing a pocket-pistol, which lay hard by, + discharged it full at the head of the reeling Risingh. Let not my + reader mistake; it was not a murderous weapon loaded with powder + and ball, but a little sturdy stone pottle charged to the muzzle + with a double dram of true Dutch courage, which the knowing Antony + Van Corlear carried about him by way of replenishing his valor, and + which had dropped from his wallet during his furious encounter with + the drummer. The hideous weapon sang through the air, and true to + its course as was the fragment of a rock discharged at Hector by + bully Ajax, encountered the head of the gigantic Swede with + matchless violence. + + "This heaven-directed blow decided the battle. The ponderous + pericranium of General Jan Risingh sank upon his breast; his knees + tottered under him; a deathlike torpor seized upon his frame, and + he tumbled to the earth with such violence that old Pluto started + with affright, lest he should have broken through the roof of his + infernal palace. + + "His fall was the signal of defeat and victory: the Swedes gave + way, the Dutch pressed forward; the former took to their heels, the + latter hotly pursued. Some entered with them, pell-mell, through + the sally-port; others stormed the bastion, and others scrambled + over the curtain. Thus in a little while the fortress of Fort + Christina, which, like another Troy, had stood a siege of full ten + hours, was carried by assault, without the loss of a single man on + either side. Victory, in the likeness of a gigantic ox-fly, sat + perched upon the cocked hat of the gallant Stuyvesant; and it was + declared by all the writers whom he hired to write the history of + his expedition that on this memorable day he gained a sufficient + quantity of glory to immortalize a dozen of the greatest heroes in + Christendom!" + +In the "Sketch-Book," Irving set a kind of fashion in narrative essays, +in brief stories of mingled humor and pathos, which was followed for +half a century. He himself worked the same vein in "Bracebridge Hall," +and "Tales of a Traveller." And there is no doubt that some of the most +fascinating of the minor sketches of Charles Dickens, such as the story +of the Bagman's Uncle, are lineal descendants of, if they were not +suggested by, Irving's "Adventure of My Uncle," and the "Bold Dragoon." + +The taste for the leisurely description and reminiscent essay of the +"Sketch-Book" does not characterize the readers of this generation, and +we have discovered that the pathos of its elaborated scenes is somewhat +"literary." The sketches of "Little Britain," and "Westminster Abbey," +and, indeed, that of "Stratford-on-Avon," will for a long time retain +their place in selections of "good reading;" but the "Sketch-Book" is +only floated, as an original work, by two papers, the "Rip Van Winkle" +and the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow;" that is to say by the use of the +Dutch material, and the elaboration of the "Knickerbocker Legend," which +was the great achievement of Irving's life. This was broadened and +deepened and illustrated by the several stories of the "Money Diggers," +of "Wolfert Webber" and "Kidd the Pirate," in "The Tales of a +Traveller," and by "Dolph Heyliger" in "Bracebridge Hall." Irving was +never more successful than in painting the Dutch manners and habits of +the early time, and he returned again and again to the task until he not +only made the shores of the Hudson and the islands of New York harbor +and the East River classic ground, but until his conception of Dutch +life in the New World had assumed historical solidity and become a +tradition of the highest poetic value. If in the multiplicity of books +and the change of taste the bulk of Irving's works shall go out of +print, a volume made up of his Knickerbocker history and the legends +relating to the region of New York and the Hudson would survive as long +as anything that has been produced in this country. + +The philosophical student of the origin of New World society may find +food for reflection in the "materiality" of the basis of the +civilization of New York. The picture of abundance and of enjoyment of +animal life is perhaps not overdrawn in Irving's sketch of the home of +the Van Tassels, in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." It is all the extract +we can make room for from that careful study:-- + + "Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening in each + week, to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van + Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. + She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; + ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her father's peaches, + and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast + expectations. She was, withal, a little of a coquette, as might be + perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and + modern fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the + ornaments of pure yellow gold which her great-great-grandmother had + brought over from Saardam; the tempting stomacher of the olden + time; and withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the + prettiest foot and ankle in the country round. + + "Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the sex; and it + is not to be wondered at that so tempting a morsel soon found favor + in his eyes, more especially after he had visited her in her + paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a + thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, + sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his + own farm; but within those everything was snug, happy, and + well-conditioned. He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud + of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance rather than the + style in which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the banks + of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks in + which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A great elm-tree + spread its broad branches over it, at the foot of which bubbled up + a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well, + formed of a barrel, and then stole sparkling away through the grass + to a neighboring brook, that bubbled along among alders and dwarf + willows. Hard by the farm-house was a vast barn, that might have + served for a church, every window and crevice of which seemed + bursting forth with the treasures of the farm. The flail was busily + resounding within it from morning till night; swallows and martins + skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with + one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their + heads under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others + swelling and cooing and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the + sunshine on the roof. Sleek, unwieldy porkers were grunting in the + repose and abundance of their pens, whence sallied forth, now and + then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately + squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying + whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through + the farm-yard, and guinea fowls fretting about it, like + ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. + Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a + husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished + wings, and crowing in the pride and gladness of his + heart--sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then + generously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and children to + enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered. + + "The pedagogue's mouth watered as he looked upon this sumptuous + promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind's eye he + pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding + in his belly, and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly + put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of + crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy, and the ducks + pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent + competency of onion-sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the + future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey + but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, + and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and even bright + chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side-dish, with + uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous + spirit disdained to ask while living. + + "As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his + great green eyes over the fat meadow-lands, the rich fields of + wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchard + burdened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of + Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit + these domains, and his imagination expanded with the idea how they + might be readily turned into cash, and the money invested in + immense tracts of wild land and shingle palaces in the wilderness. + Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and presented to + him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children, mounted + on the top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and + kettles dangling beneath; and he beheld himself bestriding a pacing + mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, + Tennessee, or the Lord knows where. + + "When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was complete. + It was one of those spacious farm-houses, with high-ridged, but + lowly-sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from the first + Dutch settlers; the low projecting eaves forming a piazza along the + front, capable of being closed up in bad weather. Under this were + hung flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, and nets for + fishing in the neighboring river. Benches were built along the + sides for summer use; and a great spinning-wheel at one end, and a + churn at the other, showed the various uses to which this important + porch might be devoted. From this piazza the wondering Ichabod + entered the hall, which formed the centre of the mansion and the + place of usual residence. Here, rows of resplendent pewter, ranged + on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag + of wool ready to be spun; in another a quantity of linsey-woolsey + just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried + apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled + with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep + into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark + mahogany tables shone like mirrors; and irons, with their + accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of + asparagus tops; mock-oranges and conch-shells decorated the + mantelpiece; strings of various colored birds' eggs were suspended + above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from the centre of the room, + and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense + treasures of old silver and well-mended china." + +It is an abrupt transition from these homely scenes, which humor +commends to our liking, to the chivalrous pageant unrolled for us in the +"Conquest of Granada." The former are more characteristic and the more +enduring of Irving's writings, but as a literary artist his genius lent +itself just as readily to Oriental and mediĉval romance as to the +Knickerbocker legend; and there is no doubt that the delicate perception +he had of chivalric achievements gave a refined tone to his mock +heroics, which greatly heightened their effect. It may almost be claimed +that Irving did for Granada and the Alhambra what he did, in a totally +different way, for New York and its vicinity. + +The first passage I take from the "Conquest" is the description of the +advent at Cordova of the Lord Scales, Earl of Rivers, who was brother of +the queen of Henry VII., a soldier who had fought at Bosworth field, and +now volunteered to aid Ferdinand and Isabella in the extermination of +the Saracens. The description is put into the mouth of Fray Antonio +Agapida, a fictitious chronicler invented by Irving, an unfortunate +intervention which gives to the whole book an air of unveracity:-- + + "'This cavalier [he observes] was from the far island of England, + and brought with him a train of his vassals; men who had been + hardened in certain civil wars which raged in their country. They + were a comely race of men, but too fair and fresh for warriors, not + having the sunburnt, warlike hue of our old Castilian soldiery. + They were huge feeders also, and deep carousers, and could not + accommodate themselves to the sober diet of our troops, but must + fain eat and drink after the manner of their own country. They were + often noisy and unruly, also, in their wassail; and their quarter + of the camp was prone to be a scene of loud revel and sudden brawl. + They were, withal, of great pride, yet it was not like our + inflammable Spanish pride: they stood not much upon the _pundonor_, + the high punctilio, and rarely drew the stiletto in their disputes; + but their pride was silent and contumelious. Though from a remote + and somewhat barbarous island, they believed themselves the most + perfect men upon earth, and magnified their chieftain, the Lord + Scales, beyond the greatest of their grandees. With all this, it + must be said of them that they were marvelous good men in the + field, dexterous archers, and powerful with the battle-axe. In + their great pride and self-will, they always sought to press in the + advance and take the post of danger, trying to outvie our Spanish + chivalry. They did not rush on fiercely to the fight, nor make a + brilliant onset like the Moorish and Spanish troops, but they went + into the fight deliberately, and persisted obstinately, and were + slow to find out when they were beaten. Withal they were much + esteemed yet little liked by our soldiery, who considered them + staunch companions in the field, yet coveted but little fellowship + with them in the camp. + + "'Their commander, the Lord Scales, was an accomplished cavalier, + of gracious and noble presence and fair speech; it was a marvel to + see so much courtesy in a knight brought up so far from our + Castilian court. He was much honored by the king and queen, and + found great favor with the fair dames about the court, who indeed + are rather prone to be pleased with foreign cavaliers. He went + always in costly state, attended by pages and esquires, and + accompanied by noble young cavaliers of his country, who had + enrolled themselves under his banner, to learn the gentle exercise + of arms. In all pageants and festivals, the eyes of the populace + were attracted by the singular bearing and rich array of the + English earl and his train, who prided themselves in always + appearing in the garb and manner of their country--and were indeed + something very magnificent delectable, and strange to behold.' + + "The worthy chronicler is no less elaborate in his description of + the masters of Santiago, Calatrava, and Alcantara, and their + valiant knights, armed at all points, and decorated with the badges + of their orders. These, he affirms, were the flower of Christian + chivalry; being constantly in service they became more steadfast + and accomplished in discipline than the irregular and temporary + levies of feudal nobles. Calm, solemn, and stately, they sat like + towers upon their powerful chargers. On parades they manifested + none of the show and ostentation of the other troops: neither, in + battle, did they endeavor to signalize themselves by any fiery + vivacity, or desperate and vainglorious exploit,--everything, with + them, was measured and sedate; yet it was observed that none were + more warlike in their appearance in the camp, or more terrible for + their achievements in the field. + + "The gorgeous magnificence of the Spanish nobles found but little + favor in the eyes of the sovereigns. They saw that it caused a + competition in expense ruinous to cavaliers of moderate fortune; + and they feared that a softness and effeminacy might thus be + introduced, incompatible with the stern nature of the war. They + signified their disapprobation to several of the principal + noblemen, and recommended a more sober and soldier-like display + while in actual service. + + "'These are rare troops for a tournay, my lord [said Ferdinand to + the Duke of Infantado, as he beheld his retainers glittering in + gold and embroidery]; but gold, though gorgeous, is soft and + yielding: iron is the metal for the field.' + + "'Sire [replied the duke], if my men parade in gold, your majesty + will find they fight with steel.' The king smiled, but shook his + head, and the duke treasured up his speech in his heart." + +Our author excels in such descriptions as that of the progress of +Isabella to the camp of Ferdinand after the capture of Loxa, and of the +picturesque pageantry which imparted something of gayety to the brutal +pastime of war:-- + + "It was in the early part of June that the queen departed from + Cordova, with the Princess Isabella and numerous ladies of her + court. She had a glorious attendance of cavaliers and pages, with + many guards and domestics. There were forty mules for the use of + the queen, the princess and their train. + + "As this courtly cavalcade approached the Rock of the Lovers, on + the banks of the river Yeguas, they beheld a splendid train of + knights advancing to meet them. It was headed by that accomplished + cavalier the Marques Duke de Cadiz, accompanied by the adelantado + of Andalusia. He had left the camp the day after the capture of + Illora, and advanced thus far to receive the queen and escort her + over the borders. The queen received the marques with distinguished + honor, for he was esteemed the mirror of chivalry. His actions in + this war had become the theme of every tongue, and many hesitated + not to compare him in prowess with the immortal Cid. + + "Thus gallantly attended, the queen entered the vanquished frontier + of Granada, journeying securely along the pleasant banks of the + Xenel, so lately subject to the scourings of the Moors. She stopped + at Loxa, where she administered aid and consolation to the wounded, + distributing money among them for their support, according to their + rank. + + "The king, after the capture of Illora, had removed his camp before + the fortress of Moclin, with an intention of besieging it. Thither + the queen proceeded, still escorted through the mountain roads by + the Marques of Cadiz. As Isabella drew near to the camp, the Duke + del Infantado issued forth a league and a half to receive her, + magnificently arrayed, and followed by all his chivalry in glorious + attire. With him came the standard of Seville, borne by the + men-at-arms of that renowned city, and the Prior of St. Juan, with + his followers. They ranged themselves in order of battle, on the + left of the road by which the queen was to pass. + + "The worthy Agapida is loyally minute in his description of the + state and grandeur of the Catholic sovereigns. The queen rode a + chestnut mule, seated in a magnificent saddle-chair, decorated with + silver gilt. The housings of the mule were of fine crimson cloth; + the borders embroidered with gold; the reins and head-piece were of + satin, curiously embossed with needlework of silk, and wrought with + golden letters. The queen wore a brial or regal skirt of velvet, + under which were others of brocade; a scarlet mantle, ornamented in + the Moresco fashion; and a black hat, embroidered round the crown + and brim. + + "The infanta was likewise mounted on a chestnut mule, richly + caparisoned. She wore a brial or skirt of black brocade, and a + black mantle ornamented like that of the queen. + + "When the royal cavalcade passed by the chivalry of the Duke del + Infantado, which was drawn out in battle array, the queen made a + reverence to the standard of Seville, and ordered it to pass to the + right hand. When she approached the camp, the multitude ran forth + to meet her, with great demonstrations of joy; for she was + universally beloved by her subjects. All the battalions sallied + forth in military array, bearing the various standards and banners + of the camp, which were lowered in salutation as she passed. + + "The king now came forth in royal state, mounted on a superb + chestnut horse, and attended by many grandees of Castile. He wore a + jubon or close vest of crimson cloth, with cuisses or short skirts + of yellow satin, a loose cassock of brocade, a rich Moorish + scimiter, and a hat with plumes. The grandees who attended him were + arrayed with wonderful magnificence, each according to his taste + and invention. + + "These high and mighty princes [says Antonio Agapida] regarded each + other with great deference, as allied sovereigns rather than with + connubial familiarity, as mere husband and wife. When they + approached each other, therefore, before embracing, they made three + profound reverences, the queen taking off her hat, and remaining in + a silk net or cawl, with her face uncovered. The king then + approached and embraced her, and kissed her respectfully on the + cheek. He also embraced his daughter the princess; and, making the + sign of the cross, he blessed her, and kissed her on the lips. + + "The good Agapida seems scarcely to have been more struck with the + appearance of the sovereigns than with that of the English earl. He + followed [says he] immediately after the king, with great pomp, + and, in an extraordinary manner, taking precedence of all the rest. + He was mounted '_a la guisa_,' or with long stirrups, on a superb + chestnut horse, with trappings of azure silk which reached to the + ground. The housings were of mulberry, powdered with stars of gold. + He was armed in proof, and wore over his armor a short French + mantle of black brocade; he had a white French hat with plumes, and + carried on his left arm a small round buckler, banded with gold. + Five pages attended him, apparelled in silk and brocade, and + mounted on horses sumptuously caparisoned; he had also a train of + followers, bravely attired after the fashion of his country. + + "He advanced in a chivalrous and courteous manner, making his + reverences first to the queen and infanta, and afterwards to the + king. Queen Isabella received him graciously, complimenting him on + his courageous conduct at Loxa, and condoling with him on the loss + of his teeth. The earl, however, made light of his disfiguring + wound, saying that 'our blessed Lord, who had built all that house, + had opened a window there, that he might see more readily what + passed within;' whereupon the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida is more + than ever astonished at the pregnant wit of this island cavalier. + The earl continued some little distance by the side of the royal + family, complimenting them all with courteous speeches, his horse + curveting and caracoling, but being managed with great grace and + dexterity,--leaving the grandees and the people at large not more + filled with admiration at the strangeness and magnificence of his + state than at the excellence of his horsemanship. + + "To testify her sense of the gallantry and services of this noble + English knight, who had come from so far to assist in their wars, + the queen sent him the next day presents of twelve horses, with + stately tents, fine linen, two beds with coverings of gold brocade, + and many other articles of great value." + +The protracted siege of the city of Granada was the occasion of feats of +arms and hostile courtesies which rival in brilliancy any in the +romances of chivalry. Irving's pen is never more congenially employed +than in describing these desperate but romantic encounters. One of the +most picturesque of these was known as "the queen's skirmish." The royal +encampment was situated so far from Granada that only the general aspect +of the city could be seen as it rose from the vega, covering the sides +of the hills with its palaces and towers. Queen Isabella expressed a +desire for a nearer view of the city, whose beauty was renowned +throughout the world, and the courteous Marques of Cadiz proposed to +give her this perilous gratification. + + "On the morning of June the 18th, a magnificent and powerful train + issued from the Christian camp. The advanced guard was composed of + legions of cavalry, heavily armed, looking like moving masses of + polished steel. Then came the king and queen, with the prince and + princesses, and the ladies of the court, surrounded by the royal + body-guard, sumptuously arrayed, composed of the sons of the most + illustrious houses of Spain; after these was the rear-guard, a + powerful force of horse and foot; for the flower of the army + sallied forth that day. The Moors gazed with fearful admiration at + this glorious pageant, wherein the pomp of the court was mingled + with the terrors of the camp. It moved along in radiant line, + across the vega, to the melodious thunders of martial music, while + banner and plume, and silken scarf, and rich brocade, gave a gay + and gorgeous relief to the grim visage of iron war that lurked + beneath. + + "The army moved towards the hamlet of Zubia, built on the skirts of + the mountain to the left of Granada, and commanding a view of the + Alhambra, and the most beautiful quarter of the city. As they + approached the hamlet, the Marques of Villena, the Count Ureña, and + Don Alonzo de Aguilar filed off with their battalions, and were + soon seen glittering along the side of the mountain above the + village. In the mean time the Marques of Cadiz, the Count de + Tendilla, the Count de Cabra, and Don Alonzo Fernandez, senior of + Alcaudrete and Montemayor, drew up their forces in battle array on + the plain below the hamlet, presenting a living barrier of loyal + chivalry between the sovereigns and the city. + + "Thus securely guarded, the royal party alighted, and, entering one + of the houses of the hamlet, which had been prepared for their + reception, enjoyed a full view of the city from its terraced roof. + The ladies of the court gazed with delight at the red towers of the + Alhambra, rising from amid shady groves, anticipating the time when + the Catholic sovereigns should be enthroned within its walls, and + its courts shine with the splendor of Spanish chivalry. 'The + reverend prelates and holy friars, who always surrounded the queen, + looked with serene satisfaction,' says Fray Antonio Agapida, 'at + this modern Babylon, enjoying the triumph that awaited them, when + those mosques and minarets should be converted into churches, and + goodly priests and bishops should succeed to the infidel alfaquis.' + + "When the Moors beheld the Christians thus drawn forth in full + array in the plain, they supposed it was to offer battle, and + hesitated not to accept it. In a little while the queen beheld a + body of Moorish cavalry pouring into the vega, the riders managing + their fleet and fiery steeds with admirable address. They were + richly armed, and clothed in the most brilliant colors, and the + caparisons of their steeds flamed with gold and embroidery. This + was the favorite squadron of Muza, composed of the flower of the + youthful cavaliers of Granada. Others succeeded, some heavily + armed, others _à la gineta_, with lance and buckler; and lastly + came the legions of foot-soldiers, with arquebus and cross-bow, and + spear and scimiter. + + "When the queen saw this army issuing from the city, she sent to + the Marques of Cadiz, and forbade any attack upon the enemy, or the + acceptance of any challenge to a skirmish; for she was loth that + her curiosity should cost the life of a single human being. + + "The marques promised to obey, though sorely against his will; and + it grieved the spirit of the Spanish cavaliers to be obliged to + remain with sheathed swords while bearded by the foe. The Moors + could not comprehend the meaning of this inaction of the + Christians, after having apparently invited a battle. They sallied + several times from their ranks, and approached near enough to + discharge their arrows; but the Christians were immovable. Many of + the Moorish horsemen galloped close to the Christian ranks, + brandishing their lances and scimiters, and defying various + cavaliers to single combat; but Ferdinand had rigorously prohibited + all duels of this kind, and they dared not transgress his orders + under his very eye. + + "Here, however, the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida, in his enthusiasm + for the triumphs of the faith, records the following incident, + which we fear is not sustained by any grave chronicler of the + times, but rests merely on tradition, or the authority of certain + poets and dramatic writers, who have perpetuated the tradition in + their works. While this grim and reluctant tranquillity prevailed + along the Christian line, says Agapida, there rose a mingled shout + and sound of laughter near the gate of the city. A Moorish + horseman, armed at all points, issued forth, followed by a rabble, + who drew back as he approached the scene of danger. The Moor was + more robust and brawny than was common with his countrymen. His + visor was closed; he bore a huge buckler and a ponderous lance; his + scimiter was of a Damascus blade, and his richly ornamented dagger + was wrought by an artificer of Fez. He was known by his device to + be Tarfe, the most insolent, yet valiant, of the Moslem + warriors--the same who had hurled into the royal camp his lance, + inscribed to the queen. As he rode slowly along in front of the + army, his very steed, prancing with fiery eye and distended + nostril, seemed to breathe defiance to the Christians. + + "But what were the feelings of the Spanish cavaliers when they + beheld, tied to the tail of his steed, and dragged in the dust, the + very inscription, 'AVE MARIA,' which Hernan Perez del Pulgar had + affixed to the door of the mosque! A burst of horror and + indignation broke forth from the army. Hernan was not at hand to + maintain his previous achievement; but one of his young companions + in arms, Garcilasso de la Vega by name, putting spurs to his horse, + galloped to the hamlet of Zubia, threw himself on his knees before + the king, and besought permission to accept the defiance of this + insolent infidel, and to revenge the insult offered to our Blessed + Lady. The request was too pious to be refused. Garcilasso remounted + his steed, closed his helmet, graced by four sable plumes, grasped + his buckler of Flemish workmanship, and his lance of matchless + temper, and defied the haughty Moor in the midst of his career. A + combat took place in view of the two armies and of the Castilian + court. The Moor was powerful in wielding his weapons, and + dexterous in managing his steed. He was of larger frame than + Garcilasso, and more completely armed, and the Christians trembled + for their champion. The shock of their encounter was dreadful; + their lances were shivered and sent up splinters in the air. + Garcilasso was thrown back in his saddle--his horse made a wide + career before he could recover, gather up the reins, and return to + the conflict. They now encountered each other with swords. The Moor + circled round his opponent, as a hawk circles when about to make a + swoop; his steed obeyed his rider with matchless quickness; at + every attack of the infidel, it seemed as if the Christian knight + must sink beneath his flashing scimiter. But if Garcilasso was + inferior to him in power, he was superior in agility; many of his + blows he parried; others he received upon his Flemish shield, which + was proof against the Damascus blade. The blood streamed from + numerous wounds received by either warrior. The Moor, seeing his + antagonist exhausted, availed himself of his superior force, and, + grappling, endeavored to wrest him from his saddle. They both fell + to earth; the Moor placed his knee upon the breast of his victim, + and, brandishing his dagger, aimed a blow at his throat. A cry of + despair was uttered by the Christian warriors, when suddenly they + beheld the Moor rolling lifeless in the dust. Garcilasso had + shortened his sword, and, as his adversary raised his arm to + strike, had pierced him to the heart. 'It was a singular and + miraculous victory,' says Fray Antonio Agapida; 'but the Christian + knight was armed by the sacred nature of his cause, and the Holy + Virgin gave him strength, like another David, to slay this gigantic + champion of the Gentiles.' + + "The laws of chivalry were observed throughout the combat--no one + interfered on either side. Garcilasso now despoiled his adversary; + then, rescuing the holy inscription of 'AVE MARIA' from its + degrading situation, he elevated it on the point of his sword, and + bore it off as a signal of triumph, amidst the rapturous shouts of + the Christian army. + + "The sun had now reached the meridian, and the hot blood of the + Moors was inflamed by its rays, and by the sight of the defeat of + their champion. Muza ordered two pieces of ordnance to open a fire + upon the Christians. A confusion was produced in one part of their + ranks: Muza called to the chiefs of the army, 'Let us waste no more + time in empty challenges--let us charge upon the enemy: he who + assaults has always an advantage in the combat.' So saying, he + rushed forward, followed by a large body of horse and foot, and + charged so furiously upon the advance guard of the Christians, that + he drove it in upon the battalion of the Marques of Cadiz. + + "The gallant marques now considered himself absolved from all + further obedience to the queen's commands. He gave the signal to + attack. 'Santiago!' was shouted along the line; and he pressed + forward to the encounter, with his battalion of twelve hundred + lances. The other cavaliers followed his example, and the battle + instantly became general. + + "When the king and queen beheld the armies thus rushing to the + combat, they threw themselves on their knees, and implored the Holy + Virgin to protect her faithful warriors. The prince and princess, + the ladies of the court, and the prelates and friars who were + present, did the same; and the effect of the prayers of these + illustrious and saintly persons was immediately apparent. The + fierceness with which the Moors had rushed to the attack was + suddenly cooled; they were bold and adroit for a skirmish, but + unequal to the veteran Spaniards in the open field. A panic seized + upon the foot-soldiers--they turned and took to flight. Muza and + his cavaliers in vain endeavored to rally them. Some took refuge in + the mountains; but the greater part fled to the city, in such + confusion that they overturned and trampled upon each other. The + Christians pursued them to the very gates. Upwards of two thousand + were either killed, wounded, or taken prisoners; and the two pieces + of ordnance were brought off as trophies of the victory. Not a + Christian lance but was bathed that day in the blood of an infidel. + + "Such was the brief but bloody action which was known among the + Christian warriors by the name of "The Queen's Skirmish;" for when + the Marques of Cadiz waited upon her majesty to apologize for + breaking her commands, he attributed the victory entirely to her + presence. The queen, however, insisted that it was all owing to her + troops being led on by so valiant a commander. Her majesty had not + yet recovered from her agitation at beholding so terrible a scene + of bloodshed, though certain veterans present pronounced it as gay + and gentle a skirmish as they had ever witnessed." + +The charm of "The Alhambra" is largely in the leisurely, loitering, +dreamy spirit in which the temporary American resident of the ancient +palace-fortress entered into its mouldering beauties and romantic +associations, and in the artistic skill with which he wove the +commonplace daily life of his attendants there into the more brilliant +woof of its past. The book abounds in delightful legends, and yet these +are all so touched with the author's airy humor that our credulity is +never overtaxed; we imbibe all the romantic interest of the place +without for a moment losing our hold upon reality. The enchantments of +this Moorish paradise become part of our mental possessions, without the +least shock to our common sense. After a few days of residence in the +part of the Alhambra occupied by Dame Tia Antonia and her family, of +which the handmaid Dolores was the most fascinating member, Irving +succeeded in establishing himself in a remote and vacant part of the +vast pile, in a suite of delicate and elegant chambers, with secluded +gardens and fountains, that had once been occupied by the beautiful +Elizabeth of Farnese, daughter of the Duke of Parma, and more than four +centuries ago by a Moorish beauty named Lindaraxa, who flourished in the +court of Muhamed the Left-Handed. These solitary and ruined chambers had +their own terrors and enchantments, and for the first nights gave the +author little but sinister suggestions and grotesque food for his +imagination. But familiarity dispersed the gloom and the superstitious +fancies. + + "In the course of a few evenings a thorough change took place in + the scene and its associations. The moon, which when I took + possession of my new apartments was invisible, gradually gained + each evening upon the darkness of the night, and at length rolled + in full splendor above the towers, pouring a flood of tempered + light into every court and hall. The garden beneath my window, + before wrapped in gloom, was gently lighted up; the orange and + citron trees were tipped with silver; the fountain sparkled in the + moonbeams, and even the blush of the rose was faintly visible. + + "I now felt the poetic merit of the Arabic inscription on the + walls: 'How beauteous is this garden; where the flowers of the + earth vie with the stars of heaven. What can compare with the vase + of yon alabaster fountain filled with crystal water? nothing but + the moon in her fullness, shining in the midst of an unclouded + sky!' + + "On such heavenly nights I would sit for hours at my window + inhaling the sweetness of the garden, and musing on the checkered + fortunes of those whose history was dimly shadowed out in the + elegant memorials around. Sometimes, when all was quiet, and the + clock from the distant cathedral of Granada struck the midnight + hour, I have sallied out on another tour and wandered over the + whole building; but how different from my first tour! No longer + dark and mysterious; no longer peopled with shadowy foes; no longer + recalling scenes of violence and murder; all was open, spacious, + beautiful; everything called up pleasing and romantic fancies; + Lindaraxa once more walked in her garden; the gay chivalry of + Moslem Granada once more glittered about the Court of Lions! Who + can do justice to a moonlight night in such a climate and such a + place? The temperature of a summer midnight in Andalusia is + perfectly ethereal. We seem lifted up into a purer atmosphere; we + feel a serenity of soul, a buoyancy of spirits, an elasticity of + frame, which render mere existence happiness. But when moonlight is + added to all this, the effect is like enchantment. Under its + plastic sway the Alhambra seems to regain its pristine glories. + Every rent and chasm of time, every mouldering tint and + weather-stain, is gone; the marble resumes its original whiteness; + the long colonnades brighten in the moonbeams; the halls are + illuminated with a softened radiance,--we tread the enchanted + palace of an Arabian tale! + + "What a delight, at such a time, to ascend to the little airy + pavilion of the queen's toilet (el tocador de la reyna), which, + like a bird-cage, overhangs the valley of the Darro, and gaze from + its light arcades upon the moonlight prospect! To the right, the + swelling mountains of the Sierra Nevada, robbed of their + ruggedness and softened into a fairy land, with their snowy summits + gleaming like silver clouds against the deep blue sky. And then to + lean over the parapet of the Tocador and gaze down upon Granada and + the Albaycin spread out like a map below; all buried in deep + repose; the white palaces and convents sleeping in the moonshine, + and beyond all these the vapory vega fading away like a dreamland + in the distance. + + "Sometimes the faint click of castanets rise from the Alameda, + where some gay Andalusians are dancing away the summer night. + Sometimes the dubious tones of a guitar and the notes of an amorous + voice, tell perchance the whereabout of some moonstruck lover + serenading his lady's window. + + "Such is a faint picture of the moonlight nights I have passed + loitering about the courts and halls and balconies of this most + suggestive pile; 'feeding my fancy with sugared suppositions,' and + enjoying that mixture of reverie and sensation which steal away + existence in a southern climate; so that it has been almost morning + before I have retired to bed, and been lulled to sleep by the + falling waters of the fountain of Lindaraxa." + +One of the writer's vantage points of observation was a balcony of the +central window of the Hall of Ambassadors, from which he had a +magnificent prospect of mountain, valley, and vega, and could look down +upon a busy scene of human life in an alameda, or public walk, at the +foot of the hill, and the suburb of the city, filling the narrow gorge +below. Here the author used to sit for hours, weaving histories out of +the casual incidents passing under his eye, and the occupations of the +busy mortals below. The following passage exhibits his power in +transmuting the commonplace life of the present into material perfectly +in keeping with the romantic associations of the place:-- + + "There was scarce a pretty face or a striking figure that I daily + saw, about which I had not thus gradually framed a dramatic story, + though some of my characters would occasionally act in direct + opposition to the part assigned them, and disconcert the whole + drama. Reconnoitring one day with my glass the streets of the + Albaycin, I beheld the procession of a novice about to take the + veil; and remarked several circumstances which excited the + strongest sympathy in the fate of the youthful being thus about to + be consigned to a living tomb. I ascertained to my satisfaction + that she was beautiful, and, from the paleness of her cheek, that + she was a victim rather than a votary. She was arrayed in bridal + garments, and decked with a chaplet of white flowers, but her heart + evidently revolted at this mockery of a spiritual union, and + yearned after its earthly loves. A tall stern-looking man walked + near her in the procession: it was, of course, the tyrannical + father, who, from some bigoted or sordid motive, had compelled this + sacrifice. Amid the crowd was a dark handsome youth, in Andalusian + garb, who seemed to fix on her an eye of agony. It was doubtless + the secret lover from whom she was forever to be separated. My + indignation rose as I noted the malignant expression painted on the + countenances of the attendant monks and friars. The procession + arrived at the chapel of the convent; the sun gleamed for the last + time upon the chaplet of the poor novice, as she crossed the fatal + threshold and disappeared within the building. The throng poured in + with cowl, and cross, and minstrelsy; the lover paused for a moment + at the door. I could divine the tumult of his feelings; but he + mastered them, and entered. There was a long interval. I pictured + to myself the scene passing within: the poor novice despoiled of + her transient finery, and clothed in the conventual garb; the + bridal chaplet taken from her brow, and her beautiful head shorn of + its long silken tresses. I heard her murmur the irrevocable vow. I + saw her extended on a bier; the death-pall spread over her; the + funeral service performed that proclaimed her dead to the world; + her sighs were drowned in the deep tones of the organ, and the + plaintive requiem of the nuns; the father looked on, unmoved, + without a tear; the lover--no--my imagination refused to portray + the anguish of the lover--there the picture remained a blank. + + "After a time the throng again poured forth and dispersed various + ways, to enjoy the light of the sun and mingle with the stirring + scenes of life; but the victim, with her bridal chaplet, was no + longer there. The door of the convent closed that severed her from + the world forever. I saw the father and the lover issue forth; they + were in earnest conversation. The latter was vehement in his + gesticulations; I expected some violent termination to my drama; + but an angle of a building interfered and closed the scene. My eye + afterwards was frequently turned to that convent with painful + interest. I remarked late at night a solitary light twinkling from + a remote lattice of one of its towers. 'There,' said I, 'the + unhappy nun sits weeping in her cell, while perhaps her lover paces + the street below in unavailing anguish.' + + "--The officious Mateo interrupted my meditations and destroyed in + an instant the cobweb tissue of my fancy. With his usual zeal he + had gathered facts concerning the scene, which put my fictions all + to flight. The heroine of my romance was neither young nor + handsome; she had no lover; she had entered the convent of her own + free will, as a respectable asylum, and was one of the most + cheerful residents within its walls. + + "It was some little while before I could forgive the wrong done me + by the nun in being thus happy in her cell, in contradiction to all + the rules of romance; I diverted my spleen, however, by watching, + for a day or two, the pretty coquetries of a dark-eyed brunette, + who, from the covert of a balcony shrouded with flowering shrubs + and a silken awning, was carrying on a mysterious correspondence + with a handsome, dark, well-whiskered cavalier, who lurked + frequently in the street beneath her window. Sometimes I saw him at + an early hour, stealing forth wrapped to the eyes in a mantle. + Sometimes he loitered at a corner, in various disguises, apparently + waiting for a private signal to slip into the house. Then there was + the tinkling of a guitar at night, and a lantern shifted from place + to place in the balcony. I imagined another intrigue like that of + Almaviva, but was again disconcerted in all my suppositions. The + supposed lover turned out to be the husband of the lady, and a + noted contrabandista; and all his mysterious signs and movements + had doubtless some smuggling scheme in view. + + "--I occasionally amused myself with noting from this balcony the + gradual changes of the scenes below, according to the different + stages of the day. + + "Scarce has the gray dawn streaked the sky, and the earliest cock + crowed from the cottages of the hill-side, when the suburbs give + sign of reviving animation; for the fresh hours of dawning are + precious in the summer season in a sultry climate. All are anxious + to get the start of the sun, in the business of the day. The + muleteer drives forth his loaded train for the journey; the + traveler slings his carbine behind his saddle, and mounts his steed + at the gate of the hostel; the brown peasant from the country urges + forward his loitering beasts, laden with panniers of sunny fruit + and fresh dewy vegetables, for already the thrifty housewives are + hastening to the market. + + "The sun is up and sparkles along the valley, tipping the + transparent foliage of the groves. The matin bells resound + melodiously through the pure bright air, announcing the hour of + devotion. The muleteer halts his burdened animals before the + chapel, thrusts his staff through his belt behind, and enters with + hat in hand, smoothing his coal-black hair, to hear a mass, and to + put up a prayer for a prosperous wayfaring across the sierra. And + now steals forth on fairy foot the gentle Señora, in trim basquiña, + with restless fan in hand, and dark eye flashing from beneath the + gracefully folded mantilla; she seeks some well-frequented church + to offer up her morning orisons; but the nicely adjusted dress, the + dainty shoe and cobweb stocking, the raven tresses exquisitely + braided, the fresh-plucked rose, gleaming among them like a gem, + show that earth divides with Heaven the empire of her thoughts. + Keep an eye upon her, careful mother, or virgin aunt, or vigilant + duenna, whichever you may be, that walk behind! + + "As the morning advances, the din of labor augments on every side; + the streets are thronged with man, and steed, and beast of burden, + and there is a hum and murmur, like the surges of the ocean. As the + sun ascends to his meridian, the hum and bustle gradually decline; + at the height of noon there is a pause. The panting city sinks into + lassitude, and for several hours there is a general repose. The + windows are closed, the curtains drawn, the inhabitants retired + into the coolest recesses of their mansions; the full-fed monk + snores in his dormitory; the brawny porter lies stretched on the + pavement beside his burden; the peasant and the laborer sleep + beneath the trees of the Alameda, lulled by the sultry chirping of + the locust. The streets are deserted, except by the water-carrier, + who refreshes the ear by proclaiming the merits of his sparkling + beverage, 'colder than the mountain snow (_mas fria que la + nieve_).' + + "As the sun declines, there is again a gradual reviving, and when + the vesper bell rings out his sinking knell, all nature seems to + rejoice that the tyrant of the day has fallen. Now begins the + bustle of enjoyment, when the citizens pour forth to breathe the + evening air, and revel away the brief twilight in the walks and + gardens of the Darro and Xenil. + + "As night closes, the capricious scene assumes new features. Light + after light gradually twinkles forth; here a taper from a balconied + window; there a votive lamp before the image of a saint. Thus, by + degrees, the city emerges from the pervading gloom, and sparkles + with scattered lights, like the starry firmament. Now break forth + from court and garden, and street and lane, the tinkling of + innumerable guitars, and the clicking of castanets; blending, at + this lofty height, in a faint but general concert. 'Enjoy the + moment' is the creed of the gay and amorous Andalusian, and at no + time does he practice it more zealously than on the balmy nights of + summer, wooing his mistress with the dance, the love-ditty, and + the passionate serenade." + +How perfectly is the illusion of departed splendor maintained in the +opening of the chapter on "The Court of Lions." + + "The peculiar charm of this old dreamy palace is its power of + calling up vague reveries and picturings of the past, and thus + clothing naked realities with the illusions of the memory and the + imagination. As I delight to walk in these 'vain shadows,' I am + prone to seek those parts of the Alhambra which are most favorable + to this phantasmagoria of the mind; and none are more so than the + Court of Lions, and its surrounding halls. Here the hand of time + has fallen the lightest, and the traces of Moorish elegance and + splendor exist in almost their original brilliancy. Earthquakes + have shaken the foundations of this pile, and rent its rudest + towers; yet see! not one of those slender columns has been + displaced, not an arch of that light and fragile colonnade given + way, and all the fairy fretwork of these domes, apparently as + unsubstantial as the crystal fabrics of a morning's frost, exist + after the lapse of centuries, almost as fresh as if from the hand + of the Moslem artist. I write in the midst of these mementos of the + past, in the fresh hour of early morning, in the fated Hall of the + Abencerrages. The blood-stained fountain, the legendary monument of + their massacre, is before me; the lofty jet almost casts its dew + upon my paper. How difficult to reconcile the ancient tale of + violence and blood with the gentle and peaceful scene around! + Everything here appears calculated to inspire kind and happy + feelings, for everything is delicate and beautiful. The very light + falls tenderly from above, through the lantern of a dome tinted and + wrought as if by fairy hands. Through the ample and fretted arch of + the portal I behold the Court of Lions, with brilliant sunshine + gleaming along its colonnades and sparkling in its fountains. The + lively swallow dives into the court, and, rising with a surge, + darts away twittering over the roofs; the busy bee toils humming + among the flower-beds; and painted butterflies hover from plant to + plant, and flutter up and sport with each other in the sunny air. + It needs but a slight exertion of the fancy to picture some pensive + beauty of the harem loitering in these secluded haunts of Oriental + luxury. + + "He, however, who would behold this scene under an aspect more in + unison with its fortunes, let him come when the shadows of evening + temper the brightness of the court, and throw a gloom into the + surrounding halls. Then nothing can be more serenely melancholy, or + more in harmony with the tale of departed grandeur. + + "At such times I am apt to seek the Hall of Justice, whose deep + shadowy arcades extend across the upper end of the court. Here was + performed, in presence of Ferdinand and Isabella and their + triumphant court, the pompous ceremonial of high mass, on taking + possession of the Alhambra. The very cross is still to be seen upon + the wall, where the altar was erected, and where officiated the + Grand Cardinal of Spain, and others of the highest religious + dignitaries of the land. I picture to myself the scene when this + place was filled with the conquering host, that mixture of mitred + prelate and shaven monk, and steel-clad knight and silken courtier; + when crosses and crosiers and religious standards were mingled with + proud armorial ensigns and the banners of the haughty chiefs of + Spain, and flaunted in triumph through these Moslem halls. I + picture to myself Columbus, the future discoverer of a world, + taking his modest stand in a remote corner, the humble and + neglected spectator of the pageant. I see in imagination the + Catholic sovereigns prostrating themselves before the altar, and + pouring forth thanks for their victory; while the vaults resound + with sacred minstrelsy and the deep-toned Te Deum. + + "The transient illusion is over,--the pageant melts from the + fancy,--monarch, priest, and warrior return into oblivion with the + poor Moslems over whom they exulted. The hall of their triumph is + waste and desolate. The bat flits about its twilight vault, and the + owl hoots from the neighboring tower of Comares." + +It is a Moslem tradition that the court and army of Boabdil, the +Unfortunate, the last Moorish King of Granada, are shut up in the +mountain by a powerful enchantment, and that it is written in the book +of fate that when the enchantment is broken, Boabdil will descend from +the mountain at the head of his army, resume his throne in the Alhambra, +and gathering together the enchanted warriors from all parts of Spain, +reconquer the Peninsula. Nothing in this volume is more amusing and at +the same time more poetic and romantic than the story of "Governor Manco +and the Soldier," in which this legend is used to cover the exploit of a +dare-devil contrabandista. But it is too long to quote. I take, +therefore, another story, which has something of the same elements, that +of a merry, mendicant student of Salamanca, Don Vicente by name, who +wandered from village to village, and picked up a living by playing the +guitar for the peasants, among whom, he was sure of a hearty welcome. +In the course of his wandering he had found a seal-ring, having for its +device the cabalistic sign, invented by King Solomon the Wise, and of +mighty power in all cases of enchantment. + + "At length he arrived at the great object of his musical + vagabondizing, the far-famed city of Granada, and hailed with + wonder and delight its Moorish towers, its lovely vega, and its + snowy mountains glistening through a summer atmosphere. It is + needless to say with what eager curiosity he entered its gates and + wandered through its streets, and gazed upon its Oriental + monuments. Every female face peering through a window or beaming + from a balcony was to him a Zorayda or a Zelinda, nor could he meet + a stately dame on the Alameda but he was ready to fancy her a + Moorish princess, and to spread his student's robe beneath her + feet. + + "His musical talent, his happy humor, his youth and his good looks, + won him a universal welcome in spite of his ragged robes, and for + several days he led a gay life in the old Moorish capital and its + environs. One of his occasional haunts was the fountain of + Avellanos, in the valley of Darro. It is one of the popular resorts + of Granada, and has been so since the days of the Moors; and here + the student had an opportunity of pursuing his studies of female + beauty; a branch of study to which he was a little prone. + + "Here he would take his seat with his guitar, improvise + love-ditties to admiring groups of majos and majas, or prompt with + his music the ever-ready dance. He was thus engaged one evening + when he beheld a padre of the church advancing, at whose approach + every one touched the hat. He was evidently a man of consequence; + he certainly was a mirror of good if not of holy living; robust and + rosy-faced, and breathing at every pore with the warmth of the + weather and the exercise of the walk. As he passed along he would + every now and then draw a maravedi out of his pocket and bestow it + on a beggar, with an air of signal beneficence. 'Ah, the blessed + father!' would be the cry; 'long life to him, and may he soon be a + bishop!' + + "To aid his steps in ascending the hill he leaned gently now and + then on the arm of a handmaid, evidently the pet-lamb of this + kindest of pastors. Ah, such a damsel! Andalus from head to foot; + from the rose in her hair, to the fairy shoe and lacework stocking; + Andalus in every movement; in every undulation of the body:--ripe, + melting Andalus! But then so modest!--so shy!--ever, with downcast + eyes, listening to the words of the padre; or, if by chance she let + flash a side glance, it was suddenly checked and her eyes once more + cast to the ground. + + "The good padre looked benignantly on the company about the + fountain, and took his seat with some emphasis on a stone bench, + while the handmaid hastened to bring him a glass of sparkling + water. He sipped it deliberately and with a relish, tempering it + with one of those spongy pieces of frosted eggs and sugar so dear + to Spanish epicures, and on returning the glass to the hand of the + damsel pinched her cheek with infinite loving-kindness. + + "'Ah, the good pastor!' whispered the student to himself; 'what a + happiness would it be to be gathered into his fold with such a + pet-lamb for a companion!' + + "But no such good fare was likely to befall him. In vain he essayed + those powers of pleasing which he had found so irresistible with + country curates and country lasses. Never had he touched his guitar + with such skill; never had he poured forth more soul-moving + ditties, but he had no longer a country curate or country lass to + deal with. The worthy priest evidently did not relish music, and + the modest damsel never raised her eyes from the ground. They + remained but a short time at the fountain; the good padre hastened + their return to Granada. The damsel gave the student one shy glance + in retiring; but it plucked the heart out of his bosom! + + "He inquired about them after they had gone. Padre Tomás was one + of the saints of Granada, a model of regularity; punctual in his + hour of rising; his hour of taking a paseo for an appetite; his + hours of eating; his hour of taking his siesta; his hour of playing + his game of tresillo, of an evening, with some of the dames of the + cathedral circle; his hour of supping, and his hour of retiring to + rest, to gather fresh strength for another day's round of similar + duties. He had an easy sleek mule for his riding; a matronly + housekeeper skilled in preparing tidbits for his table; and the + pet-lamb, to smooth his pillow at night and bring him his chocolate + in the morning. + + "Adieu now to the gay, thoughtless life of the student; the + side-glance of a bright eye had been the undoing of him. Day and + night he could not get the image of this most modest damsel out of + his mind. He sought the mansion of the padre. Alas! it was above + the class of houses accessible to a strolling student like himself. + The worthy padre had no sympathy with him; he had never been + _Estudiante sopista_, obliged to sing for his supper. He blockaded + the house by day, catching a glance of the damsel now and then as + she appeared at a casement; but these glances only fed his flame + without encouraging his hope. He serenaded her balcony at night, + and at one time was flattered by the appearance of something white + at a window. Alas, it was only the night-cap of the padre. + + "Never was lover more devoted; never damsel more shy: the poor + student was reduced to despair. At length arrived the eve of St. + John, when the lower classes of Granada swarm into the country, + dance away the afternoon, and pass midsummer's night on the banks + of the Darro and the Xenil. Happy are they who on this eventful + night can wash their faces in those waters just as the cathedral + bell tells midnight; for at that precise moment they have a + beautifying power. The student, having nothing to do, suffered + himself to be carried away by the holiday-seeking throng until he + found himself in the narrow valley of the Darro, below the lofty + hill and ruddy towers of the Alhambra. The dry bed of the river; + the rocks which border it; the terraced gardens which overhang it, + were alive with variegated groups, dancing under the vines and + fig-trees to the sound of the guitar and castanets. + + "The student remained for some time in doleful dumps, leaning + against one of the huge misshapen stone pomegranates which adorn + the ends of the little bridge over the Darro. He cast a wistful + glance upon the merry scene, where every cavalier had his dame; or, + to speak more appropriately, every Jack his Jill; sighed at his + own solitary state, a victim to the black eye of the most + unapproachable of damsels, and repined at his ragged garb, which + seemed to shut the gate of hope against him. + + "By degrees his attention was attracted to a neighbor equally + solitary with himself. This was a tall soldier, of a stern aspect + and grizzled beard, who seemed posted as a sentry at the opposite + pomegranate. His face was bronzed by time; he was arrayed in + ancient Spanish armor, with buckler and lance, and stood immovable + as a statue. What surprised the student was, that though thus + strangely equipped, he was totally unnoticed by the passing throng, + albeit that many almost brushed against him. + + "'This is a city of old time peculiarities,' thought the student, + 'and doubtless this is one of them with which the inhabitants are + too familiar to be surprised.' His own curiosity, however, was + awakened, and being of a social disposition, he accosted the + soldier. + + "'A rare old suit of armor that which you wear, comrade. May I ask + what corps you belong to?' + + "The soldier gasped out a reply from a pair of jaws which seemed to + have rusted on their hinges. + + "'The royal guard of Ferdinand and Isabella.' + + "'Santa Maria! Why, it is three centuries since that corps was in + service.' + + "'And for three centuries have I been mounting guard. Now I trust + my tour of duty draws to a close. Dost thou desire fortune?' + + "The student held up his tattered cloak in reply. + + "'I understand thee. If thou hast faith and courage, follow me, and + thy fortune is made.' + + "'Softly, comrade, to follow thee would require small courage in + one who has nothing to lose but life and an old guitar, neither of + much value; but my faith is of a different matter, and not to be + put in temptation. If it be any criminal act by which I am to mend + my fortune, think not my ragged cloak will make me undertake it.' + + "The soldier turned on him a look of high displeasure. 'My sword,' + said he, 'has never been drawn but in the cause of the faith and + the throne. I am a _Cristiano viejo_; trust in me and fear no + evil.' + + "The student followed him wondering. He observed that no one heeded + their conversation, and that the soldier made his way through the + various groups of idlers unnoticed, as if invisible. + + "Crossing the bridge, the soldier led the way by a narrow and steep + path past a Moorish mill and aqueduct, and up the ravine which + separates the domains of the Generalife from those of the Alhambra. + The last ray of the sun shone upon the red battlements of the + latter, which beetled far above; and the convent-bells were + proclaiming the festival of the ensuing day. The ravine was + overshadowed by fig-trees, vines, and myrtles, and the outer towers + and walls of the fortress. It was dark and lonely, and the + twilight-loving bats began to flit about. At length the soldier + halted at a remote and ruined tower apparently intended to guard a + Moorish aqueduct. He struck the foundation with the butt-end of his + spear. A rumbling sound was heard, and the solid stones yawned + apart, leaving an opening as wide as a door. + + "'Enter in the name of the Holy Trinity', said the soldier, 'and + fear nothing.' The student's heart quaked, but he made the sign of + the cross, muttered his Ave Maria, and followed his mysterious + guide into a deep vault cut out of the solid rock under the tower, + and covered with Arabic inscriptions. The soldier pointed to a + stone seat hewn along one side of the vault. 'Behold,' said he, 'my + couch for three hundred years.' The bewildered student tried to + force a joke. 'By the blessed St. Anthony,' said he, 'but you must + have slept soundly, considering the hardness of your couch.' + + "'On the contrary, sleep has been a stranger to these eyes; + incessant watchfulness has been my doom. Listen to my lot. I was + one of the royal guards of Ferdinand and Isabella; but was taken + prisoner by the Moors in one of their sorties, and confined a + captive in this tower. When preparations were made to surrender the + fortress to the Christian sovereigns, I was prevailed upon by an + alfaqui, a Moorish priest, to aid him in secreting some of the + treasures of Boabdil in this vault. I was justly punished for my + fault. The alfaqui was an African necromancer, and by his infernal + arts cast a spell upon me--to guard his treasures. Something must + have happened to him, for he never returned, and here have I + remained ever since, buried alive. Years and years have rolled + away; earthquakes have shaken this hill; I have heard stone by + stone of the tower above tumbling to the ground, in the natural + operation of time; but the spell-bound walls of this vault set both + time and earthquakes at defiance. + + "'Once every hundred years, on the festival of St. John, the + enchantment ceases to have thorough sway; I am permitted to go + forth and post myself upon the bridge of the Darro, where you met + me, waiting until some one shall arrive who may have power to break + this magic spell. I have hitherto mounted guard there in vain. I + walk as in a cloud, concealed from mortal sight. You are the first + to accost me for now three hundred years. I behold the reason. I + see on your finger the seal-ring of Solomon the Wise, which is + proof against all enchantment. With you it remains to deliver me + from this awful dungeon, or to leave me to keep guard here for + another hundred years.' + + "The student listened to this tale in mute wonderment. He had heard + many tales of treasures shut up under strong enchantment in the + vaults of the Alhambra, but had treated them as fables. He now felt + the value of the seal-ring, which had, in a manner, been given to + him by St. Cyprian. Still, though armed by so potent a talisman, it + was an awful thing to find himself _tête-à-tête_ in such a place + with an enchanted soldier, who, according to the laws of nature, + ought to have been quietly in his grave for nearly three centuries. + + "A personage of this kind, however, was quite out of the ordinary + run, and not to be trifled with, and he assured him he might rely + upon his friendship and good will to do everything in his power for + his deliverance. + + "'I trust to a motive more powerful than friendship,' said the + soldier. + + "He pointed to a ponderous iron coffer, secured by locks inscribed + with Arabic characters. 'That coffer,' said he, 'contains countless + treasure in gold and jewels and precious stones. Break the magic + spell by which I am enthralled, and one half of this treasure shall + be thine.' + + "'But how am I to do it?' + + "'The aid of a Christian priest and a Christian maid is necessary. + The priest to exorcise the powers of darkness; the damsel to touch + this chest with the seal of Solomon. This must be done at night. + But have a care. This is solemn work, and not to be effected by the + carnal-minded. The priest must be a _Cristiano viejo_, a model of + sanctity; and must mortify the flesh before he comes here, by a + rigorous fast of four-and-twenty hours: and as to the maiden, she + must be above reproach, and proof against temptation. Linger not in + finding such aid. In three days my furlough is at an end; if not + delivered before midnight of the third, I shall have to mount guard + for another century.' + + "'Fear not,' said the student, 'I have in my eye the very priest + and damsel you describe; but how am I to regain admission to this + tower?' + + "'The seal of Solomon will open the way for thee.' + + "The student issued forth from the tower much more gayly than he + had entered. The wall closed behind him, and remained solid as + before. + + "The next morning he repaired boldly to the mansion of the priest, + no longer a poor strolling student, thrumming his way with a + guitar; but an ambassador from the shadowy world, with enchanted + treasures to bestow. No particulars are told of his negotiation, + excepting that the zeal of the worthy priest was easily kindled at + the idea of rescuing an old soldier of the faith and a strong box + of King Chico from the very clutches of Satan; and then what alms + might be dispensed, what churches built, and how many poor + relatives enriched with the Moorish treasure! + + "As to the immaculate handmaid, she was ready to lend her hand, + which was all that was required, to the pious work; and if a shy + glance now and then might be believed, the ambassador began to find + favor in her modest eyes. + + "The greatest difficulty, however, was the fast to which the good + padre had to subject himself. Twice he attempted it, and twice the + flesh was too strong for the spirit. It was only on the third day + that he was enabled to withstand the temptations of the cupboard; + but it was still a question whether he would hold out until the + spell was broken. + + "At a late hour of the night the party groped their way up the + ravine by the light of a lantern, and bearing a basket with + provisions for exorcising the demon of hunger so soon as the other + demons should be laid in the Red Sea. + + "The seal of Solomon opened their way into the tower. They found + the soldier seated on the enchanted strong-box, awaiting their + arrival. The exorcism was performed in due style. The damsel + advanced and touched the locks of the coffer with the seal of + Solomon. The lid flew open; and such treasures of gold and jewels + and precious stones as flashed upon the eye! + + "'Here's cut and come again!' cried the student, exultingly, as he + proceeded to cram his pockets. + + "'Fairly and softly,' exclaimed the soldier. 'Let us get the coffer + out entire, and then divide.' + + "They accordingly went to work with might and main; but it was a + difficult task; the chest was enormously heavy, and had been + imbedded there for centuries. While they were thus employed the + good dominie drew on one side and made a vigorous onslaught on the + basket, by way of exorcising the demon of hunger which was raging + in his entrails. In a little while a fat capon was devoured, and + washed down by a deep potation of Val de peñas; and, by way of + grace after meat, he gave a kind-hearted kiss to the pet-lamb who + waited on him. It was quietly done in a corner, but the tell-tale + walls babbled it forth as if in triumph. Never was chaste salute + more awful in its effects. At the sound the soldier gave a great + cry of despair; the coffer, which was half raised, fell back in its + place and was locked once more. Priest, student, and damsel found + themselves outside of the tower, the wall of which closed with a + thundering jar. Alas! the good padre had broken his fast too soon! + + "When recovered from his surprise, the student would have reëntered + the tower, but learnt to his dismay that the damsel, in her fright, + had let fall the seal of Solomon; it remained within the vault. + + "In a word, the cathedral bell tolled midnight; the spell was + renewed; the soldier was doomed to mount guard for another hundred + years, and there he and the treasure remain to this day--and all + because the kind-hearted padre kissed his handmaid. 'Ah, father! + father!' said the student, shaking his head ruefully, as they + returned down the ravine, 'I fear there was less of the saint than + the sinner in that kiss!' + + * * * * * + + "Thus ends the legend as far as it has been authenticated. There is + a tradition, however, that the student had brought off treasure + enough in his pocket to set him up in the world; that he prospered + in his affairs, that the worthy padre gave him the pet-lamb in + marriage, by way of amends for the blunder in the vault; that the + immaculate damsel proved a pattern for wives as she had been for + handmaids, and bore her husband a numerous progeny; that the first + was a wonder; it was born seven months after her marriage, and + though a seven-months' boy, was the sturdiest of the flock. The + rest were all born in the ordinary course of time. + + "The story of the enchanted soldier remains one of the popular + traditions of Granada, though told in a variety of ways; the common + people affirm that he still mounts guard on mid-summer eve, beside + the gigantic stone pomegranate on the bridge of the Darro; but + remains invisible excepting to such lucky mortal as may possess the + seal of Solomon." + +These passages from the most characteristic of Irving's books, do not by +any means exhaust his variety, but they afford a fair measure of his +purely literary skill, upon which his reputation must rest. To my +apprehension this "charm" in literature is as necessary to the +amelioration and enjoyment of human life as the more solid achievements +of scholarship. That Irving should find it in the prosaic and +materialistic conditions of the New World as well as in the +tradition-laden atmosphere of the Old, is evidence that he possessed +genius of a refined and subtle quality if not of the most robust order. + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + LAST YEARS: THE CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE. + + +The last years of Irving's life, although full of activity and +enjoyment,--abated only by the malady which had so long tormented +him,--offer little new in the development of his character, and need not +much longer detain us. The calls of friendship and of honor were many, +his correspondence was large, he made many excursions to scenes that +were filled with pleasant memories, going even as far south as Virginia, +and he labored assiduously at the "Life of Washington,"--attracted +however now and then by some other tempting theme. But his delight was +in the domestic circle at Sunnyside. It was not possible that his +occasional melancholy vein should not be deepened by change and death +and the lengthening shade of old age. Yet I do not know the closing days +of any other author of note that were more cheerful serene, and happy +than his. Of our author, in these latter days, Mr. George William Curtis +put recently into his "Easy Chair" papers an artistically-touched little +portrait: "Irving was as quaint a figure," he says, "as the Diedrich +Knickerbocker in the preliminary advertisement of the 'History of New +York.' Thirty years ago he might have been seen on an autumnal afternoon +tripping with an elastic step along Broadway, with 'low-quartered' shoes +neatly tied, and a Talma cloak--a short garment that hung from the +shoulders like the cape of a coat. There was a chirping, cheery, +old-school air in his appearance which was undeniably Dutch, and most +harmonious with the associations of his writing. He seemed, indeed, to +have stepped out of his own books; and the cordial grace and humor of +his address, if he stopped for a passing chat, were delightfully +characteristic. He was then our most famous man of letters, but he was +simply free from all self-consciousness and assumption and dogmatism." +Congenial occupation was one secret of Irving's cheerfulness and +contentment, no doubt. And he was called away as soon as his task was +done, very soon after the last volume of the "Washington" issued from +the press. Yet he lived long enough to receive the hearty approval of it +from the literary men whose familiarity with the Revolutionary period +made them the best judges of its merits. + +He had time also to revise his works. It is perhaps worthy of note that +for several years, while he was at the height of his popularity, his +books had very little sale. From 1842 to 1848 they were out of print, +with the exception of some stray copies of a cheap Philadelphia edition, +and a Paris collection (a volume of this, at my hand, is one of a series +entitled a "Collection of Ancient and Modern _British_ Authors"), they +were not to be found. The Philadelphia publishers did not think there +was sufficient demand to warrant a new edition. Mr. Irving and his +friends judged the market more wisely, and a young New York publisher +offered to assume the responsibility. This was Mr. George P. Putnam. The +event justified his sagacity and his liberal enterprise; from July, +1848, to November, 1859, the author received on his copyright over +eighty-eight thousand dollars. And it should be added that the relations +between author and publisher, both in prosperity and in times of +business disaster, reflect the highest credit upon both. If the like +relations always obtained we should not have to say: "May the Lord pity +the authors in this world, and the publishers in the next." + +I have outlined the life of Washington Irving in vain, if we have not +already come to a tolerably clear conception of the character of the man +and of his books. If I were exactly to follow his literary method I +should do nothing more. The idiosyncrasies of the man are the strength +and weakness of his works. I do not know any other author whose writings +so perfectly reproduce his character, or whose character may be more +certainly measured by his writings. His character is perfectly +transparent: his predominant traits were humor and sentiment; his +temperament was gay with a dash of melancholy; his inner life and his +mental operations were the reverse of complex, and his literary method +is simple. He _felt_ his subject, and he expressed his conception not so +much by direct statement or description as by almost imperceptible +touches and shadings here and there, by a diffused tone and color, with +very little show of analysis. Perhaps it is a sufficient definition to +say that his method was the sympathetic. In the end the reader is put in +possession of the luminous and complete idea upon which the author has +been brooding, though he may not be able to say exactly how the +impression has been conveyed to him; and I doubt if the author could +have explained his sympathetic process. He certainly would have lacked +precision in any philosophical or metaphysical theme, and when, in his +letters, he touches upon politics there is a little vagueness of +definition that indicates want of mental grip in that direction. But in +the region of feeling his genius is sufficient to his purpose; either +when that purpose is a highly creative one, as in the character and +achievements of his Dutch heroes, or merely that of portraiture, as in +the "Columbus" and the "Washington." The analysis of a nature so simple +and a character so transparent as Irving's, who lived in the sunlight +and had no envelope of mystery, has not the fascination that attaches to +Hawthorne. + +Although the direction of his work as a man of letters was largely +determined by his early surroundings,--that is, by his birth in a land +void of traditions, and into a society without much literary life, so +that his intellectual food was of necessity a foreign literature that +was at the moment becoming a little antiquated in the land of its birth, +and his warm imagination was forced to revert to the past for that +nourishment which his crude environment did not offer,--yet he was by +nature a retrospective man. His face was set towards the past, not +towards the future. He never caught the restlessness of this century, +nor the prophetic light that shone in the faces of Coleridge, Shelley, +and Keats; if he apprehended the stir of the new spirit he still, by +mental affiliation, belonged rather to the age of Addison than to that +of Macaulay. And his placid, retrospective, optimistic strain pleased a +public that were excited and harrowed by the mocking and lamenting of +Lord Byron, and, singularly enough, pleased even the great pessimist +himself. + +His writings induce to reflection, to quiet musing, to tenderness for +tradition; they amuse, they entertain, they call a check to the +feverishness of modern life; but they are rarely stimulating or +suggestive. They are better adapted, it must be owned, to please the +many than the critical few, who demand more incisive treatment and a +deeper consideration of the problems of life. And it is very fortunate +that a writer who can reach the great public and entertain it can also +elevate and refine its tastes, set before it high ideas, instruct it +agreeably, and all this in a style that belongs to the best literature. +It is a safe model for young readers; and for young readers there is +very little in the overwhelming flood of to-day that is comparable to +Irving's books, and, especially, it seems to me, because they were not +written for children. + +Irving's position in American literature, or in that of the English +tongue, will only be determined by the slow settling of opinion, which +no critic can foretell, and the operation of which no criticism seems +able to explain. I venture to believe, however, that the verdict will +not be in accord with much of the present prevalent criticism. The +service that he rendered to American letters no critic disputes; nor is +there any question of our national indebtedness to him for investing a +crude and new land with the enduring charms of romance and tradition. In +this respect, our obligation to him is that of Scotland to Scott and +Burns; and it is an obligation due only, in all history, to here and +there a fortunate creator to whose genius opportunity is kind. The +Knickerbocker Legend and the romance with which Irving has invested the +Hudson are a priceless legacy; and this would remain an imperishable +possession in popular tradition if the literature creating it were +destroyed. This sort of creation is unique in modern times. New York is +the Knickerbocker city; its whole social life remains colored by his +fiction; and the romantic background it owes to him in some measure +supplies to it what great age has given to European cities. This +creation is sufficient to secure for him an immortality, a length of +earthly remembrance that all the rest of his writings together might +not give. + +Irving was always the literary man; he had the habits, the +idiosyncrasies, of his small genus. I mean that he regarded life not +from the philanthropic, the economic, the political, the philosophic, +the metaphysic, the scientific, or the theologic, but purely from the +literary point of view. He belongs to that small class of which Johnson +and Goldsmith are perhaps as good types as any, and to which America has +added very few. The literary point of view is taken by few in any +generation; it may seem to the world of very little consequence in the +pressure of all the complex interests of life, and it may even seem +trivial amid the tremendous energies applied to immediate affairs; but +it is the point of view that endures; if its creations do not mould +human life, like the Roman law, they remain to charm and civilize, like +the poems of Horace. You must not ask more of them than that. This +attitude toward life is defensible on the highest grounds. A man with +Irving's gifts has the right to take the position of an observer and +describer, and not to be called on for a more active participation in +affairs than he chooses to take. He is doing the world the highest +service of which he is capable, and the most enduring it can receive +from any man. It is not a question whether the work of the literary man +is higher than that of the reformer or the statesman; it is a distinct +work, and is justified by the result, even when the work is that of the +humorist only. We recognize this in the ease of the poet. Although +Goethe has been reproached for his lack of sympathy with the +liberalizing movement of his day (as if his novels were quieting social +influences), it is felt by this generation that the author of "Faust" +needs no apology that he did not spend his energies in the effervescing +politics of the German states. I mean, that while we may like or dislike +the man for his sympathy or want of sympathy, we concede to the author +the right of his attitude; if Goethe had not assumed freedom from moral +responsibility, I suppose that criticism of his aloofness would long ago +have ceased. Irving did not lack sympathy with humanity in the concrete; +it colored whatever he wrote. But he regarded the politics of his own +country, the revolutions in France, the long struggle in Spain, without +heat; and he held aloof from projects of agitation and reform, and +maintained the attitude of an observer, regarding the life about him +from the point of view of the literary artist, as he was justified in +doing. + +Irving had the defects of his peculiar genius, and these have no doubt +helped to fix upon him the complimentary disparagement of "genial." He +was not aggressive; in his nature he was wholly unpartisan, and full of +lenient charity; and I suspect that his kindly regard of the world, +although returned with kindly liking, cost him something of that respect +for sturdiness and force which men feel for writers who flout them as +fools in the main. Like Scott, he belonged to the idealists, and not to +the realists, whom our generation affects. Both writers stimulate the +longing for something better. Their creed was short: "Love God and honor +the King." It is a very good one for a literary man, and might do for a +Christian. The supernatural was still a reality in the age in which they +wrote, Irving's faith in God and his love of humanity were very simple; +I do not suppose he was much disturbed by the deep problems that have +set us all adrift. In every age, whatever is astir, literature, +theology, all intellectual activity, takes one and the same drift, and +approximates in color. The bent of Irving's spirit was fixed in his +youth, and he escaped the desperate realism of this generation, which +has no outcome, and is likely to produce little that is noble. + +I do not know how to account, on principles of culture which we +recognize, for our author's style. His education was exceedingly +defective, nor was his want of discipline supplied by subsequent +desultory application. He seems to have been born with a rare sense of +literary proportion and form; into this, as into a mould, were run his +apparently lazy and really acute observations of life. That he +thoroughly mastered such literature as he fancied there is abundant +evidence; that his style was influenced by the purest English models is +also apparent. But there remains a large margin for wonder how, with his +want of training, he could have elaborated a style which is +distinctively his own, and is as copious, felicitous in the choice of +words, flowing, spontaneous, flexible, engaging, clear, and as little +wearisome when read continuously in quantity as any in the English +tongue. This is saying a great deal, though it is not claiming for him +the compactness, nor the robust vigor, nor the depth of thought, of many +others masters in it. It is sometimes praised for its simplicity. It is +certainly lucid, but its simplicity is not that of Benjamin Franklin's +style; it is often ornate, not seldom somewhat diffuse, and always +exceedingly melodious. It is noticeable for its metaphorical felicity. +But it was not in the sympathetic nature of the author, to which I just +referred, to come sharply to the point. It is much to have merited the +eulogy of Campbell that he had "added clarity to the English tongue." +This elegance and finish of style (which seems to have been as natural +to the man as his amiable manner) is sometimes made his reproach, as if +it were his sole merit, and as if he had concealed under this charming +form a want of substance. In literature form is vital. But his case does +not rest upon that. As an illustration his "Life of Washington" may be +put in evidence. Probably this work lost something in incisiveness and +brilliancy by being postponed till the writer's old age. But whatever +this loss, it is impossible for any biography to be less pretentious in +style, or less ambitious in proclamation. The only pretension of matter +is in the early chapters, in which a more than doubtful genealogy is +elaborated, and in which it is thought necessary to Washington's dignity +to give a fictitious importance to his family and his childhood, and to +accept the southern estimate of the hut in which he was born as a +"mansion." In much of this false estimate Irving was doubtless misled by +the fables of Weems. But while he has given us a dignified portrait of +Washington, it is as far as possible removed from that of the smileless +prig which has begun to weary even the popular fancy. The man he paints +is flesh and blood, presented, I believe, with substantial faithfulness +to his character; with a recognition of the defects of his education and +the deliberation of his mental operations; with at least a hint of that +want of breadth of culture and knowledge of the past, the possession of +which characterized many of his great associates; and with no +concealment that he had a dower of passions and a temper which only +vigorous self-watchfulness kept under. But he portrays, with an +admiration not too highly colored, the magnificent patience, the courage +to bear misconstruction, the unfailing patriotism, the practical +sagacity, the level balance of judgment combined with the wisest +toleration, the dignity of mind, and the lofty moral nature which made +him the great man of his epoch. Irving's grasp of this character; his +lucid marshaling of the scattered, often wearisome and uninteresting +details of our dragging, unpicturesque Revolutionary War; his just +judgment of men; his even, almost judicial, moderation of tone; and his +admirable proportion of space to events, render the discussion of style +in reference to this work superfluous. Another writer might have made a +more brilliant performance: descriptions sparkling with antitheses, +characters projected into startling attitudes by the use of epithets; a +work more exciting and more piquant, that would have started a thousand +controversies, and engaged the attention by daring conjectures and +attempts to make a dramatic spectacle; a book interesting and notable, +but false in philosophy and untrue in fact. + +When the "Sketch-Book" appeared, an English critic said it should have +been first published in England, for Irving was an English writer. The +idea has been more than once echoed here. The truth is that while Irving +was intensely American in feeling he was first of all a man of letters, +and in that capacity he was cosmopolitan; he certainly was not insular. +He had a rare accommodation of tone to his theme. Of England, whose +traditions kindled his susceptible fancy, he wrote as Englishmen would +like to write about it. In Spain he was saturated with the romantic +story of the people and the fascination of the clime; and he was so true +an interpreter of both as to earn from the Spaniards the title of "the +poet Irving." I chanced once, in an inn at Frascati, to take up "The +Tales of a Traveller," which I had not seen for many years. I expected +to revive the somewhat faded humor and fancy of the past generation. +But I found not only a sprightly humor and vivacity which are modern, +but a truth to Italian local color that is very rare in any writer +foreign to the soil. As to America, I do not know what can be more +characteristically American than the Knickerbocker, the Hudson River +tales, the sketches of life and adventure in the far West. But +underneath all this diversity there is one constant quality,--the flavor +of the author. Open by chance and read almost anywhere in his score of +books,--it may be the "Tour on the Prairies," the familiar dream of the +Alhambra, or the narratives of the brilliant exploits of New World +explorers; surrender yourself to the flowing current of his transparent +style, and you are conscious of a beguilement which is the crowning +excellence of all lighter literature, for which we have no word but +"charm." + +The consensus of opinion about Irving in England and America for thirty +years was very remarkable. He had a universal popularity rarely enjoyed +by any writer. England returned him to America medalled by the king, +honored by the university which is chary of its favors, followed by the +applause of the whole English people. In English households, in +drawing-rooms of the metropolis, in political circles no less than among +the literary coteries, in the best reviews, and in the popular +newspapers the opinion of him was pretty much the same. And even in the +lapse of time and the change of literary fashion authors so unlike as +Byron and Dickens were equally warm in admiration of him. To the English +indorsement America added her own enthusiasm, which was as universal. +His readers were the million, and all his readers were admirers. Even +American statesmen, who feed their minds on food we know not of, read +Irving. It is true that the uncritical opinion of New York was never +exactly re-echoed in the cool recesses of Boston culture; but the +magnates of the "North American Review" gave him their meed of cordial +praise. The country at large put him on a pinnacle. If you attempt to +account for the position he occupied by his character, which won the +love of all men, it must be remembered that the quality which won this, +whatever its value, pervades his books also. + +And yet it must be said that the total impression left upon the mind by +the man and his works is not that of the greatest intellectual force. I +have no doubt that this was the impression he made upon his ablest +contemporaries. And this fact, when I consider the effect the man +produced, makes the study of him all the more interesting. As an +intellectual personality he makes no such impression, for instance, as +Carlyle, or a dozen other writers now living who could be named. The +incisive critical faculty was almost entirely wanting in him. He had +neither the power nor the disposition to cut his way transversely across +popular opinion and prejudice that Ruskin has, nor to draw around him +disciples equally well pleased to see him fiercely demolish to-day what +they had delighted to see him set up yesterday as eternal. He evoked +neither violent partisanship nor violent opposition. He was an extremely +sensitive man, and if he had been capable of creating a conflict he +would only have been miserable in it. The play of his mind depended upon +the sunshine of approval. And all this shows a certain want of +intellectual virility. + +A recent anonymous writer has said that most of the writing of our day +is characterized by an intellectual strain. I have no doubt that this +will appear to be the case to the next generation. It is a strain to say +something new even at the risk of paradox, or to say something in a new +way at the risk of obscurity. From this Irving was entirely free. There +is no visible straining to attract attention. His mood is calm and +unexaggerated. Even in some of his pathos, which is open to the +suspicion of being "literary," there is no literary exaggeration. He +seems always writing from an internal calm, which is the necessary +condition of his production. If he wins at all by his style, by his +humor, by his portraiture of scenes or of character, it is by a gentle +force, like that of the sun in spring. There are many men now living, or +recently dead, intellectual prodigies, who have stimulated thought, +upset opinions, created mental eras, to whom Irving stands hardly in as +fair a relation as Goldsmith to Johnson. What verdict the next +generation will put upon their achievements I do not know; but it is +safe to say that their position and that of Irving as well will depend +largely upon the affirmation or the reversal of their views of life and +their judgments of character. I think the calm work of Irving will stand +when much of the more startling and perhaps more brilliant intellectual +achievement of this age has passed away. + +And this leads me to speak of Irving's moral quality, which I cannot +bring myself to exclude from a literary estimate, even in the face of +the current gospel of art for art's sake. There is something that made +Scott and Irving personally loved by the millions of their readers, who +had only the dimmest of ideas of their personality. This was some +quality perceived in what they wrote. Each one can define it for +himself; there it is, and I do not see why it is not as integral a part +of the authors--an element in the estimate of their future position--as +what we term their intellect, their knowledge, their skill, or their +art. However you rate it, you cannot account for Irving's influence in +the world without it. In his tender tribute to Irving, the great-hearted +Thackeray, who saw as clearly as anybody the place of mere literary art +in the sum total of life, quoted the dying words of Scott to +Lockhart,--"Be a good man, my dear." We know well enough that the great +author of "The Newcomes" and the great author of "The Heart of +Midlothian" recognized the abiding value in literature of integrity, +sincerity, purity, charity, faith. These are beneficences; and Irving's +literature, walk round it and measure it by whatever critical +instruments you will, is a beneficent literature. The author loved good +women and little children and a pure life; he had faith in his +fellow-men, a kindly sympathy with the lowest, without any subservience +to the highest; he retained a belief in the possibility of chivalrous +actions, and did not care to envelop them in a cynical suspicion; he was +an author still capable of an enthusiasm.* His books are wholesome, full +of sweetness and charm, of humor without any sting, of amusement without +any stain; and their more solid qualities are marred by neither pedantry +nor pretension. + + *Transcriber's note: Word printed as "enthusiam" in original text. + +Washington Irving died on the 28th of November, 1859, at the close of a +lovely day of that Indian Summer which is nowhere more full of a +melancholy charm than on the banks of the lower Hudson, and which was in +perfect accord with the ripe and peaceful close of his life. He was +buried on a little elevation overlooking Sleepy Hollow and the river he +loved, amidst the scenes which his magic pen has made classic and his +sepulchre hallows. + + + * * * * * + + + =Standard and Popular Library Books= + + SELECTED FROM THE CATALOGUE OF + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. + + +John Adams and Abigail Adams. + Familiar Letters of, during the Revolution. 12mo, $2.00. + +Louis Agassiz. + Methods of Study in Natural History. Illus. 16mo, $1.50. + Geological Sketches. First Series. 16mo, $1.50. + Geological Sketches. Second Series. 16mo, $1.50. + A Journey in Brazil. Illustrated. 8vo, $5.00. + +Thomas Bailey Aldrich. + Story of a Bad Boy. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50. + Marjorie Daw and Other People. 12mo, $1.50. + Prudence Palfrey. 12mo, $1.50. + The Queen of Sheba. 16mo, $1.50. + The Stillwater Tragedy. 12mo, $1.50. + From Ponkapog to Pesth. 16mo, $1.25. + Cloth of Gold and Other Poems. 12mo, $1.50. + Flower and Thorn. Later Poems. 16mo, $1.25. + Poems, Complete. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Washington Irving + +Author: Charles Dudley Warner + +Release Date: June 4, 2005 [EBook #15984] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WASHINGTON IRVING *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Peter Barozzi and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<!-- FRONTISPIECE --> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a id="frontispiece"></a> + <a href="images/fronti_l.png" > + <img src="images/fronti_s.jpg" width="480" height="600" + alt="Frontispiece" title="Frontispiece" /> + </a> +</div> + + + +<h3>American Men of Letters.<br /></h3> +<hr /> + +<h1>WASHINGTON IRVING.<br /><br /><br /></h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.<br /><br /></h2> + + +<p class="center">FIFTH THOUSAND.<br /></p> + + + +<!-- Logo --> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/logo.jpg" width="150" height="143" alt="Logo" title="Logo" /> +<br /></div> + + + +<p class="center"><big>BOSTON:</big><br /> +<big>HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY.</big><br /> +<small>11 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET, NEW YORK.</small><br /> +The Riverside Press, Cambridge.<br /> +1884.<br /><br /></p> + + +<p class="center">Copyright, 1881,<br /> +BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.<br /><br /></p> + +<p class="center"><i>All rights reserved.</i><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="center"><small><i>The Riverside Press, Cambridge:</i><br /> +Electrotyped and printed by H.O. Houghton & Co.</small></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="contents" id="contents"></a>CONTENTS.</h2> + + +<div class="centered"><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="ToC"> +<tr><td align='left' class="tocolwidth"></td><td align='right'></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='center' colspan="2"><big>CHAPTER I.</big></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Preliminary</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_001">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left' class="tocolwidth"></td><td align='right'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan="2"><big>CHAPTER II.</big></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Boyhood</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_021">21</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left' class="tocolwidth"></td><td align='right'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan="2"><big>CHAPTER III.</big></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Manhood: First Visit to Europe</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_031">31</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left' class="tocolwidth"></td><td align='right'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan="2"><big>CHAPTER IV.</big></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Society and "Salmagundi"</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_043">43</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left' class="tocolwidth"></td><td align='right'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan="2"><big>CHAPTER V.</big></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Knickerbocker Period</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_058">58</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left' class="tocolwidth"></td><td align='right'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan="2"><big>CHAPTER VI.</big></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Life in Europe: Literary Activity</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_094">94</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left' class="tocolwidth"></td><td align='right'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan="2"><big>CHAPTER VII.</big></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">In Spain</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_141">141</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left' class="tocolwidth"></td><td align='right'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan="2"><big>CHAPTER VIII.</big></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Return to America: Sunnyside: The Mission to Madrid</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_158">158</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left' class="tocolwidth"></td><td align='right'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan="2"><big>CHAPTER IX.</big></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Characteristic Works</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_190">190</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left' class="tocolwidth"></td><td align='right'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='center' colspan="2"><big>CHAPTER X.</big></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Last Years: The Character of his Literature</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Pg_282">282</a></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a></div> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_001" id="Pg_001" title="Pg_001">[1]</a></span></div> + +<h2>WASHINGTON IRVING.<br /><br /></h2> + +<h2>I.</h2> + +<h3>PRELIMINARY.</h3> + + +<p>It is over twenty years since the death +of Washington Irving removed that personal +presence which is always a powerful, +and sometimes the sole, stimulus to the sale +of an author's books, and which strongly +affects the contemporary judgment of their +merits. It is nearly a century since his +birth, which was almost coeval with that of +the Republic, for it took place the year the +British troops evacuated the city of New +York, and only a few months before General +Washington marched in at the head of the +Continental army and took possession of the +metropolis. For fifty years Irving charmed +and instructed the American people, and +was the author who held, on the whole, the +first place in their affections. As he was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_002" id="Pg_002" title="Pg_002">[2]</a></span>the first to lift American literature into the +popular respect of Europe, so for a long +time he was the chief representative of the +American name in the world of letters. +During this period probably no citizen of +the Republic, except the Father of his +Country, had so wide a reputation as his +namesake, Washington Irving.</p> + +<p>It is time to inquire what basis this great +reputation had in enduring qualities, what +portion of it was due to local and favoring +circumstances, and to make an impartial +study of the author's literary rank and +achievement.</p> + +<p>The tenure of a literary reputation is the +most uncertain and fluctuating of all. The +popularity of an author seems to depend +quite as much upon fashion or whim, as +upon a change in taste or in literary form. +Not only is contemporary judgment often at +fault, but posterity is perpetually revising +its opinion. We are accustomed to say that +the final rank of an author is settled by +the slow consensus of mankind in disregard +of the critics; but the rank is after all determined +by the few best minds of any +given age, and the popular judgment has +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_003" id="Pg_003" title="Pg_003">[3]</a></span>very little to do with it. Immediate popularity, +or currency, is a nearly valueless criterion +of merit. The settling of high rank +even in the popular mind does not necessarily +give currency; the so-called best +authors are not those most widely read at +any given time. Some who attain the +position of classics are subject to variations +in popular and even in scholarly favor or +neglect. It happens to the princes of literature +to encounter periods of varying duration +when their names are revered and their +books are not read. The growth, not to +say the fluctuation, of Shakespeare's popularity +is one of the curiosities of literary +history. Worshiped by his contemporaries, +apostrophized by Milton only fourteen years +after his death as the "dear son of memory, +great heir to fame,"—</p> + +<p class="center">"So sepulchred in such pomp dost lie,<br /> +That kings, for such a tomb, would wish to die,"—<br /> +</p> + +<p>he was neglected by the succeeding age, +the subject of violent extremes of opinion +in the eighteenth century, and so lightly esteemed +by some that Hume could doubt if +he were a poet "capable of furnishing a +proper entertainment to a refined and intelligent +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_004" id="Pg_004" title="Pg_004">[4]</a></span>audience," and attribute to the +rudeness of his "disproportioned and misshapen" +genius the "reproach of barbarism" +which the English nation had +suffered from all its neighbors. Only recently +has the study of him by English +scholars—I do not refer to the verbal +squabbles over the text—been proportioned +to his preëminence, and his fame is +still slowly asserting itself among foreign +peoples.</p> + +<p>There are already signs that we are not +to accept as the final judgment upon the +English contemporaries of Irving the currency +their writings have now. In the +case of Walter Scott, although there is already +visible a reaction against a reaction, +he is not, at least in America, read by this +generation as he was by the last. This +faint reaction is no doubt a sign of a deeper +change impending in philosophic and metaphysical +speculation. An age is apt to take +a lurch in a body one way or another, and +those most active in it do not always perceive +how largely its direction is determined +by what are called mere systems of philosophy. +The novelist may not know whether +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_005" id="Pg_005" title="Pg_005">[5]</a></span>he is steered by Kant, or Hegel, or Schopenhauer. +The humanitarian novel, the fictions +of passion, of realism, of doubt, the +poetry and the essays addressed to the mood +of unrest, of questioning, to the scientific +spirit and to the shifting attitudes of social +change and reform, claim the attention of +an age that is completely adrift in regard +to the relations of the supernatural and the +material, the ideal and the real. It would +be natural if in such a time of confusion the +calm tones of unexaggerated literary art +should be not so much heeded as the more +strident voices. Yet when the passing +fashion of this day is succeeded by the +fashion of another, that which is most acceptable +to the thought and feeling of the +present may be without an audience; and +it may happen that few recent authors will +be read as Scott and the writers of the +early part of this century will be read. It +may, however, be safely predicted that +those writers of fiction worthy to be called +literary artists will best retain their hold +who have faithfully painted the manners of +their own time.</p> + +<p>Irving has shared the neglect of the writers +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_006" id="Pg_006" title="Pg_006">[6]</a></span>of his generation. It would be strange, +even in America, if this were not so. The +development of American literature (using +the term in its broadest sense) in the past +forty years is greater than could have been +expected in a nation which had its ground +to clear, its wealth to win, and its new governmental +experiment to adjust; if we confine +our view to the last twenty years, the +national production is vast in amount and +encouraging in quality. It suffices to say +of it here, in a general way, that the most +vigorous activity has been in the departments +of history, of applied science, and the +discussion of social and economic problems. +Although pure literature has made considerable +gains, the main achievement has +been in other directions. The audience of +the literary artist has been less than that of +the reporter of affairs and discoveries and +the special correspondent. The age is too +busy, too harassed, to have time for literature; +and enjoyment of writings like those +of Irving depends upon leisure of mind. +The mass of readers have cared less for +form than for novelty and news and the satisfying +of a recently awakened curiosity. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_007" id="Pg_007" title="Pg_007">[7]</a></span>This was inevitable in an era of journalism, +one marked by the marvelous results attained +in the fields of religion, science, and +art, by the adoption of the comparative +method. Perhaps there is no better illustration +of the vigor and intellectual activity +of the age than a living English writer, who +has traversed and illuminated almost every +province of modern thought, controversy, +and scholarship; but who supposes that +Mr. Gladstone has added anything to permanent +literature? He has been an immense +force in his own time, and his influence +the next generation will still feel and +acknowledge, while it reads not the writings +of Mr. Gladstone but may be those of +the author of "Henry Esmond" and the +biographer of "Rab and his Friends." De +Quincey divides literature into two sorts, +the literature of power and the literature +of knowledge. The latter is of necessity for +to-day only, and must be revised to-morrow. +The definition has scarcely De Quincey's +usual verbal felicity, but we can apprehend +the distinction he intended to make.</p> + +<p>It is to be noted also, and not with regard +to Irving only, that the attention of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_008" id="Pg_008" title="Pg_008">[8]</a></span>young and old readers has been so occupied +and distracted by the flood of new books, +written with the single purpose of satisfying +the wants of the day, produced and distributed +with marvelous cheapness and facility +that the standard works of approved +literature remain for the most part unread +upon the shelves. Thirty years ago Irving +was much read in America by young people +and his clear style helped to form a +good taste and correct literary habits. It +is not so now. The manufacturers of books, +periodicals, and newspapers for the young +keep the rising generation fully occupied, +with a result to its taste and mental fibre +which, to say the least of it, must be +regarded with some apprehension. The +"plant," in the way of money and writing +industry invested in the production of juvenile +literature, is so large and is so permanent +an interest, that it requires more discriminating +consideration than can be given +to it in a passing paragraph.</p> + +<p>Besides this, and with respect to Irving +in particular, there has been in America a +criticism—sometimes called the destructive, +sometimes the Donnybrook Fair—that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_009" id="Pg_009" title="Pg_009">[9]</a></span>found "earnestness" the only thing in +the world amusing, that brought to literary +art the test of utility, and disparaged what +is called the "Knickerbocker School" (assuming +Irving to be the head of it) as wanting +in purpose and virility, a merely romantic +development of the post-Revolutionary +period. And it has been to some extent +the fashion to damn with faint admiration +the pioneer if not the creator of American +literature as the "genial" Irving.</p> + +<p>Before I pass to an outline of the career +of this representative American author, it is +necessary to refer for a moment to certain +periods, more or less marked, in our literature. +I do not include in it the works of +writers either born in England or completely +English in training, method, and tradition, +showing nothing distinctively American +in their writings except the incidental +subject. The first authors whom we may +regard as characteristic of the new country—leaving +out the productions of speculative +theology—devoted their genius to politics. +It is in the political writings immediately +preceding and following the Revolution—such +as those of Hamilton, Madison, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_010" id="Pg_010" title="Pg_010">[10]</a></span>Jay, Franklin, Jefferson—that the new +birth of a nation of original force and ideas +is declared. It has been said, and I think +the statement can be maintained, that for +any parallel to those treatises on the nature +of government, in respect to originality and +vigor, we must go back to classic times. +But literature, that is, literature which is +an end in itself and not a means to something +else, did not exist in America before +Irving. Some foreshadowings (the autobiographical +fragment of Franklin was +not published till 1817) of its coming may +be traced, but there can be no question that +his writings were the first that bore the +national literary stamp, that he first made +the nation conscious of its gift and opportunity, +and that he first announced to +trans-Atlantic readers the entrance of America +upon the literary field. For some time +he was our only man of letters who had a +reputation beyond seas.</p> + +<p>Irving was not, however, the first American +who made literature a profession and +attempted to live on its fruits. This distinction +belongs to Charles Brockden Brown, +who was born in Philadelphia, January 17, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_011" id="Pg_011" title="Pg_011">[11]</a></span>1771, and, before the appearance in a newspaper +of Irving's juvenile essays in 1802, +had published several romances, which were +hailed as original and striking productions +by his contemporaries, and even attracted +attention in England. As late as 1820 a +prominent British review gives Mr. Brown +the first rank in our literature as an original +writer and characteristically American. +The reader of to-day who has the curiosity +to inquire into the correctness of this opinion +will, if he is familiar with the romances +of the eighteenth century, find little originality +in Brown's stories, and nothing distinctively +American. The figures who are +moved in them seem to be transported from +the pages of foreign fiction to the New +World, not as it was, but as it existed in +the minds of European sentimentalists.</p> + +<p>Mr. Brown received a fair education in a +classical school in his native city, and studied +law, which he abandoned on the threshold +of practice, as Irving did, and for the same +reason. He had the genuine literary impulse, +which he obeyed against all the arguments +and entreaties of his friends. Unfortunately, +with a delicate physical constitution +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_012" id="Pg_012" title="Pg_012">[12]</a></span>he had a mind of romantic sensibility, +and in the comparative inaction imposed +by his frail health he indulged in visionary +speculation, and in solitary wanderings +which developed the habit of sentimental +musing. It was natural that such reveries +should produce morbid romances. The +tone of them is that of the unwholesome +fiction of his time, in which the "seducer" +is a prominent and recognized character in +social life, and female virtue is the frail +sport of opportunity. Brown's own life +was fastidiously correct, but it is a curious +commentary upon his estimate of the natural +power of resistance to vice in his time, +that he regarded his feeble health as good +fortune, since it protected him from the +temptations of youth and virility.</p> + +<p>While he was reading law he constantly +exercised his pen in the composition of essays, +some of which were published under +the title of the "Rhapsodist;" but it was +not until 1797 that his career as an author +began, by the publication of "Alcuin: a Dialogue +on the Rights of Women." This and +the romances which followed it show the +powerful influence upon him of the school of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_013" id="Pg_013" title="Pg_013">[13]</a></span>fiction of William Godwin, and the movement +of emancipation of which Mary Wollstonecraft +was the leader. The period of +social and political ferment during which +"Alcuin" was put forth was not unlike that +which may be said to have reached its +height in extravagance and millennial expectation +in 1847-48. In "Alcuin" are anticipated +most of the subsequent discussions on +the right of women to property and to self-control, +and the desirability of revising the +marriage relation. The injustice of any more +enduring union than that founded upon the +inclination of the hour is as ingeniously +urged in "Alcuin" as it has been in our own +day.</p> + +<p>Mr. Brown's reputation rests upon six +romances: "Wieland," "Ormond," "Arthur +Mervyn," "Edgar Huntly," "Clara +Howard," and "Jane Talbot." The first five +were published in the interval between the +spring of 1798 and the summer of 1801, in +which he completed his thirtieth year. +"Jane Talbot" appeared somewhat later. +In scenery and character, these romances +are entirely unreal. There is in them an +affectation of psychological purpose which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_014" id="Pg_014" title="Pg_014">[14]</a></span>is not very well sustained, and a somewhat +clumsy introduction of supernatural machinery. +Yet they have a power of engaging +the attention in the rapid succession of startling +and uncanny incidents and in adventures +in which the horrible is sometimes +dangerously near the ludicrous. Brown had +not a particle of humor. Of literary art +there is little, of invention considerable; +and while the style is to a certain extent +unformed and immature, it is neither feeble +nor obscure, and admirably serves the author's +purpose of creating what the children +call a "crawly" impression. There is undeniable +power in many of his scenes, notably +in the descriptions of the yellow fever +in Philadelphia, found in the romance of +"Arthur Mervyn." There is, however, +over all of them a false and pallid light; his +characters are seen in a spectral atmosphere. +If a romance is to be judged not by literary +rules, but by its power of making an impression +upon the mind, such power as a +ghastly story has, told by the chimney-corner +on a tempestuous night, then Mr. +Brown's romances cannot be dismissed without +a certain recognition. But they never +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_015" id="Pg_015" title="Pg_015">[15]</a></span>represented anything distinctively American, +and their influence upon American literature +is scarcely discernible.</p> + +<p>Subsequently Mr. Brown became interested +in political subjects, and wrote upon +them with vigor and sagacity. He was the +editor of two short-lived literary periodicals +which were nevertheless useful in their day: +"The Monthly Magazine and American Review," +begun in New York in the spring +of 1798, and ending in the autumn of 1800; +and "The Literary Magazine and American +Register," which was established in Philadelphia +in 1803. It was for this periodical +that Mr. Brown, who visited Irving in that +year, sought in vain to enlist the service of +the latter, who, then a youth of nineteen, +had a little reputation as the author of some +humorous essays in the "Morning Chronicle" +newspaper.</p> + +<p>Charles Brockden Brown died, the victim +of a lingering consumption, in 1810, at the +age of thirty-nine. In pausing for a moment +upon his incomplete and promising career, +we should not forget to recall the strong +impression he made upon his contemporaries +as a man of genius, the testimony to the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_016" id="Pg_016" title="Pg_016">[16]</a></span>charm of his conversation and the goodness +of his heart, nor the pioneer service he rendered +to letters before the provincial fetters +were at all loosened.</p> + +<p>The advent of Cooper, Bryant, and Halleck, +was some twenty years after the recognition +of Irving, but thereafter the stars +thicken in our literary sky, and when in +1832 Irving returned from his long sojourn +in Europe, he found an immense advance +in fiction, poetry, and historical composition. +American literature was not only +born,—it was able to go alone. We are +not likely to overestimate the stimulus to +this movement given by Irving's example, +and by his success abroad. His leadership +is recognized in the respectful attitude +towards him of all his contemporaries in +America. And the cordiality with which +he gave help whenever it was asked, and +his eagerness to acknowledge merit in others, +secured him the affection of all the literary +class, which is popularly supposed to +have a rare appreciation of the defects of +fellow craftsmen.</p> + +<p>The period from 1830 to 1860 was that +of our greatest purely literary achievement, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_017" id="Pg_017" title="Pg_017">[17]</a></span>and, indeed, most of the greater names of +to-day were familiar before 1850. Conspicuous +exceptions are Motley and Parkman +and a few belles-lettres writers, whose +novels and stories mark a distinct literary +transition since the War of the Rebellion. +In the period from 1845 to 1860, there was +a singular development of sentimentalism; +it had been growing before, it did not altogether +disappear at the time named, and it +was so conspicuous that this may properly +be called the sentimental era in our literature. +The causes of it, and its relation to +our changing national character, are worthy +the study of the historian. In politics, the +discussion of constitutional questions, of +tariffs and finance, had given way to moral +agitations. Every political movement was +determined by its relation to slavery. Eccentricities +of all sorts were developed. It +was the era of "transcendentalism" in New +England, of "come-outers" there and elsewhere, +of communistic experiments, of reform +notions about marriage, about woman's +dress, about diet; through the open door +of abolitionism women appeared upon its +platform, demanding a various emancipation; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_018" id="Pg_018" title="Pg_018">[18]</a></span>the agitation for total abstinence from +intoxicating drinks got under full headway, +urged on moral rather than on the statistical +and scientific grounds of to-day; reformed +drunkards went about from town to +town depicting to applauding audiences the +horrors of delirium tremens,—one of these +peripatetics led about with him a goat, perhaps +as a scapegoat and sin-offering; tobacco +was as odious as rum; and I remember +that George Thompson, the eloquent +apostle of emancipation, during his tour in +this country, when on one occasion he was +the cynosure of a protracted antislavery +meeting at Peterboro, the home of Gerrit +Smith, deeply offended some of his co-workers, +and lost the admiration of many +of his admirers, the maiden devotees of +green tea, by his use of snuff. To "lift +up the voice" and wear longhair were signs +of devotion to a purpose.</p> + +<p>In that seething time, the lighter literature +took a sentimental tone, and either +spread itself in manufactured fine writing, +or lapsed into a reminiscent and melting +mood. In a pretty affectation, we were +asked to meditate upon the old garret, the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_019" id="Pg_019" title="Pg_019">[19]</a></span>deserted hearth, the old letters, the old +well-sweep, the dead baby, the little shoes; +we were put into a mood in which we were +defenseless against the lukewarm flood of +the Tupperean Philosophy. Even the newspapers +caught the bathetic tone. Every +"local" editor breathed his woe over the +incidents of the police court, the falling leaf, +the tragedies of the boarding-house, in the +most lachrymose periods he could command, +and let us never lack fine writing, whatever +might be the dearth of news. I need not +say how suddenly and completely this affectation +was laughed out of sight by the coming +of the "humorous" writer, whose existence +is justified by the excellent service +he performed in clearing the tearful atmosphere. +His keen and mocking method, +which is quite distinct from the humor of +Goldsmith and Irving, and differs, in degree +at least, from the comic almanac exaggeration +and coarseness which preceded it, puts +its foot on every bud of sentiment, holds +few things sacred, and refuses to regard +anything in life seriously. But it has no +mercy for any sham.</p> + +<p>I refer to this sentimental era—remembering +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_020" id="Pg_020" title="Pg_020">[20]</a></span>that its literary manifestation was +only a surface disease, and recognizing fully +the value of the great moral movement in +purifying the national life—because many +regard its literary weakness as a legitimate +outgrowth of the Knickerbocker School, +and hold Irving in a manner responsible for +it. But I find nothing in the manly sentiment +and true tenderness of Irving to warrant +the sentimental gush of his followers, +who missed his corrective humor as completely +as they failed to catch his literary +art. Whatever note of localism there was +in the Knickerbocker School, however <i>dilettante</i> +and unfruitful it was, it was not the +legitimate heir of the broad and eclectic +genius of Irving. The nature of that genius +we shall see in his life.</p> + + +<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a></div> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_021" id="Pg_021" title="Pg_021">[21]</a></span></div> +<h2>CHAPTER II.<br /></h2> + +<h3>BOYHOOD.<br /><br /></h3> + + +<p>Washington Irving was born in the +city of New York, April 3, 1783. He was +the eighth son of William and Sarah Irving, +and the youngest of eleven children, +three of whom died in infancy. His parents, +though of good origin, began life in +humble circumstances. His father was born +on the island of Shapinska. His family, +one of the most respectable in Scotland, +traced its descent from William De Irwyn, +the secretary and armor-bearer of Robert +Bruce; but at the time of the birth of William +Irving its fortunes had gradually decayed, +and the lad sought his livelihood, +according to the habit of the adventurous +Orkney Islanders, on the sea.</p> + +<p>It was during the French War, and while +he was serving as a petty officer in an +armed packet plying between Falmouth and +New York, that he met Sarah Sanders, a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_022" id="Pg_022" title="Pg_022">[22]</a></span>beautiful girl, the only daughter of John +and Anna Sanders, who had the distinction +of being the granddaughter of an English +curate. The youthful pair were married in +1761, and two years after embarked for +New York, where they landed July 18, +1763. Upon settling in New York William +Irving quit the sea and took to trade, +in which he was successful until his business +was broken up by the Revolutionary +War. In this contest he was a staunch +Whig, and suffered for his opinions at the +hands of the British occupants of the city, +and both he and his wife did much to alleviate +the misery of the American prisoners. +In this charitable ministry his wife, who +possessed a rarely generous and sympathetic +nature, was especially zealous, supplying +the prisoners with food from her own table, +visiting those who were ill, and furnishing +them with clothing and other necessaries.</p> + +<p>Washington was born in a house on William +Street, about half-way between Fulton +and John; the following year the family +moved across the way into one of the quaint +structures of the time, its gable end with +attic window towards the street, the fashion +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_023" id="Pg_023" title="Pg_023">[23]</a></span>of which, and very likely the bricks, +came from Holland. In this homestead the +lad grew up, and it was not pulled down till +1849, ten years before his death. The patriot +army occupied the city. "Washington's +work is ended," said the mother, "and +the child shall be named after him." When +the first President was again in New York, +the first seat of the new government, a +Scotch maid-servant of the family, catching +the popular enthusiasm, one day followed +the hero into a shop and presented the lad +to him. "Please, your honor," said Lizzie, +all aglow, "here's a bairn was named after +you." And the grave Virginian placed his +hand on the boy's head and gave him his +blessing. The touch could not have been +more efficacious, though it might have lingered +longer, if he had known he was propitiating +his future biographer.</p> + +<p>New York at the time of our author's +birth was a rural city of about twenty-three +thousand inhabitants, clustered about the +Battery. It did not extend northward to +the site of the present City Hall Park; and +beyond, then and for several years afterwards, +were only country residences, orchards, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_024" id="Pg_024" title="Pg_024">[24]</a></span>and corn-fields. The city was half +burned down during the war, and had +emerged from it in a dilapidated condition. +There was still a marked separation between +the Dutch and the English residents, though +the Irvings seem to have been on terms of +intimacy with the best of both nationalities. +The habits of living were primitive; the +manners were agreeably free; conviviality +at the table was the fashion, and strong expletives +had not gone out of use in conversation. +Society was the reverse of intellectual: +the aristocracy were the merchants +and traders; what literary culture found +expression was formed on English models, +dignified and plentifully garnished with +Latin and Greek allusions; the commercial +spirit ruled, and the relaxations and amusements +partook of its hurry and excitement. +In their gay, hospitable, and mercurial character, +the inhabitants were true progenitors +of the present metropolis. A newspaper +had been established in 1732, and a theatre +had existed since 1750. Although the town +had a rural aspect, with its quaint dormer-window +houses, its straggling lanes and +roads, and the water-pumps in the middle +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_025" id="Pg_025" title="Pg_025">[25]</a></span>of the streets, it had the aspirations of a +city, and already much of the metropolitan +air.</p> + +<p>These were the surroundings in which the +boy's literary talent was to develop. His +father was a deacon in the Presbyterian +church, a sedate, God-fearing man, with the +strict severity of the Scotch Covenanter, +serious in his intercourse with his family, +without sympathy in the amusements of his +children; he was not without tenderness in +his nature, but the exhibition of it was repressed +on principle,—a man of high character +and probity, greatly esteemed by his +associates. He endeavored to bring up his +children in sound religious principles, and +to leave no room in their lives for triviality. +One of the two weekly half-holidays was +required for the catechism, and the only relaxation +from the three church services on +Sunday was the reading of "Pilgrim's Progress." +This cold and severe discipline at +home would have been intolerable but for +the more lovingly demonstrative and impulsive +character of the mother, whose gentle +nature and fine intellect won the tender +veneration of her children. Of the father +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_026" id="Pg_026" title="Pg_026">[26]</a></span>they stood in awe; his conscientious piety +failed to waken any religious sensibility in +them, and they revolted from a teaching +which seemed to regard everything that +was pleasant as wicked. The mother, +brought up an Episcopalian, conformed to +the religious forms and worship of her husband +but she was never in sympathy with +his rigid views. The children were repelled +from the creed of their father, and +subsequently all of them except one became +attached to the Episcopal Church. Washington, +in order to make sure of his escape, +and feel safe while he was still constrained +to attend his father's church, went stealthily +to Trinity Church at an early age, and +received the rite of confirmation. The boy +was full of vivacity, drollery, and innocent +mischief. His sportiveness and disinclination +to religious seriousness gave his mother +some anxiety, and she would look at him, +says his biographer, with a half mournful +admiration, and exclaim, "O Washington! +if you were only good!" He had a love of +music, which became later in life a passion, +and great fondness for the theatre. The +stolen delight of the theatre he first tasted +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_027" id="Pg_027" title="Pg_027">[27]</a></span>in company with a boy who was somewhat +his senior, but destined to be his literary +comrade,—James K. Paulding, whose sister +was the wife of Irving's brother William. +Whenever he could afford this indulgence, +he stole away early to the theatre in John +Street, remained until it was time to return +to the family prayers at nine, after which +he would retire to his room, slip through +his window and down the roof to a back +alley, and return to enjoy the after-piece.</p> + +<p>Young Irving's school education was desultory, +pursued under several more or less +incompetent masters, and was over at the +age of sixteen. The teaching does not +seem to have had much discipline or solidity; +he studied Latin a few months, but +made no other incursion into the classics. +The handsome, tender-hearted, truthful, susceptible +boy was no doubt a dawdler in routine +studies, but he assimilated what suited +him. He found his food in such pieces of +English literature as were floating about, in +"Robinson Crusoe" and "Sinbad;" at ten +he was inspired by a translation of "Orlando +Furioso;" he devoured books of voyages +and travel; he could turn a neat verse, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_028" id="Pg_028" title="Pg_028">[28]</a></span>and his scribbling propensities were exercised +in the composition of childish plays. +The fact seems to be that the boy was a +dreamer and saunterer; he himself says that +he used to wander about the pier heads in +fine weather, watch the ships departing on +long voyages, and dream of going to the +ends of the earth. His brothers Peter and +John had been sent to Columbia College, +and it is probable that Washington would +have had the same advantage if he had not +shown a disinclination to methodical study. +At the age of sixteen he entered a law office, +but he was a heedless student, and never acquired +either a taste for the profession or +much knowledge of law. While he sat in +the law office, he read literature, and made +considerable progress in his self-culture; but +he liked rambling and society quite as well +as books. In 1798 we find him passing a +summer holiday in Westchester County, +and exploring with his gun the Sleepy Hollow +region which he was afterwards to make +an enchanted realm; and in 1800 he made +his first voyage up the Hudson, the beauties +of which he was the first to celebrate, on a +visit to a married sister who lived in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_029" id="Pg_029" title="Pg_029">[29]</a></span>Mohawk Valley. In 1802 he became a law +clerk in the office of Josiah Ogden Hoffman, +and began that enduring intimacy +with the refined and charming Hoffman +family which was so deeply to influence all +his life. His health had always been delicate, +and his friends were now alarmed by +symptoms of pulmonary weakness. This +physical disability no doubt had much to +do with his disinclination to severe study. +For the next two or three years much time +was consumed in excursions up the Hudson +and the Mohawk, and in adventurous journeys +as far as the wilds of Ogdensburg and +to Montreal, to the great improvement of +his physical condition, and in the enjoyment +of the gay society of Albany, Schenectady, +Ballston, and Saratoga Springs. These explorations +and visits gave him material for +future use, and exercised his pen in agreeable +correspondence; but his tendency at +this time, and for several years afterwards, +was to the idle life of a man of society. +Whether the literary impulse which was +born in him would have ever insisted upon +any but an occasional and fitful expression, +except for the necessities of his subsequent +condition, is doubtful.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_030" id="Pg_030" title="Pg_030">[30]</a></span>Irving's first literary publication was a +series of letters, signed Jonathan Oldstyle, +contributed in 1802 to the "Morning +Chronicle," a newspaper then recently established +by his brother Peter. The attention +that these audacious satires of the theatre, +the actors, and their audience attracted +is evidence of the literary poverty of the +period. The letters are open imitations of +the "Spectator" and the "Tatler," and although +sharp upon local follies are of no +consequence at present except as foreshadowing +the sensibility and quiet humor of the +future author, and his chivalrous devotion to +woman. What is worthy of note is that a +boy of nineteen should turn aside from his +caustic satire to protest against the cruel +and unmanly habit of jesting at ancient +maidens. It was enough for him that they +are women, and possess the strongest claim +upon our admiration, tenderness, and protection.</p> + + + +<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a></div> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_031" id="Pg_031" title="Pg_031">[31]</a></span></div> + +<h2>CHAPTER III.<br /></h2> + +<h3>MANHOOD: FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE.<br /><br /></h3> + + +<p>Irving's health, always delicate, continued +so much impaired when he came of age, +in 1804, that his brothers determined to +send him to Europe. On the 19th of May +he took passage for Bordeaux in a sailing +vessel, which reached the mouth of the +Garonne on the 25th of June. His consumptive +appearance when he went on +board caused the captain to say to himself, +"There's a chap who will go overboard before +we get across;" but his condition was +much improved by the voyage.</p> + +<p>He stayed six weeks at Bordeaux to improve +himself in the language, and then set +out for the Mediterranean. In the diligence +he had some merry companions, and the +party amused itself on the way. It was +their habit to stroll about the towns in +which they stopped, and talk with whomever +they met. Among his companions was a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_032" id="Pg_032" title="Pg_032">[32]</a></span>young French officer and an eccentric, garrulous +doctor from America. At Tonneins, +on the Garonne, they entered a house where +a number of girls were quilting. The girls +gave Irving a needle and set him to work. +He could not understand their patois, and +they could not comprehend his bad French, +and they got on very merrily. At last the +little doctor told them that the interesting +young man was an English prisoner whom +the French officer had in custody. Their +merriment at once gave place to pity. +"Ah! le pauvre garçon!" said one to another; +"he is merry, however, in all his +trouble." "And what will they do with +him?" asked a young woman. "Oh, nothing +of consequence," replied the doctor; +"perhaps shoot him, or cut off his head." +The good souls were much distressed; they +brought him wine, loaded his pockets with +fruit, and bade him good-by with a hundred +benedictions. Over forty years after, Irving +made a detour, on his way from Madrid +to Paris, to visit Tonneins, drawn thither +solely by the recollection of this incident, +vaguely hoping perhaps to apologize to the +tender-hearted villagers for the imposition. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_033" id="Pg_033" title="Pg_033">[33]</a></span>His conscience, had always pricked him for +it; "It was a shame," he said, "to leave +them with such painful impressions." The +quilting party had dispersed by that time. +"I believe I recognized the house," he says; +"and I saw two or three old women who +might once have formed part of the merry +group of girls; but I doubt whether they +recognized, in the stout elderly gentleman, +thus rattling in his carriage through their +streets, the pale young English prisoner of +forty years since."</p> + +<p>Bonaparte was emperor. The whole country +was full of suspicion. The police suspected +the traveler, notwithstanding his +passport, of being an Englishman and a +spy, and dogged him at every step. He +arrived at Avignon, full of enthusiasm at +the thought of seeing the tomb of Laura. +"Judge of my surprise," he writes, "my +disappointment, and my indignation, when +I was told that the church, tomb, and all +were utterly demolished in the time of the +Revolution. Never did the Revolution, its +authors and its consequences, receive a more +hearty and sincere execration than at that +moment. Throughout the whole of my +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_034" id="Pg_034" title="Pg_034">[34]</a></span>journey I had found reason to exclaim +against it for depriving me of some valuable +curiosity or celebrated monument, but this +was the severest disappointment it had yet +occasioned." This view of the Revolution +is very characteristic of Irving, and perhaps +the first that would occur to a man of letters. +The journey was altogether disagreeable, +even to a traveler used to the rough +jaunts in an American wilderness: the inns +were miserable; dirt, noise, and insolence +reigned without control. But it never was +our author's habit to stroke the world the +wrong way: "When I cannot get a dinner +to suit my taste, I endeavor to get a taste +to suit my dinner." And he adds: "There +is nothing I dread more than to be taken +for one of the Smell-fungi of this world. I +therefore endeavor to be pleased with everything +about me, and with the masters, mistresses, +and servants of the inns, particularly +when I perceive they have 'all the +dispositions in the world' to serve me; as +Sterne says, 'It is enough for heaven and +ought to be enough for me.'"</p> + +<p>The traveler was detained at Marseilles, +and five weeks at Nice, on one frivolous +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_035" id="Pg_035" title="Pg_035">[35]</a></span>pretext of the police or another, and did not +reach Genoa till the 20th of October. At +Genoa there was a delightful society, and +Irving seems to have been more attracted +by that than by the historical curiosities. +His health was restored, and his spirits recovered +elasticity in the genial hospitality; +he was surrounded by friends to whom he +became so much attached that it was with +pain he parted from them. The gayety of +city life, the levees of the Doge, and the +balls were not unattractive to the handsome +young man; but what made Genoa +seem like home to him was his intimacy +with a few charming families, among whom +he mentions those of Mrs. Bird, Madame +Gabriac, and Lady Shaftesbury. From the +latter he experienced the most cordial and +unreserved friendship; she greatly interested +herself in his future, and furnished +him with letters from herself and the nobility +to persons of the first distinction in +Florence, Rome, and Naples.</p> + +<p>Late in December Irving sailed for Sicily +in a Genoese packet. Off the island +of Planoca it was overpowered and captured +by a little pickaroon, with lateen sails +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_036" id="Pg_036" title="Pg_036">[36]</a></span>and a couple of guns, and a most villainous +crew, in poverty-stricken garments, rusty +cutlasses in their hands and stilettos and +pistols stuck in their waistbands. The pirates +thoroughly ransacked the vessel, opened +all the trunks and portmanteaus, but found +little that they wanted except brandy and +provisions. In releasing the vessel, the ragamuffins +seem to have had a touch of humor, +for they gave the captain a "receipt" +for what they had taken, and an order on +the British consul at Messina to pay for the +same. This old-time courtesy was hardly +appreciated at the moment.</p> + +<p>Irving passed a couple of months in Sicily, +exploring with some thoroughness the +ruins, and making several perilous inland +trips, for the country was infested by banditti. +One journey from Syracuse through +the centre of the island revealed more +wretchedness than Irving supposed existed +in the world. The half-starved peasants +lived in wretched cabins and often in caverns, +amid filth and vermin. "God knows +my mind never suffered so much as on this +journey," he writes, "when I saw such +scenes of want and misery continually before +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_037" id="Pg_037" title="Pg_037">[37]</a></span>me, without the power of effectually +relieving them." His stay in the ports was +made agreeable by the officers of American +ships cruising in those waters. Every ship +was a home, and every officer a friend. He +had a boundless capacity for good-fellowship. +At Messina he chronicles the brilliant +spectacle of Lord Nelson's fleet passing +through the straits in search of the French +fleet that had lately got out of Toulon. In +less than a year, Nelson's young admirer was +one of the thousands that pressed to see +the remains of the great admiral as they +lay in state at Greenwich, wrapped in the +flag that had floated at the mast-head of the +Victory.</p> + +<p>From Sicily he passed over to Naples in +a fruit boat which dodged the cruisers, and +reached Rome the last of March. Here he +remained several weeks, absorbed by the +multitudinous attractions. In Italy the +worlds of music and painting were for the +first time opened to him. Here he made +the acquaintance of Washington Allston, +and the influence of this friendship came +near changing the whole course of his life. +To return home to the dry study of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_038" id="Pg_038" title="Pg_038">[38]</a></span>law was not a pleasing prospect; the masterpieces +of art, the serenity of the sky, the +nameless charm which hangs about an +Italian landscape, and Allston's enthusiasm +as an artist, nearly decided him to remain +in Rome and adopt the profession of a +painter. But after indulging in this dream, +it occurred to him that it was not so much +a natural aptitude for the art as the lovely +scenery and Allston's companionship that +had attracted him to it. He saw something +of Roman society; Torlonia the banker +was especially assiduous in his attentions. +It turned out when Irving came to make his +adieus that Torlonia had all along supposed +him a relative of General Washington. +This mistake is offset by another that occurred +later, after Irving had attained some +celebrity in England. An English lady +passing through an Italian gallery with her +daughter stopped before a bust of Washington. +The daughter said, "Mother, who +was Washington?" "Why, my dear, don't +you know?" was the astonished reply. +"He wrote the 'Sketch-Book.'" It was at +the house of Baron von Humboldt, the Prussian +minister, that Irving first met Madame +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_039" id="Pg_039" title="Pg_039">[39]</a></span>de Staël, who was then enjoying the celebrity +of "Delphine." He was impressed with +her strength of mind, and somewhat astounded +at the amazing flow of her conversation, +and the question upon question with +which she plied him.</p> + +<p>In May the wanderer was in Paris, and remained +there four months, studying French +and frequenting the theatres with exemplary +regularity. Of his life in Paris there +are only the meagrest reports, and he records +no observations upon political affairs. +The town fascinated him more than any +other in Europe; he notes that the city is +rapidly beautifying under the emperor, that +the people seem gay and happy, and <i>Vive +la bagatelle!</i> is again the burden of their +song. His excuse for remissness in correspondence +was, "I am a young man and in +Paris."</p> + +<p>By way of the Netherlands he reached +London in October and remained in England +till January. The attraction in London +seems to have been the theatre, where he +saw John Kemble, Cooke, and Mrs. Siddons. +Kemble's acting seemed to him too studied +and over-labored; he had the disadvantage +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_040" id="Pg_040" title="Pg_040">[40]</a></span>of a voice lacking rich, base tones. Whatever +he did was judiciously conceived and +perfectly executed; it satisfied the head, +but rarely touched the heart. Only in the +part of Zanga was the young critic completely +overpowered by his acting,—Kemble +seemed to have forgotten himself. Cooke, +who had less range than Kemble, completely +satisfied Irving as Iago. Of Mrs. +Siddons, who was then old, he scarcely dares +to give his impressions lest he should be +thought extravagant. "Her looks," he says, +"her voice, her gestures, delighted me. She +penetrated in a moment to my heart. She +froze and melted it by turns; a glance of +her eye, a start, an exclamation, thrilled +through my whole frame. The more I see +her the more I admire her. I hardly breathe +while she is on the stage. She works up +my feelings till I am like a mere child." +Some years later, after the publication of +the "Sketch-Book," in a London assembly +Irving was presented to the tragedy queen, +who had left the stage, but had not laid +aside its stately manner. She looked at +him a moment, and then in a deep-toned +voice slowly enunciated, "You've made me +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_041" id="Pg_041" title="Pg_041">[41]</a></span>weep." The author was so disconcerted +that he said not a word, and retreated in +confusion. After the publication of "Bracebridge +Hall" he met her in company again, +and was persuaded to go through the ordeal +of another presentation. The stately woman +fixed her eyes on him as before, and slowly +said, "You've made me weep again." This +time the bashful author acquitted himself +with more honor.</p> + +<p>This first sojourn abroad was not immediately +fruitful in a literary way, and need +not further detain us. It was the irresolute +pilgrimage of a man who had not yet received +his vocation. Everywhere he was +received in the best society, and the charm +of his manner and his ingenuous nature +made him everywhere a favorite. He carried +that indefinable passport which society +recognizes and which needs no <i>visé</i>. He +saw the people who were famous, the women +whose recognition is a social reputation; he +made many valuable friends; he frequented +the theatre, he indulged his passion for the +opera; he learned how to dine, and to appreciate +the delights of a brilliant salon; +he was picking up languages; he was observing +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_042" id="Pg_042" title="Pg_042">[42]</a></span>nature and men, and especially +women. That he profited by his loitering +experience is plain enough afterward, but +thus far there is little to prophesy that +Irving would be anything more in life than +a charming <i>flâneur</i>.</p> + + +<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a></div> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_043" id="Pg_043" title="Pg_043">[43]</a></span></div> + +<h2>CHAPTER IV.<br /></h2> + +<h3>SOCIETY AND "SALMAGUNDI."<br /><br /></h3> + + +<p>On Irving's return to America in February, +1806, with reëstablished health, life +did not at first take on a more serious purpose. +He was admitted to the bar, but he +still halted.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Society more than ever attracted +him and devoured his time. He +willingly accepted the office of "champion +at the tea-parties;" he was one of a knot of +young fellows of literary tastes and convivial +habits, who delighted to be known +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_044" id="Pg_044" title="Pg_044">[44]</a></span>as "The Nine Worthies," or "Lads of Kilkenny." +In his letters of this period I detect +a kind of callowness and affectation +which is not discernible in his foreign letters +and journal.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Irving once illustrated his legal acquirements at this +time by the relation of the following anecdote to his +nephew: Josiah Ogden Hoffman and Martin Wilkins, +an effective and witty advocate, had been appointed to +examine students for admission. One student acquitted +himself very lamely, and at the supper which it was the +custom for the candidates to give to the examiners, when +they passed upon their several merits, Hoffman paused +in coming to this one, and turning to Wilkins said, as if +in hesitation, though all the while intending to admit +him, "Martin, I think he knows a <i>little</i> law." "Make it +stronger, Jo," was the reply; "<i>d——d</i> little."</p></div> + + +<p>These social worthies had jolly suppers +at the humble taverns of the city, and +wilder revelries in an old country house on +the Passaic, which is celebrated in the "Salmagundi" +papers as Cockloft Hall. We +are reminded of the change of manners by +a letter of Mr. Paulding, one of his comrades, +written twenty years after, who recalls +to mind the keeper of a porter house, +"who whilom wore a long coat, in the +pockets whereof he jingled two bushels of +sixpenny pieces, and whose daughter played +the piano to the accompaniment of broiled +oysters." There was some affectation of +roystering in all this; but it was a time of +social good-fellowship, and easy freedom of +manners in both sexes. At the dinners +there was much sentimental and bacchanalian +singing; it was scarcely good manners +not to get a little tipsy; and to be laid +under the table by the compulsory bumper +was not to the discredit of a guest. Irving +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_045" id="Pg_045" title="Pg_045">[45]</a></span>used to like to repeat an anecdote of one of +his early friends, Henry Ogden, who had +been at one of these festive meetings. He +told Irving the next day that in going home +he had fallen through a grating which had +been carelessly left open, into a vault beneath. +The solitude, he said, was rather +dismal at first, but several other of the +guests fell in, in the course of the evening, +and they had on the whole a pleasant night +of it.</p> + +<p>These young gentlemen liked to be +thought "sad dogs." That they were less +abandoned than they pretended to be the +sequel of their lives shows: among Irving's +associates at this time who attained honorable +consideration were John and Gouverneur +Kemble, Henry Brevoort, Henry Ogden, +James K. Paulding, and Peter Irving. The +saving influence for all of them was the refined +households they frequented and the association +of women who were high-spirited +without prudery, and who united purity +and simplicity with wit, vivacity, and charm +of manner. There is some pleasant correspondence +between Irving and Miss Mary +Fairlie, a belle of the time, who married the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_046" id="Pg_046" title="Pg_046">[46]</a></span>tragedian, Thomas A. Cooper; the "fascinating +Fairlie," as Irving calls her, and the +Sophie Sparkle of the "Salmagundi." Irving's +susceptibility to the charms and +graces of women—a susceptibility which +continued always fresh—was tempered and +ennobled by the most chivalrous admiration +for the sex as a whole. He placed them on +an almost romantic pinnacle, and his actions +always conformed to his romantic ideal, although +in his writings he sometimes adopts +the conventional satire which was more common +fifty years ago than now. In a letter +to Miss Fairlie, written from Richmond, +where he was attending the trial of Aaron +Burr, he expresses his exalted opinion of +the sex. It was said in accounting for the +open sympathy of the ladies with the prisoner +that Burr had always been a favorite +with them; "but I am not inclined," he +writes, "to account for it in so illiberal a +manner; it results from that merciful, that +heavenly disposition, implanted in the female +bosom, which ever inclines in favor +of the accused and the unfortunate. You +will smile at the high strain in which I +have indulged; believe me, it is because I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_047" id="Pg_047" title="Pg_047">[47]</a></span>feel it; and I love your sex ten times better +than ever."<a name="FNanchor_1_2" id="FNanchor_1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_2" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_2" id="Footnote_1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_2"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> An amusing story in connection with this Richmond +visit illustrates the romantic phase of Irving's character. +Cooper, who was playing at the theatre, needed small-clothes +for one of his parts; Irving lent him a pair,—knee-breeches +being still worn,—and the actor carried +them off to Baltimore. From that city he wrote that he +had found in the pocket an emblem of love, a mysterious +locket of hair in the shape of a heart. The history of it +is curious: when Irving sojourned at Genoa he was much +taken with the beauty of a young Italian lady, the wife +of a Frenchman. He had never spoken with her, but one +evening before his departing he picked up from the floor +her handkerchief which she had dropped, and with more +gallantry than honesty carried it off to Sicily. His +pocket was picked of the precious relic while he was attending +a religious function in Catania, and he wrote to +his friend Storm, the consul at Genoa, deploring his +loss. The consul communicated the sad misfortune to +the lovely Bianca, for that was the lady's name, who +thereupon sent him a lock of her hair, with the request +that he would come to see her on his return. He never +saw her again, but the lock of hair was inclosed in a +locket and worn about his neck, in memory of a radiant +vision that had crossed his path and vanished.</p></div> + +<p>Personally, Irving must have awakened +a reciprocal admiration. A drawing by +Vanderlyn, made in Paris in 1805, and a +portrait by Jarvis in 1809, present him to +us in the fresh bloom of manly beauty. +The face has an air of distinction and gentle +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_048" id="Pg_048" title="Pg_048">[48]</a></span>breeding; the refined lines, the poetic +chin, the sensitive mouth, the shapely nose, +the large dreamy eyes, the intellectual forehead, +and the clustering brown locks are +our ideal of the author of the "Sketch-Book" +and the pilgrim in Spain. His biographer, +Mr. Pierre M. Irving, has given +no description of his appearance; but a +relative, who saw much of our author in +his latter years, writes to me: "He had +dark gray eyes; a handsome straight nose, +which might perhaps be called large; a +broad, high, full forehead, and a small +mouth. I should call him of medium +height, about five feet eight and a half to +nine inches, and inclined to be a trifle stout. +There was no peculiarity about his voice; +but it was pleasant and had a good intonation. +His smile was exceedingly genial, +lighting up his whole face and rendering it +very attractive; while, if he were about to +say anything humorous, it would beam forth +from his eyes even before the words were +spoken. As a young man his face was exceedingly +handsome, and his head was well +covered with dark hair; but from my earliest +recollection of him he wore neither whiskers +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_049" id="Pg_049" title="Pg_049">[49]</a></span>nor moustache, but a dark brown wig, +which, although it made him look younger, +concealed a beautifully shaped head." We +can understand why he was a favorite in +the society of Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, +and Albany, as well as of New +York, and why he liked to linger here and +there, sipping the social sweets, like a man +born to leisure and seemingly idle observation +of life.</p> + +<p>It was in the midst of these social successes, +and just after his admission to the +bar, that Irving gave the first decided evidence +of the choice of a career. This was +his association with his eldest brother, William, +and Paulding in the production of +"Salmagundi," a semi-monthly periodical, +in small duodecimo sheets, which ran with +tolerable regularity through twenty numbers, +and stopped in full tide of success, +with the whimsical indifference to the public +which had characterized its every issue. +Its declared purpose was "simply to instruct +the young, reform the old, correct +the town, and castigate the age." In manner +and purpose it was an imitation of the +"Spectator" and the "Citizen of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_050" id="Pg_050" title="Pg_050">[50]</a></span>World," and it must share the fate of all +imitations; but its wit was not borrowed, +and its humor was to some extent original; +and so perfectly was it adapted to local +conditions that it may be profitably read to-day +as a not untrue reflection of the manners +and spirit of the time and city. Its amusing +audacity and complacent superiority, +the mystery hanging about its writers, its +affectation of indifference to praise or profit, +its fearless criticism, lively wit, and irresponsible +humor, piqued, puzzled, and delighted +the town. From the first it was +an immense success; it had a circulation +in other cities, and many imitations of it +sprung up. Notwithstanding many affectations +and puerilities it is still readable to +Americans. Of course, if it were offered +now to the complex and sophisticated society +of New York, it would fail to attract +anything like the attention it received in +the days of simplicity and literary dearth; +but the same wit, insight, and literary art, +informed with the modern spirit and turned +upon the follies and "whim-whams" of the +metropolis, would doubtless have a great +measure of success. In Irving's contributions +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_051" id="Pg_051" title="Pg_051">[51]</a></span>to it may be traced the germs of nearly +everything that he did afterwards; in it he +tried the various stops of his genius; he +discovered his own power; his career was +determined; thereafter it was only a question +of energy or necessity.</p> + +<p>In the summer of 1808 there were printed +at Ballston-Spa—then the resort of fashion +and the arena of flirtation—seven numbers +of a duodecimo bagatelle in prose and verse, +entitled "The Literary Picture Gallery and +Admonitory Epistles to the Visitors of Ballston-Spa, +by Simeon Senex, Esquire." This +piece of summer nonsense is not referred to +by any writer who has concerned himself +about Irving's life, but there is reason to +believe that he was a contributor to it if not +the editor.<a name="FNanchor_1_3" id="FNanchor_1_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_3" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_3" id="Footnote_1_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_3"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> For these stray reminders of the old-time gayety of +Ballston-Spa, I am indebted to J. Carson Brevoort, Esq., +whose father was Irving's most intimate friend, and who +told him that Irving had a hand in them.</p></div> + +<p>In these yellow pages is a melancholy reflection +of the gayety and gallantry of the +Sans Souci hotel seventy years ago. In this +"Picture Gallery," under the thin disguise +of initials, are the portraits of well-known +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_052" id="Pg_052" title="Pg_052">[52]</a></span>belles of New York whose charms of person +and graces of mind would make the present +reader regret his tardy advent into this +world, did not the "Admonitory Epistles," +addressed to the same sex, remind him that +the manners of seventy years ago left much +to be desired. In respect of the habit of +swearing, "Simeon" advises "Myra" that +if ladies were to confine themselves to a +single round oath, it would be quite sufficient; +and he objects, when he is at the +public table, to the conduct of his neighbor +who carelessly took up "Simeon's" fork and +used it as a tooth-pick. All this, no doubt, +passed for wit in the beginning of the century. +Punning, broad satire, exaggerated +compliment, verse which has love for its +theme and the "sweet bird of Venus" for +its object, an affectation of gallantry and of +<i>ennui</i>, with anecdotes of distinguished visitors, +out of which the screaming fun has +quite evaporated, make up the staple of these +faded mementos of ancient watering-place. +Yet how much superior is our comedy +of to-day? The beauty and the charms +of the women of two generations ago exist +only in tradition; perhaps we should give +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_053" id="Pg_053" title="Pg_053">[53]</a></span>to the wit of that time equal admiration if +none of it had been preserved.</p> + +<p>Irving, notwithstanding the success of +"Salmagundi," did not immediately devote +himself to literature, nor seem to regard his +achievements in it as anything more than +aids to social distinction. He was then, as +always, greatly influenced by his surroundings. +These were unfavorable to literary +pursuits. Politics was the attractive field +for preferment and distinction; and it is +more than probable that, even after the success +of the Knickerbocker history, he would +have drifted through life, half lawyer and +half placeman, if the associations and stimulus +of an old civilization, in his second European +residence, had not fired his ambition. +Like most young lawyers with little law and +less clients, he began to dabble in local politics. +The experiment was not much to his +taste, and the association and work demanded, +at that time, of a ward politician soon +disgusted him. "We have toiled through +the purgatory of an election," he writes to +the fair Republican, Miss Fairlie, who rejoiced +in the defeat he and the Federals had +sustained:—</p> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_054" id="Pg_054" title="Pg_054">[54]</a></span></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"What makes me the more outrageous is, that +I got fairly drawn into the vortex, and before the +third day was expired, I was as deep in mud and +politics as ever a moderate gentleman would wish +to be; and I drank beer with the multitude; and +I talked hand-bill fashion with the demagogues; +and I shook hands with the mob, whom my heart +abhorreth. 'Tis true, for the first two days I +maintained my coolness and indifference. The +first day I merely hunted for whim, character, +and absurdity, according to my usual custom; the +second day being rainy, I sat in the bar-room at +the Seventh Ward, and read a volume of 'Galatea,' +which I found on a shelf; but before I had +got through a hundred pages, I had three or four +good Feds sprawling round me on the floor, and +another with his eyes half shut, leaning on my +shoulder in the most affectionate manner, and +spelling a page of the book as if it had been an +electioneering hand-bill. But the third day—ah! +then came the tug of war. My patriotism +then blazed forth, and I determined to save my +country! Oh, my friend, I have been in such +holes and corners; such filthy nooks and filthy +corners; sweep offices and oyster cellars! 'I have +sworn brother to a leash of drawers, and can +drink with any tinker in his own language during +my life,'—faugh! I shall not be able to bear the +smell of small beer and tobacco for a month to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_055" id="Pg_055" title="Pg_055">[55]</a></span>come.... Truly this saving one's country is a +nauseous piece of business, and if patriotism is +such a dirty virtue,—prythee, no more of it."</p></div> + +<p>He unsuccessfully solicited some civil appointment +at Albany, a very modest solicitation, +which was never renewed, and which +did not last long, for he was no sooner there +than he was "disgusted by the servility +and duplicity and rascality witnessed among +the swarm of scrub politicians." There was +a promising young artist at that time in +Albany, and Irving wishes he were a man +of wealth, to give him a helping hand; a +few acts of munificence of this kind by rich +nabobs, he breaks out, "would be more +pleasing in the sight of Heaven, and more +to the glory and advantage of their country, +than building a dozen shingle church +steeples, or buying a thousand venal votes +at an election." This was in the "good old +times!"</p> + +<p>Although a Federalist, and, as he described +himself, "an admirer of General +Hamilton, and a partisan with him in politics," +he accepted a retainer from Burr's +friends in 1807, and attended his trial in +Richmond, but more in the capacity of an +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_056" id="Pg_056" title="Pg_056">[56]</a></span>observer of the scene than a lawyer. He +did not share the prevalent opinion of Burr's +treason, and regarded him as a man so fallen +as to be shorn of the power to injure the +country, one for whom he could feel nothing +but compassion. That compassion, however, +he received only from the ladies of the city, +and the traits of female goodness manifested +then sunk deep into Irving's heart. Without +pretending, he says, to decide on Burr's +innocence or guilt, "his situation is such as +should appeal eloquently to the feelings of +every generous bosom. Sorry am I to say +the reverse has been the fact: fallen, proscribed, +pre-judged, the cup of bitterness +has been administered to him with an unsparing +hand. It has almost been considered +as culpable to evince toward him the least +sympathy or support; and many a hollow-hearted +caitiff have I seen, who basked in +the sunshine of his bounty while in power, +who now skulked from his side, and even +mingled among the most clamorous of his +enemies.... I bid him farewell with a +heavy heart, and he expressed with peculiar +warmth and feeling his sense of the interest +I had taken in his fate. I never felt in a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_057" id="Pg_057" title="Pg_057">[57]</a></span>more melancholy mood than when I rode +from his solitary prison." This is a good +illustration of Irving's tender-heartedness; +but considering Burr's whole character, it +is altogether a womanish case of misplaced +sympathy with the cool slayer of Alexander +Hamilton.</p> + + +<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a></div> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_058" id="Pg_058" title="Pg_058">[58]</a></span></div> + +<h2>CHAPTER V.<br /></h2> + +<h3>THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD.<br /><br /></h3> + + +<p>Not long after the discontinuance of +"Salmagundi," Irving in connection with +his brother Peter projected the work that +was to make him famous. At first nothing +more was intended than a satire upon the +"Picture of New York," by Dr. Samuel +Mitchell, just then published. It was begun +as a mere burlesque upon pedantry and +erudition, and was well advanced, when +Peter was called by his business to Europe, +and its completion was fortunately left to +Washington. In his mind the idea expanded +into a different conception. He +condensed the mass of affected learning, +which was their joint work, into five introductory +chapters,—subsequently he said it +would have been improved if it had been +reduced to one, and it seems to me it would +have been better if that one had been +thrown away,—and finished "A History +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_059" id="Pg_059" title="Pg_059">[59]</a></span>of New York," by Diedrich Knickerbocker, +substantially as we now have it. This was +in 1809, when Irving was twenty-six years +old.</p> + +<p>But before this humorous creation was +completed, the author endured the terrible +bereavement which was to color all his life. +He had formed a deep and tender passion +for Matilda Hoffman, the second daughter +of Jeremiah Ogden Hoffman, in whose family +he had long been on a footing of the +most perfect intimacy, and his ardent love +was fully reciprocated. He was restlessly +casting about for some assured means of +livelihood which would enable him to marry, +and perhaps his distrust of a literary career +was connected with this desire, when after +a short illness Miss Hoffman died, in the +eighteenth year of her age. Without being +a dazzling beauty, she was lovely in person +and mind, with most engaging manners, a +refined sensibility, and a delicate and playful +humor. The loss was a crushing blow to +Irving, from the effects of which he never +recovered, although time softened the bitterness +of his grief into a tender and sacred +memory. He could never bear to hear +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_060" id="Pg_060" title="Pg_060">[60]</a></span>her name spoken even by his most intimate +friends, or any allusion to her. Thirty +years after her death, it happened one evening +at the house of Mr. Hoffman, her father, +that a granddaughter was playing for Mr. +Irving, and in taking her music from the +drawer, a faded piece of embroidery was +brought forth. "Washington," said Mr. +Hoffman, picking it up, "this is a piece of +poor Matilda's workmanship." The effect +was electric. He had been talking in the +sprightliest mood before, but he sunk at +once into utter silence, and in a few moments +got up and left the house.</p> + +<p>After his death, in a private repository +of which he always kept the key, was found +a lovely miniature, a braid of fair hair, and +a slip of paper, on which was written in his +own hand, "Matilda Hoffman;" and with +these treasures were several pages of a +memorandum in ink long since faded. He +kept through life her Bible and Prayer +Book; they were placed nightly under his +pillow in the first days of anguish that followed +her loss, and ever after they were the +inseparable companions of all his wanderings. +In this memorandum—which was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_061" id="Pg_061" title="Pg_061">[61]</a></span>written many years afterwards—we read +the simple story of his love:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"We saw each other every day, and I became +excessively attached to her. Her shyness wore +off by degrees. The more I saw of her the more +I had reason to admire her. Her mind seemed +to unfold leaf by leaf, and every time to discover +new sweetness. Nobody knew her so well as I, +for she was generally timid and silent; but I in a +manner studied her excellence. Never did I +meet with more intuitive rectitude of mind, more +native delicacy, more exquisite propriety in word, +thought, and action, than in this young creature. +I am not exaggerating; what I say was acknowledged +by all who knew her. Her brilliant little +sister used to say that people began by admiring +her, but ended by loving Matilda. For my part, +I idolized her. I felt at times rebuked by her +superior delicacy and purity, and as if I was a +coarse, unworthy being in comparison."</p></div> + +<p>At this time Irving was much perplexed +about his career. He had "a fatal propensity +to belles-lettres;" his repugnance to the +law was such that his mind would not take +hold of the study; he anticipated nothing +from legal pursuits or political employment; +he was secretly writing the humorous +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_062" id="Pg_062" title="Pg_062">[62]</a></span>history, but was altogether in a low-spirited +and disheartened state. I quote +again from the memorandum:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"In the mean time I saw Matilda every day, +and that helped to distract me. In the midst of +this struggle and anxiety she was taken ill with +a cold. Nothing was thought of it at first; but +she grew rapidly worse, and fell into a consumption. +I cannot tell you what I suffered. The +ills that I have undergone in this life have been +dealt out to me drop by drop, and I have tasted +all their bitterness. I saw her fade rapidly +away; beautiful, and more beautiful, and more +angelical to the last. I was often by her bedside; +and in her wandering state of mind she +would talk to me with a sweet, natural, and affecting +eloquence, that was overpowering. I saw +more of the beauty of her mind in that delirious +state than I had ever known before. Her malady +was rapid in its career, and hurried her off +in two months. Her dying struggles were painful +and protracted. For three days and nights +I did not leave the house, and scarcely slept. I +was by her when she died; all the family were +assembled round her, some praying, others weeping, +for she was adored by them all. I was the +last one she looked upon. I have told you as +briefly as I could what, if I were to tell with all +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_063" id="Pg_063" title="Pg_063">[63]</a></span>the incidents and feelings that accompanied it, +would fill volumes. She was but about seventeen +years old when she died.</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell you what a horrid state of mind +I was in for a long time. I seemed to care for +nothing; the world was a blank to me. I abandoned +all thoughts of the law. I went into the +country, but could not bear solitude, yet could +not endure society. There was a dismal horror +continually in my mind, that made me fear to be +alone. I had often to get up in the night, and +seek the bedroom of my brother, as if the having +a human being by me would relieve me from the +frightful gloom of my own thoughts.</p> + +<p>"Months elapsed before my mind would resume +any tone; but the despondency I had suffered +for a long time in the course of this +attachment, and the anguish that attended its +catastrophe, seemed to give a turn to my whole +character, and throw some clouds into my disposition, +which have ever since hung about it. +When I became more calm and collected, I applied +myself, by way of occupation, to the finishing +of my work. I brought it to a close, as well +as I could, and published it; but the time and +circumstances in which it was produced rendered +me always unable to look upon it with satisfaction. +Still it took with the public, and gave me +celebrity, as an original work was something +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_064" id="Pg_064" title="Pg_064">[64]</a></span>remarkable and uncommon in America. I was noticed, +caressed, and, for a time, elevated by the +popularity I had gained. I found myself uncomfortable +in my feelings in New York, and traveled +about a little. Wherever I went I was +overwhelmed with attentions; I was full of +youth and animation, far different from the being +I now am, and I was quite flushed with this early +taste of public favor. Still, however, the career +of gayety and notoriety soon palled on me. I +seemed to drift about without aim or object, at +the mercy of every breeze; my heart wanted +anchorage. I was naturally susceptible, and tried +to form other attachments, but my heart would +not hold on; it would continually recur to what +it had lost; and whenever there was a pause in +the hurry of novelty and excitement, I would +sink into dismal dejection. For years I could +not talk on the subject of this hopeless regret; I +could not even mention her name; but her image +was continually before me, and I dreamt of her +incessantly."</p></div> + +<p>This memorandum, it subsequently appeared, +was a letter, or a transcript of it, +addressed to a married lady, Mrs. Foster, in +which the story of his early love was related, +in reply to her question why he had +never married. It was in the year 1823, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_065" id="Pg_065" title="Pg_065">[65]</a></span>the year after the publication of "Bracebridge +Hall," while he sojourned in Dresden, +that he became intimate with an English +family residing there, named Foster, +and conceived for the daughter, Miss Emily +Foster, a warm friendship and perhaps a +deep attachment. The letter itself, which +for the first time broke the guarded seclusion +of Irving's heart, is evidence of the +tender confidence that existed between him +and this family. That this intimacy would +have resulted in marriage, or an offer of +marriage, if the lady's affections had not +been preoccupied, the Fosters seem to have +believed. In an unauthorized addition to +the "Life and Letters," inserted in the +English edition without the knowledge of +the American editor, with some such headings +as, "History of his First Love brought +to us, and returned," and "Irving's Second +Attachment," the Fosters tell the interesting +story of Irving's life in Dresden, and +give many of his letters, and an account +of his intimacy with the family. From this +account I quote:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Soon after this, Mr. Irving, who had again +for long felt 'the tenderest interest warm his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_066" id="Pg_066" title="Pg_066">[66]</a></span>bosom, and finally enthrall his whole soul,' made +one vigorous and valiant effort to free himself +from a hopeless and consuming attachment. My +mother counseled him, I believe, for the best, +and he left Dresden on an expedition of several +weeks into a country he had long wished to see, +though, in the main, it disappointed him; and +he started with young Colbourne (son of General +Colbourne) as his companion. Some of his +letters on this journey are before the public; +and in the agitation and eagerness he there described, +on receiving and opening letters from +us, and the tenderness in his replies,—the longing +to be once more in the little Pavilion, to +which we had moved in the beginning of the +summer,—the letters (though carefully guarded +by the delicacy of her who intrusted them to the +editor, and alone retained among many more +calculated to lay bare his true feelings), even +fragmentary as they are, point out the truth.</p> + +<p>"Here is the key to the journey to Silesia, +the return to Dresden, and, finally, to the journey +from Dresden to Rotterdam in our company, +first planned so as to part at Cassel, where Mr. +Irving had intended to leave us and go down the +Rhine, but subsequently could not find in his +heart to part. Hence, after a night of pale and +speechless melancholy, the gay, animated, happy +countenance with which he sprang to our coachbox +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_067" id="Pg_067" title="Pg_067">[67]</a></span>to take his old seat on it, and accompany us +to Rotterdam. There even could he not part, +but joined us in the steamboat; and, after bearing +us company as far as a boat could follow us, +at last tore himself away, to bury himself in +Paris, and try to work....</p> + +<p>"It was fortunate, perhaps, that this affection +was returned by the <i>warmest friendship</i> only, +since it was destined that the accomplishment +of his wishes was impossible, for many obstacles +which lay in his way; and it is with pleasure I +can truly say that in time he schooled himself to +view, also with friendship only, one who for +some time past has been the wife of another."</p></div> + +<p>Upon the delicacy of this revelation the +biographer does not comment, but he says +that the idea that Irving thought of marriage +at that time is utterly disproved by +the following passage from the very manuscript +which he submitted to Mrs. Foster:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"You wonder why I am not married. I have +shown you why I was not long since. When I +had sufficiently recovered from that loss, I became +involved in ruin. It was not for a man +broken down in the world, to drag down any +woman to his paltry circumstances. I was too +proud to tolerate the idea of ever mending my +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_068" id="Pg_068" title="Pg_068">[68]</a></span>circumstances by matrimony. My time has now +gone by; and I have growing claims upon my +thoughts and upon my means, slender and precarious +as they are. I feel as if I already had a +family to think and provide for."</p></div> + +<p>Upon the question of attachment and depression, +Mr. Pierre Irving says:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"While the editor does not question Mr. Irving's +great enjoyment of his intercourse with +the Fosters, or his deep regret at parting from +them, he is too familiar with his occasional fits +of depression to have drawn from their recurrence +on his return to Paris any such inference +as that to which the lady alludes. Indeed, his +'memorandum book' and letters show him to +have had, at this time, sources of anxiety of +quite a different nature. The allusion to his +having 'to put once more to sea' evidently +refers to his anxiety on returning to his literary +pursuits, after a season of entire idleness."</p></div> + +<p>It is not for us to question the judgment +of the biographer, with his full knowledge +of the circumstances and his long intimacy +with his uncle; yet it is evident that Irving +was seriously impressed at Dresden, and +that he was very much unsettled until he +drove away the impression by hard work +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_069" id="Pg_069" title="Pg_069">[69]</a></span>with his pen; and it would be nothing new +in human nature and experience if he had +for a time yielded to the attractions of loveliness +and a most congenial companionship, +and had returned again to an exclusive +devotion to the image of the early loved +and lost.</p> + +<p>That Irving intended never to marry is +an inference I cannot draw either from his +fondness for the society of women, from his +interest in the matrimonial projects of his +friends and the gossip which has feminine +attractions for its food, or from his letters +to those who had his confidence. In a letter +written from Birmingham, England, March +15, 1816, to his dear friend Henry Brevoort, +who was permitted more than perhaps +any other person to see his secret +heart, he alludes, with gratification, to the +report of the engagement of James Paulding, +and then says:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is what we must all come to at last. I see +you are hankering after it, and I confess I have +done so for a long time past. We are, however, +past that period [Irving was thirty-two] when a +man marries suddenly and inconsiderately. We +may be longer making a choice, and consulting +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_070" id="Pg_070" title="Pg_070">[70]</a></span>the convenience and concurrence of easy circumstances, +but we shall both come to it sooner or +later. I therefore recommend you to marry +without delay. You have sufficient means, connected +with your knowledge and habits of business, +to support a genteel establishment, and I +am certain that as soon as you are married you +will experience a change in your ideas. All +those vagabond, roving propensities will cease. +They are the offspring of idleness of mind and +a want of something to fix the feelings. You +are like a bark without an anchor, that drifts +about at the mercy of every vagrant breeze or +trifling eddy. Get a wife, and she'll anchor you. +But don't marry a fool because she has a pretty +face, and don't seek after a great belle. Get +such a girl as Mary ——, or get her if you can; +though I am afraid she has still an unlucky kindness +for poor ——, which will stand in the way +of her fortunes. I wish to God they were rich, +and married, and happy!"</p></div> + +<p>The business reverses which befell the +Irving brothers, and which drove Washington +to the toil of the pen, and cast upon him +heavy family responsibilities, defeated his +plans of domestic happiness in marriage. +It was in this same year, 1816, when the +fortunes of the firm were daily becoming +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_071" id="Pg_071" title="Pg_071">[71]</a></span>more dismal, that he wrote to Brevoort, +upon the report that the latter was likely +to remain a bachelor: "We are all selfish +beings. Fortune by her tardy favors and +capricious freaks seems to discourage all my +matrimonial resolves, and if I am doomed to +live an old bachelor, I am anxious to have +good company. I cannot bear that all my +old companions should launch away into the +married state, and leave me alone to tread +this desolate and sterile shore." And, in +view of a possible life of scant fortune, he +exclaims: "Thank Heaven, I was brought +up in simple and inexpensive habits, and I +have satisfied myself that, if need be, I +can resume them without repining or inconvenience. +Though I am willing, therefore, +that Fortune should shower her blessings +upon me, and think I can enjoy them as +well as most men, yet I shall not make myself +unhappy if she chooses to be scanty, +and shall take the position allotted me with +a cheerful and contented mind."</p> + +<p>When Irving passed the winter of 1823 +in the charming society of the Fosters at +Dresden, the success of the "Sketch-Book" +and "Bracebridge Hall" had given him assurance +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_072" id="Pg_072" title="Pg_072">[72]</a></span>of his ability to live comfortably by +the use of his pen.</p> + +<p>To resume. The preliminary announcement +of the History was a humorous and +skillful piece of advertising. Notices appeared +in the newspapers of the disappearance +from his lodging of "a small, elderly +gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and +cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker." +Paragraphs from week to week, purporting +to be the result of inquiry, elicited the facts +that such an old gentleman had been seen +traveling north in the Albany stage; that +his name was Diedrich Knickerbocker; that +he went away owing his landlord; and that +he left behind a very curious kind of a written +book, which would be sold to pay his bills +if he did not return. So skillfully was this +managed that one of the city officials was on +the point of offering a reward for the discovery +of the missing Diedrich. This little man +in knee-breeches and cocked hat was the +germ of the whole "Knickerbocker legend," +a fantastic creation, which in a manner took +the place of history, and stamped upon the +commercial metropolis of the New World +the indelible Knickerbocker name and character; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_073" id="Pg_073" title="Pg_073">[73]</a></span>and even now in the city it is an undefined +patent of nobility to trace descent +from "an old Knickerbocker family."</p> + +<p>The volume, which was first printed in +Philadelphia, was put forth as a grave history +of the manners and government under +the Dutch rulers, and so far was the covert +humor carried that it was dedicated to the +New York Historical Society. Its success +was far beyond Irving's expectation. It +met with almost universal acclaim. It is +true that some of the old Dutch inhabitants +who sat down to its perusal, expecting to +read a veritable account of the exploits of +their ancestors, were puzzled by the indirection +of its commendation; and several +excellent old ladies of New York and Albany +were in blazing indignation at the +ridicule put upon the old Dutch people, +and minded to ostracize the irreverent author +from all social recognition. As late +as 1818, in an address before the Historical +Society, Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck, Irving's +friend, showed the deep irritation the book +had caused, by severe strictures on it as a +"coarse caricature." But the author's winning +ways soon dissipated the social cloud, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_074" id="Pg_074" title="Pg_074">[74]</a></span>and even the Dutch critics were erelong +disarmed by the absence of all malice in the +gigantic humor of the composition. One +of the first foreigners to recognize the power +and humor of the book was Walter Scott. +"I have never," he wrote, "read anything +so closely resembling the style of Dean +Swift as the annals of Diedrich Knickerbocker. +I have been employed these few +evenings in reading them aloud to Mrs. S. +and two ladies who are our guests, and our +sides have been absolutely sore with laughing. +I think, too, there are passages which +indicate that the author possesses power of +a different kind, and has some touches which +remind me of Sterne."</p> + +<p>The book is indeed an original creation, +and one of the few masterpieces of humor. +In spontaneity, freshness, breadth of conception, +and joyous vigor, it belongs to the +spring-time of literature. It has entered +into the popular mind as no other American +book ever has, and it may be said to have +created a social realm which, with all its +whimsical conceit, has almost historical solidity. +The Knickerbocker pantheon is almost +as real as that of Olympus. The introductory +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_075" id="Pg_075" title="Pg_075">[75]</a></span>chapters are of that elephantine +facetiousness which pleased our great-grandfathers, +but which is exceedingly tedious to +modern taste; and the humor of the book +occasionally has a breadth that is indelicate +to our apprehension, though it perhaps did +not shock our great-grandmothers. But, +notwithstanding these blemishes, I think +the work has more enduring qualities than +even the generation which it first delighted +gave it credit for. The world, however, it +must be owned, has scarcely yet the courage +of its humor, and dullness still thinks +it necessary to apologize for anything amusing. +There is little doubt that Irving himself +supposed that his serious work was of +more consequence to the world.</p> + +<p>It seems strange that after this success +Irving should have hesitated to adopt literature +as his profession. But for two years, +and with leisure, he did nothing. He had +again some hope of political employment in +a small way; and at length he entered into +a mercantile partnership with his brothers, +which was to involve little work for him, +and a share of the profits that should assure +his support, and leave him free to follow +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_076" id="Pg_076" title="Pg_076">[76]</a></span>his fitful literary inclinations. Yet he seems +to have been mainly intent upon society and +the amusements of the passing hour, and, +without the spur of necessity to his literary +capacity, he yielded to the temptations of +indolence, and settled into the unpromising +position of a "man about town." Occasionally, +the business of his firm and that of +other importing merchants being imperiled +by some threatened action of Congress, Irving +was sent to Washington to look after +their interests. The leisurely progress he +always made to the capital through the +seductive society of Philadelphia and Baltimore +did not promise much business dispatch. +At the seat of government he was +certain to be involved in a whirl of gayety. +His letters from Washington are more occupied +with the odd characters he met than +with the measures of legislation. These +visits greatly extended his acquaintance +with the leading men of the country; his +political leanings did not prevent an intimacy +with the President's family, and Mrs. +Madison and he were sworn friends.</p> + +<p>It was of the evening of his first arrival +in Washington that he writes: "I emerged +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_077" id="Pg_077" title="Pg_077">[77]</a></span>from dirt and darkness into the blazing +splendor of Mrs. Madison's drawing-room. +Here I was most graciously received; found +a crowded collection of great and little men, +of ugly old women and beautiful young +ones, and in ten minutes was hand and +glove with half the people in the assemblage. +Mrs. Madison is a fine, portly, +buxom dame, who has a smile and a pleasant +word for everybody. Her sisters, Mrs. +Cutts and Mrs. Washington, are like two +merry wives of Windsor; but as to Jemmy +Madison,—oh, poor Jemmy!—he is but a +withered little apple-john."</p> + +<p>Odd characters congregated then in +Washington as now. One honest fellow, +who, by faithful fagging at the heels of +Congress, had obtained a profitable post +under government, shook Irving heartily +by the hand, and professed himself always +happy to see anybody that came from New +York; "somehow or another, it was <i>natteral</i> +to him," being the place where he was +<i>first</i> born. Another fellow-townsman was +"endeavoring to obtain a deposit in the +Mechanics' Bank, in case the United States +Bank does not obtain a charter. He is as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_078" id="Pg_078" title="Pg_078">[78]</a></span>deep as usual; shakes his head and winks +through his spectacles at everybody he +meets. He swore to me the other day that +he had not told anybody what his opinion +was,—whether the bank ought to have a +charter or not. Nobody in Washington +knew what his opinion was—not one—nobody; +he defied any one to say what it +was—'anybody—damn the one! No, sir, +nobody knows;' and if he had added nobody +cares, I believe honest —— would have +been exactly in the right. Then there's +his brother George: 'Damn that fellow,—knows +eight or nine languages; yes, sir, +nine languages,—Arabic, Spanish, Greek, +Ital—And there's his wife, now,—she +and Mrs. Madison are always together. Mrs. +Madison has taken a great fancy to her little +daughter. Only think, sir, that child is +only six years old, and talks the Italian like +a book, by ——; little devil learnt it from +an Italian servant,—damned clever fellow; +lived with my brother George ten years. +George says he would not part with him +for all Tripoli,'" etc.</p> + +<p>It was always difficult for Irving, in those +days, to escape from the genial blandishments +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_079" id="Pg_079" title="Pg_079">[79]</a></span>of Baltimore and Philadelphia. +Writing to Brevoort from Philadelphia, +March 16, 1811, he says: "The people of +Baltimore are exceedingly social and hospitable +to strangers, and I saw that if I once +let myself get into the stream I should not +be able to get out under a fortnight at +least; so, being resolved to push home as +expeditiously as was honorably possible, I +resisted the world, the flesh, and the devil at +Baltimore; and after three days' and nights' +stout carousal, and a fourth's sickness, sorrow, +and repentance, I hurried off from that +sensual city."</p> + +<p>Jarvis, the artist, was at that time the +eccentric and elegant lion of society in Baltimore. +"Jack Randolph" had recently +sat to him for his portrait. "By the bye +[the letter continues] that little 'hydra +and chimera dire,' Jarvis, is in prodigious +circulation at Baltimore. The gentlemen +have all voted him a rare wag and most +brilliant wit; and the ladies pronounce him +one of the queerest, ugliest, most agreeable +little creatures in the world. The consequence +is there is not a ball, tea-party, concert, +supper, or other private regale but that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_080" id="Pg_080" title="Pg_080">[80]</a></span>Jarvis is the most conspicuous personage; +and as to a dinner, they can no more do without +him than they could without Friar John +at the roystering revels of the renowned Pantagruel." +Irving gives one of his <i>bon mots</i> +which was industriously repeated at all the +dinner tables, a profane sally, which seemed +to tickle the Baltimoreans exceedingly. Being +very much importuned to go to church, +he resolutely refused, observing that it was +the same thing whether he went or stayed +at home. "If I don't go," said he, "the +minister says I'll be d——d, and I'll be +d——d if I do go."</p> + +<p>This same letter contains a pretty picture, +and the expression of Irving's habitual +kindly regard for his fellow-men:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I was out visiting with Ann yesterday, and +met that little assemblage of smiles and fascinations, +Mary Jackson. She was bounding with +youth, health, and innocence, and good humor. +She had a pretty straw hat, tied under her chin +with a pink ribbon, and looked like some little +woodland nymph, just turned out by spring and +fine weather. God bless her light heart, and +grant it may never know care or sorrow! It's +enough to cure spleen and melancholy only to +look at her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_081" id="Pg_081" title="Pg_081">[81]</a></span>"Your familiar pictures of home made me extremely +desirous again to be there.... I shall +once more return to sober life, satisfied with having +secured three months of sunshine in this valley +of shadows and darkness. In this space of +time I have seen considerable of the world, but I +am sadly afraid I have not grown wiser thereby, +inasmuch as it has generally been asserted by the +sages of every age that wisdom consists in a +knowledge of the wickedness of mankind, and +the wiser a man grows the more discontented he +becomes with those around him. Whereas, woe +is me, I return in infinitely better humor with +the world than I ever was before, and with a +most melancholy good opinion and good will for +the great mass of my fellow-creatures!"</p></div> + +<p>Free intercourse with men of all parties, +he thought, tends to divest a man's mind of +party bigotry.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"One day [he writes] I am dining with a knot +of honest, furious Federalists, who are damning +all their opponents as a set of consummate scoundrels, +panders of Bonaparte, etc. The next day +I dine, perhaps, with some of the very men I +have heard thus anathematized, and find them +equally honest, warm, and indignant; and if I +take their word for it, I had been dining the day +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_082" id="Pg_082" title="Pg_082">[82]</a></span>before with some of the greatest knaves in the +nation, men absolutely paid and suborned by the +British government."</p></div> + +<p>His friends at this time attempted to get +him appointed secretary of legation to the +French mission, under Joel Barlow, then +minister, but he made no effort to secure +the place. Perhaps he was deterred by the +knowledge that the author of "The Columbiad" +suspected him, though unjustly, of +some strictures on his great epic. He had +in mind a book of travel in his own country, +in which he should sketch manners and +characters; but nothing came of it. The +peril to trade involved in the War of 1812 +gave him some forebodings, and aroused him +to exertion. He accepted the editorship of +a periodical called "Select Reviews," afterwards +changed to the "Analectic Magazine," +for which he wrote sketches, some of +which were afterwards put into the "Sketch-Book," +and several reviews and naval biographies. +A brief biography of Thomas +Campbell was also written about this time, +as introductory to an edition of "Gertrude +of Wyoming." But the slight editorial care +required by the magazine was irksome to a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_083" id="Pg_083" title="Pg_083">[83]</a></span>man who had an unconquerable repugnance +to all periodical labor.</p> + +<p>In 1813 Francis Jeffrey made a visit to +the United States. Henry Brevoort, who +was then in London, wrote an anxious letter +to Irving to impress him with the necessity +of making much of Mr. Jeffrey. "It +is essential," he says, "that Jeffrey may +imbibe a just estimate of the United States +and its inhabitants; he goes out strongly +biased in our favor, and the influence of his +good opinion upon his return to this country +will go far to efface the calumnies and +the absurdities that have been laid to our +charge by ignorant travelers. Persuade him +to visit Washington, and by all means to +see the Falls of Niagara." The impression +seems to have prevailed that if Englishmen +could be made to take a just view of the +Falls of Niagara the misunderstandings between +the two countries would be reduced. +Peter Irving, who was then in Edinburgh, +was impressed with the brilliant talent of +the editor of the "Review," disguised as it +was by affectation, but he said he "would +not give the Minstrel for a wilderness of +Jeffreys."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_084" id="Pg_084" title="Pg_084">[84]</a></span>The years from 1811 to 1815, when he +went abroad for the second time, were passed +by Irving in a sort of humble waiting on +Providence. His letters to Brevoort during +this period are full of the <i>ennui</i> of irresolute +youth. He idled away weeks and months +in indolent enjoyment in the country; he +indulged his passion for the theatre when +opportunity offered; and he began to be +weary of a society which offered little stimulus +to his mind. His was the temperament +of the artist, and America at that time had +little to evoke or to satisfy the artistic feeling. +There were few pictures and no galleries; +there was no music, except the amateur +torture of strings which led the country +dance, or the martial inflammation of +fife and drum, or the sentimental dawdling +here and there over the ancient harpsichord, +with the songs of love, and the broad +or pathetic staves and choruses of the convivial +table; and there was no literary atmosphere.</p> + +<p>After three months of indolent enjoyment +in the winter and spring of 1811, Irving is +complaining to Brevoort in June of the enervation +of his social life: "I do want most +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_085" id="Pg_085" title="Pg_085">[85]</a></span>deplorably to apply my mind to something +that will arouse and animate it; for at present +it is very indolent and relaxed, and I +find it very difficult to shake off the lethargy +that enthralls it. This makes me restless +and dissatisfied with myself, and I am +convinced I shall not feel comfortable and +contented until my mind is fully employed. +Pleasure is but a transient stimulus, and +leaves the mind more enfeebled than before. +Give me rugged toils, fierce disputation, +wrangling controversy, harassing research,—give +me anything that calls forth the energies +of the mind; but for Heaven's sake shield +me from those calms, those tranquil slumberings, +those enervating triflings, those siren +blandishments, that I have for some time +indulged in, which lull the mind into complete +inaction, which benumb its powers, +and cost it such painful and humiliating +struggles to regain its activity and independence!"</p> + +<p>Irving at this time of life seemed always +waiting by the pool for some angel to come +and trouble the waters. To his correspondent, +who was in the wilds of Michilimackinac, +he continues to lament his morbid inability. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_086" id="Pg_086" title="Pg_086">[86]</a></span>The business in which his thriving +brothers were engaged was the importation +and sale of hardware and cutlery, and that +spring his services were required at the +"store." "By all the martyrs of Grub +Street [he exclaims], I'd sooner live in a +garret, and starve into the bargain, than follow +so sordid, dusty, and soul-killing a way +of life, though certain it would make me as +rich as old Croesus, or John Jacob Astor +himself!" The sparkle of society was no +more agreeable to him than the rattle of +cutlery. "I have scarcely [he writes] seen +anything of the ——s since your departure; +business and an amazing want of inclination +have kept me from their threshold. +Jim, that sly poacher, however, prowls +about there, and vitrifies his heart by the +furnace of their charms. I accompanied +him there on Sunday evening last, and found +the Lads and Miss Knox with them. S—— was +in great spirits, and played the sparkler +with such great success as to silence the +whole of us excepting Jim, who was the +<i>agreeable rattle</i> of the evening. God defend +me from such vivacity as hers, in future,—such +smart speeches without meaning, such +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_087" id="Pg_087" title="Pg_087">[87]</a></span>bubble and squeak nonsense! I'd as lieve +stand by a frying-pan for an hour and listen +to the cooking of apple fritters. After two +hours' dead silence and suffering on my part +I made out to drag him off, and did not stop +running until I was a mile from the house." +Irving gives his correspondent graphic pictures +of the social warfare in which he was +engaged, the "host of rascally little tea-parties" +in which he was entangled; and +some of his portraits of the "divinities," the +"blossoms," and the beauties of that day +would make the subjects of them flutter with +surprise in the church-yards where they lie. +The writer was sated with the "tedious +commonplace of fashionable society," and +languishing to return to his books and his +pen.</p> + +<p>In March, 1812, in the shadow of the war +and the depression of business, Irving was +getting out a new edition of the "Knickerbocker," +which Inskeep was to publish, +agreeing to pay $1,200 at six months for +an edition of fifteen hundred. The modern +publisher had not then arisen and acquired +a proprietary right in the brains of the +country, and the author made his bargains +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_088" id="Pg_088" title="Pg_088">[88]</a></span>like an independent being who owned himself.</p> + +<p>Irving's letters of this period are full of +the gossip of the town and the matrimonial +fate of his acquaintances. The fascinating +Mary Fairlie is at length married to Cooper, +the tragedian, with the opposition of her +parents, after a dismal courtship and a +cloudy prospect of happiness. "Goodhue +is engaged to Miss Clarkson, the sister to +the pretty one. The engagement suddenly +took place as they walked from church on +Christmas Day, and report says the action +was shorter than any of our naval victories, +for the lady struck on the first broadside." +The war colored all social life and conversation. +"This war [the letter is to Brevoort, +who is in Europe] has completely +changed the face of things here. You would +scarcely recognize our old peaceful city. +Nothing is talked of but armies, navies, battles, +etc." The same phenomenon was witnessed +then that was observed in the war +for the Union: "Men who had loitered +about, the hangers-on and encumbrances of +society, have all at once risen to importance, +and been the only useful men of the day." +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_089" id="Pg_089" title="Pg_089">[89]</a></span>The exploits of our young navy kept up the +spirits of the country. There was great rejoicing +when the captured frigate Macedonian +was brought into New York, and was +visited by the curious as she lay wind-bound +above Hell Gate. "A superb dinner was +given to the naval heroes, at which all the +great eaters and drinkers of the city were +present. It was the noblest entertainment +of the kind I ever witnessed. On New +Year's Eve a grand ball was likewise given, +where there was a vast display of great and +little people. The Livingstons were there +in all their glory. Little Rule Britannia +made a gallant appearance at the head of a +train of beauties, among whom were the divine +H——, who looked very inviting, and +the little Taylor, who looked still more so. +Britannia was gorgeously dressed in a queer +kind of hat of stiff purple and silver stuff, +that had marvelously the appearance of copper, +and made us suppose that she had procured +the real Mambrino helmet. Her dress +was trimmed with what we simply mistook +for scalps, and supposed it was in honor of +the nation; but we blushed at our ignorance +on discovering that it was a gorgeous trimming +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_090" id="Pg_090" title="Pg_090">[90]</a></span>of marten tips. Would that some eminent +furrier had been there to wonder and +admire!"</p> + +<p>With a little business and a good deal of +loitering, waiting upon the whim of his pen, +Irving passed the weary months of the war. +As late as August, 1814, he is still giving +Brevoort, who has returned, and is at Rockaway +Beach, the light gossip of the town. +It was reported that Brevoort and Dennis +had kept a journal of their foreign travel, +"which is so exquisitely humorous that Mrs. +Cooper, on only looking at the first word, fell +into a fit of laughing that lasted half an +hour." Irving is glad that he cannot find +Brevoort's flute, which the latter requested +should be sent to him: "I do not think it +would be an innocent amusement for you, +as no one has a right to entertain himself +at the expense of others." In such dallying +and badinage the months went on, affairs +every day becoming more serious. Appended +to a letter of September 9, 1814, is a list +of twenty well-known mercantile houses +that had failed within the preceding three +weeks. Irving himself, shortly after this, +enlisted in the war, and his letters thereafter +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_091" id="Pg_091" title="Pg_091">[91]</a></span>breathe patriotic indignation at the insulting +proposals of the British and their +rumored attack on New York, and all his +similes, even those having love for their +subject, are martial and bellicose. Item: +"The gallant Sam has fairly changed front, +and, instead of laying siege to Douglas castle, +has charged sword in hand, and carried +little Cooper's entrenchments."</p> + +<p>As a Federalist and an admirer of England, +Irving had deplored the war, but his +sympathies were not doubtful after it began, +and the burning of the national Capitol +by General Ross aroused him to an active +participation in the struggle. He was descending +the Hudson in a steamboat when +the tidings first reached him. It was night, +and the passengers had gone into the cabin, +when a man came on board with the news, +and in the darkness related the particulars: +the burning of the President's house and +government offices, and the destruction of +the Capitol, with the library and public +archives. In the momentary silence that +followed, somebody raised his voice, and in +a tone of complacent derision "wondered +what <i>Jimmy</i> Madison would say now." +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_092" id="Pg_092" title="Pg_092">[92]</a></span>"Sir," cried Mr. Irving, in a burst of indignation +that overcame his habitual shyness, +"do you seize upon such a disaster +only for a sneer? Let me tell you, sir, it +is not now a question about <i>Jimmy</i> Madison +or <i>Jimmy</i> Armstrong. The pride and +honor of the nation are wounded; the country +is insulted and disgraced by this barbarous +success, and every loyal citizen would +feel the ignominy and be earnest to avenge +it." There was an outburst of applause, +and the sneerer was silenced. "I could not +see the fellow," said Mr. Irving, in relating +the anecdote, "but I let fly at him in the +dark."</p> + +<p>The next day he offered his services to +Governor Tompkins, and was made the +governor's aid and military secretary, with +the right to be addressed as Col. Washington +Irving. He served only four months +in this capacity, when Governor Tompkins +was called to the session of the legislature +at Albany. Irving intended to go to Washington +and apply for a commission in the +regular army, but he was detained at Philadelphia +by the affairs of his magazine, until +news came in February, 1815, of the close +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_093" id="Pg_093" title="Pg_093">[93]</a></span>of the war. In May of that year he embarked +for England to visit his brother, intending +only a short sojourn. He remained +abroad seventeen years.</p> + + +<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a></div> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_094" id="Pg_094" title="Pg_094">[94]</a></span></div> + +<h2>CHAPTER VI.<br /></h2> + +<h3>LIFE IN EUROPE: LITERARY ACTIVITY.<br /><br /></h3> + + +<p>When Irving sailed from New York, it +was with lively anticipations of witnessing +the stirring events to follow the return of +Bonaparte from Elba. When he reached +Liverpool the curtain had fallen in Bonaparte's +theatre. The first spectacle that +met the traveler's eye was the mail coaches, +darting through the streets, decked with +laurel and bringing the news of Waterloo. +As usual, Irving's sympathies were with +the unfortunate. "I think," he says, writing +of the exile of St. Helena, "the cabinet +has acted with littleness toward him. In +spite of all his misdeeds he is a noble fellow +[<i>pace</i> Madame de Rémusat], and I am confident +will eclipse, in the eyes of posterity, +all the crowned wiseacres that have crushed +him by their overwhelming confederacy. If +anything could place the Prince Regent in +a more ridiculous light, it is Bonaparte suing +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_095" id="Pg_095" title="Pg_095">[95]</a></span>for his magnanimous protection. Every +compliment paid to this bloated sensualist, +this inflation of sack and sugar, turns to +the keenest sarcasm."</p> + +<p>After staying a week with his brother +Peter, who was recovering from an indisposition, +Irving went to Birmingham, the +residence of his brother-in-law, Henry Van +Wart, who had married his youngest sister, +Sarah; and from thence to Sydenham, to +visit Campbell. The poet was not at home. +To Mrs. Campbell Irving expressed his +regret that her husband did not attempt +something on a grand scale.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"'It is unfortunate for Campbell,' said she, +'that he lives in the same age with Scott and +Byron.' I asked why. 'Oh,' said she, 'they +write so much and so rapidly. Mr. Campbell +writes slowly, and it takes him some time to get +under way; and just as he has fairly begun out +comes one of their poems, that sets the world +agog, and quite daunts him, so that he throws by +his pen in despair.' I pointed out the essential +difference in their kinds of poetry, and the qualities +which insured perpetuity to that of her husband. +'You can't persuade Campbell of that,' +said she. 'He is apt to undervalue his own +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_096" id="Pg_096" title="Pg_096">[96]</a></span>works, and to consider his own little lights put +out, whenever they come blazing out with their +great torches.'</p> + +<p>"I repeated the conversation to Scott some time +afterward, and it drew forth a characteristic comment. +'Pooh!' said he, good humoredly; 'how +can Campbell mistake the matter so much? Poetry +goes by quality, not by bulk. My poems are +mere cairngorms, wrought up, perhaps, with a cunning +hand, and may pass well in the market as +long as cairngorms are the fashion; but they are +mere Scotch pebbles, after all. Now, Tom Campbell's +are real diamonds, and diamonds of the +first water.'"</p></div> + +<p>Returning to Birmingham, Irving made excursions +to Kenilworth, Warwick, and Stratford-on-Avon, +and a tour through Wales +with James Renwick, a young American of +great promise, who at the age of nineteen +had for a time filled the chair of natural +philosophy in Columbia College. He was +a son of Mrs. Jane Renwick, a charming +woman and a life-long friend of Irving, the +daughter of the Rev. Andrew Jeffrey, of +Lochmaben, Scotland, and famous in literature +as "The Blue-Eyed Lassie" of Burns. +From another song, "When first I saw my +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_097" id="Pg_097" title="Pg_097">[97]</a></span>Jeanie's Face," which does not appear in +the poet's collected works, the biographer +quotes:—</p> + +<!-- Poetry table --> + +<div class="centered"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align='left' class="poetindent"></td><td align='left'></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left' colspan="2">"But, sair, I doubt some happier swain</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Has gained my Jeanie's favor;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left' colspan="2"> If sae, may every bliss be hers,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Tho' I can never have her.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left' colspan="2"> </td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left' colspan="2">"But gang she east, or gang she west,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>'Twixt Nith and Tweed all over,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left' colspan="2"> While men have eyes, or ears, or taste,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>She'll always find a lover."</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + + +<p>During Irving's protracted stay in England +he did not by any means lose his interest +in his beloved New York and the little +society that was always dear to him. He +relied upon his friend Brevoort to give him +the news of the town, and in return he +wrote long letters,—longer and more elaborate +and formal than this generation has +leisure to write or to read; letters in which +the writer laid himself out to be entertaining, +and detailed his emotions and state of +mind as faithfully as his travels and outward +experiences.</p> + +<p>No sooner was our war with England +over than our navy began to make a reputation +for itself in the Mediterranean. In +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_098" id="Pg_098" title="Pg_098">[98]</a></span>his letter of August, 1815, Irving dwells +with pride on Decatur's triumph over the +Algerine pirates. He had just received a +letter from that "worthy little tar, Jack +Nicholson," dated on board the Flambeau, +off Algiers. In it Nicholson says that "they +fell in with and captured the admiral's ship, +and <i>killed him</i>." Upon which Irving remarks: +"As this is all that Jack's brevity +will allow him to say on the subject, I +should be at a loss to know whether they +killed the admiral <i>before</i> or <i>after</i> his capture. +The well-known humanity of our +tars, however, induces me to the former +conclusion." Nicholson, who has the honor +of being alluded to in "The Croakers," was +always a great favorite with Irving. His +gallantry on shore was equal to his bravery +at sea, but unfortunately his diffidence was +greater than his gallantry; and while his +susceptibility to female charms made him an +easy and a frequent victim, he could never +muster the courage to declare his passion. +Upon one occasion, when he was desperately +enamored of a lady whom he wished to +marry, he got Irving to write for him a love-letter, +containing an offer of his heart and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_099" id="Pg_099" title="Pg_099">[99]</a></span>hand. The enthralled but bashful sailor +carried the letter in his pocket till it was +worn out, without ever being able to summon +pluck enough to deliver it.</p> + +<p>While Irving was in Wales the Wiggins +family and Madame Bonaparte passed +through Birmingham, on their way to Cheltenham. +Madame was still determined to +assert her rights as a Bonaparte. Irving +cannot help expressing sympathy for Wiggins: +"The poor man has his hands full, +with such a bevy of beautiful women under +his charge, and all doubtless bent on pleasure +and admiration." He hears, however, +nothing further of her, except the newspapers +mention her being at Cheltenham. +"There are so many stars and comets +thrown out of their orbits, and whirling +about the world at present, that a little star +like Madame Bonaparte attracts but slight +attention, even though she draw after her +so sparkling a tail as the Wiggins family." +In another letter he exclaims: "The world +is surely topsy-turvy, and its inhabitants +shaken out of place: emperors and kings, +statesmen and philosophers, Bonaparte, Alexander, +Johnson, and the Wigginses, all +strolling about the face of the earth."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_100" id="Pg_100" title="Pg_100">[100]</a></span>The business of the Irving brothers soon +absorbed all Washington's time and attention. +Peter was an invalid, and the whole +weight of the perplexing affairs of the failing +firm fell upon the one who detested +business, and counted every hour lost that he +gave to it. His letters for two years are burdened +with harassments in uncongenial details +and unsuccessful struggles. Liverpool, +where he was compelled to pass most of his +time, had few attractions for him, and his +low spirits did not permit him to avail himself +of such social advantages as were offered. +It seems that our enterprising countrymen +flocked abroad, on the conclusion of +peace. "This place [writes Irving] swarms +with Americans. You never saw a more +motley race of beings. Some seem as if +just from the woods, and yet stalk about +the streets and public places with all the +easy nonchalance that they would about +their own villages. Nothing can surpass +the dauntless independence of all form, ceremony, +fashion, or reputation of a downright, +unsophisticated American. Since the war, +too, particularly, our lads seem to think +they are 'the salt of the earth' and the legitimate +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_101" id="Pg_101" title="Pg_101">[101]</a></span>lords of creation. It would delight +you to see some of them playing Indian +when surrounded by the wonders and +improvements of the Old World. It is impossible +to match these fellows by anything +this side the water. Let an Englishman +talk of the battle of Waterloo, and they +will immediately bring up New Orleans and +Plattsburg. A thoroughbred, thoroughly +appointed soldier is nothing to a Kentucky +rifleman," etc., etc. In contrast to this +sort of American was Charles King, who +was then abroad: "Charles is exactly what +an American should be abroad: frank, +manly, and unaffected in his habits and +manners, liberal and independent in his +opinions, generous and unprejudiced in his +sentiments towards other nations, but most +loyally attached to his own." There was a +provincial narrowness at that date and long +after in America, which deprecated the +open-minded patriotism of King and of Irving +as it did the clear-sighted loyalty of +Fenimore Cooper.</p> + +<p>The most anxious time of Irving's life +was the winter of 1815-16. The business +worry increased. He was too jaded with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_102" id="Pg_102" title="Pg_102">[102]</a></span>the din of pounds, shillings, and pence to +permit his pen to invent facts or to adorn +realities. Nevertheless, he occasionally escapes +from the tread-mill. In December he +is in London, and entranced with the acting +of Miss O'Neil. He thinks that Brevoort, +if he saw her, would infallibly fall in love +with this "divine perfection of a woman." +He writes: "She is, to my eyes, the most +soul-subduing actress I ever saw; I do not +mean from her personal charms, which are +great, but from the truth, force, and pathos +of her acting. I have never been so completely +melted, moved, and overcome at a +theatre as by her performances.... Kean, +the prodigy, is to me insufferable. He is +vulgar, full of trick, and a complete mannerist. +This is merely my opinion. He is +cried up as a second Garrick, as a reformer +of the stage, etc. It may be so. He may +be right, and all the other actors wrong. +This is certain: he is either very good or +very bad. I think decidedly the latter; +and I find no medium opinions concerning +him. I am delighted with Young, who acts +with great judgment, discrimination, and +feeling. I think him much the best actor +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_103" id="Pg_103" title="Pg_103">[103]</a></span>at present on the English stage.... In certain +characters, such as may be classed with +Macbeth, I do not think that Cooper has +his equal in England. Young is the only +actor I have seen who can compare with +him." Later, Irving somewhat modified his +opinion of Kean. He wrote to Brevoort: +"Kean is a strange compound of merits and +defects. His excellence consists in sudden +and brilliant touches, in vivid exhibitions +of passion and emotion. I do not think him +a discriminating actor, or critical either at +understanding or delineating character; but +he produces effects which no other actor +does."</p> + +<p>In the summer of 1816, on his way from +Liverpool to visit his sister's family at Birmingham, +Irving tarried for a few days at +a country place near Shrewsbury on the +border of Wales, and while there encountered +a character whose portrait is cleverly +painted. It is interesting to compare this +first sketch with the elaboration of it in +the essay on The Angler in the "Sketch-Book."</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"In one of our morning strolls [he writes, +July 15th] along the banks of the Aleen, a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_104" id="Pg_104" title="Pg_104">[104]</a></span>beautiful little pastoral stream that rises among +the Welsh mountains and throws itself into the +Dee, we encountered a veteran angler of old +Isaac Walton's school. He was an old Greenwich +out-door pensioner, had lost one leg in the +battle of Camperdown, had been in America in +his youth, and indeed had been quite a rover, +but for many years past had settled himself down +in his native village, not far distant, where he +lived very independently on his pension and some +other small annual sums, amounting in all to +about £40. His great hobby, and indeed the +business of his life, was to angle. I found he +had read Isaac Walton very attentively; he +seemed to have imbibed all his simplicity of +heart, contentment of mind, and fluency of tongue. +We kept company with him almost the whole +day, wandering along the beautiful banks of the +river, admiring the ease and elegant dexterity +with which the old fellow managed his angle, +throwing the fly with unerring certainty at a +great distance and among overhanging bushes, +and waving it gracefully in the air, to keep it +from entangling, as he stumped with his staff and +wooden leg from one bend of the river to another. +He kept up a continual flow of cheerful +and entertaining talk, and what I particularly +liked him for was, that though we tried every +way to entrap him into some abuse of America +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_105" id="Pg_105" title="Pg_105">[105]</a></span>and its inhabitants, there was no getting him to +utter an ill-natured word concerning us. His +whole conversation and deportment illustrated +old Isaac's maxims as to the benign influence of +angling over the human heart.... I ought to +mention that he had two companions—one, a +ragged, picturesque varlet, that had all the air +of a veteran poacher, and I warrant would find +any fish-pond in the neighborhood in the darkest +night; the other was a disciple of the old philosopher, +studying the art under him, and was +son and heir apparent to the landlady of the village +tavern."</p></div> + +<p>A contrast to this pleasing picture is afforded +by some character sketches at the +little watering-place of Buxton, which our +kindly observer visited the same year.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"At the hotel where we put up [he writes] +we had a most singular and whimsical assemblage +of beings. I don't know whether you were +ever at an English watering-place, but if you +have not been, you have missed the best opportunity +of studying English oddities, both moral +and physical. I no longer wonder at the English +being such excellent caricaturists, they have such +an inexhaustible number and variety of subjects +to study from. The only care should be not to +follow fact too closely, for I'll swear I have met +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_106" id="Pg_106" title="Pg_106">[106]</a></span>with characters and figures that would be condemned +as extravagant, if faithfully delineated +by pen or pencil. At a watering-place like Buxton, +where people really resort for health, you see +the great tendency of the English to run into +excrescences and bloat out into grotesque deformities. +As to noses, I say nothing of them, +though we had every variety: some snubbed and +turned up, with distended nostrils, like a dormer +window on the roof of a house; others convex +and twisted like a buck-handled knife; and others +magnificently efflorescent, like a full-blown cauliflower. +But as to the persons that were attached +to these noses, fancy any distortion, protuberance, +and fungous embellishment that can be produced +in the human form by high and gross feeding, +by the bloating operations of malt liquors, +and by the rheumy influence of a damp, foggy, +vaporous climate. One old fellow was an exception +to this, for instead of acquiring that expansion +and sponginess to which old people are prone +in this country, from the long course of internal +and external soakage they experience, he had +grown dry and stiff in the process of years. The +skin of his face had so shrunk away that he could +not close eyes or mouth—the latter, therefore, +stood on a perpetual ghastly grin, and the former +on an incessant stare. He had but one serviceable +joint in his body, which was at the bottom +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_107" id="Pg_107" title="Pg_107">[107]</a></span>of the backbone, and that creaked and grated +whenever he bent. He could not raise his feet +from the ground, but skated along the drawing-room +carpet whenever he wished to ring the bell. +The only sign of moisture in his whole body was +a pellucid drop that I occasionally noticed on the +end of a long, dry nose. He used generally to +shuffle about in company with a little fellow that +was fat on one side and lean on the other. That +is to say, he was warped on one side as if he had +been scorched before the fire; he had a wry neck, +which made his head lean on one shoulder; his +hair was smugly powdered, and he had a round, +smirking, smiling, apple face, with a bloom on it +like that of a frost-bitten leaf in autumn. We +had an old, fat general by the name of Trotter, +who had, I suspect, been promoted to his high +rank to get him out of the way of more able and +active officers, being an instance that a man may +occasionally rise in the world through absolute +lack of merit. I could not help watching the +movements of this redoubtable old Hero, who, I'll +warrant, has been the champion and safeguard of +half the garrison towns in England, and fancying +to myself how Bonaparte would have delighted +in having such toast-and-butter generals +to deal with. This old cad is doubtless a sample +of those generals that flourished in the old military +school, when armies would manoeuvre and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_108" id="Pg_108" title="Pg_108">[108]</a></span>watch each other for months; now and then +have a desperate skirmish, and, after marching +and countermarching about the 'Low Countries' +through a glorious campaign, retire on the first +pinch of cold weather into snug winter quarters +in some fat Flemish town, and eat and drink +and fiddle through the winter. Boney must have +sadly disconcerted the comfortable system of +these old warriors by the harrowing, restless, +cut-and-slash mode of warfare that he introduced. +He has put an end to all the old <i>carte and tierce</i> +system in which the cavaliers of the old school +fought so decorously, as it were with a small +sword in one hand and a chapeau bras in the +other. During his career there has been a sad +laying on the shelf of old generals who could not +keep up with the hurry, the fierceness and dashing +of the new system; and among the number +I presume has been my worthy house-mate, old +Trotter. The old gentleman, in spite of his +warlike title, had a most pacific appearance. He +was large and fat, with a broad, hazy, muffin face, +a sleepy eye, and a full double chin. He had a +deep ravine from each corner of his mouth, not +occasioned by any irascible contraction of the +muscles, but apparently the deep-worn channels +of two rivulets of gravy that oozed out from the +huge mouthfuls that he masticated. But I forbear +to dwell on the odd beings that were congregated +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_109" id="Pg_109" title="Pg_109">[109]</a></span>together in one hotel. I have been thus +prolix about the old general because you desired +me in one of your letters to give you ample details +whenever I happened to be in company +with the 'great and glorious,' and old Trotter +is more deserving of the epithet than any of the +personages I have lately encountered."</p></div> + +<p>It was at the same resort of fashion and +disease that Irving observed a phenomenon +upon which Brevoort had commented as +beginning to be noticeable in America.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Your account [he writes] of the brevity of +the old lady's nether garments distresses me.... +I cannot help observing that this fashion of short +skirts must have been invented by the French +ladies as a complete trick upon John Bull's +'woman-folk.' It was introduced just at the +time the English flocked in such crowds to Paris. +The French women, you know, are remarkable +for pretty feet and ankles, and can display them +in perfect security. The English are remarkable +for the contrary. Seeing the proneness of the +English women to follow French fashions, they +therefore led them into this disastrous one, and +sent them home with their petticoats up to their +knees, exhibiting such a variety of sturdy little +legs as would have afforded Hogarth an ample +choice to match one of his assemblages of queer +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_110" id="Pg_110" title="Pg_110">[110]</a></span>heads. It is really a great source of curiosity +and amusement on the promenade of a watering-place +to observe the little sturdy English women, +trudging about in their stout leather shoes, and +to study the various 'understandings' betrayed +to view by this mischievous fashion."</p></div> + +<p>The years passed rather wearily in England. +Peter continued to be an invalid, +and Washington himself, never robust, felt +the pressure more and more of the irksome +and unprosperous business affairs. Of his +own want of health, however, he never complains; +he maintains a patient spirit in the +ill turns of fortune, and his impatience in +the business complications is that of a man +hindered from his proper career. The +times were depressing.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"In America [he writes to Brevoort] you +have financial difficulties, the embarrassments of +trade, the distress of merchants, but here you +have what is far worse, the distress of the poor—not +merely mental sufferings, but the absolute +miseries of nature: hunger, nakedness, +wretchedness of all kinds that the laboring people +in this country are liable to. In the best of +times they do but subsist, but in adverse times +they starve. How the country is to extricate itself +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_111" id="Pg_111" title="Pg_111">[111]</a></span>from its present embarrassment, how it is to +escape from the poverty that seems to be overwhelming +it, and how the government is to quiet +the multitudes that are already turbulent and +clamorous, and are yet but in the beginning of +their real miseries, I cannot conceive."</p></div> + +<p>The embarrassments of the agricultural +and laboring classes and of the government +were as serious in 1816 as they have again +become in 1881.</p> + +<p>During 1817 Irving was mostly in the +depths of gloom, a prey to the monotony +of life and torpidity of intellect. Rays of +sunlight pierce the clouds occasionally. The +Van Wart household at Birmingham was a +frequent refuge for him, and we have pretty +pictures of the domestic life there; glimpses +of Old Parr, whose reputation as a gourmand +was only second to his fame as a Grecian, +and of that delightful genius, the Rev. Rann +Kennedy, who might have been famous if +he had ever committed to paper the long +poems that he carried about in his head, +and the engaging sight of Irving playing +the flute for the little Van Warts to dance. +During the holidays Irving paid another +visit to the haunts of Isaac Walton, and his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_112" id="Pg_112" title="Pg_112">[112]</a></span>description of the adventures and mishaps +of a pleasure party on the banks of the +Dove suggest that the incorrigible bachelor +was still sensitive to the allurements of life, +and liable to wander over the "dead-line" +of matrimonial danger. He confesses that +he was all day in Elysium. "When we +had descended from the last precipice," he +says, "and come to where the Dove flowed +musically through a verdant meadow—then—fancy +me, oh, thou 'sweetest of poets,' +wandering by the course of this romantic +stream—a lovely girl hanging on my arm, +pointing out the beauties of the surrounding +scenery, and repeating in the most dulcet +voice tracts of heaven-born poetry. If +a strawberry smothered in cream has any +consciousness of its delicious situation, it +must feel as I felt at that moment." Indeed, +the letters of this doleful year are +enlivened by so many references to the +graces and attractions of lovely women, seen +and remembered, that insensibility cannot +be attributed to the author of the "Sketch-Book."</p> + +<p>The death of Irving's mother in the +spring of 1817 determined him to remain +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_113" id="Pg_113" title="Pg_113">[113]</a></span>another year abroad. Business did not improve. +His brother-in-law Van Wart called +a meeting of his creditors, the Irving brothers +floundered on into greater depths of +embarrassment, and Washington, who could +not think of returning home to face poverty +in New York, began to revolve a plan that +would give him a scanty but sufficient support. +The idea of the "Sketch-Book" was +in his mind. He had as yet made few literary +acquaintances in England. It is an illustration +of the warping effect of friendship +upon the critical faculty that his opinion of +Moore at this time was totally changed by +subsequent intimacy. At a later date the +two authors became warm friends and mutual +admirers of each other's productions. +In June, 1817, "Lalla Rookh" was just from +the press, and Irving writes to Brevoort: +"Moore's new poem is just out. I have not +sent it to you, for it is dear and worthless. +It is written in the most effeminate taste, +and fit only to delight boarding-school girls +and lads of nineteen just in their first loves. +Moore should have kept to songs and epigrammatic +conceits. His stream of intellect +is too small to bear expansion—it spreads +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_114" id="Pg_114" title="Pg_114">[114]</a></span>into mere surface." Too much cream for +the strawberry!</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding business harassments in +the summer and fall of 1817 he found time +for some wandering about the island; he +was occasionally in London, dining at Murray's, +where he made the acquaintance of +the elder D'Israeli and other men of letters +(one of his notes of a dinner at Murray's +is this: "Lord Byron told Murray +that he was much happier after breaking +with Lady Byron—he hated this still, quiet +life"); he was publishing a new edition of +the "Knickerbocker," illustrated by Leslie +and Allston; and we find him at home in +the friendly and brilliant society of Edinburgh; +both the magazine publishers, Constable +and Blackwood, were very civil to +him, and Mr. Jeffrey (Mrs. Renwick was +his sister) was very attentive; and he passed +some days with Walter Scott, whose home +life he so agreeably describes in his sketch +of "Abbotsford." He looked back longingly +to the happy hours there (he writes +to his brother): "Scott reading, occasionally, +from 'Prince Arthur'; telling border stories +or characteristic anecdotes; Sophy Scott +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_115" id="Pg_115" title="Pg_115">[115]</a></span>singing with charming <i>naïveté</i> a little border +song; the rest of the family disposed in +listening groups, while greyhounds, spaniels, +and cats bask in unbounded indulgence +before the fire. Everything about Scott is +perfect character and picture."</p> + +<p>In the beginning of 1818 the business affairs +of the brothers became so irretrievably +involved that Peter and Washington went +through the humiliating experience of taking +the bankrupt act. Washington's connection +with the concern was little more +than nominal, and he felt small anxiety for +himself, and was eager to escape from an +occupation which had taken all the elasticity +out of his mind. But on account of his +brothers, in this dismal wreck of a family +connection, his soul was steeped in bitterness. +Pending the proceedings of the commissioners, +he shut himself up day and night +to the study of German, and while waiting +for the examination used to walk up and +down the room, conning over the German +verbs.</p> + +<p>In August he went up to London and +cast himself irrevocably upon the fortune of +his pen. He had accumulated some materials, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_116" id="Pg_116" title="Pg_116">[116]</a></span>and upon these he set to work. Efforts +were made at home to procure for him +the position of Secretary of Legation in +London, which drew from him the remark, +when they came to his knowledge, that he +did not like to have his name hackneyed +about among the office-seekers in Washington. +Subsequently his brother William +wrote him that Commodore Decatur was +keeping open for him the office of Chief +Clerk in the Navy Department. To the +mortification and chagrin of his brothers, +Washington declined the position. He was +resolved to enter upon no duties that would +interfere with his literary pursuits.</p> + +<p>This resolution, which exhibited a modest +confidence in his own powers, and the +energy with which he threw himself into +his career, showed the fibre of the man. +Suddenly, by the reverse of fortune, he who +had been regarded as merely the ornamental +genius of the family became its stay and +support. If he had accepted the aid of his +brothers, during the experimental period of +his life, in the loving spirit of confidence in +which it was given, he was not less ready +to reverse the relations when the time came; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_117" id="Pg_117" title="Pg_117">[117]</a></span>the delicacy with which his assistance was +rendered, the scrupulous care taken to convey +the feeling that his brothers were doing +him a continued favor in sharing his good +fortune, and their own unjealous acceptance +of what they would as freely have given if +circumstances had been different, form one +of the pleasantest instances of brotherly +concord and self-abnegation. I know nothing +more admirable than the life-long relations +of this talented and sincere family.</p> + +<p>Before the "Sketch-Book" was launched, +and while Irving was casting about for the +means of livelihood, Walter Scott urged +him to take the editorship of an Anti-Jacobin +periodical in Edinburgh. This he declined +because he had no taste for politics, +and because he was averse to stated, routine +literary work. Subsequently Mr. Murray +offered him a salary of a thousand +guineas to edit a periodical to be published +by himself. This was declined, as also was +another offer to contribute to the "London +Quarterly" with the liberal pay of one hundred +guineas an article. For the "Quarterly" +he would not write, because, he says, +"it has always been so hostile to my country, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_118" id="Pg_118" title="Pg_118">[118]</a></span>I cannot draw a pen in its service." +This is worthy of note in view of a charge +made afterwards, when he was attacked +for his English sympathies, that he was a +frequent contributor to this anti-American +review. His sole contributions to it were +a gratuitous review of the book of an American +author, and an explanatory article, +written at the desire of his publisher, on +the "Conquest of Granada." It is not necessary +to dwell upon the small scandal about +Irving's un-American feeling. If there was +ever a man who loved his country and was +proud of it; whose broad, deep, and strong +patriotism did not need the saliency of ignorant +partisanship, it was Washington Irving. +He was like his namesake an American, +and with the same pure loyalty and +unpartisan candor.</p> + +<p>The first number of the "Sketch-Book" +was published in America in May, 1819. +Irving was then thirty-six years old. The +series was not completed till September, +1820. The first installment was carried +mainly by two papers, "The Wife" and +"Rip Van Winkle;" the one full of tender +pathos that touched all hearts, because it +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_119" id="Pg_119" title="Pg_119">[119]</a></span>was recognized as a genuine expression of +the author's nature; and the other a happy +effort of imaginative humor,—one of those +strokes of genius that recreate the world +and clothe it with the unfading hues of romance; +the theme was an old-world echo, +transformed by genius into a primal story +that will endure as long as the Hudson flows +through its mountains to the sea. A great +artist can paint a great picture on a small +canvas.</p> + +<p>The "Sketch-Book" created a sensation +in America, and the echo of it was not long +in reaching England. The general chorus +of approval and the rapid sale surprised Irving, +and sent his spirits up, but success +had the effect on him that it always has on +a fine nature. He writes to Leslie: "Now +you suppose I am all on the alert, and full +of spirit and excitement. No such thing. I +am just as good for nothing as ever I was; +and, indeed, have been flurried and put out +of my way by these puffings. I feel something +as I suppose you did when your picture +met with success,—anxious to do something +better, and at a loss what to do."</p> + +<p>It was with much misgiving that Irving +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_120" id="Pg_120" title="Pg_120">[120]</a></span>made this venture. "I feel great diffidence," +he writes Brevoort, March 3, 1819, +"about this reappearance in literature. I am +conscious of my imperfections, and my mind +has been for a long time past so pressed +upon and agitated by various cares and anxieties, +that I fear it has lost much of its +cheerfulness and some of its activity. I +have attempted no lofty theme, nor sought +to look wise and learned, which appears to +be very much the fashion among our American +writers at present. I have preferred +addressing myself to the feelings and fancy +of the reader more than to his judgment. +My writings may appear, therefore, light +and trifling in our country of philosophers +and politicians. But if they possess merit +in the class of literature to which they belong, +it is all to which I aspire in the work. +I seek only to blow a flute accompaniment +in the national concert, and leave others +to play the fiddle and French-horn." This +diffidence was not assumed. All through +his career, a breath of criticism ever so +slight acted temporarily like a hoar-frost +upon his productive power. He always saw +reasons to take sides with his critic. Speaking +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_121" id="Pg_121" title="Pg_121">[121]</a></span>of "vanity" in a letter of March, 1820, +when Scott and Lockhart and all the Reviews +were in a full chorus of acclaim, he +says: "I wish I did possess more of it, but +it seems my curse at present to have anything +but confidence in myself or pleasure +in anything I have written."</p> + +<p>In a similar strain he had written, in +September, 1819, on the news of the cordial +reception of the "Sketch-Book" in +America:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The manner in which the work has been received +and the eulogiums that have been passed +upon it in the American papers and periodical +works, have completely overwhelmed me. They +go far, <i>far</i> beyond my most sanguine expectations, +and indeed are expressed with such peculiar +warmth and kindness as to affect me in the +tenderest manner. The receipt of your letter, +and the reading of some of the criticisms this +morning, have rendered me nervous for the whole +day. I feel almost appalled by such success, and +fearful that it cannot be real, or that it is not +fully merited, or that I shall not act up to the +expectations that may be formed. We are whimsically +constituted beings. I had got out of conceit +of all that I had written, and considered it +very questionable stuff; and now that it is so extravagantly +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_122" id="Pg_122" title="Pg_122">[122]</a></span>bepraised, I begin to feel afraid that +I shall not do as well again. However, we shall +see as we get on. As yet I am extremely irregular +and precarious in my fits of composition. The +least thing puts me out of the vein, and even +applause flurries me and prevents my writing, +though of course it will ultimately be a stimulus....</p> + +<p>"I have been somewhat touched by the manner +in which my writings have been noticed in +the 'Evening Post.' I had considered Coleman +as cherishing an ill-will toward me, and, to tell +the truth, have not always been the most courteous +in my opinions concerning him. It is a painful +thing either to dislike others or to fancy they +dislike us, and I have felt both pleasure and self-reproach +at finding myself so mistaken with respect +to Mr. Coleman. I like to out with a +good feeling as soon as it rises, and so I have +dropt Coleman a line on the subject.</p> + +<p>"I hope you will not attribute all this sensibility +to the kind reception I have met to an +author's vanity. I am sure it proceeds from +very different sources. Vanity could not bring +the tears into my eyes as they have been brought +by the kindness of my countrymen. I have felt +cast down, blighted, and broken-spirited, and +these sudden rays of sunshine agitate me more +than they revive me. I hope—I hope I may +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_123" id="Pg_123" title="Pg_123">[123]</a></span>yet do something more worthy of the appreciation +lavished on me."</p></div> + +<p>Irving had not contemplated publishing +in England, but the papers began to be reprinted, +and he was obliged to protect himself. +He offered the sketches to Murray, +the princely publisher, who afterwards dealt +so liberally with him, but the venture was +declined in a civil note, written in that +charming phraseology with which authors +are familiar, but which they would in vain +seek to imitate. Irving afterwards greatly +prized this letter. He undertook the risks +of the publication himself, and the book +sold well, although "written by an author +the public knew nothing of, and published +by a bookseller who was going to ruin." In +a few months Murray, who was thereafter +proud to be Irving's publisher, undertook +the publication of the two volumes of the +"Sketch-Book," and also of the "Knickerbocker" +history, which Mr. Lockhart had +just been warmly praising in "Blackwood's." +Indeed, he bought the copyright +of the "Sketch-Book" for two hundred +pounds. The time for the publisher's complaisance +had arrived sooner even than Scott +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_124" id="Pg_124" title="Pg_124">[124]</a></span>predicted in one of his kindly letters to Irving, +"when</p> + + +<!-- Poetry table --> + +<div class="centered"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align='left'></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>'Your name is up and may go</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> From Toledo to Madrid.'"</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + + +<p>Irving passed five years in England. +Once recognized by the literary world, +whatever was best in the society of letters +and of fashion was open to him. He was +a welcome guest in the best London houses, +where he met the foremost literary personages +of the time, and established most +cordial relations with many of them; not to +speak of statesmen, soldiers, and men and +women of fashion, there were the elder D'Israeli, +Southey, Campbell, Hallam, Gifford, +Milman, Foscolo, Rogers, Scott, and Belzoni +fresh from his Egyptian explorations. +In Irving's letters this old society passes +in review: Murray's drawing-rooms; the +amusing blue-stocking coteries of fashion of +which Lady Caroline Lamb was a promoter; +the Countess of Besborough's, at +whose house The Duke could be seen; the +Wimbledon country seat of Lord and Lady +Spence; Belzoni, a giant of six feet five, +the centre of a group of eager auditors of +the Egyptian marvels; Hallam, affable and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_125" id="Pg_125" title="Pg_125">[125]</a></span>unpretending, and a copious talker; Gifford, +a small, shriveled, deformed man of sixty, +with something of a humped back, eyes +that diverge, and a large mouth, reclining on +a sofa, propped up by cushions, with none of +the petulance that you would expect from +his Review, but a mild, simple, unassuming +man,—he it is who prunes the contributions +and takes the sting out of them +(one would like to have seen them before +the sting was taken out); and Scott, the +right honest-hearted, entering into the passing +scene with the hearty enjoyment of a +child, to whom literature seems a sport +rather than a labor or ambition, an author +void of all the petulance, egotism, and peculiarities +of the craft. We have Moore's +authority for saying that the literary dinner +described in the "The Tales of a Traveller," +whimsical as it seems and pervaded by the +conventional notion of the relations of publishers +and authors, had a personal foundation. +Irving's satire of both has always +the old-time Grub Street flavor, or at least +the reminiscent tone, which is, by the way, +quite characteristic of nearly everything that +he wrote about England. He was always +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_126" id="Pg_126" title="Pg_126">[126]</a></span>a little in the past tense. Buckthorne's advice +to his friend is, never to be eloquent to +an author except in praise of his own works, +or, what is nearly as acceptable, in disparagement +of the work of his contemporaries. +"If ever he speaks favorably of the productions +of a particular friend, dissent +boldly from him; pronounce his friend to +be a blockhead; never fear his being vexed. +Much as people speak of the irritability of +authors, I never found one to take offense +at such contradictions. No, no, sir, +authors are particularly candid in admitting +the faults of their friends." At the +dinner Buckthorne explains the geographical +boundaries in the land of literature: +you may judge tolerably well of an author's +popularity by the wine his bookseller +gives him. "An author crosses the port +line about the third edition, and gets into +claret; and when he has reached the sixth +or seventh, he may revel in champagne and +burgundy." The two ends of the table were +occupied by the two partners, one of whom +laughed at the clever things said by the +poet, while the other maintained his sedateness +and kept on carving. "His gravity was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_127" id="Pg_127" title="Pg_127">[127]</a></span>explained to us by my friend Buckthorne. +He informed me that the concerns of the +house were admirably distributed among +the partners. Thus, for instance, said he, +the grave gentleman is the carving partner, +who attends to the joints; and the other is +the laughing partner, who attends to the +jokes." If any of the jokes from the lower +end of the table reached the upper end, they +seldom produced much effect. "Even the +laughing partner did not think it necessary +to honor them with a smile; which my +neighbor Buckthorne accounted for by informing +me that there was a certain degree +of popularity to be obtained before a bookseller +could afford to laugh at an author's +jokes."</p> + +<p>In August, 1820, we find Irving in Paris, +where his reputation secured him a hearty +welcome: he was often at the Cannings' +and at Lord Holland's; Talma, then the +king of the stage, became his friend, and +there he made the acquaintance of Thomas +Moore, which ripened into a familiar and +lasting friendship. The two men were +drawn to each other; Irving greatly admired +the "noble-hearted, manly, spirited +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_128" id="Pg_128" title="Pg_128">[128]</a></span>little fellow, with a mind as generous as his +fancy is brilliant." Talma was playing +Hamlet to overflowing houses, which hung +on his actions with breathless attention, or +broke into ungovernable applause; ladies +were carried fainting from the boxes. The +actor is described as short in stature, rather +inclined to fat, with a large face and a thick +neck; his eyes are bluish, and have a peculiar +cast in them at times. He said to +Irving that he thought the French character +much changed—graver; the day of the +classic drama, mere declamation and fine +language, had gone by; the Revolution had +taught them to demand real life, incident, +passion, character. Irving's life in Paris +was gay enough, and seriously interfered +with his literary projects. He had the fortunes +of his brother Peter on his mind also, +and invested his earnings, then and for some +years after, in enterprises for his benefit that +ended in disappointment.</p> + +<p>The "Sketch-Book" was making a great +fame for him in England. Jeffrey, in the +"Edinburgh Review," paid it a most flattering +tribute, and even the savage "Quarterly" +praised it. A rumor attributed it +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_129" id="Pg_129" title="Pg_129">[129]</a></span>to Scott, who was always masquerading; at +least, it was said, he might have revised it, +and should have the credit of its exquisite +style. This led to a sprightly correspondence +between Lady Littleton, the daughter +of Earl Spencer, one of the most accomplished +and lovely women of England, and +Benjamin Rush, Minister to the Court of +St. James, in the course of which Mr. Rush +suggested the propriety of giving out under +his official seal that Irving was the author +of "Waverley." "Geoffrey Crayon is +the most fashionable fellow of the day," +wrote the painter Leslie. Lord Byron, in +a letter to Murray, underscored his admiration +of the author, and subsequently said +to an American: "His Crayon,—I know +it by heart; at least, there is not a passage +that I cannot refer to immediately." And +afterwards he wrote to Moore, "His writings +are my delight." There seemed to be, +as some one wrote, "a kind of conspiracy to +hoist him over the heads of his contemporaries." +Perhaps the most satisfactory evidence +of his popularity was his publisher's +enthusiasm. The publisher is an infallible +contemporary barometer.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_130" id="Pg_130" title="Pg_130">[130]</a></span>It is worthy of note that an American +should have captivated public attention at +the moment when Scott and Byron were the +idols of the English-reading world.</p> + +<p>In the following year Irving was again +in England, visiting his sister in Birmingham, +and tasting moderately the delights +of London. He was, indeed, something of +an invalid. An eruptive malady,—the revenge +of nature, perhaps, for defeat in her +earlier attack on his lungs,—appearing in +his ankles, incapacitated him for walking, +tormented him at intervals, so that literary +composition was impossible, sent him on +pilgrimages to curative springs, and on journeys +undertaken for distraction and amusement, +in which all work except that of +seeing and absorbing material had to be +postponed. He was subject to this recurring +invalidism all his life, and we must regard +a good part of the work he did as a +pure triumph of determination over physical +discouragement. This year the fruits of his +interrupted labor appeared in "Bracebridge +Hall," a volume that was well received, but +did not add much to his reputation, though +it contained "Dolph Heyliger," one of his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_131" id="Pg_131" title="Pg_131">[131]</a></span>most characteristic Dutch stories, and the +"Stout Gentleman," one of his daintiest +and most artistic bits of restrained humor.<a name="FNanchor_1_4" id="FNanchor_1_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_4" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_4" id="Footnote_1_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_4"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> I was once [says his biographer] reading aloud in his +presence a very flattering review of his works, which had +been sent him by the critic in 1848, and smiled as I came +to this sentence: "His most comical pieces have always +a serious end in view." "You laugh," said he, with that +air of whimsical significance so natural to him, "but it +is true. I have kept that to myself hitherto, but that +man has found me out. He has detected the moral of +the <i>Stout Gentleman</i>."</p></div> + +<p>Irving sought relief from his malady by +an extended tour in Germany. He sojourned +some time in Dresden, whither his +reputation had preceded him, and where he +was cordially and familiarly received, not +only by the foreign residents, but at the +prim and antiquated little court of King +Frederick Augustus and Queen Amalia. Of +Irving at this time Mrs. Emily Fuller (<i>née</i> +Foster), whose relations with him have been +referred to, wrote in 1860:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"He was thoroughly a gentleman, not merely +in external manners and look, but to the inner-most +fibres and core of his heart: sweet-tempered, +gentle, fastidious, sensitive, and gifted with +the warmest affections; the most delightful and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_132" id="Pg_132" title="Pg_132">[132]</a></span>invariably interesting companion; gay and full +of humor, even in spite of occasional fits of melancholy, +which he was, however, seldom subject +to when with those he liked; a gift of conversation +that flowed like a full river in sunshine,—bright, +easy, and abundant."</p></div> + +<p>Those were pleasant days at Dresden, +filled up with the society of bright and +warm-hearted people, varied by royal boar +hunts, stiff ceremonies at the little court, +tableaux, and private theatricals, yet tinged +with a certain melancholy, partly constitutional, +that appears in most of his letters. +His mind was too unsettled for much composition. +He had little self-confidence, and +was easily put out by a breath of adverse +criticism. At intervals he would come to +the Fosters to read a manuscript of his +own.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"On these occasions strict orders were given +that no visitor should be admitted till the last +word had been read, and the whole praised or +criticised, as the case may be. Of criticism, however, +we were very spare, as a slight word would +put him out of conceit of a whole work. One of +the best things he has published was thrown +aside, unfinished, for years, because the friend to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_133" id="Pg_133" title="Pg_133">[133]</a></span>whom he read it, happening, unfortunately, not +to be well, and sleepy, did not seem to take the +interest in it he expected. Too easily discouraged, +it was not till the latter part of his career +that he ever appreciated himself as an author. +One condemning whisper sounded louder in his +ear than the plaudits of thousands."</p></div> + +<p>This from Miss Emily Foster, who elsewhere +notes his kindliness in observing +life:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Some persons, in looking upon life, view it +as they would view a picture, with a stern and +criticising eye. He also looks upon life as a +picture, but to catch its beauties, its lights,—not +its defects and shadows. On the former he loves +to dwell. He has a wonderful knack at shutting +his eyes to the sinister side of anything. +Never beat a more kindly heart than his; alive +to the sorrows, but not to the faults, of his friends, +but doubly alive to their virtues and goodness. +Indeed, people seemed to grow more good with +one so unselfish and so gentle."</p></div> + +<p>In London, some years later:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"He was still the same; time changed him +very little. His conversation was as interesting +as ever [he was always an excellent relater]; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_134" id="Pg_134" title="Pg_134">[134]</a></span>his dark gray eyes still full of varying feeling; +his smile half playful, half melancholy, but ever +kind. All that was mean, or envious, or harsh, +he seemed to turn from so completely that, when +with him, it seemed that such things were not. +All gentle and tender affections, Nature in her +sweetest or grandest moods, pervaded his whole +imagination, and left no place for low or evil +thoughts; and when in good spirits, his humor, +his droll descriptions, and his fun would make +the gravest or the saddest laugh."</p></div> + +<p>As to Irving's "state of mind" in Dresden, +it is pertinent to quote a passage from +what we gather to be a journal kept by +Miss Flora Foster:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"He has written. He has confessed to my +mother, as to a true and dear friend, his love for +E——, and his conviction of its utter hopelessness. +He feels himself unable to combat it. He +thinks he must try, by absence, to bring more +peace to his mind. Yet he cannot bear to give +up our friendship,—an intercourse become so +dear to him, and so necessary to his daily happiness. +Poor Irving!"</p></div> + +<p>It is well for our peace of mind that we +do not know what is going down concerning +us in "journals." On his way to the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_135" id="Pg_135" title="Pg_135">[135]</a></span>Herrnhuthers, Mr. Irving wrote to Mrs. +Foster:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"When I consider how I have trifled with my +time, suffered painful vicissitudes of feeling, which +for a time damaged both mind and body,—when +I consider all this, I reproach myself that I did +not listen to the first impulse of my mind, and +abandon Dresden long since. And yet I think +of returning! Why should I come back to Dresden? +The very inclination that dooms me thither +should furnish reasons for my staying away."</p></div> + +<p>In this mood, the Herrnhuthers, in their +right-angled, whitewashed world, were little +attractive.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"If the Herrnhuthers were right in their notions, +the world would have been laid out in +squares and angles and right lines, and everything +would have been white and black and +snuff-color, as they have been clipped by these +merciless retrenchers of beauty and enjoyment. +And then their dormitories! Think of between +one and two hundred of these simple gentlemen +cooped up at night in one great chamber! What +a concert of barrel-organs in this great resounding +saloon! And then their plan of marriage! +The very birds of the air choose their mates from +preference and inclination; but this detestable +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_136" id="Pg_136" title="Pg_136">[136]</a></span>system of <i>lot</i>! The sentiment of love may be, and +is, in a great measure, a fostered growth of poetry +and romance, and balderdashed with false sentiment; +but with all its vitiations, it is the beauty +and the charm, the flavor and the fragrance, of +all intercourse between man and woman; it is the +rosy cloud in the morning of life; and if it does +too often resolve itself into the shower, yet, to +my mind, it only makes our nature more fruitful +in what is excellent and amiable."</p></div> + +<p>Better suited him Prague, which is certainly +a part of the "naughty world" that +Irving preferred:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Old Prague still keeps up its warrior look, +and swaggers about with its rusty corselet and +helm, though both sadly battered. There seems +to me to be an air of style and fashion about the +first people of Prague, and a good deal of beauty +in the fashionable circle. This, perhaps, is owing +to my contemplating it from a distance, and +my imagination lending it tints occasionally. Both +actors and audience, contemplated from the pit +of a theatre, look better than when seen in the +boxes and behind the scenes. I like to contemplate +society in this way occasionally, and to dress +it up by the help of fancy, to my own taste. +When I get in the midst of it, it is too apt to lose +its charm, and then there is the trouble and <i>ennui</i> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_137" id="Pg_137" title="Pg_137">[137]</a></span>of being obliged to take an active part in the +farce; but to be a mere spectator is amusing. I +am glad, therefore, that I brought no letters to +Prague. I shall leave it with a favorable idea +of its society and manners, from knowing nothing +accurate of either; and with a firm belief that +every pretty woman I have seen is an angel, as +I am apt to think every pretty woman, until I +have found her out."</p></div> + +<p>In July, 1823, Irving returned to Paris, +to the society of the Moores and the fascinations +of the gay town, and to fitful literary +work. Our author wrote with great facility +and rapidity when the inspiration was on +him, and produced an astonishing amount +of manuscript in a short period; but he +often waited and fretted through barren +weeks and months for the movement of his +fitful genius. His mind was teeming constantly +with new projects, and nothing could +exceed his industry when once he had taken +a work in hand; but he never acquired the +exact methodical habits which enable some +literary men to calculate their power and +quantity of production as accurately as that +of a cotton mill.</p> + +<p>The political changes in France during +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_138" id="Pg_138" title="Pg_138">[138]</a></span>the period of Irving's long sojourn in Paris +do not seem to have taken much of his attention. +In a letter dated October 5, 1824, +he says: "We have had much bustle in +Paris of late, between the death of one king +and the succession of another. I have become +a little callous to public sights, but +have, notwithstanding, been to see the funeral +of the late king, and the entrance into +Paris of the present one. Charles X. begins +his reign in a very conciliating manner, +and is really popular. The Bourbons have +gained great accession of power within a few +years."</p> + +<p>The succession of Charles X. was also observed +by another foreigner, who was making +agreeable personal notes at that time in +Paris, but who is not referred to by Irving, +who for some unexplained reason failed to +meet the genial Scotsman at breakfast. Perhaps +it is to his failure to do so that he owes +the semi-respectful reference to himself in +Carlyle's "Reminiscences." Lacking the +stimulus to his vocabulary of personal acquaintance, +Carlyle simply wrote: "Washington +Irving was said to be in Paris, a kind +of lion at that time, whose books I somewhat +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_139" id="Pg_139" title="Pg_139">[139]</a></span>esteemed. One day the Emerson-Tennant +people bragged that they had engaged +him to breakfast with us at a certain +<i>café</i> next morning. We all attended duly, +Strackey among the rest, but no Washington +came. 'Couldn't rightly come,' said +Malcolm to me in a judicious <i>aside</i>, as we +cheerfully breakfasted without him. I never +saw Washington at all, but still have a mild +esteem of the good man." This ought to be +accepted as evidence of Carlyle's disinclination +to say ill-natured things of those he did +not know.</p> + +<p>The "Tales of a Traveller" appeared in +1824. In the author's opinion, with which +the best critics agreed, it contained some of +his best writing. He himself said in a letter +to Brevoort, "There was more of an artistic +touch about it, though this is not a thing +to be appreciated by the many." It was +rapidly written. The movement has a delightful +spontaneity, and it is wanting in +none of the charms of his style, unless, perhaps, +the style is over-refined; but it was not +a novelty, and the public began to criticise +and demand a new note. This may have +been one reason why he turned to a fresh +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_140" id="Pg_140" title="Pg_140">[140]</a></span>field and to graver themes. For a time he +busied himself on some American essays of +a semi-political nature, which were never +finished, and he seriously contemplated a +Life of Washington; but all these projects +were thrown aside for one that kindled his +imagination,—the Life of Columbus; and +in February, 1826, he was domiciled at Madrid, +and settled down to a long period of +unremitting and intense labor.</p> + + +<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a></div> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_141" id="Pg_141" title="Pg_141">[141]</a></span></div> + +<h2>CHAPTER VII.<br /></h2> + +<h3>IN SPAIN.<br /><br /></h3> + + +<p>Irving's residence in Spain, which was +prolonged till September, 1829, was the most +fruitful period in his life, and of considerable +consequence to literature. It is not easy to +overestimate the debt of Americans to the +man who first opened to them the fascinating +domain of early Spanish history and +romance. We can conceive of it by reflecting +upon the blank that would exist without +"The Alhambra," "The Conquest of +Granada," "The Legends of the Conquest +of Spain," and I may add the popular loss +if we had not "The Lives of Columbus and +his Companions." Irving had the creative +touch, or at least the magic of the pen, to +give a definite, universal, and romantic interest +to whatever he described. We cannot +deny him that. A few lines about the +inn of the Red Horse at Stratford-on-Avon +created a new object of pilgrimage right in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_142" id="Pg_142" title="Pg_142">[142]</a></span>the presence of the house and tomb of the +poet. And how much of the romantic interest +of all the English-reading world in +the Alhambra is due to him; the name invariably +recalls his own, and every visitor +there is conscious of his presence. He has +again and again been criticised almost out of +court, and written down to the rank of the +mere idle humorist; but as often as I take +up "The Conquest of Granada" or "The +Alhambra" I am aware of something that +has eluded the critical analysis, and I conclude +that if one cannot write for the few +it may be worth while to write for the +many.</p> + +<p>It was Irving's intention, when he went +to Madrid, merely to make a translation of +some historical documents which were then +appearing, edited by M. Navarrete, from +the papers of Bishop Las Casas and the +journals of Columbus, entitled "The Voyages +of Columbus." But when he found +that this publication, although it contained +many documents, hitherto unknown, that +threw much light on the discovery of the +New World, was rather a rich mass of materials +for a history than a history itself, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_143" id="Pg_143" title="Pg_143">[143]</a></span>and that he had access in Madrid libraries to +great collections of Spanish colonial history, +he changed his plan, and determined to +write a Life of Columbus. His studies for +this led him deep into the old chronicles +and legends of Spain, and out of these, with +his own travel and observation, came those +books of mingled fables, sentiment, fact, and +humor which are after all the most enduring +fruits of his residence in Spain.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding his absorption in literary +pursuits, Irving was not denied the charm +of domestic society, which was all his life +his chief delight. The house he most frequented +in Madrid was that of Mr. D'Oubril, +the Russian Minister. In his charming +household were Madame D'Oubril and her +niece, Mademoiselle Antoinette Bollviller, +and Prince Dolgorouki, a young <i>attaché</i> of +the legation. His letters to Prince Dolgorouki +and to Mademoiselle Antoinette +give a most lively and entertaining picture +of his residence and travels in Spain. In +one of them to the prince, who was temporarily +absent from the city, we have +glimpses of the happy hours, the happiest +of all hours, passed in this refined family +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_144" id="Pg_144" title="Pg_144">[144]</a></span>circle. Here is one that exhibits the still +fresh romance in the heart of forty-four +years:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Last evening, at your house, we had one of +the most lovely tableaux I ever beheld. It was +the conception of Murillo, represented by Madame +A——. Mademoiselle Antoinette arranged +the tableau with her usual good taste, and the effect +was enchanting. It was more like a vision of +something spiritual and celestial than a representation +of anything merely mortal; or rather it was +woman as in my romantic days I have been apt +to imagine her, approaching to the angelic nature. +I have frequently admired Madame A—— +as a mere beautiful woman, when I have seen her +dressed up in the fantastic attire of the <i>mode</i>; +but here I beheld her elevated into a representative +of the divine purity and grace, exceeding +even the <i>beau idéal</i> of the painter, for she even +surpassed in beauty the picture of Murillo. I +felt as if I could have knelt down and worshiped +her. Heavens! what power women +would have over us, if they knew how to sustain +the attractions which nature has bestowed +upon them, and which we are so ready to assist +by our imaginations! For my part, I am superstitious +in my admiration of them, and like to +walk in a perpetual delusion, decking them out +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_145" id="Pg_145" title="Pg_145">[145]</a></span>as divinities. I thank no one to undeceive me, +and to prove that they are mere mortals."</p></div> + +<p>And he continues in another strain:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>How full of interest everything is connected +with the old times in Spain! I am more and +more delighted with the old literature of the +country, its chronicles, plays, and romances. It +has the wild vigor and luxuriance of the forests +of my native country, which, however savage and +entangled, are more captivating to my imagination +than the finest parks and cultivated woodlands.</p> + +<p>"As I live in the neighborhood of the library +of the Jesuits' College of St. Isidoro, I pass most +of my mornings there. You cannot think what +a delight I feel in passing through its galleries, +filled with old parchment-bound books. It is a +perfect wilderness of curiosity to me. What a +deep-felt, quiet luxury there is in delving into the +rich ore of these old, neglected volumes! How +these hours of uninterrupted intellectual enjoyment, +so tranquil and independent, repay one for +the <i>ennui</i> and disappointment too often experienced +in the intercourse of society! How they +serve to bring back the feelings into a harmonious +tone, after being jarred and put out of tune +by the collisions with the world!"</p></div> + +<p>With the romantic period of Spanish history +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_146" id="Pg_146" title="Pg_146">[146]</a></span>Irving was in ardent sympathy. The +story of the Saracens entranced his mind; +his imagination disclosed its Oriental quality +while he pored over the romance and +the ruin of that land of fierce contrasts, +of arid wastes beaten by the burning sun, +valleys blooming with intoxicating beauty, +cities of architectural splendor and picturesque +squalor. It is matter of regret that +he, who seemed to need the southern sun to +ripen his genius, never made a pilgrimage +into the East, and gave to the world pictures +of the lands that he would have touched +with the charm of their own color and the +witchery of their own romance.</p> + +<p>I will quote again from the letters, for +they reveal the man quite as well as the +more formal and better known writings. +His first sight of the Alhambra is given in +a letter to Mademoiselle Bollviller:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Our journey through La Mancha was cold +and uninteresting, excepting when we passed +through the scenes of some of the exploits of +Don Quixote. We were repaid, however, by a +night amidst the scenery of the Sierra Morena, +seen by the light of the full moon. I do not +know how this scenery would appear in the daytime, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_147" id="Pg_147" title="Pg_147">[147]</a></span>but by moonlight it is wonderfully wild and +romantic, especially after passing the summit of +the Sierra. As the day dawned we entered the +stern and savage defiles of the Despeña Perros, +which equals the wild landscapes of Salvator +Rosa. For some time we continued winding +along the brinks of precipices, overhung with +cragged and fantastic rocks; and after a succession +of such rude and sterile scenes we swept +down to Carolina, and found ourselves in another +climate. The orange-trees, the aloes, and +myrtle began to make their appearance; we felt +the warm temperature of the sweet South, and +began to breathe the balmy air of Andalusia. At +Andujar we were delighted with the neatness +and cleanliness of the houses, the <i>patios</i> planted +with orange and citron trees, and refreshed by +fountains. We passed a charming evening on the +banks of the famous Guadalquivir, enjoying the +mild, balmy air of a southern evening, and rejoicing +in the certainty that we were at length in +this land of promise....</p> + +<p>"But Granada, <i>bellissima</i> Granada! Think what +must have been our delight when, after passing +the famous bridge of Pinos, the scene of many a +bloody encounter between Moor and Christian, +and remarkable for having been the place where +Columbus was overtaken by the messenger of +Isabella, when about to abandon Spain in despair, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_148" id="Pg_148" title="Pg_148">[148]</a></span>we turned a promontory of the arid mountains +of Elvira, and Granada, with its towers, its +Alhambra, and its snowy mountains, burst upon +our sight! The evening sun shone gloriously +upon its red towers as we approached it, and +gave a mellow tone to the rich scenery of the +vega. It was like the magic glow which poetry +and romance have shed over this enchanting +place....</p> + +<p>"The more I contemplate these places, the +more my admiration is awakened for the elegant +habits and delicate taste of the Moorish monarchs. +The delicately ornamented walls; the +aromatic groves, mingling with the freshness and +the enlivening sounds of fountains and rivers of +water; the retired baths, bespeaking purity and +refinement; the balconies and galleries, open to +the fresh mountain breeze, and overlooking the +loveliest scenery of the valley of the Darro and +the magnificent expanse of the vega,—it is impossible +to contemplate this delicious abode and not +feel an admiration of the genius and the poetical +spirit of those who first devised this earthly paradise. +There is an intoxication of heart and soul +in looking over such scenery at this genial season. +All nature is just teeming with new life, +and putting on the first delicate verdure and +bloom of spring. The almond-trees are in +blossom; the fig-trees are beginning to sprout; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_149" id="Pg_149" title="Pg_149">[149]</a></span>everything is in the tender bud, the young leaf, +or the half-open flower. The beauty of the season +is but half developed, so that while there is +enough to yield present delight there is the flattering +promise of still further enjoyment. Good +heavens! after passing two years amidst the sunburnt +wastes of Castile, to be let loose to rove at +large over this fragrant and lovely land!"</p></div> + +<p>It was not easy, however, even in the +Alhambra, perfectly to call up the past:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The verity of the present checks and chills +the imagination in its picturings of the past. I +have been trying to conjure up images of Boabdil +passing in regal splendor through these courts; +of his beautiful queen; of the Abencerrages, the +Gomares, and the other Moorish cavaliers, who +once filled these halls with the glitter of arms +and the splendor of Oriental luxury; but I am +continually awakened from my reveries by the +jargon of an Andalusian peasant who is setting +out rose-bushes, and the song of a pretty Andalusian +girl who shows the Alhambra, and who is +chanting a little romance that has probably been +handed down from generation to generation since +the time of the Moors."</p></div> + +<p>In another letter, written from Seville, +he returns to the subject of the Moors. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_150" id="Pg_150" title="Pg_150">[150]</a></span>He is describing an excursion to Alcala de la +Guadayra:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Nothing can be more charming than the +windings of the little river among banks hanging +with gardens and orchards of all kinds of +delicate southern fruits, and tufted with flowers +and aromatic plants. The nightingales throng +this lovely little valley as numerously as they do +the gardens of Aranjuez. Every bend of the +river presents a new landscape, for it is beset +by old Moorish mills of the most picturesque +forms, each mill having an embattled tower,—a +memento of the valiant tenure by which those +gallant fellows, the Moors, held this earthly paradise, +having to be ready at all times for war, +and as it were to work with one hand and fight +with the other. It is impossible to travel about +Andalusia and not imbibe a kind feeling for +those Moors. They deserved this beautiful country. +They won it bravely; they enjoyed it generously +and kindly. No lover ever delighted +more to cherish and adorn a mistress, to heighten +and illustrate her charms, and to vindicate and +defend her against all the world than did the +Moors to embellish, enrich, elevate, and defend +their beloved Spain. Everywhere I meet traces +of their sagacity, courage, urbanity, high poetical +feeling, and elegant taste. The noblest institutions +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_151" id="Pg_151" title="Pg_151">[151]</a></span>in this part of Spain, the best inventions +for comfortable and agreeable living, and all +those habitudes and customs which throw a peculiar +and Oriental charm over the Andalusian +mode of living may be traced to the Moors. +Whenever I enter these beautiful marble <i>patios</i>, +set out with shrubs and flowers, refreshed by +fountains, sheltered with awnings from the sun; +where the air is cool at noonday, the ear delighted +in sultry summer by the sound of falling +water; where, in a word, a little paradise is shut +up within the walls of home, I think on the poor +Moors, the inventors of all these delights. I am +at times almost ready to join in sentiment with +a worthy friend and countryman of mine whom +I met in Malaga, who swears the Moors are the +only people that ever deserved the country, and +prays to Heaven that they may come over from +Africa and conquer it again."</p></div> + +<p>In a following paragraph we get a glimpse +of a world, however, that the author loves +still more:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Tell me everything about the children. I +suppose the discreet princess will soon consider +it an indignity to be ranked among the number. +I am told she is growing with might and +main, and is determined not to stop until she is a +woman outright. I would give all the money +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_152" id="Pg_152" title="Pg_152">[152]</a></span>in my pocket to be with those dear little women +at the round table in the saloon, or on the grass-plot +in the garden, to tell them some marvelous +tales."</p></div> + +<p>And again:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Give my love to all my dear little friends +of the round table, from the discreet princess +down to the little blue-eyed boy. Tell <i>la petite +Marie</i> that I still remain true to her, though +surrounded by all the beauties of Seville; and +that I swear (but this she must keep between +ourselves) that there is not a little woman to +compare with her in all Andalusia."</p></div> + +<p>The publication of "The Life of Columbus," +which had been delayed by Irving's +anxiety to secure historical accuracy in every +detail, did not take place till February, 1828. +For the English copyright Mr. Murray paid +him £3,150. He wrote an abridgment of +it, which he presented to his generous publisher, +and which was a very profitable book +(the first edition of ten thousand copies sold +immediately). This was followed by the +"Companions," and by "The Chronicle of +the Conquest of Granada," for which he received +two thousand guineas. "The Alhambra" +was not published till just before +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_153" id="Pg_153" title="Pg_153">[153]</a></span>Irving's return to America, in 1832, and was +brought out by Mr. Bentley, who bought it +for one thousand guineas.</p> + +<p>"The Conquest of Granada," which I am +told Irving in his latter years regarded as +the best of all his works, was declared by +Coleridge "a <i>chef-d'oeuvre</i> of its kind." I +think it bears re-reading as well as any of +the Spanish books. Of the reception of the +"Columbus" the author was very doubtful. +Before it was finished he wrote:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I have lost confidence in the favorable disposition +of my countrymen, and look forward to +cold scrutiny and stern criticism, and this is a +line of writing in which I have not hitherto ascertained +my own powers. Could I afford it, I +should like to write, and to lay my writings aside +when finished. There is an independent delight +in study and in the creative exercise of the pen; +we live in a world of dreams, but publication lets +in the noisy rabble of the world, and there is an +end of our dreaming."</p></div> + +<p>In a letter to Brevoort, February 23, 1828, +he fears that he can never regain</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"That delightful confidence which I once enjoyed +of not the good opinion, but the good will, +of my countrymen. To me it is always ten times +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_154" id="Pg_154" title="Pg_154">[154]</a></span>more gratifying to be liked than to be admired; +and I confess to you, though I am a little too +proud to confess it to the world, the idea that the +kindness of my countrymen toward me was withering +caused me for a long time the most weary +depression of spirits, and disheartened me from +making any literary exertions."</p></div> + +<p>It has been a popular notion that Irving's +career was uniformly one of ease. In this +same letter he exclaims: "With all my +exertions, I seem always to keep about up +to my chin in troubled water, while the +world, I suppose, thinks I am sailing smoothly, +with wind and tide in my favor."</p> + +<p>In a subsequent letter to Brevoort, dated +at Seville, December 26, 1828, occurs almost +the only piece of impatience and sarcasm +that this long correspondence affords. +"Columbus" had succeeded beyond his expectation, +and its popularity was so great +that some enterprising American had projected +an abridgment, which it seems would +not be protected by the copyright of the +original. Irving writes:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I have just sent to my brother an abridgment +of 'Columbus' to be published immediately, as I +find some paltry fellow is pirating an abridgment. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_155" id="Pg_155" title="Pg_155">[155]</a></span>Thus every line of life has its depredation. +'There be land rats and water rats, land pirates +and water pirates,—I mean thieves,' as old Shylock +says. I feel vexed at this shabby attempt +to purloin this work from me, it having really +cost me more toil and trouble than all my other +productions, and being one that I trusted would +keep me current with my countrymen; but we +are making rapid advances in literature in America, +and have already attained many of the literary +vices and diseases of the old countries of +Europe. We swarm with reviewers, though we +have scarce original works sufficient for them to +alight and prey upon, and we closely imitate all +the worst tricks of the trade and of the craft in +England. Our literature, before long, will be +like some of those premature and aspiring whipsters, +who become old men before they are young +ones, and fancy they prove their manhood by +their profligacy and their diseases."</p></div> + +<p>But the work had an immediate, continued, +and deserved success. It was critically +contrasted with Robertson's account of +Columbus, and it is open to the charge of +too much rhetorical color here and there, +and it is at times too diffuse; but its substantial +accuracy is not questioned, and the +glow of the narrative springs legitimately +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_156" id="Pg_156" title="Pg_156">[156]</a></span>from the romance of the theme. Irving understood, +what our later historians have +fully appreciated, the advantage of vivid +individual portraiture in historical narrative. +His conception of the character and +mission of Columbus is largely outlined, but +firmly and most carefully executed, and is +one of the noblest in literature. I cannot +think it idealized, though it required a poetic +sensibility to enter into sympathy with +the magnificent dreamer, who was regarded +by his own generation as the fool of an +idea. A more prosaic treatment would have +utterly failed to represent that mind, which +existed from boyhood in an ideal world, and, +amid frustrated hopes, shattered plans, and +ignoble returns for his sacrifices, could always +rebuild its glowing projects, and conquer +obloquy and death itself with immortal +anticipations.</p> + +<p>Towards the close of his residence in +Spain, Irving received unexpectedly the appointment +of Secretary of Legation to the +Court of St. James, at which Louis McLane +was American Minister; and after some +hesitation, and upon the urgency of his +friends, he accepted it. He was in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_157" id="Pg_157" title="Pg_157">[157]</a></span>thick of literary projects. One of these +was the History of the Conquest of Mexico, +which he afterwards surrendered to +Mr. Prescott and another was the "Life of +Washington," which was to wait many years +for fulfillment. His natural diffidence and +his reluctance to a routine life made him +shrink from the diplomatic appointment; +but once engaged in it, and launched again +in London society, he was reconciled to the +situation. Of honors there was no lack, +nor of the adulation of social and literary +circles. In April, 1830, the Royal Society +of Literature awarded him one of the two +annual gold medals placed at the disposal +of the society by George IV., to be given to +authors of literary works of eminent merit, +the other being voted to the historian Hallam; +and this distinction was followed by +the degree of D.C.L. from the University +of Oxford,—a title which the modest author +never used.</p> + + +<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a></div> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_158" id="Pg_158" title="Pg_158">[158]</a></span></div> + +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.<br /></h2> + +<h3>RETURN TO AMERICA: SUNNYSIDE:<br /> +THE MISSION TO MADRID.<br /><br /></h3> + + +<p>In 1831 Mr. Irving was thrown, by his +diplomatic position, into the thick of the +political and social tumult, when the Reform +Bill was pending and war was expected +in Europe. It is interesting to note +that for a time he laid aside his attitude of +the dispassionate observer, and caught the +general excitement. He writes in March, +expecting that the fate of the cabinet will +be determined in a week, looking daily for +decisive news from Paris, and fearing dismal +tidings from Poland. "However," he +goes on to say in a vague way, "the great +cause of all the world will go on. What a +stirring moment it is to live in! I never +took such intense interest in newspapers. +It seems to me as if life were breaking out +anew with me, or that I were entering upon +quite a new and almost unknown career of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_159" id="Pg_159" title="Pg_159">[159]</a></span>existence, and I rejoice to find my sensibilities, +which were waning as to many objects +of past interest, reviving with all their +freshness and vivacity at the scenes and +prospects opening around me." He expects +the breaking of the thralldom of falsehood +woven over the human mind; and, more +definitely, hopes that the Reform Bill will +prevail. Yet he is oppressed by the gloom +hanging over the booksellers' trade, which +he thinks will continue until reform and cholera +have passed away.</p> + +<p>During the last months of his residence in +England, the author renewed his impressions +of Stratford (the grateful landlady of +the Red Horse Inn showed him a poker +which was locked up among the treasures of +her house, on which she had caused to be +engraved "Geoffrey Crayon's Sceptre"); +spent some time at Newstead Abbey; and +had the sorrowful pleasure in London of seeing +Scott once more, and for the last time. +The great novelist, in the sad eclipse of his +powers, was staying in the city, on his way +to Italy, and Mr. Lockhart asked Irving to +dine with him. It was but a melancholy +repast. "Ah," said Scott, as Irving gave +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_160" id="Pg_160" title="Pg_160">[160]</a></span>him his arm, after dinner, "the times are +changed, my good fellow, since we went +over the Eildon Hills together. It is all +nonsense to tell a man that his mind is not +affected when his body is in this state."</p> + +<p>Irving retired from the legation in September, +1831, to return home, the longing +to see his native land having become intense; +but his arrival in New York was +delayed till May, 1832.</p> + +<p>If he had any doubts of the sentiments of +his countrymen toward him, his reception +in New York dissipated them. America +greeted her most famous literary man with +a spontaneous outburst of love and admiration. +The public banquet in New York, +that was long remembered for its brilliancy, +was followed by the tender of the same +tribute in other cities,—an honor which his +unconquerable shrinking from this kind of +publicity compelled him to decline. The +"Dutch Herodotus, Diedrich Knickerbocker," +to use the phrase of a toast, having come +out of one such encounter with fair credit, +did not care to tempt Providence further. +The thought of making a dinner-table +speech threw him into a sort of whimsical +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_161" id="Pg_161" title="Pg_161">[161]</a></span>panic,—a noble infirmity, which characterized +also Hawthorne and Thackeray.</p> + +<p>The enthusiasm manifested for the homesick +author was equaled by his own for the +land and the people he supremely loved. +Nor was his surprise at the progress made +during seventeen years less than his delight +in it. His native place had become a city +of two hundred thousand inhabitants; the +accumulation of wealth and the activity of +trade astonished him, and the literary stir +was scarcely less unexpected. The steamboat +had come to be used, so that he seemed +to be transported from place to place by +magic; and on a near view the politics of +America seemed not less interesting than +those of Europe. The nullification battle +was set; the currency conflict still raged; +it was a time of inflation and land speculation; +the West, every day more explored +and opened, was the land of promise for +capital and energy. Fortunes were made +in a day by buying lots in "paper towns." +Into some of these speculations Irving put +his savings; the investments were as permanent +as they were unremunerative.</p> + +<p>Irving's first desire, however, on his recovery +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_162" id="Pg_162" title="Pg_162">[162]</a></span>from the state of astonishment into +which these changes plunged him, was to +make himself thoroughly acquainted with +the entire country and its development. To +this end he made an extended tour in the +South and West, which passed beyond the +bounds of frontier settlement. The fruit of +his excursion into the Pawnee country, on +the waters of the Arkansas, a region untraversed +by white men, except solitary +trappers, was "A Tour on the Prairies," a +sort of romance of reality, which remains +to-day as good a description as we have of +hunting adventure on the plains. It led +also to the composition of other books on +the West, which were more or less mere +pieces of book-making for the market.</p> + +<p>Our author was far from idle. Indeed, he +could not afford to be. Although he had +received considerable sums from his books, +and perhaps enough for his own simple +wants, the responsibility of the support of +his two brothers, Peter and Ebenezer, and +several nieces, devolved upon him. And, +besides, he had a longing to make himself a +home, where he could pursue his calling undisturbed, +and indulge the sweets of domestic +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_163" id="Pg_163" title="Pg_163">[163]</a></span>and rural life, which of all things lay +nearest his heart. And these two undertakings +compelled him to be diligent with +his pen to the end of his life. The spot he +chose for his "Roost" was a little farm on +the bank of the river at Tarrytown, close +to his old Sleepy Hollow haunt, one of the +loveliest, if not the most picturesque, situations +on the Hudson. At first he intended +nothing more than a summer retreat, inexpensive +and simply furnished. But his experience +was that of all who buy, and renovate, +and build. The farm had on it a +small stone Dutch cottage, built about a +century before, and inhabited by one of the +Van Tassels. This was enlarged, still preserving +the quaint Dutch characteristics; it +acquired a tower and a whimsical weathercock, +the delight of the owner ("it was +brought from Holland by Gill Davis, the +King of Coney Island, who says he got it +from a windmill which they were demolishing +at the gate of Rotterdam, which windmill +has been mentioned in 'Knickerbocker'"), +and became one of the most snug +and picturesque residences on the river. +When the slip of Melrose ivy, which was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_164" id="Pg_164" title="Pg_164">[164]</a></span>brought over from Scotland by Mrs. Renwick +and given to the author, had grown +and well overrun it, the house, in the midst +of sheltering groves and secluded walks, was +as pretty a retreat as a poet could desire. +But the little nook proved to have an insatiable +capacity for swallowing up money, as +the necessities of the author's establishment +increased: there was always something to +be done to the grounds; some alterations in +the house; a green-house, a stable, a gardener's +cottage, to be built,—and to the +very end the outlay continued. The cottage +necessitated economy in other personal expenses, +and incessant employment of his pen. +But Sunnyside, as the place was named, became +the dearest spot on earth to him; it +was his residence, from which he tore himself +with reluctance, and to which he returned +with eager longing; and here, surrounded by +relatives whom he loved, he passed nearly all +the remainder of his years, in as happy conditions, +I think, as a bachelor ever enjoyed. +His intellectual activity was unremitting, +he had no lack of friends, there was only +now and then a discordant note in the general +estimation of his literary work, and he +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_165" id="Pg_165" title="Pg_165">[165]</a></span>was the object of the most tender care from +his nieces. Already, he writes, in October, +1838, "my little cottage is well stocked. +I have Ebenezer's five girls, and himself +also, whenever he can be spared from town; +sister Catherine and her daughter; Mr. +Davis occasionally, with casual visits from +all the rest of our family connection. The +cottage, therefore, is never lonely." I like +to dwell in thought upon this happy home, +a real haven of rest after many wanderings; +a seclusion broken only now and then by +enforced absence, like that in Madrid as +minister, but enlivened by many welcome +guests. Perhaps the most notorious of these +was a young Frenchman, a "somewhat quiet +guest," who, after several months' imprisonment +on board a French man-of-war, was +set on shore at Norfolk, and spent a couple +of months in New York and its vicinity, in +1837. This visit was vividly recalled to Irving +in a letter to his sister, Mrs. Storrow, +who was in Paris in 1853, and had just +been presented at court:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Louis Napoleon and Eugénie Montijo, Emperor +and Empress of France! one of whom I +have had a guest at my cottage on the Hudson; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_166" id="Pg_166" title="Pg_166">[166]</a></span>the other, whom, when a child, I have had on +my knee at Granada. It seems to cap the climax +of the strange dramas of which Paris has +been the theatre during my life-time. I have repeatedly +thought that each grand <i>coup de théâtre</i> +would be the last that would occur in my time; +but each has been succeeded by another equally +striking; and what will be the next, who can +conjecture?</p> + +<p>"The last time I saw Eugénie Montijo she was +one of the reigning belles of Madrid; and she +and her giddy circle had swept away my charming +young friend, the beautiful and accomplished +—— ——, into their career of fashionable dissipation. +Now Eugénie is upon a throne, and +—— a voluntary recluse in a convent of one of +the most rigorous orders! Poor ——! Perhaps, +however, her fate may ultimately be the +happiest of the two. 'The storm' with her 'is +o'er, and she's at rest;' but the other is launched +upon a returnless shore, on a dangerous sea, infamous +for its tremendous shipwrecks. Am I to +live to see the catastrophe of her career, and the +end of this suddenly conjured-up empire, which +seems to be of 'such stuff as dreams are made +of'?"</p></div> + +<p>As we have seen, the large sums Irving +earned by his pen were not spent in selfish +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_167" id="Pg_167" title="Pg_167">[167]</a></span>indulgence. His habits and tastes were +simple, and little would have sufficed for +his individual needs. He cared not much +for money, and seemed to want it only to +increase the happiness of those who were confided +to his care. A man less warm-hearted +and more selfish, in his circumstances, would +have settled down to a life of more ease and +less responsibility.</p> + +<p>To go back to the period of his return to +America. He was now past middle life, +having returned to New York in his fiftieth +year. But he was in the full flow of literary +productiveness. I have noted the dates +of his achievements, because his development +was somewhat tardy compared with +that of many of his contemporaries; but +he had the "staying" qualities. The first +crop of his mind was of course the most +original; time and experience had toned +down his exuberant humor; but the spring +of his fancy was as free, his vigor was not +abated, and his art was more refined. +Some of his best work was yet to be done. +And it is worthy of passing mention, in regard +to his later productions, that his admirable +sense of literary proportion, which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_168" id="Pg_168" title="Pg_168">[168]</a></span>is wanting in many good writers, characterized +his work to the end.</p> + +<p>High as his position was as a man of letters +at this time, the consideration in which +he was held was much broader than that,—it +was that of one of the first citizens of the +Republic. His friends, readers, and admirers +were not merely the literary class and the +general public, but included nearly all the +prominent statesmen of the time. Almost +any career in public life would have been +open to him if he had lent an ear to their +solicitations. But political life was not to +his taste, and it would have been fatal to his +sensitive spirit. It did not require much +self-denial, perhaps, to decline the candidacy +for mayor of New York, or the honor +of standing for Congress; but he put aside +also the distinction of a seat in Mr. Van +Buren's Cabinet as Secretary of the Navy. +His main reason for declining it, aside from +a diffidence in his own judgment in public +matters, was his dislike of the turmoil of +political life in Washington, and his sensitiveness +to personal attacks which beset the +occupants of high offices. But he also had +come to a political divergence with Mr. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_169" id="Pg_169" title="Pg_169">[169]</a></span>Van Buren. He liked the man,—he liked +almost everybody,—and esteemed him as a +friend, but he apprehended trouble from the +new direction of the party in power. Irving +was almost devoid of party prejudice, +and he never seemed to have strongly +marked political opinions. Perhaps his +nearest confession to a creed is contained in +a letter he wrote to a member of the House +of Representatives, Gouverneur Kemble, a +little time before the offer of a position in +the cabinet, in which he said that he did +not relish some points of Van Buren's policy, +nor believe in the honesty of some of +his elbow counselors. I quote a passage +from it:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"As far as I know my own mind, I am thoroughly +a republican, and attached, from complete +conviction, to the institutions of my country; +but I am a republican without gall, and have no +bitterness in my creed. I have no relish for Puritans, +either in religion or politics, who are for +pushing principles to an extreme, and for overturning +everything that stands in the way of +their own zealous career.... Ours is a government +of compromise. We have several great +and distinct interests bound up together, which, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_170" id="Pg_170" title="Pg_170">[170]</a></span>if not separately consulted and severally accommodated +may harass and impair each other.... I +always distrust the soundness of political +councils that are accompanied by acrimonious +and disparaging attacks upon any great class of +our fellow-citizens. Such are those urged to the +disadvantage of the great trading and financial +classes of our country."</p></div> + +<p>During the ten years preceding his mission +to Spain, Irving kept fagging away at +the pen, doing a good deal of miscellaneous +and ephemeral work. Among his other engagements +was that of regular contributor +to the "Knickerbocker Magazine," for a salary +of two thousand dollars. He wrote the +editor that he had observed that man, as he +advances in life, is subject to a plethora of +the mind, occasioned by an accumulation of +wisdom upon the brain, and that he becomes +fond of telling long stories and doling +out advice, to the annoyance of his friends. +To avoid becoming the bore of the domestic +circle, he proposed to ease off this surcharge +of the intellect by inflicting his tediousness +on the public through the pages of +the periodical. The arrangement brought +reputation to the magazine (which was published +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_171" id="Pg_171" title="Pg_171">[171]</a></span>in the days when the honor of being +in print was supposed by the publisher to +be ample compensation to the scribe), but +little profit to Mr. Irving. During this +period he interested himself in an international +copyright, as a means of fostering our +young literature. He found that a work of +merit, written by an American who had not +established a commanding name in the market, +met very cavalier treatment from our +publishers, who frankly said that they need +not trouble themselves about native works, +when they could pick up every day successful +books from the British press, for which +they had to pay no copyright. Irving's advocacy +of the proposed law was entirely unselfish, +for his own market was secure.</p> + +<p>His chief works in these ten years were, +"A Tour on the Prairies," "Recollections +of Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey," "The +Legends of the Conquest of Spain," "Astoria" +(the heavy part of the work of it +was done by his nephew Pierre), "Captain +Bonneville," and a number of graceful occasional +papers, collected afterwards under +the title of "Wolfert's Roost." Two other +books may properly be mentioned here, although +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_172" id="Pg_172" title="Pg_172">[172]</a></span>they did not appear until after his +return from his absence of four years and a +half at the court of Madrid; these are the +"Biography of Goldsmith" and "Mahomet +and his Successors." At the age of sixty-six, +he laid aside the "Life of Washington," +on which he was engaged, and rapidly +"threw off" these two books. The "Goldsmith" +was enlarged from a sketch he had +made twenty-five years before. It is an exquisite, +sympathetic piece of work, without +pretension or any subtle verbal analysis, +but on the whole an excellent interpretation +of the character. Author and subject +had much in common: Irving had at least +a kindly sympathy for the vagabondish inclinations +of his predecessor, and with his +humorous and cheerful regard of the world; +perhaps it is significant of a deeper unity in +character that both, at times, fancied they +could please an intolerant world by attempting +to play the flute. The "Mahomet" is +a popular narrative, which throws no new +light on the subject; it is pervaded by the +author's charm of style and equity of judgment, +but it lacks the virility of Gibbon's +masterly picture of the Arabian prophet and +the Saracenic onset.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_173" id="Pg_173" title="Pg_173">[173]</a></span>We need not dwell longer upon this period. +One incident of it, however, cannot +be passed in silence: that was the abandonment +of his life-long project of writing the +History of the Conquest of Mexico to Mr. +William H. Prescott. It had been a scheme +of his boyhood; he had made collections of +materials for it during his first residence +in Spain; and he was actually and absorbedly +engaged in the composition of the first +chapters, when he was sounded by Mr. Cogswell, +of the Astor Library, in behalf of Mr. +Prescott. Some conversation showed that +Mr. Prescott was contemplating the subject +upon which Mr. Irving was engaged, and +the latter instantly authorized Mr. Cogswell +to say that he abandoned it. Although our +author was somewhat far advanced, and Mr. +Prescott had not yet collected his materials, +Irving renounced the glorious theme in such +a manner that Prescott never suspected the +pain and loss it cost him, nor the full extent +of his own obligation. Some years afterwards +Irving wrote to his nephew that in +giving it up he in a manner gave up his +bread, as he had no other subject to supply +its place: "I was," he wrote, "dismounted +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_174" id="Pg_174" title="Pg_174">[174]</a></span>from my <i>cheval de bataille</i>, and have never +been completely mounted since." But he +added that he was not sorry for the warm +impulse that induced him to abandon the +subject, and that Mr. Prescott's treatment +of it had justified his opinion of him. Notwithstanding +Prescott's very brilliant work, +we cannot but feel some regret that Irving +did not write a Conquest of Mexico. His +method, as he outlined it, would have been +the natural one. Instead of partially satisfying +the reader's curiosity in a preliminary +essay, in which the Aztec civilization was +exposed, Irving would have begun with the +entry of the conquerors, and carried his +reader step by step onward, letting him +share all the excitement and surprise of discovery +which the invaders experienced, and +learn of the wonders of the country in the +manner most likely to impress both the imagination +and the memory; and with his +artistic sense of the value of the picturesque +he would have brought into strong relief the +<i>dramatis personæ</i> of the story.</p> + +<p>In 1842, Irving was tendered the honor +of the mission to Madrid. It was an entire +surprise to himself and to his friends. He +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_175" id="Pg_175" title="Pg_175">[175]</a></span>came to look upon this as the "crowning +honor of his life," and yet when the news +first reached him he paced up and down +his room, excited and astonished, revolving +in his mind the separation from home and +friends, and was heard murmuring, half to +himself and half to his nephew, "It is hard,—very +hard; yet I must try to bear it. +God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." +His acceptance of the position was doubtless +influenced by the intended honor to +his profession, by the gratifying manner +in which it came to him, by his desire to +please his friends, and the belief, which was +a delusion, that diplomatic life in Madrid +would offer no serious interruption to his +"Life of Washington," in which he had just +become engaged. The nomination, the suggestion +of Daniel Webster, Tyler's Secretary +of State, was cordially approved by the +President and cabinet, and confirmed almost +by acclamation in the Senate. "Ah," said +Mr. Clay, who was opposing nearly all the +President's appointments, "this is a nomination +everybody will concur in!" "If a +person of more merit and higher qualification," +wrote Mr. Webster in his official notification, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_176" id="Pg_176" title="Pg_176">[176]</a></span>"had presented himself, great as +is my personal regard for you, I should have +yielded it to higher considerations." No +other appointment could have been made so +complimentary to Spain, and it remains to +this day one of the most honorable to his +own country.</p> + +<p>In reading Irving's letters written during +his third visit abroad, you are conscious +that the glamour of life is gone for him, +though not his kindliness towards the world, +and that he is subject to few illusions; the +show and pageantry no longer enchant,—they +only weary. The novelty was gone, +and he was no longer curious to see great +sights and great people. He had declined a +public dinner in New York, and he put aside +the same hospitality offered by Liverpool +and by Glasgow. In London he attended +the Queen's grand fancy ball, which surpassed +anything he had seen in splendor +and picturesque effect. "The personage," +he writes, "who appeared least to enjoy the +scene seemed to me to be the little Queen +herself. She was flushed and heated, and +evidently fatigued and oppressed with the +state she had to keep up and the regal robes +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_177" id="Pg_177" title="Pg_177">[177]</a></span>in which she was arrayed, and especially by +a crown of gold, which weighed heavy on +her brow, and to which she was continually +raising her hand to move it slightly when it +pressed. I hope and trust her real crown +sits easier." The bearing of Prince Albert +he found prepossessing, and he adds, "He +speaks English very well;" as if that were a +useful accomplishment for an English Prince +Consort. His reception at court and by +the ministers and diplomatic corps was very +kind, and he greatly enjoyed meeting his +old friends, Leslie, Rogers, and Moore. At +Paris, in an informal presentation to the +royal family, he experienced a very cordial +welcome from the King and Queen and +Madame Adelaide, each of whom took occasion +to say something complimentary about +his writings; but he escaped as soon as possible +from social engagements. "Amidst +all the splendors of London and Paris, I find +my imagination refuses to take fire, and my +heart still yearns after dear little Sunnyside." +Of an anxious friend in Paris, who +thought Irving was ruining his prospects by +neglecting to leave his card with this or +that duchess who had sought his acquaintance, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_178" id="Pg_178" title="Pg_178">[178]</a></span>he writes: "He attributes all this to +very excessive modesty, not dreaming that +the empty intercourse of saloons with people +of rank and fashion could be a bore to one +who has run the rounds of society for the +greater part of half a century, and who likes +to consult his own humor and pursuits."</p> + +<p>When Irving reached Madrid the affairs +of the kingdom had assumed a powerful +dramatic interest, wanting in none of the +romantic elements that characterize the +whole history of the peninsula. "The future +career [he writes] of this gallant soldier, +Espartero, whose merits and services +have placed him at the head of the government, +and the future fortunes of these isolated +little princesses, the Queen and her +sister, have an uncertainty hanging about +them worthy of the fifth act in a melodrama." +The drama continued, with constant +shifting of scene, as long as Irving remained +in Spain, and gave to his diplomatic +life intense interest, and at times perilous +excitement. His letters are full of animated +pictures of the changing progress of the +play; and although they belong rather to the +gossip of history than to literary biography, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_179" id="Pg_179" title="Pg_179">[179]</a></span>they cannot be altogether omitted. The +duties which the minister had to perform +were unusual, delicate, and difficult; but I +believe he acquitted himself of them with the +skill of a born diplomatist. When he went +to Spain before, in 1826, Ferdinand VII. +was, by aid of French troops, on the throne, +the liberties of the kingdom were crushed, +and her most enlightened men were in exile. +While he still resided there, in 1829, Ferdinand +married, for his fourth wife, Maria +Christina, sister of the King of Naples, and +niece of the Queen of Louis Philippe. By +her he had two daughters, his only children. +In order that his own progeny might +succeed him, he set aside the Salique law +(which had been imposed by France) just +before his death, in 1833, and revived the +old Spanish law of succession. His eldest +daughter, then three years old, was proclaimed +Queen, by the name of Isabella II., +and her mother guardian during her minority, +which would end at the age of fourteen. +Don Carlos, the king's eldest brother, immediately +set up the standard of rebellion, +supported by the absolutist aristocracy, the +monks, and a great part of the clergy. The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_180" id="Pg_180" title="Pg_180">[180]</a></span>liberals rallied to the Queen. The Queen +Regent did not, however, act in good faith +with the popular party: she resisted all +salutary reform, would not restore the Constitution +of 1812 until compelled to by a +popular uprising, and disgraced herself by +a scandalous connection with one Muños, +one of the royal body guards. She enriched +this favorite and amassed a vast fortune for +herself, which she sent out of the country. +In 1839, when Don Carlos was driven out +of the country by the patriot soldier Espartero, +she endeavored to gain him over to +her side, but failed. Espartero became Regent, +and Maria Christina repaired to Paris, +where she was received with great distinction +by Louis Philippe, and Paris became +the focus of all sorts of machinations against +the constitutional government of Spain, and +of plots for its overthrow. One of these +had just been defeated at the time of Irving's +arrival. It was a desperate attempt +of a band of soldiers of the rebel army to +carry off the little Queen and her sister, +which was frustrated only by the gallant +resistance of the halberdiers in the palace. +The little princesses had scarcely recovered +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_181" id="Pg_181" title="Pg_181">[181]</a></span>from the horror of this night attack when +our minister presented his credentials to +the Queen through the Regent, thus breaking +a diplomatic dead-lock, in which he was +followed by all the other embassies except +the French. I take some passages from the +author's description of his first audience at +the royal palace:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"We passed through the spacious court, up the +noble staircase, and through the long suites of +apartments of this splendid edifice, most of them +silent and vacant, the casements closed to keep +out the heat, so that a twilight reigned throughout +the mighty pile, not a little emblematical of +the dubious fortunes of its inmates. It seemed +more like traversing a convent than a palace. I +ought to have mentioned that in ascending the +grand staircase we found the portal at the head +of it, opening into the royal suite of apartments, +still bearing the marks of the midnight attack +upon the palace in October last, when an attempt +was made to get possession of the persons +of the little Queen and her sister, to carry them +off.... The marble casements of the doors had +been shattered in several places, and the double +doors themselves pierced all over with bullet holes, +from the musketry that played upon them from +the staircase during that eventful night. What +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_182" id="Pg_182" title="Pg_182">[182]</a></span>must have been the feelings of those poor children, +on listening, from their apartment, to the +horrid tumult, the outcries of a furious multitude, +and the reports of fire-arms echoing and reverberating +through the vaulted halls and spacious +courts of this immense edifice, and dubious +whether their own lives were not the object of +the assault!</p> + +<p>"After passing through various chambers of +the palace, now silent and sombre, but which I +had traversed in former days, on grand court occasions +in the time of Ferdinand VII., when they +were glittering with all the splendor of a court, +we paused in a great saloon, with high-vaulted +ceiling incrusted with florid devices in porcelain, +and hung with silken tapestry, but all in dim +twilight, like the rest of the palace. At one end +of the saloon the door opened to an almost interminable +range of other chambers, through which, +at a distance, we had a glimpse of some indistinct +figures in black. They glided into the +saloon slowly, and with noiseless steps. It was +the little Queen, with her governess, Madame +Mina, widow of the general of that name, and +her guardian, the excellent Arguelles, all in deep +mourning for the Duke of Orleans. The little +Queen advanced some steps within the saloon and +then paused. Madame Mina took her station +a little distance behind her. The Count Almodovar +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_183" id="Pg_183" title="Pg_183">[183]</a></span>then introduced me to the Queen in my +official capacity, and she received me with a +grave and quiet welcome, expressed in a very +low voice. She is nearly twelve years of age, +and is sufficiently well grown for her years. She +had a somewhat fair complexion, quite pale, with +bluish or light gray eyes; a grave demeanor, +but a graceful deportment. I could not but regard +her with deep interest, knowing what important +concerns depended upon the life of this +fragile little being, and to what a stormy and +precarious career she might be destined. Her +solitary position, also, separated from all her +kindred except her little sister, a mere effigy of +royalty in the hands of statesmen, and surrounded +by the formalities and ceremonials of state, +which spread sterility around the occupant of a +throne."</p></div> + +<p>I have quoted this passage not more on +account of its intrinsic interest, than as a +specimen of the author's consummate art of +conveying an impression by what I may call +the tone of his style; and this appears in +all his correspondence relating to this picturesque +and eventful period. During the +four years of his residence the country was +in a constant state of excitement and often +of panic. Armies were marching over the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_184" id="Pg_184" title="Pg_184">[184]</a></span>kingdom. Madrid was in a state of siege, +expecting an assault at one time; confusion +reigned amid the changing adherents about +the person of the child Queen. The duties +of a minister were perplexing enough, when +the Spanish government was changing its +character and its <i>personnel</i> with the rapidity +of shifting scenes in a pantomime. "This +consumption of ministers," wrote Irving to +Mr. Webster, "is appalling. To carry on +a negotiation with such transient functionaries +is like bargaining at the window of +a railroad car: before you can get a reply +to a proposition the other party is out of +sight."</p> + +<p>Apart from politics, Irving's residence +was full of half-melancholy recollections +and associations. In a letter to his old +comrade Prince Dolgorouki, then Russian +Minister at Naples, he recalls the days of +their delightful intercourse at the D'Oubrils:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Time dispels charms and illusions. You remember +how much I was struck with a beautiful +young woman (I will not mention names) who +appeared in a tableau as Murillo's Virgin of the +Assumption? She was young, recently married, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_185" id="Pg_185" title="Pg_185">[185]</a></span>fresh and unhackneyed in society, and my imagination +decked her out with everything that +was pure, lovely, innocent, and angelic in womanhood. +She was pointed out to me in the +theatre shortly after my arrival in Madrid. I +turned with eagerness to the original of the +picture that had ever remained hung up in sanctity +in my mind. I found her still handsome, +though somewhat matronly in appearance, seated, +<i>with her daughters,</i> in the box of a fashionable +nobleman, younger than herself, rich in purse +but poor in intellect, and who was openly and notoriously +her <i>cavalier servante</i>. The charm was +broken, the picture fell from the wall. She may +have the customs of a depraved country and licentious +state of society to excuse her; but I can +never think of her again in the halo of feminine +purity and loveliness that surrounded the Virgin +of Murillo."</p></div> + +<p>During Irving's ministry he was twice +absent, briefly in Paris and London, and was +called to the latter place for consultation in +regard to the Oregon boundary dispute, in +the settlement of which he rendered valuable +service. Space is not given me for +further quotations from Irving's brilliant +descriptions of court, characters, and society +in that revolutionary time, nor of his half-melancholy +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_186" id="Pg_186" title="Pg_186">[186]</a></span>pilgrimage to the southern scenes +of his former reveries. But I will take a +page from a letter to his sister, Mrs. Paris, +describing his voyage from Barcelona to +Marseilles, which exhibits the lively susceptibility +of the author and diplomat who +was then in his sixty-first year:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"While I am writing at a table in the cabin, I +am sensible of the power of a pair of splendid +Spanish eyes which are occasionally flashing upon +me, and which almost seem to throw a light upon +the paper. Since I cannot break the spell, I will +describe the owner of them. She is a young +married lady, about four or five and twenty, middle +sized, finely modeled, a Grecian outline of +face, a complexion sallow yet healthful, raven +black hair, eyes dark, large, and beaming, softened +by long eyelashes, lips full and rosy red, +yet finely chiseled, and teeth of dazzling whiteness. +She is dressed in black, as if in mourning; +on one hand is a black glove; the other hand, +ungloved, is small, exquisitely formed, with taper +fingers and blue veins. She has just put it up +to adjust her clustering black locks. I never saw +female hand more exquisite. Really, if I were a +young man, I should not be able to draw the portrait +of this beautiful creature so calmly.</p> + +<p>"I was interrupted in my letter writing, by an +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_187" id="Pg_187" title="Pg_187">[187]</a></span>observation of the lady whom I was describing. +She had caught my eye occasionally, as it glanced +from my letter toward her. 'Really, Señor,' +said she, at length, with a smile, 'one would think +you were a painter taking my likeness.' I could +not resist the impulse. 'Indeed,' said I, 'I am +taking it; I am writing to a friend the other side +of the world, discussing things that are passing +before me, and I could not help noting down one +of the best specimens of the country that I had +met with.' A little bantering took place between +the young lady, her husband, and myself, which +ended in my reading off, as well as I could into +Spanish, the description I had just written down. +It occasioned a world of merriment, and was taken +in excellent part. The lady's cheek, for once, +mantled with the rose. She laughed, shook her +head, and said I was a very fanciful portrait +painter; and the husband declared that, if I would +stop at St. Filian, all the ladies in the place would +crowd to have their portraits taken,—my pictures +were so flattering. I have just parted with them. +The steamship stopped in the open sea, just in +front of the little bay of St. Filian; boats came +off from shore for the party. I helped the beautiful +original of the portrait into the boat, and +promised her and her husband if ever I should +come to St. Filian I would pay them a visit. The +last I noticed of her was a Spanish farewell wave +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_188" id="Pg_188" title="Pg_188">[188]</a></span>of her beautiful white hand, and the gleam of her +dazzling teeth as she smiled adieu. So there's +a very tolerable touch of romance for a gentleman +of my years."</p></div> + +<p>When Irving announced his recall from +the court of Madrid, the young Queen said +to him in reply: "You may take with you +into private life the intimate conviction that +your frank and loyal conduct has contributed +to draw closer the amicable relations +which exist between North America and the +Spanish nation, and that your distinguished +personal merits have gained in my heart +the appreciation which you merit by more +than one title." The author was anxious to +return. From the midst of court life in +April, 1845, he had written: "I long to be +once more back at dear little Sunnyside, +while I have yet strength and good spirits +to enjoy the simple pleasures of the country, +and to rally a happy family group once more +about me. I grudge every year of absence +that rolls by. To-morrow is my birthday. +I shall then be sixty-two years old. The +evening of life is fast drawing over me; still +I hope to get back among my friends while +there is a little sunshine left."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_189" id="Pg_189" title="Pg_189">[189]</a></span>It was the 19th of September, 1846, says +his biographer, "when the impatient longing +of his heart was gratified, and he found +himself restored to his home for the thirteen +years of happy life still remaining to +him."</p> + + +<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a></div> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_190" id="Pg_190" title="Pg_190">[190]</a></span></div> + +<h2>CHAPTER IX.<br /></h2> + +<h3>THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS.<br /><br /></h3> + + +<p>The Knickerbocker's "History of New +York" and the "Sketch-Book" never would +have won for Irving the gold medal of the +Royal Society of Literature, or the degree +of D.C.L. from Oxford.</p> + +<p>However much the world would have +liked frankly to honor the writer for that +which it most enjoyed and was under most +obligations for, it would have been a violent +shock to the constitution of things to +have given such honor to the mere humorist +and the writer of short sketches. The +conventional literary proprieties must be +observed. Only some laborious, solid, and +improving work of the pen could sanction +such distinction,—a book of research or an +historical composition. It need not necessarily +be dull, but it must be grave in tone +and serious in intention, in order to give +the author high recognition.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_191" id="Pg_191" title="Pg_191">[191]</a></span>Irving himself shared this opinion. He +hoped, in the composition of his "Columbus" +and his "Washington," to produce +works which should justify the good opinion +his countrymen had formed of him, should +reasonably satisfy the expectations excited +by his lighter books, and lay for him the +basis of enduring reputation. All that he +had done before was the play of careless +genius, the exercise of frolicsome fancy, +which might amuse and perhaps win an affectionate +regard for the author, but could +not justify a high respect or secure a permanent +place in literature. For this, some +work of scholarship and industry was +needed.</p> + +<p>And yet everybody would probably have +admitted that there was but one man then +living who could have created and peopled +the vast and humorous world of the Knickerbockers; +that all the learning of Oxford and +Cambridge together would not enable a man +to draw the whimsical portrait of Ichabod +Crane, or to outline the fascinating legend +of Rip Van Winkle; while Europe was full +of scholars of more learning than Irving, +and writers of equal skill in narrative, who +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_192" id="Pg_192" title="Pg_192">[192]</a></span>might have told the story of Columbus as +well as he told it and perhaps better. The +under-graduates of Oxford who hooted their +admiration of the shy author when he appeared +in the theatre to receive his complimentary +degree perhaps understood this, +and expressed it in their shouts of "Diedrich +Knickerbocker," "Ichabod Crane," +"Rip Van Winkle."</p> + +<p>Irving's "gift" was humor; and allied to +this was sentiment. These qualities modified +and restrained each other; and it was +by these that he touched the heart. He +acquired other powers which he himself +may have valued more highly, and which +brought him more substantial honors; but +the historical compositions, which he and +his contemporaries regarded as a solid basis +of fame, could be spared without serious +loss, while the works of humor, the first +fruits of his genius, are possessions in English +literature the loss of which would be +irreparable. The world may never openly +allow to humor a position "above the salt," +but it clings to its fresh and original productions, +generation after generation, finding +room for them in its accumulating literary +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_193" id="Pg_193" title="Pg_193">[193]</a></span>baggage, while more "important" tomes of +scholarship and industry strew the line of +its march.</p> + +<p>I feel that this study of Irving as a man +of letters would be incomplete, especially +for the young readers of this generation, if +it did not contain some more extended citations +from those works upon which we have +formed our estimate of his quality. We +will take first a few passages from the "History +of New York."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It has been said that Irving lacked imagination. +That, while he had humor and +feeling and fancy, he was wanting in the +higher quality, which is the last test of genius. +We have come to attach to the word +"imagination" a larger meaning than the +mere reproduction in the mind of certain +absent objects of sense that have been perceived; +there must be a suggestion of something +beyond these, and an ennobling suggestion, +if not a combination, that amounts +to a new creation. Now, it seems to me +that the transmutation of the crude and +theretofore unpoetical materials, which he +found in the New World, into what is as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_194" id="Pg_194" title="Pg_194">[194]</a></span>absolute a creation as exists in literature, +was a distinct work of the imagination. Its +humorous quality does not interfere with its +largeness of outline, nor with its essential +poetic coloring. For, whimsical and comical +as is the "Knickerbocker" creation, it +is enlarged to the proportion of a realm, +and over that new country of the imagination +is always the rosy light of sentiment.</p> + +<p>This largeness of modified conception +cannot be made apparent in such brief extracts +as we can make, but they will show +its quality and the author's humor. The +Low-Dutch settlers of the Nieuw Nederlandts +are supposed to have sailed from +Amsterdam in a ship called the Goede +Vrouw, built by the carpenters of that city, +who always model their ships on the fair +forms of their countrywomen. This vessel, +whose beauteous model was declared to be +the greatest belle in Amsterdam, had one +hundred feet in the beam, one hundred feet +in the keel, and one hundred feet from the +bottom of the stern-post to the taffrail. +Those illustrious adventurers who sailed in +her landed on the Jersey flats, preferring a +marshy ground, where they could drive +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_195" id="Pg_195" title="Pg_195">[195]</a></span>piles and construct dykes. They made a +settlement at the Indian village of Communipaw, +the egg from which was hatched the +mighty city of New York. In the author's +time this place had lost its importance:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Communipaw is at present but a small village +pleasantly situated, among rural scenery, +on that beauteous part of the Jersey shore which +was known in ancient legends by the name of +Pavonia,<a name="FNanchor_1_5" id="FNanchor_1_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_5" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> and commands a grand prospect of the +superb bay of New York. It is within but half +an hour's sail of the latter place, provided you +have a fair wind, and may be distinctly seen from +the city. Nay, it is a well-known fact, which I +can testify from my own experience, that on a +clear still summer evening, you may hear, from +the Battery of New York, the obstreperous peals +of broad-mouthed laughter of the Dutch negroes +at Communipaw, who, like most other negroes, +are famous for their risible powers. This is peculiarly +the case on Sunday evenings, when, it is +remarked by an ingenious and observant philosopher +who has made great discoveries in the +neighborhood of this city, that they always laugh +loudest, which he attributes to the circumstance +of their having their holiday clothes on.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_196" id="Pg_196" title="Pg_196">[196]</a></span>"These negroes, in fact, like the monks of the +dark ages, engross all the knowledge of the place, +and being infinitely more adventurous and more +knowing than their masters, carry on all the foreign +trade; making frequent voyages to town in +canoes loaded with oysters, buttermilk, and cabbages. +They are great astrologers, predicting +the different changes of weather almost as accurately +as an almanac; they are moreover exquisite +performers on three-stringed fiddles; in whistling +they almost boast the far-famed powers of +Orpheus's lyre, for not a horse or an ox in the +place, when at the plough or before the wagon, +will budge a foot until he hears the well-known +whistle of his black driver and companion. And +from their amazing skill at casting up accounts +upon their fingers, they are regarded with as +much veneration us were the disciples of Pythagoras +of yore, when initiated into the sacred +quaternary of numbers.</p> + +<p>"As to the honest burghers of Communipaw, +like wise men and sound philosophers, they never +look beyond their pipes, nor trouble their heads +about any affairs out of their immediate neighborhood; +so that they live in profound and enviable +ignorance of all the troubles, anxieties, and +revolutions of this distracted planet. I am even +told that many among them do verily believe that +Holland, of which they have heard so much from +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_197" id="Pg_197" title="Pg_197">[197]</a></span>tradition, is situated somewhere on Long Island,—that +<i>Spiking-devil</i> and <i>the Narrows</i> are the +two ends of the world,—that the country is +still under the dominion of their High Mightinesses,—and +that the city of New York still goes +by the name of Nieuw Amsterdam. They meet +every Saturday afternoon at the only tavern in +the place, which bears as a sign a square-headed +likeness of the Prince of Orange, where they +smoke a silent pipe, by way of promoting social +conviviality, and invariably drink a mug of cider +to the success of Admiral Van Tromp, who they +imagine is still sweeping the British channel +with a broom at his mast-head.</p> + +<p>"Communipaw, in short, is one of the numerous +little villages in the vicinity of this most beautiful +of cities, which are so many strongholds and +fastnesses, whither the primitive manners of our +Dutch forefathers have retreated, and where they +are cherished with devout and scrupulous strictness. +The dress of the original settlers is handed +down inviolate, from father to son: the identical +broad-brimmed hat, broad-skirted coat, and broad-bottomed +breeches, continue from generation to +generation; and several gigantic knee-buckles of +massy silver are still in wear, that made gallant +display in the days of the patriarchs of Communipaw. +The language likewise continues unadulterated +by barbarous innovations; and so +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_198" id="Pg_198" title="Pg_198">[198]</a></span>critically correct is the village schoolmaster in his +dialect, that his reading of a Low-Dutch psalm +has much the same effect on the nerves as the +filing of a handsaw."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_5" id="Footnote_1_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_5"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Pavonia in the ancient maps, is given to a tract of +country extending from about Hoboken to Amboy.</p></div> + +<p>The early prosperity of this settlement +is dwelt on with satisfaction by the author:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The neighboring Indians in a short time became +accustomed to the uncouth sound of the +Dutch language, and an intercourse gradually +took place between them and the new-comers. +The Indians were much given to long talks, and +the Dutch to long silence;—in this particular, +therefore, they accommodated each other completely. +The chiefs would make long speeches +about the big bull, the Wabash, and the Great +Spirit, to which the others would listen very attentively, +smoke their pipes, and grunt <i>yah, mynher</i>,—whereat +the poor savages were wondrously +delighted. They instructed the new settlers in +the best art of curing and smoking tobacco, while +the latter, in return, made them drunk with true +Hollands,—and then taught them the art of +making bargains.</p> + +<p>"A brisk trade for furs was soon opened; the +Dutch traders were scrupulously honest in their +dealings and purchased by weight, establishing it +as an invariable table of avoirdupois, that the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_199" id="Pg_199" title="Pg_199">[199]</a></span>hand of a Dutchman weighed one pound, and his +foot two pounds. It is true, the simple Indians +were often puzzled by the great disproportion between +bulk and weight, for let them place a bundle +of furs, never so large, in one scale, and a +Dutchman put his hand or foot in the other, the +bundle was sure to kick the beam;—never was +a package of furs known to weigh more than +two pounds in the market of Communipaw!</p> + +<p>"This is a singular fact,—but I have it direct +from my great-great-grandfather, who had risen +to considerable importance in the colony, being +promoted to the office of weigh-master, on account +of the uncommon heaviness of his foot.</p> + +<p>"The Dutch possessions in this part of the +globe began now to assume a very thriving appearance, +and were comprehended under the general +title of Nieuw Nederlandts, on account, as +the Sage Vander Donck observes, of their great +resemblance to the Dutch Netherlands,—which +indeed was truly remarkable, excepting that the +former were rugged and mountainous, and the +latter level and marshy. About this time the +tranquillity of the Dutch colonists was doomed +to suffer a temporary interruption. In 1614, +Captain Sir Samuel Argal, sailing under a commission +from Dale, governor of Virginia, visited +the Dutch settlements on Hudson River, and +demanded their submission to the English crown +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_200" id="Pg_200" title="Pg_200">[200]</a></span>and Virginian dominion. To this arrogant demand, +as they were in no condition to resist it, +they submitted for the time, like discreet and +reasonable men.</p> + +<p>"It does not appear that the valiant Argal +molested the settlement of Communipaw; on +the contrary, I am told that when his vessel first +hove in sight, the worthy burghers were seized +with such a panic, that they fell to smoking their +pipes with astonishing vehemence; insomuch that +they quickly raised a cloud, which, combining +with the surrounding woods and marshes, completely +enveloped and concealed their beloved village, +and overhung the fair regions of Pavonia—so +that the terrible Captain Argal passed on +totally unsuspicious that a sturdy little Dutch settlement +lay snugly couched in the mud, under +cover of all this pestilent vapor. In commemoration +of this fortunate escape, the worthy inhabitants +have continued to smoke, almost without +intermission, unto this very day; which is said +to be the cause of the remarkable fog which +often hangs over Communipaw of a clear afternoon."</p></div> + +<p>The golden age of New York was under +the reign of Walter Van Twiller, the first +governor of the province, and the best it +ever had. In his sketch of this excellent +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_201" id="Pg_201" title="Pg_201">[201]</a></span>magistrate Irving has embodied the abundance +and tranquillity of those halcyon +days:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller +was descended from a long line of Dutch +burgomasters, who had successively dozed away +their lives, and grown fat upon the bench of +magistracy in Rotterdam; and who had comported +themselves with such singular wisdom +and propriety, that they were never either heard +or talked of—which, next to being universally +applauded, should be the object of ambition of +all magistrates and rulers. There are two opposite +ways by which some men make a figure in +the world: one, by talking faster than they think, +and the other, by holding their tongues and not +thinking at all. By the first, many a smatterer +acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts; +by the other, many a dunderpate, like the owl, +the stupidest of birds, comes to be considered +the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is +a casual remark, which I would not, for the universe, +have it thought I apply to Governor Van +Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within +himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke, except +in monosyllables; but then it was allowed he +seldom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his +gravity that he was never known to laugh or +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_202" id="Pg_202" title="Pg_202">[202]</a></span>even to smile through the whole course of a long +and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered +in his presence, that set light-minded hearers in +a roar, it was observed to throw him into a state +of perplexity. Sometimes he would deign to inquire +into the matter, and when, after much explanation, +the joke was made as plain as a pike-staff, +he would continue to smoke his pipe in +silence, and at length, knocking out the ashes, +would exclaim, 'Well! I see nothing in all that +to laugh about.'</p> + +<p>"With all his reflective habits, he never made +up his mind on a subject. His adherents accounted +for this by the astonishing magnitude of +his ideas. He conceived every subject on so +grand a scale that he had not room in his head +to turn it over and examine both sides of it. +Certain it is, that, if any matter were propounded +to him on which ordinary mortals would rashly +determine at first glance, he would put on a +vague, mysterious look, shake his capacious +head, smoke some time in profound silence, and +at length observe, that 'he had his doubts about +the matter'; which gained him the reputation +of a man slow of belief and not easily imposed +upon. What is more, it has gained him a lasting +name; for to this habit of the mind has been +attributed his surname of Twiller; which is said +to be a corruption of the original Twijfler, or, +in plain English, <i>Doubter</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_203" id="Pg_203" title="Pg_203">[203]</a></span>"The person of this illustrious old gentleman +was formed and proportioned, as though it had +been moulded by the hands of some cunning +Dutch statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly +grandeur. He was exactly five feet six inches +in height, and six feet five inches in circumference. +His head was a perfect sphere, and of +such stupendous dimensions, that dame Nature, +with all her sex's ingenuity, would have been +puzzled to construct a neck capable of supporting +it; wherefore she wisely declined the attempt, +and settled it firmly on the top of his backbone, +just between the shoulders. His body was oblong +and particularly capacious at bottom; which +was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that +he was a man of sedentary habits, and very +averse to the idle labor of walking. His legs +were short, but sturdy in proportion to the weight +they had to sustain; so that when erect he had +not a little the appearance of a beer-barrel on +skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, +presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by any of +those lines and angles which disfigure the human +countenance with what is termed expression. +Two small gray eyes twinkled feebly in the +midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a +hazy firmament, and his full-fed cheeks, which +seemed to have taken toll of everything that +went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and +streaked with dusky red, like a spitzenberg apple.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_204" id="Pg_204" title="Pg_204">[204]</a></span>"His habits were as regular as his person. +He daily took his four stated meals, appropriating +exactly an hour to each; he smoked and +doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining +twelve of the four-and-twenty. Such was the +renowned Wouter Van Twiller,—a true philosopher, +for his mind was either elevated above, or +tranquilly settled below, the cares and perplexities +of this world. He had lived in it for years, without +feeling the least curiosity to know whether +the sun revolved round it, or it round the sun; +and he had watched, for at least half a century, +the smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling, +without once troubling his head with any of +those numerous theories by which a philosopher +would have perplexed his brain, in accounting +for its rising above the surrounding atmosphere.</p> + +<p>"In his council he presided with great state +and solemnity. He sat in a huge chair of solid +oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of the Hague, +fabricated by an experienced timmerman of +Amsterdam, and curiously carved about the +arms and feet into exact imitations of gigantic +eagle's claws. Instead of a sceptre, he swayed +a long Turkish pipe, wrought with jasmin and +amber, which had been presented to a stadtholder +of Holland at the conclusion of a treaty with one +of the petty Barbary powers. In this stately +chair would he sit, and this magnificent pipe +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_205" id="Pg_205" title="Pg_205">[205]</a></span>would he smoke, shaking his right knee with a +constant motion, and fixing his eye for hours together +upon a little print of Amsterdam, which +hung in a black frame against the opposite wall +of the council-chamber. Nay, it has even been +said, that when any deliberation of extraordinary +length and intricacy was on the carpet, the renowned +Wouter would shut his eyes for full two +hours at a time, that he might not be disturbed +by external objects; and at such times the internal +commotion of his mind was evinced by certain +regular guttural sounds, which his admirers +declared were merely the noise of conflict, made +by his contending doubts and opinions....</p> + +<p>"I have been the more anxious to delineate +fully the person and habits of Wouter Van Twiller, +from the consideration that he was not only +the first but also the best governor that ever presided +over this ancient and respectable province; +and so tranquil and benevolent was his reign, +that I do not find throughout the whole of it a +single instance of any offender being brought to +punishment,—a most indubitable sign of a merciful +governor, and a case unparalleled, excepting +in the reign of the illustrious King Log, from +whom, it is hinted, the renowned Van Twiller +was a lineal descendant.</p> + +<p>"The very outset of the career of this excellent +magistrate was distinguished by an example +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_206" id="Pg_206" title="Pg_206">[206]</a></span>of legal acumen that gave flattering presage of +a wise and equitable administration. The morning +after he had been installed in office, and at +the moment that he was making his breakfast +from a prodigious earthen dish, filled with milk +and Indian pudding, he was interrupted by the +appearance of Wandle Schoonhoven, a very important +old burgher of New Amsterdam, who complained +bitterly of one Barent Bleecker, inasmuch +as he refused to come to a settlement of +accounts, seeing that there was a heavy balance +in favor of the said Wandle. Governor Van +Twiller, as I have already observed, was a man +of few words; he was likewise a mortal enemy +to multiplying writings—or being disturbed at +his breakfast. Having listened attentively to +the statement of Wandle Schoonhoven, giving +an occasional grunt, as he shoveled a spoonful +of Indian pudding into his mouth,—either as a +sign that he relished the dish, or comprehended +the story,—he called unto him his constable, +and pulling out of his breeches-pocket a huge +jack-knife, dispatched it after the defendant as a +summons, accompanied by his tobacco-box as a +warrant.</p> + +<p>"This summary process was as effectual in +those simple days as was the seal-ring of the +great Haroun Alraschid among the true believers. +The two parties being confronted before him, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_207" id="Pg_207" title="Pg_207">[207]</a></span>each produced a book of accounts, written in a +language and character that would have puzzled +any but a High-Dutch commentator, or a learned +decipherer of Egyptian obelisks. The sage Wouter +took them one after the other, and having +poised them in his hands, and attentively counted +over the number of leaves, fell straightway into +a very great doubt, and smoked for half an hour +without saying a word; at length, laying his +finger beside his nose, and shutting his eyes for +a moment, with the air of a man who has just +caught a subtle idea by the tail, he slowly took +his pipe from his mouth, puffed forth a column +of tobacco-smoke, and with marvelous gravity +and solemnity pronounced, that, having carefully +counted over the leaves and weighed the books, +it was found, that one was just as thick and as +heavy as the other: therefore, it was the final +opinion of the court that the accounts were +equally balanced: therefore, Wandle should give +Barent a receipt, and Barent should give Wandle +a receipt, and the constable should pay the +costs.</p> + +<p>"This decision, being straightway made +known, diffused general joy throughout New +Amsterdam, for the people immediately perceived +that they had a very wise and equitable +magistrate to rule over them. But its happiest +effect was, that not another lawsuit took place +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_208" id="Pg_208" title="Pg_208">[208]</a></span>throughout the whole of his administration; and +the office of constable fell into such decay, that +there was not one of those losel scouts known in +the province for many years. I am the more +particular in dwelling on this transaction, not +only because I deem it one of the most sage and +righteous judgments on record, and well worthy +the attention of modern magistrates, but because +it was a miraculous event in the history of the +renowned Wouter—being the only time he was +ever known to come to a decision in the whole +course of his life."</p></div> + +<p>This peaceful age ended with the accession +of William the Testy, and the advent +of the enterprising Yankees. During the +reigns of William Kieft and Peter Stuyvesant, +between the Yankees of the Connecticut +and the Swedes of the Delaware, the +Dutch community knew no repose, and the +"History" is little more than a series of +exhausting sieges and desperate battles, +which would have been as heroic as any in +history if they had been attended with loss +of life. The forces that were gathered by +Peter Stuyvesant for the expedition to +avenge upon the Swedes the defeat at Fort +Casimir, and their appearance on the march, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_209" id="Pg_209" title="Pg_209">[209]</a></span>give some notion of the military prowess of +the Dutch. Their appearance, when they +were encamped on the Bowling Green, recalls +the Homeric age:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"In the centre, then, was pitched the tent of +the men of battle of the Manhattoes, who, being +the inmates of the metropolis, composed the lifeguards +of the governor. These were commanded +by the valiant Stoffel Brinkerhoof, who, whilom +had acquired such immortal fame at Oyster Bay; +they displayed as a standard a beaver <i>rampant</i> +on a field of orange, being the arms of the province, +and denoting the persevering industry and +the amphibious origin of the Nederlands.</p> + +<p>"On their right hand might be seen the vassals +of that renowned Mynheer, Michael Paw, who +lorded it over the fair regions of ancient Pavonia, +and the lands away south even unto the Navesink +mountains, and was moreover patroon of +Gibbet Island. His standard was borne by his +trusty squire, Cornelius Van Vorst; consisting of +a huge oyster <i>recumbent</i> upon a sea-green field; +being the armorial bearings of his favorite metropolis +Communipaw. He brought to the camp +a stout force of warriors, heavily armed, being +each clad in ten pair of linsey-woolsey breeches, +and overshadowed by broad-brimmed beavers, +with short pipes twisted in their hat-bands. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_210" id="Pg_210" title="Pg_210">[210]</a></span>These were the men who vegetated in the mud +along the shores of Pavonia, being of the race +of genuine copperheads, and were fabled to have +sprung from oysters.</p> + +<p>"At a little distance was encamped the tribe +of warriors who came from the neighborhood of +Hell-gate. These were commanded by the Suy +Dams, and the Van Dams,—incontinent hard +swearers, as their names betoken. They were +terrible looking fellows, clad in broad-skirted gaberdines, +of that curious colored cloth called thunder +and lightning,—and bore as a standard three +devil's darning-needles, <i>volant</i>, in a flame-colored +field.</p> + +<p>"Hard by was the tent of the men of battle +from the marshy borders of the Waale-Boght +and the country thereabouts. These were of a +sour aspect, by reason that they lived on crabs, +which abound in these parts. They were the +first institutors of that honorable order of knighthood +called <i>Fly-market shirks</i>, and, if tradition +speak true, did likewise introduce the far-famed +step in dancing called 'double trouble.' They +were commanded by the fearless Jacobus Varra +Vanger,—and had, moreover, a jolly band of +Breuckelen ferry-men, who performed a brave +concerto on conch shells.</p> + +<p>"But I refrain from pursuing this minute description +which goes on to describe the warriors +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_211" id="Pg_211" title="Pg_211">[211]</a></span>of Bloemen-dael, and Weehawk, and Hoboken, +and sundry other places, well known in history +and song; for now do the notes of martial music +alarm the people of New Amsterdam, sounding +afar from beyond the walls of the city. But this +alarm was in a little while relieved, for lo! from +the midst of a vast cloud of dust, they recognized +the brimstone-colored breeches and splendid silver +leg of Peter Stuyvesant, glaring in the sunbeams; +and beheld him approaching at the head +of a formidable army, which he had mustered +along the banks of the Hudson. And here the +excellent but anonymous writer of the Stuyvesant +manuscript breaks out into a brave and +glorious description of the forces, as they defiled +through the principal gate of the city, that stood +by the head of Wall Street.</p> + +<p>"First of all came the Van Bummels, who inhabit +the pleasant borders of the Bronx: these +were short fat men, wearing exceeding large +trunk-breeches, and were renowned for feats of +the trencher. They were the first inventors of +suppawn, or mush and milk.—Close in their rear +marched the Van Vlotens, of Kaatskill, horrible +quaffers of new cider, and arrant braggarts in +their liquor.—After them came the Van Pelts +of Groodt Esopus, dexterous horsemen, mounted +upon goodly switch-tailed steeds of the Esopus +breed. These were mighty hunters of minks and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_212" id="Pg_212" title="Pg_212">[212]</a></span>musk-rats, whence came the word <i>Peltry</i>.—Then +the Van Nests of Kinderhoeck, valiant robbers +of birds'-nests, as their name denotes. To these, +if report may be believed, are we indebted for +the invention of slap-jacks, or buckwheat-cakes.—Then +the Van Higginbottoms, of Wapping's +creek. These came armed with ferules and +birchen rods, being a race of schoolmasters, who +first discovered the marvelous sympathy between +the seat of honor and the seat of intellect,—and +that the shortest way to get knowledge into the +head was to hammer it into the bottom.—Then +the Van Grolls, of Antony's Nose, who carried +their liquor in fair round little pottles, by reason +they could not bouse it out of their canteens, +having such rare long noses.—Then the Gardeniers, +of Hudson and thereabouts, distinguished +by many triumphant feats, such as robbing water-melon +patches, smoking rabbits out of their holes, +and the like, and by being great lovers of roasted +pigs' tails. These were the ancestors of the renowned +congressman of that name.—Then the +Van Hoesens, of Sing-Sing, great choristers and +players upon the jews-harp. These marched two +and two, singing the great song of St. Nicholas.—Then +the Couenhovens, of Sleepy Hollow. +These gave birth to a jolly race of publicans, +who first discovered the magic artifice of conjuring +a quart of wine into a pint bottle.—Then +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_213" id="Pg_213" title="Pg_213">[213]</a></span>the Van Kortlandts, who lived on the wild banks +of the Croton, and were great killers of wild +ducks, being much spoken of for their skill in +shooting with the long bow.—Then the Van +Bunschotens, of Nyack and Kakiat, who were +the first that did ever kick with the left foot. +They were gallant bushwhackers and hunters of +raccoons by moonlight.—Then the Van Winkles, +of Haerlem, potent suckers of eggs, and noted +for running of horses, and running up of scores +at taverns. They were the first that ever winked +with both eyes at once.—Lastly came the +KNICKERBOCKERS, of the great town of Scaghtikoke, +where the folk lay stones upon the houses +in windy weather, lest they should be blown +away. These derive their name, as some say, +from <i>Knicker</i>, to shake, and <i>Beker</i>, a goblet, indicating +thereby that they were sturdy toss-pots of +yore; but, in truth, it was derived from <i>Knicker</i>, +to nod, and <i>Boeken</i>, books: plainly meaning that +they were great nodders or dozers over books. +From them did descend the writer of this history."</p></div> + +<p>In the midst of Irving's mock-heroics, +he always preserves a substratum of good +sense. An instance of this is the address +of the redoubtable wooden-legged governor, +on his departure at the head of his warriors +to chastise the Swedes:—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_214" id="Pg_214" title="Pg_214">[214]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Certain it is, not an old woman in New Amsterdam +but considered Peter Stuyvesant as a +tower of strength, and rested satisfied that the +public welfare was secure so long as he was in +the city. It is not surprising, then, that they +looked upon his departure as a sore affliction. +With heavy hearts they draggled at the heels of +his troop, as they marched down to the river-side +to embark. The governor, from the stern of his +schooner, gave a short but truly patriarchal address +to his citizens, wherein he recommended +them to comport like loyal and peaceable subjects—to +go to church regularly on Sundays, +and to mind their business all the week besides. +That the women should be dutiful and affectionate +to their husbands,—looking after nobody's +concerns but their own,—eschewing all gossipings +and morning gaddings,—and carrying short +tongues and long petticoats. That the men +should abstain from intermeddling in public concerns, +intrusting the cares of government to the +officers appointed to support them,—staying at +home, like good citizens, making money for themselves, +and getting children for the benefit of their +country. That the burgomasters should look well +to the public interest,—not oppressing the poor +nor indulging the rich,—not tasking their ingenuity +to devise new laws, but faithfully enforcing +those which were already made,—rather bending +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_215" id="Pg_215" title="Pg_215">[215]</a></span>their attention to prevent evil than to punish +it; ever recollecting that civil magistrates should +consider themselves more as guardians of public +morals than rat-catchers employed to entrap public +delinquents. Finally, he exhorted them, one +and all, high and low, rich and poor, to conduct +themselves <i>as well as they could</i>, assuring them +that if they faithfully and conscientiously complied +with this golden rule, there was no danger +but that they would all conduct themselves well +enough. This done, he gave them a paternal +benediction, the sturdy Antony sounded a most +loving farewell with his trumpet, the jolly crews +put up a shout of triumph, and the invincible +armada swept off proudly down the bay."</p></div> + +<p>The account of an expedition against +Fort Christina deserves to be quoted in +full, for it is an example of what war might +be, full of excitement, and exercise, and +heroism, without danger to life. We take +up the narrative at the moment when the +Dutch host,—</p> + +<p class="center">"Brimful of wrath and cabbage,"—<br /> +</p> + +<p>and excited by the eloquence of the mighty +Peter, lighted their pipes, and charged upon +the fort.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The Swedish garrison, ordered by the cunning +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_216" id="Pg_216" title="Pg_216">[216]</a></span>Risingh not to fire until they could distinguish +the whites of their assailants' eyes, +stood in horrid silence on the covert-way, until +the eager Dutchmen had ascended the glacis. +Then did they pour into them such a tremendous +volley, that the very hills quaked around, +and were terrified even unto an incontinence of +water, insomuch that certain springs burst forth +from their sides, which continue to run unto the +present day. Not a Dutchman but would have +bitten the dust beneath that dreadful fire, had +not the protecting Minerva kindly taken care +that the Swedes should, one and all, observe +their usual custom of shutting their eyes and +turning away their heads at the moment of discharge.</p> + +<p>"The Swedes followed up their fire by leaping +the counterscarp, and falling tooth and nail upon +the foe with curious outcries. And now might +be seen prodigies of valor, unmatched in history +or song. Here was the sturdy Stoffel Brinkerhoff +brandishing his quarter-staff, like the giant +Blanderon his oak-tree (for he scorned to carry +any other weapon), and drumming a horrific tune +upon the hard heads of the Swedish soldiery. +There were the Van Kortlandts, posted at a distance, +like the Locrian archers of yore, and plying +it most potently with the long-bow, for which +they were so justly renowned. On a rising knoll +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_217" id="Pg_217" title="Pg_217">[217]</a></span>were gathered the valiant men of Sing-Sing, assisting +marvelously in the fight by chanting the +great song of St. Nicholas; but as to the Gardeniers +of Hudson, they were absent on a marauding +party, laying waste the neighboring +water-melon patches.</p> + +<p>"In a different part of the field were the Van +Grolls of Antony's Nose, struggling to get to +the thickest of the fight, but horribly perplexed +in a defile between two hills, by reason of the +length of their noses. So also the Van Bunschotens +of Nyack and Kakiat, so renowned for kicking +with the left foot, were brought to a stand for +want of wind, in consequence of the hearty dinner +they had eaten, and would have been put to +utter rout but for the arrival of a gallant corps +of voltigeurs, composed of the Hoppers, who advanced +nimbly to their assistance on one foot. +Nor must I omit to mention the valiant achievements +of Antony Van Corlear, who, for a good +quarter of an hour, waged stubborn fight with a +little pursy Swedish drummer, whose hide he +drummed most magnificently, and whom he +would infallibly have annihilated on the spot, but +that he had come into the battle with no other +weapon but his trumpet.</p> + +<p>"But now the combat thickened. On came +the mighty Jacobus Varra Vanger and the fighting-men +of the Wallabout; after them thundered +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_218" id="Pg_218" title="Pg_218">[218]</a></span>the Van Pelts of Esopus, together with the Van +Rippers and the Van Brunts, bearing down all +before them; then the Suy Dams, and the Van +Dams, pressing forward with many a blustering +oath, at the head of the warriors of Hell-gate, +clad in their thunder-and-lightning gaberdines; +and lastly, the standard-bearers and body-guard +of Peter Stuyvesant, bearing the great beaver of +the Manhattoes.</p> + +<p>"And now commenced the horrid din, the desperate +struggle, the maddening ferocity, the +frantic desperation, the confusion and self-abandonment +of war. Dutchman and Swede commingled, +tugged, panted, and blowed. The +heavens were darkened with a tempest of missives. +Bang! went the guns; whack! went the +broad-swords; thump! went the cudgels; crash! +went the musket-stocks; blows, kicks, cuffs, +scratches, black eyes and bloody noses swelling +the horrors of the scene! Thick thwack, cut +and hack, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy, hurly-burly, +head-over-heels, rough-and-tumble! Dunder +and blixum! swore the Dutchmen; splitter +and splutter! cried the Swedes. Storm the +works! shouted Hardkoppig Peter. Fire the +mine! roared stout Risingh. Tanta-rar-ra-ra! +twanged the trumpet of Antony Van Corlear;—until +all voice and sound became unintelligible,—grunts +of pain, yells of fury, and shouts +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_219" id="Pg_219" title="Pg_219">[219]</a></span>of triumph mingling in one hideous clamor. The +earth shook as if struck with a paralytic stroke; +trees shrunk aghast, and withered at the sight; +rocks burrowed in the ground like rabbits; and +even Christina Creek turned from its course and +ran up a hill in breathless terror!</p> + +<p>"Long hung the contest doubtful; for though +a heavy shower of rain, sent by the "cloud-compelling +Jove," in some measure cooled their ardor, +as doth a bucket of water thrown on a group +of fighting mastiffs, yet did they but pause for +a moment, to return with tenfold fury to the +charge. Just at this juncture a vast and dense +column of smoke was seen slowly rolling toward +the scene of battle. The combatants paused for +a moment, gazing in mute astonishment, until the +wind, dispelling the murky cloud, revealed the +flaunting banner of Michael Paw, the Patroon of +Communipaw. That valiant chieftain came fearlessly +on at the head of a phalanx of oyster-fed +Pavonians and a <i>corps de reserve</i> of the Van +Arsdales and Van Bummels, who had remained +behind to digest the enormous dinner they had +eaten. These now trudged manfully forward, +smoking their pipes with outrageous vigor, so as +to raise the awful cloud that has been mentioned, +but marching exceedingly slow, being short of +leg, and of great rotundity in the belt.</p> + +<p>"And now the deities who watched over the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_220" id="Pg_220" title="Pg_220">[220]</a></span>fortunes of the Nederlanders having unthinkingly +left the field, and stepped into a neighboring +tavern to refresh themselves with a pot of beer, +a direful catastrophe had wellnigh ensued. Scarce +had the myrmidons of Michael Paw attained the +front of battle, when the Swedes, instructed by +the cunning Risingh, leveled a shower of blows +full at their tobacco-pipes. Astounded at this +assault, and dismayed at the havoc of their pipes, +these ponderous warriors gave way, and like a +drove of frightened elephants broke through the +ranks of their own army. The little Hoppers +were borne down in the surge; the sacred banner +emblazoned with the gigantic oyster of Communipaw +was trampled in the dirt; on blundered +and thundered the heavy-sterned fugitives, the +Swedes pressing on their rear and applying their +feet <i>a parte poste</i> of the Van Arsdales and the +Van Bummels with a vigor that prodigiously +accelerated their movements; nor did the renowned +Michael Paw himself fail to receive +divers grievous and dishonorable visitations of +shoe-leather.</p> + +<p>"But what, oh Muse! was the rage of Peter +Stuyvesant, when from afar he saw his army giving +way! In the transports of his wrath he +sent forth a roar, enough to shake the very hills. +The men of the Manhattoes plucked up new +courage at the sound, or, rather, they rallied at +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_221" id="Pg_221" title="Pg_221">[221]</a></span>the voice of their leader, of whom they stood +more in awe than of all the Swedes in Christendom. +Without waiting for their aid, the daring +Peter dashed, sword in hand, into the thickest of +the foe. Then might be seen achievements +worthy of the days of the giants. Wherever he +went the enemy shrank before him; the Swedes +fled to right and left, or were driven, like dogs, +into their own ditch; but as he pushed forward, +singly with headlong courage, the foe closed behind +and hung upon his rear. One aimed a blow +full at his heart; but the protecting power which +watches over the great and good turned aside +the hostile blade and directed it to a side-pocket, +where reposed an enormous iron tobacco-box, +endowed, like the shield of Achilles, with supernatural +powers, doubtless from bearing the portrait +of the blessed St. Nicholas. Peter Stuyvesant +turned like an angry bear upon the foe, and +seizing him, as he fled, by an immeasurable queue, +'Ah, whoreson caterpillar,' roared he, 'here's +what shall make worms' meat of thee!' so saying +he whirled his sword and dealt a blow that +would have decapitated the varlet, but that the +pitying steel struck short and shaved the queue +forever from his crown. At this moment an +arquebusier leveled his piece from a neighboring +mound, with deadly aim; but the watchful Minerva, +who had just stopped to tie up her garter, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_222" id="Pg_222" title="Pg_222">[222]</a></span>seeing the peril of her favorite hero, sent old +Boreas with his bellows, who, as the match descended +to the pan, gave a blast that blew the +priming from the touch-hole.</p> + +<p>"Thus waged the fight, when the stout Risingh, +surveying the field from the top of a little ravelin, +perceived his troops banged, beaten, and kicked +by the invincible Peter. Drawing his falchion, +and uttering a thousand anathemas, he strode +down to the scene of combat with some such +thundering strides as Jupiter is said by Hesiod +to have taken when he strode down the spheres +to hurl his thunder-bolts at the Titans.</p> + +<p>"When the rival heroes came face to face, +each made a prodigious start in the style of a +veteran stage-champion. Then did they regard +each other for a moment with the bitter aspect of +two furious ram-cats on the point of a clapper-clawing. +Then did they throw themselves into +one attitude, then into another, striking their +swords on the ground, first on the right side, then +on the left: at last at it they went with incredible +ferocity. Words cannot tell the prodigies of +strength and valor displayed in this direful encounter,—an +encounter compared to which the +far-famed battles of Ajax with Hector, of Æneas +with Turnus, Orlando with Rodomont, Guy of +Warwick with Colbrand the Dane, or of that +renowned Welsh knight, Sir Owen of the Mountains, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_223" id="Pg_223" title="Pg_223">[223]</a></span>with the giant Guylon, were all gentle +sports and holiday recreations. At length the +valiant Peter, watching his opportunity, aimed a +blow enough to cleave his adversary to the very +chine; but Risingh, nimbly raising his sword, +warded it off so narrowly, that, glancing on one +side, it shaved away a huge canteen in which he +carried his liquor,—thence pursuing its trenchant +course, it severed off a deep coat-pocket, +stored with bread and cheese,—which provant, +rolling among the armies, occasioned a fearful +scrambling between the Swedes and Dutchmen, +and made the general battle to wax more furious +than ever.</p> + +<p>"Enraged to see his military stores laid waste, +the stout Risingh, collecting all his forces, aimed +a mighty blow full at the hero's crest. In vain +did his fierce little cocked hat oppose its course. +The biting steel clove through the stubborn ram +beaver, and would have cracked the crown of +any one not endowed with supernatural hardness +of head; but the brittle weapon shivered in +pieces on the skull of Hardkoppig Piet, shedding +a thousand sparks, like beams of glory, round +his grizzly visage.</p> + +<p>"The good Peter reeled with the blow, and +turning up his eyes beheld a thousand suns, besides +moons and stars, dancing about the firmament; +at length, missing his footing, by reason +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_224" id="Pg_224" title="Pg_224">[224]</a></span>of his wooden leg, down he came on his seat of +honor with a crash which shook the surrounding +hills, and might have wrecked his frame, had he +not been received into a cushion softer than velvet, +which Providence, or Minerva, or St. Nicholas, +or some cow, had benevolently prepared for +his reception.</p> + +<p>"The furious Risingh, in despite of the maxim, +cherished by all true knights, that 'fair play +is a jewel,' hastened to take advantage of the +hero's fall; but, as he stooped to give a fatal +blow, Peter Stuyvesant dealt him a thwack over +the sconce with his wooden leg, which set a +chime of bells ringing triple bob-majors in his +cerebellum. The bewildered Swede staggered +with the blow, and the wary Peter seizing a +pocket-pistol, which lay hard by, discharged it +full at the head of the reeling Risingh. Let not +my reader mistake; it was not a murderous +weapon loaded with powder and ball, but a little +sturdy stone pottle charged to the muzzle with a +double dram of true Dutch courage, which the +knowing Antony Van Corlear carried about him +by way of replenishing his valor, and which had +dropped from his wallet during his furious encounter +with the drummer. The hideous weapon +sang through the air, and true to its course as +was the fragment of a rock discharged at Hector +by bully Ajax, encountered the head of the gigantic +Swede with matchless violence.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_225" id="Pg_225" title="Pg_225">[225]</a></span>"This heaven-directed blow decided the battle. +The ponderous pericranium of General Jan Risingh +sank upon his breast; his knees tottered +under him; a deathlike torpor seized upon his +frame, and he tumbled to the earth with such +violence that old Pluto started with affright, lest +he should have broken through the roof of his +infernal palace.</p> + +<p>"His fall was the signal of defeat and victory: +the Swedes gave way, the Dutch pressed forward; +the former took to their heels, the latter +hotly pursued. Some entered with them, pell-mell, +through the sally-port; others stormed the +bastion, and others scrambled over the curtain. +Thus in a little while the fortress of Fort Christina, +which, like another Troy, had stood a siege +of full ten hours, was carried by assault, without +the loss of a single man on either side. Victory, +in the likeness of a gigantic ox-fly, sat +perched upon the cocked hat of the gallant Stuyvesant; +and it was declared by all the writers +whom he hired to write the history of his expedition +that on this memorable day he gained a +sufficient quantity of glory to immortalize a dozen +of the greatest heroes in Christendom!"</p></div> + +<p>In the "Sketch-Book," Irving set a kind +of fashion in narrative essays, in brief stories +of mingled humor and pathos, which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_226" id="Pg_226" title="Pg_226">[226]</a></span>was followed for half a century. He himself +worked the same vein in "Bracebridge +Hall," and "Tales of a Traveller." And +there is no doubt that some of the most +fascinating of the minor sketches of Charles +Dickens, such as the story of the Bagman's +Uncle, are lineal descendants of, if they +were not suggested by, Irving's "Adventure +of My Uncle," and the "Bold Dragoon."</p> + +<p>The taste for the leisurely description +and reminiscent essay of the "Sketch-Book" +does not characterize the readers of +this generation, and we have discovered +that the pathos of its elaborated scenes is +somewhat "literary." The sketches of +"Little Britain," and "Westminster Abbey," +and, indeed, that of "Stratford-on-Avon," +will for a long time retain their +place in selections of "good reading;" but +the "Sketch-Book" is only floated, as an +original work, by two papers, the "Rip Van +Winkle" and the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow;" +that is to say by the use of the +Dutch material, and the elaboration of the +"Knickerbocker Legend," which was the +great achievement of Irving's life. This +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_227" id="Pg_227" title="Pg_227">[227]</a></span>was broadened and deepened and illustrated +by the several stories of the "Money Diggers," +of "Wolfert Webber" and "Kidd +the Pirate," in "The Tales of a Traveller," +and by "Dolph Heyliger" in "Bracebridge +Hall." Irving was never more successful +than in painting the Dutch manners and +habits of the early time, and he returned +again and again to the task until he not +only made the shores of the Hudson and +the islands of New York harbor and the +East River classic ground, but until his +conception of Dutch life in the New World +had assumed historical solidity and become +a tradition of the highest poetic value. If +in the multiplicity of books and the change +of taste the bulk of Irving's works shall go +out of print, a volume made up of his Knickerbocker +history and the legends relating to +the region of New York and the Hudson +would survive as long as anything that has +been produced in this country.</p> + +<p>The philosophical student of the origin of +New World society may find food for reflection +in the "materiality" of the basis of +the civilization of New York. The picture +of abundance and of enjoyment of animal +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_228" id="Pg_228" title="Pg_228">[228]</a></span>life is perhaps not overdrawn in Irving's +sketch of the home of the Van Tassels, in +"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." It is +all the extract we can make room for from +that careful study:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Among the musical disciples who assembled, +one evening in each week, to receive his instructions +in psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the +daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch +farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; +plump as a partridge; ripe and melting +and rosy-cheeked as one of her father's peaches, +and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, +but her vast expectations. She was, withal, a little +of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her +dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern +fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. +She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold +which her great-great-grandmother had brought +over from Saardam; the tempting stomacher of +the olden time; and withal a provokingly short +petticoat, to display the prettiest foot and ankle +in the country round.</p> + +<p>"Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart +towards the sex; and it is not to be wondered at +that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in his +eyes, more especially after he had visited her in +her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_229" id="Pg_229" title="Pg_229">[229]</a></span>was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, +liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent +either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries +of his own farm; but within those everything +was snug, happy, and well-conditioned. He +was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it; +and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance +rather than the style in which he lived. His +stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hudson, +in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks +in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. +A great elm-tree spread its broad branches +over it, at the foot of which bubbled up a spring +of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well, +formed of a barrel, and then stole sparkling +away through the grass to a neighboring brook, +that bubbled along among alders and dwarf willows. +Hard by the farm-house was a vast barn, +that might have served for a church, every window +and crevice of which seemed bursting forth +with the treasures of the farm. The flail was +busily resounding within it from morning till +night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering +about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with +one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, +some with their heads under their wings, or +buried in their bosoms, and others swelling and +cooing and bowing about their dames, were enjoying +the sunshine on the roof. Sleek, unwieldy +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_230" id="Pg_230" title="Pg_230">[230]</a></span>porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance +of their pens, whence sallied forth, now +and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff +the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were +riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole +fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling +through the farm-yard, and guinea fowls +fretting about it, like ill-tempered housewives, +with their peevish, discontented cry. Before the +barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern +of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, +clapping his burnished wings, and crowing in the +pride and gladness of his heart—sometimes tearing +up the earth with his feet, and then generously +calling his ever-hungry family of wives and +children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had +discovered.</p> + +<p>"The pedagogue's mouth watered as he looked +upon this sumptuous promise of luxurious winter +fare. In his devouring mind's eye he pictured +to himself every roasting-pig running about with +a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth; +the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable +pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; +the geese were swimming in their own gravy, and +the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married +couples, with a decent competency of onion-sauce. +In the porkers he saw carved out the +future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_231" id="Pg_231" title="Pg_231">[231]</a></span>ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed +up, with its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, +a necklace of savory sausages; and even +bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his +back, in a side-dish, with uplifted claws, as if +craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit +disdained to ask while living.</p> + +<p>"As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, +and as he rolled his great green eyes over the fat +meadow-lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of +buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchard +burdened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the +warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned +after the damsel who was to inherit these domains, +and his imagination expanded with the +idea how they might be readily turned into cash, +and the money invested in immense tracts of wild +land and shingle palaces in the wilderness. Nay, +his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and +presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a +whole family of children, mounted on the top of +a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with +pots and kettles dangling beneath; and he beheld +himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a +colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, +or the Lord knows where.</p> + +<p>"When he entered the house, the conquest of +his heart was complete. It was one of those spacious +farm-houses, with high-ridged, but lowly-sloping +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_232" id="Pg_232" title="Pg_232">[232]</a></span>roofs, built in the style handed down from +the first Dutch settlers; the low projecting eaves +forming a piazza along the front, capable of being +closed up in bad weather. Under this were +hung flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, +and nets for fishing in the neighboring river. +Benches were built along the sides for summer +use; and a great spinning-wheel at one end, and +a churn at the other, showed the various uses to +which this important porch might be devoted. +From this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered +the hall, which formed the centre of the mansion +and the place of usual residence. Here, rows of +resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser, +dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge +bag of wool ready to be spun; in another a quantity +of linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears +of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and +peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, +mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a +door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, +where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany +tables shone like mirrors; and irons, with +their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened +from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges +and conch-shells decorated the mantelpiece; +strings of various colored birds' eggs were +suspended above it; a great ostrich egg was hung +from the centre of the room, and a corner cupboard, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_233" id="Pg_233" title="Pg_233">[233]</a></span>knowingly left open, displayed immense +treasures of old silver and well-mended china."</p></div> + +<p>It is an abrupt transition from these +homely scenes, which humor commends to +our liking, to the chivalrous pageant unrolled +for us in the "Conquest of Granada." +The former are more characteristic and the +more enduring of Irving's writings, but as a +literary artist his genius lent itself just as +readily to Oriental and mediæval romance +as to the Knickerbocker legend; and there +is no doubt that the delicate perception he +had of chivalric achievements gave a refined +tone to his mock heroics, which greatly +heightened their effect. It may almost be +claimed that Irving did for Granada and +the Alhambra what he did, in a totally different +way, for New York and its vicinity.</p> + +<p>The first passage I take from the "Conquest" +is the description of the advent at +Cordova of the Lord Scales, Earl of Rivers, +who was brother of the queen of Henry +VII., a soldier who had fought at Bosworth +field, and now volunteered to aid Ferdinand +and Isabella in the extermination of the +Saracens. The description is put into the +mouth of Fray Antonio Agapida, a fictitious +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_234" id="Pg_234" title="Pg_234">[234]</a></span>chronicler invented by Irving, an unfortunate +intervention which gives to the whole +book an air of unveracity:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"'This cavalier [he observes] was from the far +island of England, and brought with him a train +of his vassals; men who had been hardened in +certain civil wars which raged in their country. +They were a comely race of men, but too fair +and fresh for warriors, not having the sunburnt, +warlike hue of our old Castilian soldiery. They +were huge feeders also, and deep carousers, and +could not accommodate themselves to the sober +diet of our troops, but must fain eat and drink +after the manner of their own country. They +were often noisy and unruly, also, in their wassail; +and their quarter of the camp was prone +to be a scene of loud revel and sudden brawl. +They were, withal, of great pride, yet it was not +like our inflammable Spanish pride: they stood +not much upon the <i>pundonor</i>, the high punctilio, +and rarely drew the stiletto in their disputes; but +their pride was silent and contumelious. Though +from a remote and somewhat barbarous island, +they believed themselves the most perfect men +upon earth, and magnified their chieftain, the +Lord Scales, beyond the greatest of their grandees. +With all this, it must be said of them that they +were marvelous good men in the field, dexterous +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_235" id="Pg_235" title="Pg_235">[235]</a></span>archers, and powerful with the battle-axe. In +their great pride and self-will, they always sought +to press in the advance and take the post of danger, +trying to outvie our Spanish chivalry. They +did not rush on fiercely to the fight, nor make +a brilliant onset like the Moorish and Spanish +troops, but they went into the fight deliberately, +and persisted obstinately, and were slow to find +out when they were beaten. Withal they were +much esteemed yet little liked by our soldiery, +who considered them staunch companions in the +field, yet coveted but little fellowship with them +in the camp.</p> + +<p>"'Their commander, the Lord Scales, was an +accomplished cavalier, of gracious and noble +presence and fair speech; it was a marvel to see +so much courtesy in a knight brought up so far +from our Castilian court. He was much honored +by the king and queen, and found great favor +with the fair dames about the court, who indeed +are rather prone to be pleased with foreign cavaliers. +He went always in costly state, attended +by pages and esquires, and accompanied by noble +young cavaliers of his country, who had enrolled +themselves under his banner, to learn the gentle +exercise of arms. In all pageants and festivals, +the eyes of the populace were attracted by the +singular bearing and rich array of the English +earl and his train, who prided themselves in always +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_236" id="Pg_236" title="Pg_236">[236]</a></span>appearing in the garb and manner of their +country—and were indeed something very magnificent +delectable, and strange to behold.'</p> + +<p>"The worthy chronicler is no less elaborate in +his description of the masters of Santiago, Calatrava, +and Alcantara, and their valiant knights, +armed at all points, and decorated with the badges +of their orders. These, he affirms, were the +flower of Christian chivalry; being constantly in +service they became more steadfast and accomplished +in discipline than the irregular and temporary +levies of feudal nobles. Calm, solemn, +and stately, they sat like towers upon their powerful +chargers. On parades they manifested none +of the show and ostentation of the other troops: +neither, in battle, did they endeavor to signalize +themselves by any fiery vivacity, or desperate and +vainglorious exploit,—everything, with them, +was measured and sedate; yet it was observed +that none were more warlike in their appearance +in the camp, or more terrible for their achievements +in the field.</p> + +<p>"The gorgeous magnificence of the Spanish +nobles found but little favor in the eyes of the +sovereigns. They saw that it caused a competition +in expense ruinous to cavaliers of moderate +fortune; and they feared that a softness and effeminacy +might thus be introduced, incompatible +with the stern nature of the war. They signified +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_237" id="Pg_237" title="Pg_237">[237]</a></span>their disapprobation to several of the principal +noblemen, and recommended a more sober and +soldier-like display while in actual service.</p> + +<p>"'These are rare troops for a tournay, my +lord [said Ferdinand to the Duke of Infantado, +as he beheld his retainers glittering in gold and +embroidery]; but gold, though gorgeous, is soft +and yielding: iron is the metal for the field.'</p> + +<p>"'Sire [replied the duke], if my men parade +in gold, your majesty will find they fight with +steel.' The king smiled, but shook his head, and +the duke treasured up his speech in his heart."</p></div> + +<p>Our author excels in such descriptions as +that of the progress of Isabella to the camp +of Ferdinand after the capture of Loxa, and +of the picturesque pageantry which imparted +something of gayety to the brutal pastime +of war:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"It was in the early part of June that the +queen departed from Cordova, with the Princess +Isabella and numerous ladies of her court. She +had a glorious attendance of cavaliers and pages, +with many guards and domestics. There were +forty mules for the use of the queen, the princess +and their train.</p> + +<p>"As this courtly cavalcade approached the +Rock of the Lovers, on the banks of the river +Yeguas, they beheld a splendid train of knights +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_238" id="Pg_238" title="Pg_238">[238]</a></span>advancing to meet them. It was headed by that +accomplished cavalier the Marques Duke de Cadiz, +accompanied by the adelantado of Andalusia. +He had left the camp the day after the capture +of Illora, and advanced thus far to receive the +queen and escort her over the borders. The +queen received the marques with distinguished +honor, for he was esteemed the mirror of chivalry. +His actions in this war had become the +theme of every tongue, and many hesitated not +to compare him in prowess with the immortal +Cid.</p> + +<p>"Thus gallantly attended, the queen entered +the vanquished frontier of Granada, journeying +securely along the pleasant banks of the Xenel, +so lately subject to the scourings of the Moors. +She stopped at Loxa, where she administered +aid and consolation to the wounded, distributing +money among them for their support, according +to their rank.</p> + +<p>"The king, after the capture of Illora, had +removed his camp before the fortress of Moclin, +with an intention of besieging it. Thither the +queen proceeded, still escorted through the mountain +roads by the Marques of Cadiz. As Isabella +drew near to the camp, the Duke del Infantado +issued forth a league and a half to receive her, +magnificently arrayed, and followed by all his +chivalry in glorious attire. With him came the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_239" id="Pg_239" title="Pg_239">[239]</a></span>standard of Seville, borne by the men-at-arms of +that renowned city, and the Prior of St. Juan, +with his followers. They ranged themselves in +order of battle, on the left of the road by which +the queen was to pass.</p> + +<p>"The worthy Agapida is loyally minute in +his description of the state and grandeur of the +Catholic sovereigns. The queen rode a chestnut +mule, seated in a magnificent saddle-chair, decorated +with silver gilt. The housings of the mule +were of fine crimson cloth; the borders embroidered +with gold; the reins and head-piece were +of satin, curiously embossed with needlework of +silk, and wrought with golden letters. The queen +wore a brial or regal skirt of velvet, under which +were others of brocade; a scarlet mantle, ornamented +in the Moresco fashion; and a black hat, +embroidered round the crown and brim.</p> + +<p>"The infanta was likewise mounted on a chestnut +mule, richly caparisoned. She wore a brial +or skirt of black brocade, and a black mantle ornamented +like that of the queen.</p> + +<p>"When the royal cavalcade passed by the +chivalry of the Duke del Infantado, which was +drawn out in battle array, the queen made a reverence +to the standard of Seville, and ordered it +to pass to the right hand. When she approached +the camp, the multitude ran forth to meet her, +with great demonstrations of joy; for she was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_240" id="Pg_240" title="Pg_240">[240]</a></span>universally beloved by her subjects. All the +battalions sallied forth in military array, bearing +the various standards and banners of the camp, +which were lowered in salutation as she passed.</p> + +<p>"The king now came forth in royal state, +mounted on a superb chestnut horse, and attended +by many grandees of Castile. He wore +a jubon or close vest of crimson cloth, with +cuisses or short skirts of yellow satin, a loose +cassock of brocade, a rich Moorish scimiter, and +a hat with plumes. The grandees who attended +him were arrayed with wonderful magnificence, +each according to his taste and invention.</p> + +<p>"These high and mighty princes [says Antonio +Agapida] regarded each other with great deference, +as allied sovereigns rather than with connubial +familiarity, as mere husband and wife. +When they approached each other, therefore, before +embracing, they made three profound reverences, +the queen taking off her hat, and remaining +in a silk net or cawl, with her face uncovered. +The king then approached and embraced her, and +kissed her respectfully on the cheek. He also +embraced his daughter the princess; and, making +the sign of the cross, he blessed her, and kissed +her on the lips.</p> + +<p>"The good Agapida seems scarcely to have +been more struck with the appearance of the sovereigns +than with that of the English earl. He +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_241" id="Pg_241" title="Pg_241">[241]</a></span>followed [says he] immediately after the king, +with great pomp, and, in an extraordinary manner, +taking precedence of all the rest. He was +mounted '<i>a la guisa</i>,' or with long stirrups, on a +superb chestnut horse, with trappings of azure +silk which reached to the ground. The housings +were of mulberry, powdered with stars of gold. +He was armed in proof, and wore over his armor +a short French mantle of black brocade; he had +a white French hat with plumes, and carried on +his left arm a small round buckler, banded with +gold. Five pages attended him, apparelled in +silk and brocade, and mounted on horses sumptuously +caparisoned; he had also a train of followers, +bravely attired after the fashion of his +country.</p> + +<p>"He advanced in a chivalrous and courteous +manner, making his reverences first to the queen +and infanta, and afterwards to the king. Queen +Isabella received him graciously, complimenting +him on his courageous conduct at Loxa, and condoling +with him on the loss of his teeth. The +earl, however, made light of his disfiguring wound, +saying that 'our blessed Lord, who had built all +that house, had opened a window there, that he +might see more readily what passed within;' +whereupon the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida is +more than ever astonished at the pregnant wit of +this island cavalier. The earl continued some +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_242" id="Pg_242" title="Pg_242">[242]</a></span>little distance by the side of the royal family, +complimenting them all with courteous speeches, +his horse curveting and caracoling, but being +managed with great grace and dexterity,—leaving +the grandees and the people at large not more +filled with admiration at the strangeness and magnificence +of his state than at the excellence of his +horsemanship.</p> + +<p>"To testify her sense of the gallantry and services +of this noble English knight, who had come +from so far to assist in their wars, the queen sent +him the next day presents of twelve horses, with +stately tents, fine linen, two beds with coverings +of gold brocade, and many other articles of great +value."</p></div> + +<p>The protracted siege of the city of Granada +was the occasion of feats of arms and +hostile courtesies which rival in brilliancy +any in the romances of chivalry. Irving's +pen is never more congenially employed +than in describing these desperate but romantic +encounters. One of the most picturesque +of these was known as "the queen's +skirmish." The royal encampment was +situated so far from Granada that only the +general aspect of the city could be seen as +it rose from the vega, covering the sides +of the hills with its palaces and towers. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_243" id="Pg_243" title="Pg_243">[243]</a></span>Queen Isabella expressed a desire for a +nearer view of the city, whose beauty was +renowned throughout the world, and the +courteous Marques of Cadiz proposed to give +her this perilous gratification.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"On the morning of June the 18th, a magnificent +and powerful train issued from the Christian +camp. The advanced guard was composed +of legions of cavalry, heavily armed, looking like +moving masses of polished steel. Then came +the king and queen, with the prince and princesses, +and the ladies of the court, surrounded by +the royal body-guard, sumptuously arrayed, composed +of the sons of the most illustrious houses +of Spain; after these was the rear-guard, a powerful +force of horse and foot; for the flower of +the army sallied forth that day. The Moors +gazed with fearful admiration at this glorious +pageant, wherein the pomp of the court was mingled +with the terrors of the camp. It moved +along in radiant line, across the vega, to the melodious +thunders of martial music, while banner +and plume, and silken scarf, and rich brocade, +gave a gay and gorgeous relief to the grim visage +of iron war that lurked beneath.</p> + +<p>"The army moved towards the hamlet of Zubia, +built on the skirts of the mountain to the +left of Granada, and commanding a view of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_244" id="Pg_244" title="Pg_244">[244]</a></span>Alhambra, and the most beautiful quarter of the +city. As they approached the hamlet, the Marques +of Villena, the Count Ureña, and Don +Alonzo de Aguilar filed off with their battalions, +and were soon seen glittering along the side of +the mountain above the village. In the mean +time the Marques of Cadiz, the Count de Tendilla, +the Count de Cabra, and Don Alonzo Fernandez, +senior of Alcaudrete and Montemayor, +drew up their forces in battle array on the plain +below the hamlet, presenting a living barrier of +loyal chivalry between the sovereigns and the +city.</p> + +<p>"Thus securely guarded, the royal party alighted, +and, entering one of the houses of the hamlet, +which had been prepared for their reception, +enjoyed a full view of the city from its terraced +roof. The ladies of the court gazed with delight +at the red towers of the Alhambra, rising from +amid shady groves, anticipating the time when +the Catholic sovereigns should be enthroned +within its walls, and its courts shine with the +splendor of Spanish chivalry. 'The reverend +prelates and holy friars, who always surrounded +the queen, looked with serene satisfaction,' says +Fray Antonio Agapida, 'at this modern Babylon, +enjoying the triumph that awaited them, +when those mosques and minarets should be converted +into churches, and goodly priests and +bishops should succeed to the infidel alfaquis.'</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_245" id="Pg_245" title="Pg_245">[245]</a></span>"When the Moors beheld the Christians thus +drawn forth in full array in the plain, they supposed +it was to offer battle, and hesitated not to +accept it. In a little while the queen beheld a +body of Moorish cavalry pouring into the vega, +the riders managing their fleet and fiery steeds +with admirable address. They were richly armed, +and clothed in the most brilliant colors, and the +caparisons of their steeds flamed with gold and +embroidery. This was the favorite squadron of +Muza, composed of the flower of the youthful +cavaliers of Granada. Others succeeded, some +heavily armed, others <i>à la gineta</i>, with lance and +buckler; and lastly came the legions of foot-soldiers, +with arquebus and cross-bow, and spear +and scimiter.</p> + +<p>"When the queen saw this army issuing from +the city, she sent to the Marques of Cadiz, and +forbade any attack upon the enemy, or the acceptance +of any challenge to a skirmish; for she +was loth that her curiosity should cost the life of +a single human being.</p> + +<p>"The marques promised to obey, though sorely +against his will; and it grieved the spirit of the +Spanish cavaliers to be obliged to remain with +sheathed swords while bearded by the foe. The +Moors could not comprehend the meaning of this +inaction of the Christians, after having apparently +invited a battle. They sallied several +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_246" id="Pg_246" title="Pg_246">[246]</a></span>times from their ranks, and approached near +enough to discharge their arrows; but the Christians +were immovable. Many of the Moorish +horsemen galloped close to the Christian ranks, +brandishing their lances and scimiters, and defying +various cavaliers to single combat; but +Ferdinand had rigorously prohibited all duels of +this kind, and they dared not transgress his orders +under his very eye.</p> + +<p>"Here, however, the worthy Fray Antonio +Agapida, in his enthusiasm for the triumphs of +the faith, records the following incident, which +we fear is not sustained by any grave chronicler +of the times, but rests merely on tradition, or +the authority of certain poets and dramatic writers, +who have perpetuated the tradition in their +works. While this grim and reluctant tranquillity +prevailed along the Christian line, says Agapida, +there rose a mingled shout and sound of +laughter near the gate of the city. A Moorish +horseman, armed at all points, issued forth, followed +by a rabble, who drew back as he approached +the scene of danger. The Moor was +more robust and brawny than was common with +his countrymen. His visor was closed; he bore +a huge buckler and a ponderous lance; his scimiter +was of a Damascus blade, and his richly ornamented +dagger was wrought by an artificer of +Fez. He was known by his device to be Tarfe, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_247" id="Pg_247" title="Pg_247">[247]</a></span>the most insolent, yet valiant, of the Moslem +warriors—the same who had hurled into the +royal camp his lance, inscribed to the queen. As +he rode slowly along in front of the army, his +very steed, prancing with fiery eye and distended +nostril, seemed to breathe defiance to the Christians.</p> + +<p>"But what were the feelings of the Spanish +cavaliers when they beheld, tied to the tail of +his steed, and dragged in the dust, the very inscription, +'AVE MARIA,' which Hernan Perez +del Pulgar had affixed to the door of the mosque! +A burst of horror and indignation broke forth +from the army. Hernan was not at hand to +maintain his previous achievement; but one of +his young companions in arms, Garcilasso de la +Vega by name, putting spurs to his horse, galloped +to the hamlet of Zubia, threw himself on +his knees before the king, and besought permission +to accept the defiance of this insolent infidel, +and to revenge the insult offered to our Blessed +Lady. The request was too pious to be refused. +Garcilasso remounted his steed, closed his helmet, +graced by four sable plumes, grasped his buckler +of Flemish workmanship, and his lance of +matchless temper, and defied the haughty Moor +in the midst of his career. A combat took place +in view of the two armies and of the Castilian +court. The Moor was powerful in wielding his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_248" id="Pg_248" title="Pg_248">[248]</a></span>weapons, and dexterous in managing his steed. +He was of larger frame than Garcilasso, and +more completely armed, and the Christians trembled +for their champion. The shock of their +encounter was dreadful; their lances were shivered +and sent up splinters in the air. Garcilasso +was thrown back in his saddle—his horse made +a wide career before he could recover, gather up +the reins, and return to the conflict. They now +encountered each other with swords. The Moor +circled round his opponent, as a hawk circles +when about to make a swoop; his steed obeyed +his rider with matchless quickness; at every attack +of the infidel, it seemed as if the Christian +knight must sink beneath his flashing scimiter. +But if Garcilasso was inferior to him in power, +he was superior in agility; many of his blows +he parried; others he received upon his Flemish +shield, which was proof against the Damascus +blade. The blood streamed from numerous +wounds received by either warrior. The Moor, +seeing his antagonist exhausted, availed himself +of his superior force, and, grappling, endeavored +to wrest him from his saddle. They both fell to +earth; the Moor placed his knee upon the breast +of his victim, and, brandishing his dagger, aimed +a blow at his throat. A cry of despair was uttered +by the Christian warriors, when suddenly +they beheld the Moor rolling lifeless in the dust. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_249" id="Pg_249" title="Pg_249">[249]</a></span>Garcilasso had shortened his sword, and, as his +adversary raised his arm to strike, had pierced +him to the heart. 'It was a singular and miraculous +victory,' says Fray Antonio Agapida; 'but +the Christian knight was armed by the sacred +nature of his cause, and the Holy Virgin gave +him strength, like another David, to slay this +gigantic champion of the Gentiles.'</p> + +<p>"The laws of chivalry were observed throughout +the combat—no one interfered on either +side. Garcilasso now despoiled his adversary; +then, rescuing the holy inscription of 'AVE +MARIA' from its degrading situation, he elevated +it on the point of his sword, and bore it off as a +signal of triumph, amidst the rapturous shouts +of the Christian army.</p> + +<p>"The sun had now reached the meridian, and +the hot blood of the Moors was inflamed by its +rays, and by the sight of the defeat of their +champion. Muza ordered two pieces of ordnance +to open a fire upon the Christians. A confusion +was produced in one part of their ranks: Muza +called to the chiefs of the army, 'Let us waste +no more time in empty challenges—let us charge +upon the enemy: he who assaults has always an +advantage in the combat.' So saying, he rushed +forward, followed by a large body of horse and +foot, and charged so furiously upon the advance +guard of the Christians, that he drove it in upon +the battalion of the Marques of Cadiz.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_250" id="Pg_250" title="Pg_250">[250]</a></span>"The gallant marques now considered himself +absolved from all further obedience to the queen's +commands. He gave the signal to attack. 'Santiago!' +was shouted along the line; and he pressed +forward to the encounter, with his battalion of +twelve hundred lances. The other cavaliers followed +his example, and the battle instantly became +general.</p> + +<p>"When the king and queen beheld the armies +thus rushing to the combat, they threw themselves +on their knees, and implored the Holy Virgin +to protect her faithful warriors. The prince +and princess, the ladies of the court, and the prelates +and friars who were present, did the same; +and the effect of the prayers of these illustrious +and saintly persons was immediately apparent. +The fierceness with which the Moors had rushed +to the attack was suddenly cooled; they were +bold and adroit for a skirmish, but unequal to the +veteran Spaniards in the open field. A panic +seized upon the foot-soldiers—they turned and +took to flight. Muza and his cavaliers in vain +endeavored to rally them. Some took refuge in +the mountains; but the greater part fled to the +city, in such confusion that they overturned and +trampled upon each other. The Christians pursued +them to the very gates. Upwards of two +thousand were either killed, wounded, or taken +prisoners; and the two pieces of ordnance were +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_251" id="Pg_251" title="Pg_251">[251]</a></span>brought off as trophies of the victory. Not a +Christian lance but was bathed that day in the +blood of an infidel.</p> + +<p>"Such was the brief but bloody action which +was known among the Christian warriors by the +name of "The Queen's Skirmish;" for when the +Marques of Cadiz waited upon her majesty to +apologize for breaking her commands, he attributed +the victory entirely to her presence. The +queen, however, insisted that it was all owing to +her troops being led on by so valiant a commander. +Her majesty had not yet recovered +from her agitation at beholding so terrible a +scene of bloodshed, though certain veterans present +pronounced it as gay and gentle a skirmish +as they had ever witnessed."</p></div> + +<p>The charm of "The Alhambra" is largely +in the leisurely, loitering, dreamy spirit in +which the temporary American resident of +the ancient palace-fortress entered into its +mouldering beauties and romantic associations, +and in the artistic skill with which +he wove the commonplace daily life of his +attendants there into the more brilliant +woof of its past. The book abounds in delightful +legends, and yet these are all so +touched with the author's airy humor that +our credulity is never overtaxed; we imbibe +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_252" id="Pg_252" title="Pg_252">[252]</a></span>all the romantic interest of the place without +for a moment losing our hold upon reality. +The enchantments of this Moorish +paradise become part of our mental possessions, +without the least shock to our +common sense. After a few days of residence +in the part of the Alhambra occupied +by Dame Tia Antonia and her family, of +which the handmaid Dolores was the most +fascinating member, Irving succeeded in establishing +himself in a remote and vacant +part of the vast pile, in a suite of delicate +and elegant chambers, with secluded gardens +and fountains, that had once been occupied +by the beautiful Elizabeth of Farnese, +daughter of the Duke of Parma, and +more than four centuries ago by a Moorish +beauty named Lindaraxa, who flourished +in the court of Muhamed the Left-Handed. +These solitary and ruined chambers had +their own terrors and enchantments, and +for the first nights gave the author little +but sinister suggestions and grotesque food +for his imagination. But familiarity dispersed +the gloom and the superstitious fancies.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"In the course of a few evenings a thorough +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_253" id="Pg_253" title="Pg_253">[253]</a></span>change took place in the scene and its associations. +The moon, which when I took possession +of my new apartments was invisible, gradually +gained each evening upon the darkness of the +night, and at length rolled in full splendor above +the towers, pouring a flood of tempered light +into every court and hall. The garden beneath +my window, before wrapped in gloom, was gently +lighted up; the orange and citron trees were +tipped with silver; the fountain sparkled in the +moonbeams, and even the blush of the rose was +faintly visible.</p> + +<p>"I now felt the poetic merit of the Arabic inscription +on the walls: 'How beauteous is this +garden; where the flowers of the earth vie with +the stars of heaven. What can compare with +the vase of yon alabaster fountain filled with +crystal water? nothing but the moon in her +fullness, shining in the midst of an unclouded +sky!'</p> + +<p>"On such heavenly nights I would sit for hours +at my window inhaling the sweetness of the garden, +and musing on the checkered fortunes of +those whose history was dimly shadowed out in +the elegant memorials around. Sometimes, when +all was quiet, and the clock from the distant cathedral +of Granada struck the midnight hour, I +have sallied out on another tour and wandered +over the whole building; but how different from +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_254" id="Pg_254" title="Pg_254">[254]</a></span>my first tour! No longer dark and mysterious; +no longer peopled with shadowy foes; no longer +recalling scenes of violence and murder; all was +open, spacious, beautiful; everything called up +pleasing and romantic fancies; Lindaraxa once +more walked in her garden; the gay chivalry of +Moslem Granada once more glittered about the +Court of Lions! Who can do justice to a moonlight +night in such a climate and such a place? +The temperature of a summer midnight in Andalusia +is perfectly ethereal. We seem lifted up +into a purer atmosphere; we feel a serenity of +soul, a buoyancy of spirits, an elasticity of frame, +which render mere existence happiness. But +when moonlight is added to all this, the effect +is like enchantment. Under its plastic sway the +Alhambra seems to regain its pristine glories. +Every rent and chasm of time, every mouldering +tint and weather-stain, is gone; the marble +resumes its original whiteness; the long colonnades +brighten in the moonbeams; the halls are +illuminated with a softened radiance,—we tread +the enchanted palace of an Arabian tale!</p> + +<p>"What a delight, at such a time, to ascend to +the little airy pavilion of the queen's toilet (el +tocador de la reyna), which, like a bird-cage, +overhangs the valley of the Darro, and gaze from +its light arcades upon the moonlight prospect! +To the right, the swelling mountains of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_255" id="Pg_255" title="Pg_255">[255]</a></span>Sierra Nevada, robbed of their ruggedness and +softened into a fairy land, with their snowy summits +gleaming like silver clouds against the deep +blue sky. And then to lean over the parapet of +the Tocador and gaze down upon Granada and +the Albaycin spread out like a map below; all +buried in deep repose; the white palaces and +convents sleeping in the moonshine, and beyond +all these the vapory vega fading away like a +dreamland in the distance.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes the faint click of castanets rise +from the Alameda, where some gay Andalusians +are dancing away the summer night. Sometimes +the dubious tones of a guitar and the notes of +an amorous voice, tell perchance the whereabout +of some moonstruck lover serenading his lady's +window.</p> + +<p>"Such is a faint picture of the moonlight nights +I have passed loitering about the courts and halls +and balconies of this most suggestive pile; 'feeding +my fancy with sugared suppositions,' and enjoying +that mixture of reverie and sensation which +steal away existence in a southern climate; so +that it has been almost morning before I have +retired to bed, and been lulled to sleep by the +falling waters of the fountain of Lindaraxa."</p></div> + +<p>One of the writer's vantage points of observation +was a balcony of the central window +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_256" id="Pg_256" title="Pg_256">[256]</a></span>of the Hall of Ambassadors, from +which he had a magnificent prospect of +mountain, valley, and vega, and could look +down upon a busy scene of human life in +an alameda, or public walk, at the foot of +the hill, and the suburb of the city, filling +the narrow gorge below. Here the author +used to sit for hours, weaving histories out +of the casual incidents passing under his +eye, and the occupations of the busy mortals +below. The following passage exhibits +his power in transmuting the commonplace +life of the present into material perfectly in +keeping with the romantic associations of +the place:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"There was scarce a pretty face or a striking +figure that I daily saw, about which I had not +thus gradually framed a dramatic story, though +some of my characters would occasionally act in +direct opposition to the part assigned them, and +disconcert the whole drama. Reconnoitring one +day with my glass the streets of the Albaycin, I +beheld the procession of a novice about to take +the veil; and remarked several circumstances +which excited the strongest sympathy in the fate +of the youthful being thus about to be consigned +to a living tomb. I ascertained to my satisfaction +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_257" id="Pg_257" title="Pg_257">[257]</a></span>that she was beautiful, and, from the paleness of +her cheek, that she was a victim rather than a +votary. She was arrayed in bridal garments, +and decked with a chaplet of white flowers, but +her heart evidently revolted at this mockery of a +spiritual union, and yearned after its earthly +loves. A tall stern-looking man walked near +her in the procession: it was, of course, the tyrannical +father, who, from some bigoted or sordid +motive, had compelled this sacrifice. Amid the +crowd was a dark handsome youth, in Andalusian +garb, who seemed to fix on her an eye of agony. +It was doubtless the secret lover from whom she +was forever to be separated. My indignation rose +as I noted the malignant expression painted on +the countenances of the attendant monks and +friars. The procession arrived at the chapel of +the convent; the sun gleamed for the last time +upon the chaplet of the poor novice, as she crossed +the fatal threshold and disappeared within the +building. The throng poured in with cowl, and +cross, and minstrelsy; the lover paused for a +moment at the door. I could divine the tumult +of his feelings; but he mastered them, and entered. +There was a long interval. I pictured to +myself the scene passing within: the poor novice +despoiled of her transient finery, and clothed in +the conventual garb; the bridal chaplet taken +from her brow, and her beautiful head shorn of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_258" id="Pg_258" title="Pg_258">[258]</a></span>its long silken tresses. I heard her murmur the +irrevocable vow. I saw her extended on a bier; +the death-pall spread over her; the funeral service +performed that proclaimed her dead to the +world; her sighs were drowned in the deep tones +of the organ, and the plaintive requiem of the +nuns; the father looked on, unmoved, without a +tear; the lover—no—my imagination refused +to portray the anguish of the lover—there the +picture remained a blank.</p> + +<p>"After a time the throng again poured forth +and dispersed various ways, to enjoy the light +of the sun and mingle with the stirring scenes of +life; but the victim, with her bridal chaplet, was +no longer there. The door of the convent closed +that severed her from the world forever. I saw +the father and the lover issue forth; they were +in earnest conversation. The latter was vehement +in his gesticulations; I expected some violent +termination to my drama; but an angle of a +building interfered and closed the scene. My +eye afterwards was frequently turned to that convent +with painful interest. I remarked late at +night a solitary light twinkling from a remote +lattice of one of its towers. 'There,' said I, +'the unhappy nun sits weeping in her cell, while +perhaps her lover paces the street below in unavailing +anguish.'</p> + +<p>"—The officious Mateo interrupted my meditations +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_259" id="Pg_259" title="Pg_259">[259]</a></span>and destroyed in an instant the cobweb +tissue of my fancy. With his usual zeal he had +gathered facts concerning the scene, which put +my fictions all to flight. The heroine of my romance +was neither young nor handsome; she +had no lover; she had entered the convent of +her own free will, as a respectable asylum, and +was one of the most cheerful residents within +its walls.</p> + +<p>"It was some little while before I could forgive +the wrong done me by the nun in being thus +happy in her cell, in contradiction to all the rules +of romance; I diverted my spleen, however, by +watching, for a day or two, the pretty coquetries +of a dark-eyed brunette, who, from the covert of +a balcony shrouded with flowering shrubs and a +silken awning, was carrying on a mysterious correspondence +with a handsome, dark, well-whiskered +cavalier, who lurked frequently in the +street beneath her window. Sometimes I saw +him at an early hour, stealing forth wrapped to +the eyes in a mantle. Sometimes he loitered at +a corner, in various disguises, apparently waiting +for a private signal to slip into the house. Then +there was the tinkling of a guitar at night, and +a lantern shifted from place to place in the balcony. +I imagined another intrigue like that of +Almaviva, but was again disconcerted in all my +suppositions. The supposed lover turned out to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_260" id="Pg_260" title="Pg_260">[260]</a></span>be the husband of the lady, and a noted contrabandista; +and all his mysterious signs and movements +had doubtless some smuggling scheme in +view.</p> + +<p>"—I occasionally amused myself with noting +from this balcony the gradual changes of the +scenes below, according to the different stages of +the day.</p> + +<p>"Scarce has the gray dawn streaked the sky, +and the earliest cock crowed from the cottages of +the hill-side, when the suburbs give sign of reviving +animation; for the fresh hours of dawning +are precious in the summer season in a sultry +climate. All are anxious to get the start of the +sun, in the business of the day. The muleteer +drives forth his loaded train for the journey; the +traveler slings his carbine behind his saddle, +and mounts his steed at the gate of the hostel; +the brown peasant from the country urges forward +his loitering beasts, laden with panniers of +sunny fruit and fresh dewy vegetables, for already +the thrifty housewives are hastening to the +market.</p> + +<p>"The sun is up and sparkles along the valley, +tipping the transparent foliage of the groves. +The matin bells resound melodiously through the +pure bright air, announcing the hour of devotion. +The muleteer halts his burdened animals before +the chapel, thrusts his staff through his belt behind, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_261" id="Pg_261" title="Pg_261">[261]</a></span>and enters with hat in hand, smoothing his +coal-black hair, to hear a mass, and to put up a +prayer for a prosperous wayfaring across the +sierra. And now steals forth on fairy foot the +gentle Señora, in trim basquiña, with restless fan +in hand, and dark eye flashing from beneath the +gracefully folded mantilla; she seeks some well-frequented +church to offer up her morning orisons; +but the nicely adjusted dress, the dainty shoe +and cobweb stocking, the raven tresses exquisitely +braided, the fresh-plucked rose, gleaming among +them like a gem, show that earth divides with +Heaven the empire of her thoughts. Keep an +eye upon her, careful mother, or virgin aunt, or +vigilant duenna, whichever you may be, that +walk behind!</p> + +<p>"As the morning advances, the din of labor augments +on every side; the streets are thronged +with man, and steed, and beast of burden, and +there is a hum and murmur, like the surges of +the ocean. As the sun ascends to his meridian, +the hum and bustle gradually decline; at the +height of noon there is a pause. The panting +city sinks into lassitude, and for several hours +there is a general repose. The windows are +closed, the curtains drawn, the inhabitants retired +into the coolest recesses of their mansions; the +full-fed monk snores in his dormitory; the brawny +porter lies stretched on the pavement beside his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_262" id="Pg_262" title="Pg_262">[262]</a></span>burden; the peasant and the laborer sleep beneath +the trees of the Alameda, lulled by the +sultry chirping of the locust. The streets are +deserted, except by the water-carrier, who refreshes +the ear by proclaiming the merits of his +sparkling beverage, 'colder than the mountain +snow (<i>mas fria que la nieve</i>).'</p> + +<p>"As the sun declines, there is again a gradual +reviving, and when the vesper bell rings out his +sinking knell, all nature seems to rejoice that the +tyrant of the day has fallen. Now begins the +bustle of enjoyment, when the citizens pour forth +to breathe the evening air, and revel away the +brief twilight in the walks and gardens of the +Darro and Xenil.</p> + +<p>"As night closes, the capricious scene assumes +new features. Light after light gradually twinkles +forth; here a taper from a balconied window; +there a votive lamp before the image of a saint. +Thus, by degrees, the city emerges from the pervading +gloom, and sparkles with scattered lights, +like the starry firmament. Now break forth +from court and garden, and street and lane, the +tinkling of innumerable guitars, and the clicking +of castanets; blending, at this lofty height, in a +faint but general concert. 'Enjoy the moment' +is the creed of the gay and amorous Andalusian, +and at no time does he practice it more zealously +than on the balmy nights of summer, wooing his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_263" id="Pg_263" title="Pg_263">[263]</a></span>mistress with the dance, the love-ditty, and the +passionate serenade."</p></div> + +<p>How perfectly is the illusion of departed +splendor maintained in the opening of the +chapter on "The Court of Lions."</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The peculiar charm of this old dreamy palace +is its power of calling up vague reveries and +picturings of the past, and thus clothing naked +realities with the illusions of the memory and the +imagination. As I delight to walk in these +'vain shadows,' I am prone to seek those parts +of the Alhambra which are most favorable to +this phantasmagoria of the mind; and none +are more so than the Court of Lions, and its +surrounding halls. Here the hand of time has +fallen the lightest, and the traces of Moorish +elegance and splendor exist in almost their original +brilliancy. Earthquakes have shaken the +foundations of this pile, and rent its rudest towers; +yet see! not one of those slender columns +has been displaced, not an arch of that light and +fragile colonnade given way, and all the fairy +fretwork of these domes, apparently as unsubstantial +as the crystal fabrics of a morning's frost, +exist after the lapse of centuries, almost as fresh +as if from the hand of the Moslem artist. I +write in the midst of these mementos of the past, +in the fresh hour of early morning, in the fated +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_264" id="Pg_264" title="Pg_264">[264]</a></span>Hall of the Abencerrages. The blood-stained +fountain, the legendary monument of their massacre, +is before me; the lofty jet almost casts +its dew upon my paper. How difficult to reconcile +the ancient tale of violence and blood with +the gentle and peaceful scene around! Everything +here appears calculated to inspire kind and +happy feelings, for everything is delicate and +beautiful. The very light falls tenderly from +above, through the lantern of a dome tinted and +wrought as if by fairy hands. Through the ample +and fretted arch of the portal I behold the +Court of Lions, with brilliant sunshine gleaming +along its colonnades and sparkling in its fountains. +The lively swallow dives into the court, and, +rising with a surge, darts away twittering over +the roofs; the busy bee toils humming among +the flower-beds; and painted butterflies hover +from plant to plant, and flutter up and sport with +each other in the sunny air. It needs but a +slight exertion of the fancy to picture some pensive +beauty of the harem loitering in these secluded +haunts of Oriental luxury.</p> + +<p>"He, however, who would behold this scene +under an aspect more in unison with its fortunes, +let him come when the shadows of evening temper +the brightness of the court, and throw a gloom +into the surrounding halls. Then nothing can +be more serenely melancholy, or more in harmony +with the tale of departed grandeur.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_265" id="Pg_265" title="Pg_265">[265]</a></span>"At such times I am apt to seek the Hall of +Justice, whose deep shadowy arcades extend across +the upper end of the court. Here was performed, +in presence of Ferdinand and Isabella and +their triumphant court, the pompous ceremonial +of high mass, on taking possession of the Alhambra. +The very cross is still to be seen upon the +wall, where the altar was erected, and where +officiated the Grand Cardinal of Spain, and others +of the highest religious dignitaries of the land. +I picture to myself the scene when this place was +filled with the conquering host, that mixture of +mitred prelate and shaven monk, and steel-clad +knight and silken courtier; when crosses and +crosiers and religious standards were mingled +with proud armorial ensigns and the banners of +the haughty chiefs of Spain, and flaunted in triumph +through these Moslem halls. I picture to +myself Columbus, the future discoverer of a +world, taking his modest stand in a remote corner, +the humble and neglected spectator of the +pageant. I see in imagination the Catholic sovereigns +prostrating themselves before the altar, +and pouring forth thanks for their victory; while +the vaults resound with sacred minstrelsy and the +deep-toned Te Deum.</p> + +<p>"The transient illusion is over,—the pageant +melts from the fancy,—monarch, priest, and +warrior return into oblivion with the poor Moslems +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_266" id="Pg_266" title="Pg_266">[266]</a></span>over whom they exulted. The hall of their +triumph is waste and desolate. The bat flits +about its twilight vault, and the owl hoots from +the neighboring tower of Comares."</p></div> + +<p>It is a Moslem tradition that the court +and army of Boabdil, the Unfortunate, the +last Moorish King of Granada, are shut up +in the mountain by a powerful enchantment, +and that it is written in the book of +fate that when the enchantment is broken, +Boabdil will descend from the mountain at +the head of his army, resume his throne in +the Alhambra, and gathering together the +enchanted warriors from all parts of Spain, +reconquer the Peninsula. Nothing in this +volume is more amusing and at the same +time more poetic and romantic than the +story of "Governor Manco and the Soldier," +in which this legend is used to cover the +exploit of a dare-devil contrabandista. But +it is too long to quote. I take, therefore, +another story, which has something of the +same elements, that of a merry, mendicant +student of Salamanca, Don Vicente by +name, who wandered from village to village, +and picked up a living by playing the guitar +for the peasants, among whom, he was sure +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_267" id="Pg_267" title="Pg_267">[267]</a></span>of a hearty welcome. In the course of his +wandering he had found a seal-ring, having +for its device the cabalistic sign, invented +by King Solomon the Wise, and of mighty +power in all cases of enchantment.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"At length he arrived at the great object of his +musical vagabondizing, the far-famed city of +Granada, and hailed with wonder and delight its +Moorish towers, its lovely vega, and its snowy +mountains glistening through a summer atmosphere. +It is needless to say with what eager +curiosity he entered its gates and wandered +through its streets, and gazed upon its Oriental +monuments. Every female face peering through +a window or beaming from a balcony was to him +a Zorayda or a Zelinda, nor could he meet a +stately dame on the Alameda but he was ready +to fancy her a Moorish princess, and to spread +his student's robe beneath her feet.</p> + +<p>"His musical talent, his happy humor, his youth +and his good looks, won him a universal welcome +in spite of his ragged robes, and for several days +he led a gay life in the old Moorish capital and +its environs. One of his occasional haunts was +the fountain of Avellanos, in the valley of Darro. +It is one of the popular resorts of Granada, and +has been so since the days of the Moors; and +here the student had an opportunity of pursuing +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_268" id="Pg_268" title="Pg_268">[268]</a></span>his studies of female beauty; a branch of study +to which he was a little prone.</p> + +<p>"Here he would take his seat with his guitar, +improvise love-ditties to admiring groups of majos +and majas, or prompt with his music the ever-ready +dance. He was thus engaged one evening +when he beheld a padre of the church advancing, +at whose approach every one touched the hat. +He was evidently a man of consequence; he certainly +was a mirror of good if not of holy living; +robust and rosy-faced, and breathing at +every pore with the warmth of the weather and +the exercise of the walk. As he passed along +he would every now and then draw a maravedi +out of his pocket and bestow it on a beggar, with +an air of signal beneficence. 'Ah, the blessed +father!' would be the cry; 'long life to him, +and may he soon be a bishop!'</p> + +<p>"To aid his steps in ascending the hill he leaned +gently now and then on the arm of a handmaid, +evidently the pet-lamb of this kindest of pastors. +Ah, such a damsel! Andalus from head to foot; +from the rose in her hair, to the fairy shoe and +lacework stocking; Andalus in every movement; +in every undulation of the body:—ripe, melting +Andalus! But then so modest!—so shy!—ever, +with downcast eyes, listening to the +words of the padre; or, if by chance she let +flash a side glance, it was suddenly checked and +her eyes once more cast to the ground.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_269" id="Pg_269" title="Pg_269">[269]</a></span>"The good padre looked benignantly on the +company about the fountain, and took his seat +with some emphasis on a stone bench, while the +handmaid hastened to bring him a glass of sparkling +water. He sipped it deliberately and with +a relish, tempering it with one of those spongy +pieces of frosted eggs and sugar so dear to Spanish +epicures, and on returning the glass to the +hand of the damsel pinched her cheek with infinite +loving-kindness.</p> + +<p>"'Ah, the good pastor!' whispered the student +to himself; 'what a happiness would it be +to be gathered into his fold with such a pet-lamb +for a companion!'</p> + +<p>"But no such good fare was likely to befall him. +In vain he essayed those powers of pleasing +which he had found so irresistible with country +curates and country lasses. Never had he touched +his guitar with such skill; never had he poured +forth more soul-moving ditties, but he had no +longer a country curate or country lass to deal +with. The worthy priest evidently did not relish +music, and the modest damsel never raised +her eyes from the ground. They remained but +a short time at the fountain; the good padre hastened +their return to Granada. The damsel gave +the student one shy glance in retiring; but it +plucked the heart out of his bosom!</p> + +<p>"He inquired about them after they had gone. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_270" id="Pg_270" title="Pg_270">[270]</a></span>Padre Tomás was one of the saints of Granada, +a model of regularity; punctual in his hour of +rising; his hour of taking a paseo for an appetite; +his hours of eating; his hour of taking his +siesta; his hour of playing his game of tresillo, +of an evening, with some of the dames of the +cathedral circle; his hour of supping, and his +hour of retiring to rest, to gather fresh strength +for another day's round of similar duties. He +had an easy sleek mule for his riding; a matronly +housekeeper skilled in preparing tidbits for his +table; and the pet-lamb, to smooth his pillow at +night and bring him his chocolate in the morning.</p> + +<p>"Adieu now to the gay, thoughtless life of the +student; the side-glance of a bright eye had been +the undoing of him. Day and night he could +not get the image of this most modest damsel out +of his mind. He sought the mansion of the padre. +Alas! it was above the class of houses accessible +to a strolling student like himself. The +worthy padre had no sympathy with him; he +had never been <i>Estudiante sopista</i>, obliged to sing +for his supper. He blockaded the house by day, +catching a glance of the damsel now and then as +she appeared at a casement; but these glances +only fed his flame without encouraging his hope. +He serenaded her balcony at night, and at one +time was flattered by the appearance of something +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_271" id="Pg_271" title="Pg_271">[271]</a></span>white at a window. Alas, it was only the +night-cap of the padre.</p> + +<p>"Never was lover more devoted; never damsel +more shy: the poor student was reduced to despair. +At length arrived the eve of St. John, +when the lower classes of Granada swarm into +the country, dance away the afternoon, and pass +midsummer's night on the banks of the Darro +and the Xenil. Happy are they who on this +eventful night can wash their faces in those +waters just as the cathedral bell tells midnight; +for at that precise moment they have a beautifying +power. The student, having nothing to do, +suffered himself to be carried away by the holiday-seeking +throng until he found himself in the +narrow valley of the Darro, below the lofty hill +and ruddy towers of the Alhambra. The dry +bed of the river; the rocks which border it; the +terraced gardens which overhang it, were alive +with variegated groups, dancing under the vines +and fig-trees to the sound of the guitar and castanets.</p> + +<p>"The student remained for some time in doleful +dumps, leaning against one of the huge misshapen +stone pomegranates which adorn the ends +of the little bridge over the Darro. He cast +a wistful glance upon the merry scene, where +every cavalier had his dame; or, to speak more +appropriately, every Jack his Jill; sighed at his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_272" id="Pg_272" title="Pg_272">[272]</a></span>own solitary state, a victim to the black eye of +the most unapproachable of damsels, and repined +at his ragged garb, which seemed to shut the gate +of hope against him.</p> + +<p>"By degrees his attention was attracted to +a neighbor equally solitary with himself. This +was a tall soldier, of a stern aspect and grizzled +beard, who seemed posted as a sentry at the opposite +pomegranate. His face was bronzed by +time; he was arrayed in ancient Spanish armor, +with buckler and lance, and stood immovable as +a statue. What surprised the student was, that +though thus strangely equipped, he was totally +unnoticed by the passing throng, albeit that many +almost brushed against him.</p> + +<p>"'This is a city of old time peculiarities,' +thought the student, 'and doubtless this is one +of them with which the inhabitants are too familiar +to be surprised.' His own curiosity, however, +was awakened, and being of a social disposition, +he accosted the soldier.</p> + +<p>"'A rare old suit of armor that which you +wear, comrade. May I ask what corps you belong +to?'</p> + +<p>"The soldier gasped out a reply from a pair of +jaws which seemed to have rusted on their +hinges.</p> + +<p>"'The royal guard of Ferdinand and Isabella.'</p> + +<p>"'Santa Maria! Why, it is three centuries +since that corps was in service.'</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_273" id="Pg_273" title="Pg_273">[273]</a></span>"'And for three centuries have I been mounting +guard. Now I trust my tour of duty draws +to a close. Dost thou desire fortune?'</p> + +<p>"The student held up his tattered cloak in +reply.</p> + +<p>"'I understand thee. If thou hast faith and +courage, follow me, and thy fortune is made.'</p> + +<p>"'Softly, comrade, to follow thee would require +small courage in one who has nothing to lose but +life and an old guitar, neither of much value; +but my faith is of a different matter, and not to +be put in temptation. If it be any criminal act +by which I am to mend my fortune, think not my +ragged cloak will make me undertake it.'</p> + +<p>"The soldier turned on him a look of high +displeasure. 'My sword,' said he, 'has never +been drawn but in the cause of the faith and the +throne. I am a <i>Cristiano viejo</i>; trust in me and +fear no evil.'</p> + +<p>"The student followed him wondering. He observed +that no one heeded their conversation, and +that the soldier made his way through the various +groups of idlers unnoticed, as if invisible.</p> + +<p>"Crossing the bridge, the soldier led the way +by a narrow and steep path past a Moorish mill +and aqueduct, and up the ravine which separates +the domains of the Generalife from those of the +Alhambra. The last ray of the sun shone upon +the red battlements of the latter, which beetled +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_274" id="Pg_274" title="Pg_274">[274]</a></span>far above; and the convent-bells were proclaiming +the festival of the ensuing day. The ravine +was overshadowed by fig-trees, vines, and myrtles, +and the outer towers and walls of the fortress. +It was dark and lonely, and the twilight-loving +bats began to flit about. At length the +soldier halted at a remote and ruined tower apparently +intended to guard a Moorish aqueduct. +He struck the foundation with the butt-end of his +spear. A rumbling sound was heard, and the +solid stones yawned apart, leaving an opening as +wide as a door.</p> + +<p>"'Enter in the name of the Holy Trinity,' +said the soldier, 'and fear nothing.' The student's +heart quaked, but he made the sign of the +cross, muttered his Ave Maria, and followed his +mysterious guide into a deep vault cut out of the +solid rock under the tower, and covered with Arabic +inscriptions. The soldier pointed to a stone +seat hewn along one side of the vault. 'Behold,' +said he, 'my couch for three hundred +years.' The bewildered student tried to force a +joke. 'By the blessed St. Anthony,' said he, +'but you must have slept soundly, considering +the hardness of your couch.'</p> + +<p>"'On the contrary, sleep has been a stranger to +these eyes; incessant watchfulness has been my +doom. Listen to my lot. I was one of the +royal guards of Ferdinand and Isabella; but +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_275" id="Pg_275" title="Pg_275">[275]</a></span>was taken prisoner by the Moors in one of their +sorties, and confined a captive in this tower. +When preparations were made to surrender the +fortress to the Christian sovereigns, I was prevailed +upon by an alfaqui, a Moorish priest, to +aid him in secreting some of the treasures of +Boabdil in this vault. I was justly punished for +my fault. The alfaqui was an African necromancer, +and by his infernal arts cast a spell upon +me—to guard his treasures. Something must +have happened to him, for he never returned, +and here have I remained ever since, buried +alive. Years and years have rolled away; earthquakes +have shaken this hill; I have heard stone +by stone of the tower above tumbling to the +ground, in the natural operation of time; but +the spell-bound walls of this vault set both time +and earthquakes at defiance.</p> + +<p>"'Once every hundred years, on the festival +of St. John, the enchantment ceases to have +thorough sway; I am permitted to go forth and +post myself upon the bridge of the Darro, where +you met me, waiting until some one shall arrive +who may have power to break this magic spell. +I have hitherto mounted guard there in vain. +I walk as in a cloud, concealed from mortal sight. +You are the first to accost me for now three hundred +years. I behold the reason. I see on +your finger the seal-ring of Solomon the Wise, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_276" id="Pg_276" title="Pg_276">[276]</a></span>which is proof against all enchantment. With +you it remains to deliver me from this awful +dungeon, or to leave me to keep guard here for +another hundred years.'</p> + +<p>"The student listened to this tale in mute wonderment. +He had heard many tales of treasures +shut up under strong enchantment in the vaults +of the Alhambra, but had treated them as fables. +He now felt the value of the seal-ring, which +had, in a manner, been given to him by St. Cyprian. +Still, though armed by so potent a talisman, +it was an awful thing to find himself <i>tête-à-tête</i> +in such a place with an enchanted soldier, +who, according to the laws of nature, ought to +have been quietly in his grave for nearly three +centuries.</p> + +<p>"A personage of this kind, however, was quite +out of the ordinary run, and not to be trifled +with, and he assured him he might rely upon his +friendship and good will to do everything in his +power for his deliverance.</p> + +<p>"'I trust to a motive more powerful than +friendship,' said the soldier.</p> + +<p>"He pointed to a ponderous iron coffer, secured +by locks inscribed with Arabic characters. 'That +coffer,' said he, 'contains countless treasure in +gold and jewels and precious stones. Break the +magic spell by which I am enthralled, and one +half of this treasure shall be thine.'</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_277" id="Pg_277" title="Pg_277">[277]</a></span>"'But how am I to do it?'</p> + +<p>"'The aid of a Christian priest and a Christian +maid is necessary. The priest to exorcise +the powers of darkness; the damsel to touch +this chest with the seal of Solomon. This must +be done at night. But have a care. This is +solemn work, and not to be effected by the carnal-minded. +The priest must be a <i>Cristiano +viejo</i>, a model of sanctity; and must mortify the +flesh before he comes here, by a rigorous fast of +four-and-twenty hours: and as to the maiden, she +must be above reproach, and proof against temptation. +Linger not in finding such aid. In three +days my furlough is at an end; if not delivered +before midnight of the third, I shall have to +mount guard for another century.'</p> + +<p>"'Fear not,' said the student, 'I have in my +eye the very priest and damsel you describe; but +how am I to regain admission to this tower?'</p> + +<p>"'The seal of Solomon will open the way for +thee.'</p> + +<p>"The student issued forth from the tower much +more gayly than he had entered. The wall +closed behind him, and remained solid as before.</p> + +<p>"The next morning he repaired boldly to the +mansion of the priest, no longer a poor strolling +student, thrumming his way with a guitar; but +an ambassador from the shadowy world, with enchanted +treasures to bestow. No particulars are +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_278" id="Pg_278" title="Pg_278">[278]</a></span>told of his negotiation, excepting that the zeal +of the worthy priest was easily kindled at the +idea of rescuing an old soldier of the faith and +a strong box of King Chico from the very +clutches of Satan; and then what alms might be +dispensed, what churches built, and how many +poor relatives enriched with the Moorish treasure!</p> + +<p>"As to the immaculate handmaid, she was +ready to lend her hand, which was all that was +required, to the pious work; and if a shy glance +now and then might be believed, the ambassador +began to find favor in her modest eyes.</p> + +<p>"The greatest difficulty, however, was the fast +to which the good padre had to subject himself. +Twice he attempted it, and twice the flesh was +too strong for the spirit. It was only on the +third day that he was enabled to withstand the +temptations of the cupboard; but it was still a +question whether he would hold out until the +spell was broken.</p> + +<p>"At a late hour of the night the party groped +their way up the ravine by the light of a lantern, +and bearing a basket with provisions for exorcising +the demon of hunger so soon as the other +demons should be laid in the Red Sea.</p> + +<p>"The seal of Solomon opened their way into +the tower. They found the soldier seated on the +enchanted strong-box, awaiting their arrival. The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_279" id="Pg_279" title="Pg_279">[279]</a></span>exorcism was performed in due style. The damsel +advanced and touched the locks of the coffer +with the seal of Solomon. The lid flew open; +and such treasures of gold and jewels and precious +stones as flashed upon the eye!</p> + +<p>"'Here's cut and come again!' cried the student, +exultingly, as he proceeded to cram his +pockets.</p> + +<p>"'Fairly and softly,' exclaimed the soldier. +'Let us get the coffer out entire, and then divide.'</p> + +<p>"They accordingly went to work with might +and main; but it was a difficult task; the chest +was enormously heavy, and had been imbedded +there for centuries. While they were thus employed +the good dominie drew on one side and +made a vigorous onslaught on the basket, by way +of exorcising the demon of hunger which was raging +in his entrails. In a little while a fat capon +was devoured, and washed down by a deep potation +of Val de peñas; and, by way of grace after +meat, he gave a kind-hearted kiss to the pet-lamb +who waited on him. It was quietly done in a +corner, but the tell-tale walls babbled it forth as if +in triumph. Never was chaste salute more awful +in its effects. At the sound the soldier gave a +great cry of despair; the coffer, which was half +raised, fell back in its place and was locked once +more. Priest, student, and damsel found themselves +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_280" id="Pg_280" title="Pg_280">[280]</a></span>outside of the tower, the wall of which +closed with a thundering jar. Alas! the good +padre had broken his fast too soon!</p> + +<p>"When recovered from his surprise, the student +would have reëntered the tower, but learnt to his +dismay that the damsel, in her fright, had let fall +the seal of Solomon; it remained within the +vault.</p> + +<p>"In a word, the cathedral bell tolled midnight; +the spell was renewed; the soldier was doomed +to mount guard for another hundred years, and +there he and the treasure remain to this day—and +all because the kind-hearted padre kissed his +handmaid. 'Ah, father! father!' said the student, +shaking his head ruefully, as they returned +down the ravine, 'I fear there was less of the +saint than the sinner in that kiss!'</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"Thus ends the legend as far as it has been authenticated. +There is a tradition, however, that +the student had brought off treasure enough in +his pocket to set him up in the world; that he +prospered in his affairs, that the worthy padre +gave him the pet-lamb in marriage, by way of +amends for the blunder in the vault; that the +immaculate damsel proved a pattern for wives +as she had been for handmaids, and bore her husband +a numerous progeny; that the first was a +wonder; it was born seven months after her marriage, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_281" id="Pg_281" title="Pg_281">[281]</a></span>and though a seven-months' boy, was the +sturdiest of the flock. The rest were all born +in the ordinary course of time.</p> + +<p>"The story of the enchanted soldier remains +one of the popular traditions of Granada, though +told in a variety of ways; the common people +affirm that he still mounts guard on mid-summer +eve, beside the gigantic stone pomegranate on +the bridge of the Darro; but remains invisible +excepting to such lucky mortal as may possess +the seal of Solomon."</p></div> + +<p>These passages from the most characteristic +of Irving's books, do not by any means +exhaust his variety, but they afford a fair +measure of his purely literary skill, upon +which his reputation must rest. To my +apprehension this "charm" in literature is +as necessary to the amelioration and enjoyment +of human life as the more solid +achievements of scholarship. That Irving +should find it in the prosaic and materialistic +conditions of the New World as well +as in the tradition-laden atmosphere of the +Old, is evidence that he possessed genius of +a refined and subtle quality if not of the +most robust order.</p> + + +<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a></div> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_282" id="Pg_282" title="Pg_282">[282]</a></span></div> + +<h2>CHAPTER X.<br /></h2> + + +<h3>LAST YEARS: THE CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE.<br /><br /></h3> + + +<p>The last years of Irving's life, although +full of activity and enjoyment,—abated +only by the malady which had so long tormented +him,—offer little new in the development +of his character, and need not +much longer detain us. The calls of friendship +and of honor were many, his correspondence +was large, he made many excursions +to scenes that were filled with pleasant +memories, going even as far south as +Virginia, and he labored assiduously at the +"Life of Washington,"—attracted however +now and then by some other tempting +theme. But his delight was in the domestic +circle at Sunnyside. It was not possible +that his occasional melancholy vein +should not be deepened by change and +death and the lengthening shade of old age. +Yet I do not know the closing days of any +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_283" id="Pg_283" title="Pg_283">[283]</a></span>other author of note that were more cheerful +serene, and happy than his. Of our +author, in these latter days, Mr. George +William Curtis put recently into his "Easy +Chair" papers an artistically-touched little +portrait: "Irving was as quaint a figure," +he says, "as the Diedrich Knickerbocker in +the preliminary advertisement of the 'History +of New York.' Thirty years ago he +might have been seen on an autumnal afternoon +tripping with an elastic step along +Broadway, with 'low-quartered' shoes neatly +tied, and a Talma cloak—a short garment +that hung from the shoulders like the cape +of a coat. There was a chirping, cheery, +old-school air in his appearance which was +undeniably Dutch, and most harmonious +with the associations of his writing. He +seemed, indeed, to have stepped out of his +own books; and the cordial grace and humor +of his address, if he stopped for a passing +chat, were delightfully characteristic. +He was then our most famous man of letters, +but he was simply free from all self-consciousness +and assumption and dogmatism." +Congenial occupation was one secret +of Irving's cheerfulness and contentment, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_284" id="Pg_284" title="Pg_284">[284]</a></span>no doubt. And he was called away as soon +as his task was done, very soon after the +last volume of the "Washington" issued +from the press. Yet he lived long enough +to receive the hearty approval of it from +the literary men whose familiarity with the +Revolutionary period made them the best +judges of its merits.</p> + +<p>He had time also to revise his works. It +is perhaps worthy of note that for several +years, while he was at the height of his +popularity, his books had very little sale. +From 1842 to 1848 they were out of print, +with the exception of some stray copies of +a cheap Philadelphia edition, and a Paris +collection (a volume of this, at my hand, is +one of a series entitled a "Collection of +Ancient and Modern <i>British</i> Authors"), +they were not to be found. The Philadelphia +publishers did not think there was +sufficient demand to warrant a new edition. +Mr. Irving and his friends judged the market +more wisely, and a young New York +publisher offered to assume the responsibility. +This was Mr. George P. Putnam. +The event justified his sagacity and his liberal +enterprise; from July, 1848, to November, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_285" id="Pg_285" title="Pg_285">[285]</a></span>1859, the author received on his copyright +over eighty-eight thousand dollars. +And it should be added that the relations +between author and publisher, both in prosperity +and in times of business disaster, reflect +the highest credit upon both. If the +like relations always obtained we should +not have to say: "May the Lord pity the +authors in this world, and the publishers in +the next."</p> + +<p>I have outlined the life of Washington Irving +in vain, if we have not already come to +a tolerably clear conception of the character +of the man and of his books. If I were exactly +to follow his literary method I should +do nothing more. The idiosyncrasies of +the man are the strength and weakness of +his works. I do not know any other author +whose writings so perfectly reproduce his +character, or whose character may be more +certainly measured by his writings. His +character is perfectly transparent: his predominant +traits were humor and sentiment; +his temperament was gay with a dash of +melancholy; his inner life and his mental +operations were the reverse of complex, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_286" id="Pg_286" title="Pg_286">[286]</a></span>his literary method is simple. He <i>felt</i> his +subject, and he expressed his conception +not so much by direct statement or description +as by almost imperceptible touches +and shadings here and there, by a diffused +tone and color, with very little show of analysis. +Perhaps it is a sufficient definition +to say that his method was the sympathetic. +In the end the reader is put in possession +of the luminous and complete idea +upon which the author has been brooding, +though he may not be able to say exactly +how the impression has been conveyed to +him; and I doubt if the author could have +explained his sympathetic process. He certainly +would have lacked precision in any +philosophical or metaphysical theme, and +when, in his letters, he touches upon politics +there is a little vagueness of definition that +indicates want of mental grip in that direction. +But in the region of feeling his genius +is sufficient to his purpose; either when +that purpose is a highly creative one, as in +the character and achievements of his Dutch +heroes, or merely that of portraiture, as in +the "Columbus" and the "Washington." +The analysis of a nature so simple and a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_287" id="Pg_287" title="Pg_287">[287]</a></span>character so transparent as Irving's, who +lived in the sunlight and had no envelope +of mystery, has not the fascination that attaches +to Hawthorne.</p> + +<p>Although the direction of his work as a +man of letters was largely determined by +his early surroundings,—that is, by his +birth in a land void of traditions, and into +a society without much literary life, so that +his intellectual food was of necessity a foreign +literature that was at the moment becoming +a little antiquated in the land of its +birth, and his warm imagination was forced +to revert to the past for that nourishment +which his crude environment did not offer,—yet +he was by nature a retrospective man. +His face was set towards the past, not towards +the future. He never caught the restlessness +of this century, nor the prophetic +light that shone in the faces of Coleridge, +Shelley, and Keats; if he apprehended the +stir of the new spirit he still, by mental +affiliation, belonged rather to the age of +Addison than to that of Macaulay. And +his placid, retrospective, optimistic strain +pleased a public that were excited and harrowed +by the mocking and lamenting of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_288" id="Pg_288" title="Pg_288">[288]</a></span>Lord Byron, and, singularly enough, pleased +even the great pessimist himself.</p> + +<p>His writings induce to reflection, to quiet +musing, to tenderness for tradition; they +amuse, they entertain, they call a check to +the feverishness of modern life; but they +are rarely stimulating or suggestive. They +are better adapted, it must be owned, to +please the many than the critical few, who +demand more incisive treatment and a deeper +consideration of the problems of life. And +it is very fortunate that a writer who can +reach the great public and entertain it can +also elevate and refine its tastes, set before +it high ideas, instruct it agreeably, and all +this in a style that belongs to the best literature. +It is a safe model for young readers; +and for young readers there is very +little in the overwhelming flood of to-day +that is comparable to Irving's books, and, +especially, it seems to me, because they +were not written for children.</p> + +<p>Irving's position in American literature, +or in that of the English tongue, will only +be determined by the slow settling of opinion, +which no critic can foretell, and the +operation of which no criticism seems able +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_289" id="Pg_289" title="Pg_289">[289]</a></span>to explain. I venture to believe, however, +that the verdict will not be in accord with +much of the present prevalent criticism. +The service that he rendered to American +letters no critic disputes; nor is there any +question of our national indebtedness to him +for investing a crude and new land with the +enduring charms of romance and tradition. +In this respect, our obligation to him is that +of Scotland to Scott and Burns; and it is +an obligation due only, in all history, to +here and there a fortunate creator to whose +genius opportunity is kind. The Knickerbocker +Legend and the romance with which +Irving has invested the Hudson are a priceless +legacy; and this would remain an imperishable +possession in popular tradition +if the literature creating it were destroyed. +This sort of creation is unique in modern +times. New York is the Knickerbocker +city; its whole social life remains colored by +his fiction; and the romantic background it +owes to him in some measure supplies to it +what great age has given to European cities. +This creation is sufficient to secure for him +an immortality, a length of earthly remembrance +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_290" id="Pg_290" title="Pg_290">[290]</a></span>that all the rest of his writings together +might not give.</p> + +<p>Irving was always the literary man; he +had the habits, the idiosyncrasies, of his +small genus. I mean that he regarded life +not from the philanthropic, the economic, +the political, the philosophic, the metaphysic, +the scientific, or the theologic, but purely +from the literary point of view. He belongs +to that small class of which Johnson and +Goldsmith are perhaps as good types as +any, and to which America has added very +few. The literary point of view is taken +by few in any generation; it may seem to +the world of very little consequence in the +pressure of all the complex interests of life, +and it may even seem trivial amid the +tremendous energies applied to immediate +affairs; but it is the point of view that endures; +if its creations do not mould human +life, like the Roman law, they remain to +charm and civilize, like the poems of Horace. +You must not ask more of them than that. +This attitude toward life is defensible on +the highest grounds. A man with Irving's +gifts has the right to take the position of an +observer and describer, and not to be called +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_291" id="Pg_291" title="Pg_291">[291]</a></span>on for a more active participation in affairs +than he chooses to take. He is doing the +world the highest service of which he is +capable, and the most enduring it can receive +from any man. It is not a question +whether the work of the literary man is +higher than that of the reformer or the +statesman; it is a distinct work, and is justified +by the result, even when the work is +that of the humorist only. We recognize +this in the ease of the poet. Although +Goethe has been reproached for his lack of +sympathy with the liberalizing movement +of his day (as if his novels were quieting +social influences), it is felt by this generation +that the author of "Faust" needs no +apology that he did not spend his energies +in the effervescing politics of the German +states. I mean, that while we may like or +dislike the man for his sympathy or want +of sympathy, we concede to the author the +right of his attitude; if Goethe had not +assumed freedom from moral responsibility, +I suppose that criticism of his aloofness +would long ago have ceased. Irving did +not lack sympathy with humanity in the +concrete; it colored whatever he wrote. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_292" id="Pg_292" title="Pg_292">[292]</a></span>But he regarded the politics of his own +country, the revolutions in France, the long +struggle in Spain, without heat; and he held +aloof from projects of agitation and reform, +and maintained the attitude of an observer, +regarding the life about him from the point +of view of the literary artist, as he was justified +in doing.</p> + +<p>Irving had the defects of his peculiar +genius, and these have no doubt helped to fix +upon him the complimentary disparagement +of "genial." He was not aggressive; in +his nature he was wholly unpartisan, and +full of lenient charity; and I suspect that +his kindly regard of the world, although +returned with kindly liking, cost him something +of that respect for sturdiness and force +which men feel for writers who flout them +as fools in the main. Like Scott, he belonged +to the idealists, and not to the realists, +whom our generation affects. Both +writers stimulate the longing for something +better. Their creed was short: "Love God +and honor the King." It is a very good one +for a literary man, and might do for a +Christian. The supernatural was still a +reality in the age in which they wrote, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_293" id="Pg_293" title="Pg_293">[293]</a></span>Irving's faith in God and his love of humanity +were very simple; I do not suppose +he was much disturbed by the deep +problems that have set us all adrift. In +every age, whatever is astir, literature, theology, +all intellectual activity, takes one and +the same drift, and approximates in color. +The bent of Irving's spirit was fixed in his +youth, and he escaped the desperate realism +of this generation, which has no outcome, +and is likely to produce little that is noble.</p> + +<p>I do not know how to account, on principles +of culture which we recognize, for +our author's style. His education was exceedingly +defective, nor was his want of +discipline supplied by subsequent desultory +application. He seems to have been born +with a rare sense of literary proportion and +form; into this, as into a mould, were run +his apparently lazy and really acute observations +of life. That he thoroughly mastered +such literature as he fancied there is +abundant evidence; that his style was influenced +by the purest English models is +also apparent. But there remains a large +margin for wonder how, with his want of +training, he could have elaborated a style +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_294" id="Pg_294" title="Pg_294">[294]</a></span>which is distinctively his own, and is as +copious, felicitous in the choice of words, +flowing, spontaneous, flexible, engaging, +clear, and as little wearisome when read +continuously in quantity as any in the English +tongue. This is saying a great deal, +though it is not claiming for him the compactness, +nor the robust vigor, nor the depth +of thought, of many others masters in it. +It is sometimes praised for its simplicity. +It is certainly lucid, but its simplicity is +not that of Benjamin Franklin's style; it +is often ornate, not seldom somewhat diffuse, +and always exceedingly melodious. It +is noticeable for its metaphorical felicity. +But it was not in the sympathetic nature of +the author, to which I just referred, to come +sharply to the point. It is much to have +merited the eulogy of Campbell that he +had "added clarity to the English tongue." +This elegance and finish of style (which +seems to have been as natural to the man +as his amiable manner) is sometimes made +his reproach, as if it were his sole merit, +and as if he had concealed under this +charming form a want of substance. In +literature form is vital. But his case does +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_295" id="Pg_295" title="Pg_295">[295]</a></span>not rest upon that. As an illustration his +"Life of Washington" may be put in +evidence. Probably this work lost something +in incisiveness and brilliancy by being +postponed till the writer's old age. But +whatever this loss, it is impossible for any +biography to be less pretentious in style, or +less ambitious in proclamation. The only +pretension of matter is in the early chapters, +in which a more than doubtful genealogy is +elaborated, and in which it is thought necessary +to Washington's dignity to give a +fictitious importance to his family and his +childhood, and to accept the southern estimate +of the hut in which he was born as a +"mansion." In much of this false estimate +Irving was doubtless misled by the fables +of Weems. But while he has given us a +dignified portrait of Washington, it is as far +as possible removed from that of the smileless +prig which has begun to weary even the +popular fancy. The man he paints is flesh +and blood, presented, I believe, with substantial +faithfulness to his character; with a +recognition of the defects of his education +and the deliberation of his mental operations; +with at least a hint of that want of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_296" id="Pg_296" title="Pg_296">[296]</a></span>breadth of culture and knowledge of the +past, the possession of which characterized +many of his great associates; and with no +concealment that he had a dower of passions +and a temper which only vigorous +self-watchfulness kept under. But he portrays, +with an admiration not too highly +colored, the magnificent patience, the courage +to bear misconstruction, the unfailing +patriotism, the practical sagacity, the level +balance of judgment combined with the +wisest toleration, the dignity of mind, and +the lofty moral nature which made him the +great man of his epoch. Irving's grasp of +this character; his lucid marshaling of the +scattered, often wearisome and uninteresting +details of our dragging, unpicturesque +Revolutionary War; his just judgment of +men; his even, almost judicial, moderation +of tone; and his admirable proportion of +space to events, render the discussion of style +in reference to this work superfluous. Another +writer might have made a more brilliant +performance: descriptions sparkling with +antitheses, characters projected into startling +attitudes by the use of epithets; a work +more exciting and more piquant, that would +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_297" id="Pg_297" title="Pg_297">[297]</a></span>have started a thousand controversies, and +engaged the attention by daring conjectures +and attempts to make a dramatic spectacle; +a book interesting and notable, but false in +philosophy and untrue in fact.</p> + +<p>When the "Sketch-Book" appeared, an +English critic said it should have been first +published in England, for Irving was an +English writer. The idea has been more +than once echoed here. The truth is that +while Irving was intensely American in +feeling he was first of all a man of letters, +and in that capacity he was cosmopolitan; +he certainly was not insular. He had a +rare accommodation of tone to his theme. +Of England, whose traditions kindled his +susceptible fancy, he wrote as Englishmen +would like to write about it. In Spain he +was saturated with the romantic story of +the people and the fascination of the clime; +and he was so true an interpreter of both +as to earn from the Spaniards the title of +"the poet Irving." I chanced once, in an +inn at Frascati, to take up "The Tales of +a Traveller," which I had not seen for many +years. I expected to revive the somewhat +faded humor and fancy of the past generation. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_298" id="Pg_298" title="Pg_298">[298]</a></span>But I found not only a sprightly +humor and vivacity which are modern, but +a truth to Italian local color that is very +rare in any writer foreign to the soil. As +to America, I do not know what can be +more characteristically American than the +Knickerbocker, the Hudson River tales, the +sketches of life and adventure in the far +West. But underneath all this diversity +there is one constant quality,—the flavor +of the author. Open by chance and read +almost anywhere in his score of books,—it +may be the "Tour on the Prairies," the familiar +dream of the Alhambra, or the narratives +of the brilliant exploits of New +World explorers; surrender yourself to the +flowing current of his transparent style, and +you are conscious of a beguilement which is +the crowning excellence of all lighter literature, +for which we have no word but +"charm."</p> + +<p>The consensus of opinion about Irving in +England and America for thirty years was +very remarkable. He had a universal popularity +rarely enjoyed by any writer. England +returned him to America medalled by +the king, honored by the university which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_299" id="Pg_299" title="Pg_299">[299]</a></span>is chary of its favors, followed by the applause +of the whole English people. In +English households, in drawing-rooms of +the metropolis, in political circles no less +than among the literary coteries, in the +best reviews, and in the popular newspapers +the opinion of him was pretty much the +same. And even in the lapse of time and +the change of literary fashion authors so +unlike as Byron and Dickens were equally +warm in admiration of him. To the English +indorsement America added her own enthusiasm, +which was as universal. His readers +were the million, and all his readers were +admirers. Even American statesmen, who +feed their minds on food we know not of, +read Irving. It is true that the uncritical +opinion of New York was never exactly re-echoed +in the cool recesses of Boston culture; +but the magnates of the "North +American Review" gave him their meed of +cordial praise. The country at large put +him on a pinnacle. If you attempt to account +for the position he occupied by his +character, which won the love of all men, it +must be remembered that the quality which +won this, whatever its value, pervades his +books also.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_300" id="Pg_300" title="Pg_300">[300]</a></span>And yet it must be said that the total +impression left upon the mind by the man +and his works is not that of the greatest +intellectual force. I have no doubt that +this was the impression he made upon his +ablest contemporaries. And this fact, when +I consider the effect the man produced, +makes the study of him all the more interesting. +As an intellectual personality he +makes no such impression, for instance, as +Carlyle, or a dozen other writers now living +who could be named. The incisive critical +faculty was almost entirely wanting in him. +He had neither the power nor the disposition +to cut his way transversely across popular +opinion and prejudice that Ruskin has, +nor to draw around him disciples equally +well pleased to see him fiercely demolish to-day +what they had delighted to see him set +up yesterday as eternal. He evoked neither +violent partisanship nor violent opposition. +He was an extremely sensitive man, and if +he had been capable of creating a conflict +he would only have been miserable in it. +The play of his mind depended upon the +sunshine of approval. And all this shows +a certain want of intellectual virility.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_301" id="Pg_301" title="Pg_301">[301]</a></span>A recent anonymous writer has said that +most of the writing of our day is characterized +by an intellectual strain. I have no +doubt that this will appear to be the case +to the next generation. It is a strain to +say something new even at the risk of paradox, +or to say something in a new way +at the risk of obscurity. From this Irving +was entirely free. There is no visible straining +to attract attention. His mood is calm +and unexaggerated. Even in some of his +pathos, which is open to the suspicion of +being "literary," there is no literary exaggeration. +He seems always writing from +an internal calm, which is the necessary +condition of his production. If he wins at +all by his style, by his humor, by his portraiture +of scenes or of character, it is by a +gentle force, like that of the sun in spring. +There are many men now living, or recently +dead, intellectual prodigies, who have stimulated +thought, upset opinions, created mental +eras, to whom Irving stands hardly in +as fair a relation as Goldsmith to Johnson. +What verdict the next generation will put +upon their achievements I do not know; +but it is safe to say that their position and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_302" id="Pg_302" title="Pg_302">[302]</a></span>that of Irving as well will depend largely +upon the affirmation or the reversal of their +views of life and their judgments of character. +I think the calm work of Irving will +stand when much of the more startling and +perhaps more brilliant intellectual achievement +of this age has passed away.</p> + +<p>And this leads me to speak of Irving's +moral quality, which I cannot bring myself +to exclude from a literary estimate, even +in the face of the current gospel of art for +art's sake. There is something that made +Scott and Irving personally loved by the +millions of their readers, who had only the +dimmest of ideas of their personality. This +was some quality perceived in what they +wrote. Each one can define it for himself; +there it is, and I do not see why it is not +as integral a part of the authors—an element +in the estimate of their future position—as +what we term their intellect, their +knowledge, their skill, or their art. However +you rate it, you cannot account for Irving's +influence in the world without it. In +his tender tribute to Irving, the great-hearted +Thackeray, who saw as clearly as anybody +the place of mere literary art in the sum +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_303" id="Pg_303" title="Pg_303">[303]</a></span>total of life, quoted the dying words of Scott +to Lockhart,—"Be a good man, my dear." +We know well enough that the great author +of "The Newcomes" and the great author +of "The Heart of Midlothian" recognized +the abiding value in literature of integrity, +sincerity, purity, charity, faith. These are +beneficences; and Irving's literature, walk +round it and measure it by whatever critical +instruments you will, is a beneficent literature. +The author loved good women +and little children and a pure life; he had +faith in his fellow-men, a kindly sympathy +with the lowest, without any subservience +to the highest; he retained a belief in the +possibility of chivalrous actions, and did +not care to envelop them in a cynical suspicion; +he was an author still capable of an +<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'enthusiam'">enthusiasm</ins>. His books are wholesome, full +of sweetness and charm, of humor without +any sting, of amusement without any stain; +and their more solid qualities are marred +by neither pedantry nor pretension.</p> + +<p>Washington Irving died on the 28th of +November, 1859, at the close of a lovely +day of that Indian Summer which is nowhere +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_304" id="Pg_304" title="Pg_304">[304]</a></span>more full of a melancholy charm +than on the banks of the lower Hudson, +and which was in perfect accord with the +ripe and peaceful close of his life. He was +buried on a little elevation overlooking +Sleepy Hollow and the river he loved, +amidst the scenes which his magic pen has +made classic and his sepulchre hallows.</p> + +<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<!-- Ads --> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_Ad1" id="Pg_Ad1" title="Pg_Ad1">[1a]</a></span></p> + +<h2>Standard and Popular Library Books<br /></h2> +<p class="center"><small>SELECTED FROM THE CATALOGUE OF</small><br /> +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY.<br /><br /></p> + +<p> +<big>John Adams and Abigail Adams.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Familiar Letters of, during the Revolution. 12mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Louis Agassiz.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Methods of Study in Natural History. Illus. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Geological Sketches. First Series. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Geological Sketches. Second Series. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A Journey in Brazil. Illustrated. 8vo, $5.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Thomas Bailey Aldrich.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Story of a Bad Boy. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Marjorie Daw and Other People. 12mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prudence Palfrey. 12mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Queen of Sheba. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Stillwater Tragedy. 12mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From Ponkapog to Pesth. 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cloth of Gold and Other Poems. 12mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Flower and Thorn. Later Poems. 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poems, Complete. Illustrated. 8vo, $5.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mercedes, and Later Lyrics. 12mo.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>American Commonwealths.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Edited by HORACE E. SCUDDER.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Virginia. By John Esten Cooke.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oregon. By William Barrows.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">(<i>In Preparation</i>.)</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">South Carolina. By Hon. W.H. Trescot.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kentucky. By N.S. Shaler.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Maryland. By Wm. Hand Browne.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pennsylvania. By Hon. Wayne MacVeagh.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Each volume, 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Others to be announced hereafter.</span><br /> +<br /></p> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_Ad2" id="Pg_Ad2" title="Pg_Ad2">[2a]</a></span></div> + +<p> +<big>American Men of Letters.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Edited by CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Washington Irving. By Charles Dudley Warner.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Noah Webster. By Horace E. Scudder.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Henry D. Thoreau. By Frank B. Sanborn.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">George Ripley. By O.B. Frothingham.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">J. Fenimore Cooper. By Prof. T.R. Lounsbury.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">(<i>In Preparation</i>.)</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ralph Waldo Emerson. By Oliver Wendell Holmes.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nathaniel Hawthorne. By James Russell Lowell.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Margaret Fuller. By T.W. Higginson.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Edmund Quincy. By Sidney Howard Gay.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">William Cullen Bryant. By John Bigelow.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bayard Taylor. By J.R.G. Hassard</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">William Gilmore Simms. By George W. Cable.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Benjamin Franklin. By John Bach McMaster.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Edgar Allan Poe. By George E. Woodberry.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Each volume, with Portrait, 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Others to be announced hereafter.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>American Statesmen.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Edited by JOHN T. MORSE, Jr.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">John Quincy Adams. By John T. Morse, Jr.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alexander Hamilton. By Henry Cabot Lodge.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">John C. Calhoun. By Dr. H. von Holst.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Andrew Jackson. By Prof. W.G. Sumner.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">John Randolph. By Henry Adams.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">James Monroe. By Pres. D.C. Gilman.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thomas Jefferson. By John T. Morse, Jr.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Daniel Webster. By Henry Cabot Lodge.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Albert Gallatin. By John Austin Stevens.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">(<i>In Preparation</i>.)</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">James Madison. By Sidney Howard Gay.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Patrick Henry. By Prof. Moses Coit Tyler.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Henry Clay. By Hon. Carl Schurz.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Each volume, 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Others to be announced hereafter.</span><br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_Ad3" id="Pg_Ad3" title="Pg_Ad3">[3a]</a></span></div> + +<p> +<big>Mrs. Martha Babcock Amory.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Life of John Singleton Copley. 8vo, $3.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Hans Christian Andersen.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Complete Works. 10 vols. crown 8vo, each $1.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Francis, Lord Bacon.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Works. Collected and edited by Spedding, Ellis, and Heath.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">15 vols. crown 8vo, $33.75.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Popular Edition</i>. With Portraits and Index. 2 vols. crown</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">8vo, $5.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Promus of Formularies and Elegancies. 8vo, $5.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Life and Times of Bacon. Abridged. By James Spedding.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">2 vols. crown 8vo, $5.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>William Henry Bishop.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The House of a Merchant Prince. A Novel. 12mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Detmold. A Novel. 18mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Björnstjerne Björnson.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Norwegian Novels. 7 vols., 16mo, each $1.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>British Poets.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Riverside Edition</i>. Crown 8vo, each $1.75; the set, 68 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">$100.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Akenside and Beattie, 1 vol.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ballads, 4 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Burns, 1 vol.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Butler, 1 vol.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Byron, 5 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Campbell and Falconer, 1 vol.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chatterton, 1 vol.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chaucer, 3 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Churchill, Parnell, and Tickell, 2 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Coleridge and Keats, 2 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cowper, 2 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dryden, 2 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gay, 1 vol.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Goldsmith and Gray, 1 vol.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Herbert and Vaughan, 1 vol.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Herrick, 1 vol.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hood, 2 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Milton and Marvell, 2 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Montgomery, 2 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Moore, 3 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pope and Collins, 2 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prior, 1 vol.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scott, 5 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shakespeare and Jonson, 1 vol.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shelley, 2 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Skelton and Donne, 2 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Southey, 5 vols.</span><br /> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_Ad4" id="Pg_Ad4" title="Pg_Ad4">[4a]</a></span> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Spenser, 3 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Swift, 2 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thomson, 1 vol.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Watts and White, 1 vol.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wordsworth, 3 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wyatt and Surrey, 1 vol.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Young, 1 vol.</span><br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<p> +<big>John Brown, M.D.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Spare Hours. 3 vols. 16mo, each $1.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Robert Browning.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poems and Dramas, etc. 15 vols. 16mo, $20.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Complete Works. <i>New Edition</i>. 7 vols. crown 8vo, $12.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jocoseria. New Poems. 16mo, $1.00. Crown 8vo, $1.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>William Cullen Bryant.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Translation of Homer. The Iliad. 1 vol. crown 8vo, $3.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">2 vols. royal 8vo, $9.00; crown 8vo, $4.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Odyssey, 1 vol. crown 8vo, $3.00. 2 vols. royal 8vo,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">$9.00; crown 8vo, $4.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Sara C. Bull.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Life of Ole Bull. Portrait and illustrations. 8vo, $2.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>John Burroughs.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wake-Robin. Illustrated.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Winter Sunshine.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Birds and Poets.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Locusts and Wild Honey.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pepacton, and Other Sketches.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Each volume, 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Thomas Carlyle.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Essays. With Portrait and Index. 4 vols. 12mo $7.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Popular Edition.</i> 2 vols. 12mo, $3.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Alice and Phoebe Cary.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poems. <i>Household Edition</i>. 12mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Library Edition</i>. Portraits and 24 illustrations. 8vo, $4.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poetical Works, including Memorial by Mary Clemmer.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">8vo, full gilt, $4.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Lydia Maria Child.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Looking toward Sunset. 12mo, $2.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Letters. With Biography by Whittier. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_Ad5" id="Pg_Ad5" title="Pg_Ad5">[5a]</a></span></div> + +<p> +<big>James Freeman Clarke.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ten Great Religions. 8vo, $3.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ten Great Religions. Part II. Comparison of all Religions. 8vo, $3.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Common Sense in Religion. 12mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Memorial and Biographical Sketches. 12mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>James Fenimore Cooper.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Works. <i>Household Edition</i>. Illustrated. 32 vols. 16mo,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">each $1.00; the set, $32.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Globe Edition</i>. Illustrated. 16 vols. 16mo, $20.00. <i>(Sold only in sets.)</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sea Tales. Illustrated. 10 vols. 16mo, $10.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Leather-Stocking Tales. <i>Household Edition</i>. Illustrated.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">5 vols, 16mo. $5.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>M. Creighton.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Papacy during the Reformation. 2 vols. 8vo, $10.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Richard H. Dana.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To Cuba and Back. 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Two Years before the Mast. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Thomas De Quincey.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Works. <i>Riverside Edition</i>. 12 vols. 12mo, each $1.50; the</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">set, $18.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Globe Edition</i>. 6 vols. 16mo, $10.00. <i>(Sold only in sets.)</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Madame De Staël.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Germany, 12mo, $2.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Charles Dickens.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Works. <i>Illustrated Library Edition</i>. With Dickens Dictionary.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">30 vols, 12mo, each $1.50; the set, $45.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Globe-Edition</i>. 15 vols. 16mo, each $1.25.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>J. Lewis Diman.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Theistic Argument, etc. Crown 8vo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Orations and Essays. Crown 8vo, $2.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>F.S. Drake.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dictionary of American Biography. 8vo, $6.00.</span><br /> +</p> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_Ad6" id="Pg_Ad6" title="Pg_Ad6">[6a]</a></span></div> + +<p> +<big>Charles L. Eastlake.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hints on Household Taste. Illustrated. 8vo, $3.00</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Notes on the Louvre and Brera Galleries. Small 4to, $2.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>George Eliot</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Spanish Gypsy. A Poem. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Ralph Waldo Emerson.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Works. <i>Riverside Edition.</i> 11 vols. each $1.75; the set,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">$19.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>"Little Classic" Edition</i>. 11 vols. 18mo, each $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Parnassus, <i>Household Edition</i>. 12mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Library Edition</i>. 8vo, $4.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>F. de S. de la Motte Fénelon.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Adventures of Telemachus. 12mo, $2.25</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>James T. 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Crown 8vo, each $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poems. <i>Household Edition.</i> 12mo, $2.00. <i>Red Line Edition.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Small 410, $2.50. <i>Diamond Edition</i>, $1.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Nathaniel Hawthorne.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Works. "<i>Little Classic" Edition.</i> Illustrated. 25 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">18mo, each $1.00; the set $25.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Fireside Edition.</i> Illus. 13 vols. 16mo, the set, $21.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Globe Edition.</i> Illustrated. 6 vols. 16mo, the set, $10.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>New Riverside Edition.</i> Introductions by G.P. Lathrop</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">11 Etchings and Portrait. 12 vols. crown 8vo, each $2.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>George S. 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Crown 8vo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Medical Essays. Crown 8vo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pages from an old Volume of Life. Crown 8vo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">John Lothrop Motley. A Memoir. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Augustus Hoppin.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A Fashionable Sufferer. 12mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Recollections of Auton House. 4to, $1.25.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>William D. Howells.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Venetian Life. 12mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Italian Journeys. 12mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their Wedding Journey. Illus. 12mo, $1.50; 18mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Suburban Sketches. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A Chance Acquaintance. 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Howells.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">8 vols. 18mo, each $1.25.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Thomas Hughes.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tom Brown's School-Days at Rugby. 16mo, $1.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tom Brown at Oxford. 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Manliness of Christ, 16mo, $1.00; paper, 25 cents.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>William Morris Hunt.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Talks on Art. Series I. and II. 8vo, each $1.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Henry James, Jr.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A Passionate Pilgrim and other Tales. 12mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Transatlantic Sketches. 12mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Roderick Hudson. 12mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The American. 12mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Watch and Ward. 18mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Europeans. 12mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Confidence. 12mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Portrait of a Lady. 12mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Mrs. Anna Jameson.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Writings upon Art Subjects. 10 vols. 18mo, each $1.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Sarah Orne Jewett.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Deephaven. 18mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Old Friends and New. 18mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Country By-Ways. 18mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Play-Days. Stories for Children. Square 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Mate of the Daylight <i>(In Press.)</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Rossiter Johnson.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Little Classics. Eighteen handy volumes containing the</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">choicest Stories, Sketches, and short Poems in English</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Literature. Each in one vol. 18mo, $1.00; the set, $18.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">9 vols., square 16mo, $13.50. <i>(Sold only in sets.)</i></span><br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_Ad9" id="Pg_Ad9" title="Pg_Ad9">[9a]</a></span></div> + +<p> +<big>Samuel Johnson.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oriental Religions: India, 8vo, $5.00. China, 8vo, $5.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Persia, 8vo. <i>(In Press.)</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lectures, Essays, and Sermons. Crown 8vo, $1.75.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>T. Starr King.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Christianity and Humanity. With Portrait. 16mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Substance and Show. 16mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Lucy Larcom.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poems. 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An Idyl of Work. 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wild Roses of Cape Ann and other Poems. 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Breathings of the Better Life. 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>George Parsons Lathrop.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A Study of Hawthorne. 18mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An Echo of Passion. 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Charles G. Leland.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Gypsies. Crown 8vo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>George Henry Lewes.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Story of Goethe's Life. Portrait. 12mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Problems of Life and Mind. 5 vols. 8vo, $14.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poems. <i>Cambridge Edition.</i> Portrait. 4 vols. 12mo, $9.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">2 vols. 12mo, $7.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Octavo Edition.</i> Portrait and 300 illustrations. $8.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Household Edition.</i> Portrait. 12mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Red-Line Edition.</i> Portrait and 12 illus. Small 4to, $2.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Diamond Edition.</i> $1.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Library Edition.</i> Portrait and 32 illustrations. 8vo, $4.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Christus. <i>Household Edition,</i> $2.00; <i>Diamond Edition</i>, $1.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prose Works. <i>Cambridge Edition.</i> 2 vols. 12mo, $4.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hyperion. A Romance. 16mo, $1.50; paper, 15 cents.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kavanagh. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Outre-Mer. 16mo, $1.50; paper, 15 cents.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the Harbor. Portrait. 16mo, $1.00.</span><br /> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_Ad10" id="Pg_Ad10" title="Pg_Ad10">[10a]</a></span> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Michael Angelo; a Drama. Illustrated. Folio. <i>(In Press.)</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Twenty Poems. Illustrated. Small 4to, $4.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Translation of the Divina Commedia of Dante. 1 vol.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">cr. 8vo, $3.00. 3 vols. royal 8vo, $13.50; cr. 8vo, $6.00</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poets and Poetry of Europe. Royal 8vo, $5.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>James Russell Lowell.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poems. <i>Red-Line Edition.</i> Portrait. Illus. Small 4to, $2.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Household Edition.</i> Portrait. 12mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Library Edition.</i> Portrait and 32 illustrations. 8vo, $4.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Diamond Edition.</i> $1.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fireside Travels. 12mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Among my Books. Series I. and II. 12mo, each $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My Study Windows. 12mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Thomas Babington Macaulay.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">England <i>Riverside Edition.</i> 4 vols. 12mo, $5.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Essays. Portrait. <i>Riverside Edition.</i> 3 vols. 12mo, $3.75.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Speeches and Poems. <i>Riverside Edition.</i> 12mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Harriet Martineau.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Autobiography, Portraits and illus, 2 vols. 8vo, $6.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Household Education. 18mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Owen Meredith.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poems. <i>Household Edition.</i> Illustrated. 12mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Library Edition.</i> Portrait and 32 illustrations. 8vo, $4.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Shawmut Edition.</i> 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lucile. <i>Red-Line Edition.</i> 8 illustrations. Small 4to, $2.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Diamond Edition.</i> 8 illustrations. $1.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>J.W. Mollett.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Illustrated Dictionary of Words used in Art and Archæology.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Small 4to, $5.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Michael de Montaigne.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Complete Works. Portrait. 4 vols. 12mo, $7.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>William Mountford.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Euthanasy. 12mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_Ad11" id="Pg_Ad11" title="Pg_Ad11">[11a]</a></span></div> + +<p> +<big>T. Mozley.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Reminiscences of Oriel College, etc. 2 vols, 16mo, $3.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Elisha Mulford.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Nation. 8vo, $2.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Republic of God, 8vo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>T.T. Munger.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On the Threshold. 16mo, $1.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Freedom of Faith. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>J.A.W. Neander.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">History of the Christian Religion and Church, with Index</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">volume, 6 vols. 8vo, $20.00; Index alone, $3.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Charles Eliot Norton.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Notes of Travel and Study in Italy, 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Translation of Dante's New Life. Royal 8vo, $3.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Francis W. Palfrey.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Memoir of William Francis Bartlett. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>James Parton.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Life of Benjamin Franklin. 2 vols. 8vo, $4.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Life of Thomas Jefferson. 8vo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Life of Aaron Burr. 2 vols. $4.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Life of Andrew Jackson. 3 vols. 8vo, $6.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Life of Horace Greeley. 8vo, $2.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">General Butler in New Orleans. 8vo, $2.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Humorous Poetry of the English Language. 8vo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Famous Americans of Recent Times. 8vo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Life of Voltaire. 2 vols. 8vo, $6.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The French Parnassus. 12mo, $2.00; crown 8vo, $3.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Blaise Pascal.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thoughts, Letters, and Opuscules. 12mo, $2.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Provincial Letters. 12mo, $2.25.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Gates Ajar. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beyond the Gates. 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Men, Women, and Ghosts. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hedged In. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_Ad12" id="Pg_Ad12" title="Ad12">[12a]</a></span> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Silent Partner. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Story of Avis. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sealed Orders, and other Stories. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Friends; A Duet. 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Doctor Zay. 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poetic Studies. Square 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<br /> + +<big>Carl Ploetz.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Epitome of Ancient, Mediæval and Modern History. <i>(In Press.)</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Adelaide A. Procter.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poems. <i>Diamond Edition.</i> $1.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Red-Line Edition.</i> Portrait and illus. Small 4to, $2.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Henry Crabb Robinson.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Diary, Reminiscences, etc. Crown 8vo, $2.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>A.P. Russell.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Library Notes. Crown 8vo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Characteristics. Crown 8vo. <i>(In Press.)</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<big>John Godfrey Saxe.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Works. Portrait. 16mo, $2.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poems. <i>Red-Line Edition.</i> Illustrated. Small 4to, $2.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Diamond Edition.</i> $1.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Household Edition.</i> 12mo, $2.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Sir Walter Scott.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Waverley Novels. <i>Illustrated Library Edition.</i> 25 vols.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">12mo, each $1.00; the set, $25.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Globe Edition.</i> 100 illustrations. 13 vols. 16mo, $16.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tales of a Grandfather. <i>Library Edition.</i> 3 vols. 12mo,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">$4.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poems. <i>Red-Line Edition.</i> Illustrated. Small 4to, $2.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Diamond Edition.</i> $1.00.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Horace E. Scudder.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Bodley Books. Illus. 7 vols. Small 4to, each $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Dwellers in Five-Sisters' Court. 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stories and Romances. 16mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dream Children. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.00.</span><br /> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_Ad13" id="Pg_Ad13" title="Pg_Ad13">[13a]</a></span> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seven Little People. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stories from my Attic. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Children's Book. Illustrated. 4to, 450 pages, $3.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Boston Town. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>W.H. Seward.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Works. 5 vols. 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With Memoir. 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<br /> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Pg_Ad15" id="Pg_Ad15" title="Pg_Ad15">[15a]</a></span> + +<big>F.M.A. de Voltaire.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">History of Charles XII. 12mo, $2.25.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Lew Wallace.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Fair God. A Novel. 12mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>Charles Dudley Warner.</big><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My Summer in a Garden. 16mo, $1.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Illustrated Edition</i>. Square 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saunterings. 18mo, $1.25.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Back-Log Studies. Illustrated. Square 16mo, $1.50.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Baddeck, and that sort of Thing. 18mo, $1.00.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My Winter on the Nile. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Washington Irving + +Author: Charles Dudley Warner + +Release Date: June 4, 2005 [EBook #15984] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WASHINGTON IRVING *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Peter Barozzi and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + [Illustration] + + + American Men of Letters. + + + WASHINGTON IRVING. + + + + BY + + CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. + + + + + FIFTH THOUSAND. + + + + BOSTON: + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. + 11 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET, NEW YORK. + The Riverside Press, Cambridge. + 1884. + + + + + Copyright, 1881, + BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. + + _All rights reserved_. + + _The Riverside Press, Cambridge:_ + Electrotyped and printed by H.O. Houghton & Co. + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER I. PAGE + PRELIMINARY 1 + + CHAPTER II. + BOYHOOD 21 + + CHAPTER III. + MANHOOD: FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE 31 + + CHAPTER IV. + SOCIETY AND "SALMAGUNDI" 43 + + CHAPTER V. + THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD 58 + + CHAPTER VI. + LIFE IN EUROPE: LITERARY ACTIVITY 94 + + CHAPTER VII. + IN SPAIN 141 + + CHAPTER VIII. + RETURN TO AMERICA: SUNNYSIDE: THE MISSION TO + MADRID 158 + + CHAPTER IX. + THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS 190 + + CHAPTER X. + LAST YEARS: THE CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE 282 + + + + + WASHINGTON IRVING. + + CHAPTER I. + + PRELIMINARY. + + +It is over twenty years since the death of Washington Irving removed +that personal presence which is always a powerful, and sometimes the +sole, stimulus to the sale of an author's books, and which strongly +affects the contemporary judgment of their merits. It is nearly a +century since his birth, which was almost coeval with that of the +Republic, for it took place the year the British troops evacuated the +city of New York, and only a few months before General Washington +marched in at the head of the Continental army and took possession of +the metropolis. For fifty years Irving charmed and instructed the +American people, and was the author who held, on the whole, the first +place in their affections. As he was the first to lift American +literature into the popular respect of Europe, so for a long time he was +the chief representative of the American name in the world of letters. +During this period probably no citizen of the Republic, except the +Father of his Country, had so wide a reputation as his namesake, +Washington Irving. + +It is time to inquire what basis this great reputation had in enduring +qualities, what portion of it was due to local and favoring +circumstances, and to make an impartial study of the author's literary +rank and achievement. + +The tenure of a literary reputation is the most uncertain and +fluctuating of all. The popularity of an author seems to depend quite as +much upon fashion or whim, as upon a change in taste or in literary +form. Not only is contemporary judgment often at fault, but posterity is +perpetually revising its opinion. We are accustomed to say that the +final rank of an author is settled by the slow consensus of mankind in +disregard of the critics; but the rank is after all determined by the +few best minds of any given age, and the popular judgment has very +little to do with it. Immediate popularity, or currency, is a nearly +valueless criterion of merit. The settling of high rank even in the +popular mind does not necessarily give currency; the so-called best +authors are not those most widely read at any given time. Some who +attain the position of classics are subject to variations in popular and +even in scholarly favor or neglect. It happens to the princes of +literature to encounter periods of varying duration when their names are +revered and their books are not read. The growth, not to say the +fluctuation, of Shakespeare's popularity is one of the curiosities of +literary history. Worshiped by his contemporaries, apostrophized by +Milton only fourteen years after his death as the "dear son of memory, +great heir to fame,"-- + + "So sepulchred in such pomp dost lie, + That kings, for such a tomb, would wish to die,"-- + +he was neglected by the succeeding age, the subject of violent extremes +of opinion in the eighteenth century, and so lightly esteemed by some +that Hume could doubt if he were a poet "capable of furnishing a proper +entertainment to a refined and intelligent audience," and attribute to +the rudeness of his "disproportioned and misshapen" genius the "reproach +of barbarism" which the English nation had suffered from all its +neighbors. Only recently has the study of him by English scholars--I do +not refer to the verbal squabbles over the text--been proportioned to +his preeminence, and his fame is still slowly asserting itself among +foreign peoples. + +There are already signs that we are not to accept as the final judgment +upon the English contemporaries of Irving the currency their writings +have now. In the case of Walter Scott, although there is already visible +a reaction against a reaction, he is not, at least in America, read by +this generation as he was by the last. This faint reaction is no doubt a +sign of a deeper change impending in philosophic and metaphysical +speculation. An age is apt to take a lurch in a body one way or another, +and those most active in it do not always perceive how largely its +direction is determined by what are called mere systems of philosophy. +The novelist may not know whether he is steered by Kant, or Hegel, or +Schopenhauer. The humanitarian novel, the fictions of passion, of +realism, of doubt, the poetry and the essays addressed to the mood of +unrest, of questioning, to the scientific spirit and to the shifting +attitudes of social change and reform, claim the attention of an age +that is completely adrift in regard to the relations of the supernatural +and the material, the ideal and the real. It would be natural if in such +a time of confusion the calm tones of unexaggerated literary art should +be not so much heeded as the more strident voices. Yet when the passing +fashion of this day is succeeded by the fashion of another, that which +is most acceptable to the thought and feeling of the present may be +without an audience; and it may happen that few recent authors will be +read as Scott and the writers of the early part of this century will be +read. It may, however, be safely predicted that those writers of fiction +worthy to be called literary artists will best retain their hold who +have faithfully painted the manners of their own time. + +Irving has shared the neglect of the writers of his generation. It +would be strange, even in America, if this were not so. The development +of American literature (using the term in its broadest sense) in the +past forty years is greater than could have been expected in a nation +which had its ground to clear, its wealth to win, and its new +governmental experiment to adjust; if we confine our view to the last +twenty years, the national production is vast in amount and encouraging +in quality. It suffices to say of it here, in a general way, that the +most vigorous activity has been in the departments of history, of +applied science, and the discussion of social and economic problems. +Although pure literature has made considerable gains, the main +achievement has been in other directions. The audience of the literary +artist has been less than that of the reporter of affairs and +discoveries and the special correspondent. The age is too busy, too +harassed, to have time for literature; and enjoyment of writings like +those of Irving depends upon leisure of mind. The mass of readers have +cared less for form than for novelty and news and the satisfying of a +recently awakened curiosity. This was inevitable in an era of +journalism, one marked by the marvelous results attained in the fields +of religion, science, and art, by the adoption of the comparative +method. Perhaps there is no better illustration of the vigor and +intellectual activity of the age than a living English writer, who has +traversed and illuminated almost every province of modern thought, +controversy, and scholarship; but who supposes that Mr. Gladstone has +added anything to permanent literature? He has been an immense force in +his own time, and his influence the next generation will still feel and +acknowledge, while it reads not the writings of Mr. Gladstone but may be +those of the author of "Henry Esmond" and the biographer of "Rab and his +Friends." De Quincey divides literature into two sorts, the literature +of power and the literature of knowledge. The latter is of necessity for +to-day only, and must be revised to-morrow. The definition has scarcely +De Quincey's usual verbal felicity, but we can apprehend the distinction +he intended to make. + +It is to be noted also, and not with regard to Irving only, that the +attention of young and old readers has been so occupied and distracted +by the flood of new books, written with the single purpose of satisfying +the wants of the day, produced and distributed with marvelous cheapness +and facility that the standard works of approved literature remain for +the most part unread upon the shelves. Thirty years ago Irving was much +read in America by young people and his clear style helped to form a +good taste and correct literary habits. It is not so now. The +manufacturers of books, periodicals, and newspapers for the young keep +the rising generation fully occupied, with a result to its taste and +mental fibre which, to say the least of it, must be regarded with some +apprehension. The "plant," in the way of money and writing industry +invested in the production of juvenile literature, is so large and is so +permanent an interest, that it requires more discriminating +consideration than can be given to it in a passing paragraph. + +Besides this, and with respect to Irving in particular, there has been +in America a criticism--sometimes called the destructive, sometimes the +Donnybrook Fair--that found "earnestness" the only thing in the world +amusing, that brought to literary art the test of utility, and +disparaged what is called the "Knickerbocker School" (assuming Irving to +be the head of it) as wanting in purpose and virility, a merely romantic +development of the post-Revolutionary period. And it has been to some +extent the fashion to damn with faint admiration the pioneer if not the +creator of American literature as the "genial" Irving. + +Before I pass to an outline of the career of this representative +American author, it is necessary to refer for a moment to certain +periods, more or less marked, in our literature. I do not include in it +the works of writers either born in England or completely English in +training, method, and tradition, showing nothing distinctively American +in their writings except the incidental subject. The first authors whom +we may regard as characteristic of the new country--leaving out the +productions of speculative theology--devoted their genius to politics. +It is in the political writings immediately preceding and following the +Revolution--such as those of Hamilton, Madison, Jay, Franklin, +Jefferson--that the new birth of a nation of original force and ideas is +declared. It has been said, and I think the statement can be maintained, +that for any parallel to those treatises on the nature of government, in +respect to originality and vigor, we must go back to classic times. But +literature, that is, literature which is an end in itself and not a +means to something else, did not exist in America before Irving. Some +foreshadowings (the autobiographical fragment of Franklin was not +published till 1817) of its coming may be traced, but there can be no +question that his writings were the first that bore the national +literary stamp, that he first made the nation conscious of its gift and +opportunity, and that he first announced to trans-Atlantic readers the +entrance of America upon the literary field. For some time he was our +only man of letters who had a reputation beyond seas. + +Irving was not, however, the first American who made literature a +profession and attempted to live on its fruits. This distinction belongs +to Charles Brockden Brown, who was born in Philadelphia, January 17, +1771, and, before the appearance in a newspaper of Irving's juvenile +essays in 1802, had published several romances, which were hailed as +original and striking productions by his contemporaries, and even +attracted attention in England. As late as 1820 a prominent British +review gives Mr. Brown the first rank in our literature as an original +writer and characteristically American. The reader of to-day who has the +curiosity to inquire into the correctness of this opinion will, if he is +familiar with the romances of the eighteenth century, find little +originality in Brown's stories, and nothing distinctively American. The +figures who are moved in them seem to be transported from the pages of +foreign fiction to the New World, not as it was, but as it existed in +the minds of European sentimentalists. + +Mr. Brown received a fair education in a classical school in his native +city, and studied law, which he abandoned on the threshold of practice, +as Irving did, and for the same reason. He had the genuine literary +impulse, which he obeyed against all the arguments and entreaties of his +friends. Unfortunately, with a delicate physical constitution he had a +mind of romantic sensibility, and in the comparative inaction imposed by +his frail health he indulged in visionary speculation, and in solitary +wanderings which developed the habit of sentimental musing. It was +natural that such reveries should produce morbid romances. The tone of +them is that of the unwholesome fiction of his time, in which the +"seducer" is a prominent and recognized character in social life, and +female virtue is the frail sport of opportunity. Brown's own life was +fastidiously correct, but it is a curious commentary upon his estimate +of the natural power of resistance to vice in his time, that he regarded +his feeble health as good fortune, since it protected him from the +temptations of youth and virility. + +While he was reading law he constantly exercised his pen in the +composition of essays, some of which were published under the title of +the "Rhapsodist;" but it was not until 1797 that his career as an author +began, by the publication of "Alcuin: a Dialogue on the Rights of +Women." This and the romances which followed it show the powerful +influence upon him of the school of fiction of William Godwin, and the +movement of emancipation of which Mary Wollstonecraft was the leader. +The period of social and political ferment during which "Alcuin" was put +forth was not unlike that which may be said to have reached its height +in extravagance and millennial expectation in 1847-48. In "Alcuin" are +anticipated most of the subsequent discussions on the right of women to +property and to self-control, and the desirability of revising the +marriage relation. The injustice of any more enduring union than that +founded upon the inclination of the hour is as ingeniously urged in +"Alcuin" as it has been in our own day. + +Mr. Brown's reputation rests upon six romances: "Wieland," "Ormond," +"Arthur Mervyn," "Edgar Huntly," "Clara Howard," and "Jane Talbot." The +first five were published in the interval between the spring of 1798 and +the summer of 1801, in which he completed his thirtieth year. "Jane +Talbot" appeared somewhat later. In scenery and character, these +romances are entirely unreal. There is in them an affectation of +psychological purpose which is not very well sustained, and a somewhat +clumsy introduction of supernatural machinery. Yet they have a power of +engaging the attention in the rapid succession of startling and uncanny +incidents and in adventures in which the horrible is sometimes +dangerously near the ludicrous. Brown had not a particle of humor. Of +literary art there is little, of invention considerable; and while the +style is to a certain extent unformed and immature, it is neither feeble +nor obscure, and admirably serves the author's purpose of creating what +the children call a "crawly" impression. There is undeniable power in +many of his scenes, notably in the descriptions of the yellow fever in +Philadelphia, found in the romance of "Arthur Mervyn." There is, +however, over all of them a false and pallid light; his characters are +seen in a spectral atmosphere. If a romance is to be judged not by +literary rules, but by its power of making an impression upon the mind, +such power as a ghastly story has, told by the chimney-corner on a +tempestuous night, then Mr. Brown's romances cannot be dismissed without +a certain recognition. But they never represented anything +distinctively American, and their influence upon American literature is +scarcely discernible. + +Subsequently Mr. Brown became interested in political subjects, and +wrote upon them with vigor and sagacity. He was the editor of two +short-lived literary periodicals which were nevertheless useful in their +day: "The Monthly Magazine and American Review," begun in New York in +the spring of 1798, and ending in the autumn of 1800; and "The Literary +Magazine and American Register," which was established in Philadelphia +in 1803. It was for this periodical that Mr. Brown, who visited Irving +in that year, sought in vain to enlist the service of the latter, who, +then a youth of nineteen, had a little reputation as the author of some +humorous essays in the "Morning Chronicle" newspaper. + +Charles Brockden Brown died, the victim of a lingering consumption, in +1810, at the age of thirty-nine. In pausing for a moment upon his +incomplete and promising career, we should not forget to recall the +strong impression he made upon his contemporaries as a man of genius, +the testimony to the charm of his conversation and the goodness of his +heart, nor the pioneer service he rendered to letters before the +provincial fetters were at all loosened. + +The advent of Cooper, Bryant, and Halleck, was some twenty years after +the recognition of Irving, but thereafter the stars thicken in our +literary sky, and when in 1832 Irving returned from his long sojourn in +Europe, he found an immense advance in fiction, poetry, and historical +composition. American literature was not only born,--it was able to go +alone. We are not likely to overestimate the stimulus to this movement +given by Irving's example, and by his success abroad. His leadership is +recognized in the respectful attitude towards him of all his +contemporaries in America. And the cordiality with which he gave help +whenever it was asked, and his eagerness to acknowledge merit in others, +secured him the affection of all the literary class, which is popularly +supposed to have a rare appreciation of the defects of fellow craftsmen. + +The period from 1830 to 1860 was that of our greatest purely literary +achievement, and, indeed, most of the greater names of to-day were +familiar before 1850. Conspicuous exceptions are Motley and Parkman and +a few belles-lettres writers, whose novels and stories mark a distinct +literary transition since the War of the Rebellion. In the period from +1845 to 1860, there was a singular development of sentimentalism; it had +been growing before, it did not altogether disappear at the time named, +and it was so conspicuous that this may properly be called the +sentimental era in our literature. The causes of it, and its relation to +our changing national character, are worthy the study of the historian. +In politics, the discussion of constitutional questions, of tariffs and +finance, had given way to moral agitations. Every political movement was +determined by its relation to slavery. Eccentricities of all sorts were +developed. It was the era of "transcendentalism" in New England, of +"come-outers" there and elsewhere, of communistic experiments, of reform +notions about marriage, about woman's dress, about diet; through the +open door of abolitionism women appeared upon its platform, demanding a +various emancipation; the agitation for total abstinence from +intoxicating drinks got under full headway, urged on moral rather than +on the statistical and scientific grounds of to-day; reformed drunkards +went about from town to town depicting to applauding audiences the +horrors of delirium tremens,--one of these peripatetics led about with +him a goat, perhaps as a scapegoat and sin-offering; tobacco was as +odious as rum; and I remember that George Thompson, the eloquent apostle +of emancipation, during his tour in this country, when on one occasion +he was the cynosure of a protracted antislavery meeting at Peterboro, +the home of Gerrit Smith, deeply offended some of his co-workers, and +lost the admiration of many of his admirers, the maiden devotees of +green tea, by his use of snuff. To "lift up the voice" and wear longhair +were signs of devotion to a purpose. + +In that seething time, the lighter literature took a sentimental tone, +and either spread itself in manufactured fine writing, or lapsed into a +reminiscent and melting mood. In a pretty affectation, we were asked to +meditate upon the old garret, the deserted hearth, the old letters, the +old well-sweep, the dead baby, the little shoes; we were put into a mood +in which we were defenseless against the lukewarm flood of the Tupperean +Philosophy. Even the newspapers caught the bathetic tone. Every "local" +editor breathed his woe over the incidents of the police court, the +falling leaf, the tragedies of the boarding-house, in the most +lachrymose periods he could command, and let us never lack fine writing, +whatever might be the dearth of news. I need not say how suddenly and +completely this affectation was laughed out of sight by the coming of +the "humorous" writer, whose existence is justified by the excellent +service he performed in clearing the tearful atmosphere. His keen and +mocking method, which is quite distinct from the humor of Goldsmith and +Irving, and differs, in degree at least, from the comic almanac +exaggeration and coarseness which preceded it, puts its foot on every +bud of sentiment, holds few things sacred, and refuses to regard +anything in life seriously. But it has no mercy for any sham. + +I refer to this sentimental era--remembering that its literary +manifestation was only a surface disease, and recognizing fully the +value of the great moral movement in purifying the national +life--because many regard its literary weakness as a legitimate +outgrowth of the Knickerbocker School, and hold Irving in a manner +responsible for it. But I find nothing in the manly sentiment and true +tenderness of Irving to warrant the sentimental gush of his followers, +who missed his corrective humor as completely as they failed to catch +his literary art. Whatever note of localism there was in the +Knickerbocker School, however _dilettante_ and unfruitful it was, it was +not the legitimate heir of the broad and eclectic genius of Irving. The +nature of that genius we shall see in his life. + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + BOYHOOD. + + +Washington Irving was born in the city of New York, April 3, 1783. He +was the eighth son of William and Sarah Irving, and the youngest of +eleven children, three of whom died in infancy. His parents, though of +good origin, began life in humble circumstances. His father was born on +the island of Shapinska. His family, one of the most respectable in +Scotland, traced its descent from William De Irwyn, the secretary and +armor-bearer of Robert Bruce; but at the time of the birth of William +Irving its fortunes had gradually decayed, and the lad sought his +livelihood, according to the habit of the adventurous Orkney Islanders, +on the sea. + +It was during the French War, and while he was serving as a petty +officer in an armed packet plying between Falmouth and New York, that he +met Sarah Sanders, a beautiful girl, the only daughter of John and Anna +Sanders, who had the distinction of being the granddaughter of an +English curate. The youthful pair were married in 1761, and two years +after embarked for New York, where they landed July 18, 1763. Upon +settling in New York William Irving quit the sea and took to trade, in +which he was successful until his business was broken up by the +Revolutionary War. In this contest he was a staunch Whig, and suffered +for his opinions at the hands of the British occupants of the city, and +both he and his wife did much to alleviate the misery of the American +prisoners. In this charitable ministry his wife, who possessed a rarely +generous and sympathetic nature, was especially zealous, supplying the +prisoners with food from her own table, visiting those who were ill, and +furnishing them with clothing and other necessaries. + +Washington was born in a house on William Street, about half-way between +Fulton and John; the following year the family moved across the way into +one of the quaint structures of the time, its gable end with attic +window towards the street, the fashion of which, and very likely the +bricks, came from Holland. In this homestead the lad grew up, and it was +not pulled down till 1849, ten years before his death. The patriot army +occupied the city. "Washington's work is ended," said the mother, "and +the child shall be named after him." When the first President was again +in New York, the first seat of the new government, a Scotch maid-servant +of the family, catching the popular enthusiasm, one day followed the +hero into a shop and presented the lad to him. "Please, your honor," +said Lizzie, all aglow, "here's a bairn was named after you." And the +grave Virginian placed his hand on the boy's head and gave him his +blessing. The touch could not have been more efficacious, though it +might have lingered longer, if he had known he was propitiating his +future biographer. + +New York at the time of our author's birth was a rural city of about +twenty-three thousand inhabitants, clustered about the Battery. It did +not extend northward to the site of the present City Hall Park; and +beyond, then and for several years afterwards, were only country +residences, orchards, and corn-fields. The city was half burned down +during the war, and had emerged from it in a dilapidated condition. +There was still a marked separation between the Dutch and the English +residents, though the Irvings seem to have been on terms of intimacy +with the best of both nationalities. The habits of living were +primitive; the manners were agreeably free; conviviality at the table +was the fashion, and strong expletives had not gone out of use in +conversation. Society was the reverse of intellectual: the aristocracy +were the merchants and traders; what literary culture found expression +was formed on English models, dignified and plentifully garnished with +Latin and Greek allusions; the commercial spirit ruled, and the +relaxations and amusements partook of its hurry and excitement. In their +gay, hospitable, and mercurial character, the inhabitants were true +progenitors of the present metropolis. A newspaper had been established +in 1732, and a theatre had existed since 1750. Although the town had a +rural aspect, with its quaint dormer-window houses, its straggling lanes +and roads, and the water-pumps in the middle of the streets, it had the +aspirations of a city, and already much of the metropolitan air. + +These were the surroundings in which the boy's literary talent was to +develop. His father was a deacon in the Presbyterian church, a sedate, +God-fearing man, with the strict severity of the Scotch Covenanter, +serious in his intercourse with his family, without sympathy in the +amusements of his children; he was not without tenderness in his nature, +but the exhibition of it was repressed on principle,--a man of high +character and probity, greatly esteemed by his associates. He endeavored +to bring up his children in sound religious principles, and to leave no +room in their lives for triviality. One of the two weekly half-holidays +was required for the catechism, and the only relaxation from the three +church services on Sunday was the reading of "Pilgrim's Progress." This +cold and severe discipline at home would have been intolerable but for +the more lovingly demonstrative and impulsive character of the mother, +whose gentle nature and fine intellect won the tender veneration of her +children. Of the father they stood in awe; his conscientious piety +failed to waken any religious sensibility in them, and they revolted +from a teaching which seemed to regard everything that was pleasant as +wicked. The mother, brought up an Episcopalian, conformed to the +religious forms and worship of her husband but she was never in sympathy +with his rigid views. The children were repelled from the creed of their +father, and subsequently all of them except one became attached to the +Episcopal Church. Washington, in order to make sure of his escape, and +feel safe while he was still constrained to attend his father's church, +went stealthily to Trinity Church at an early age, and received the rite +of confirmation. The boy was full of vivacity, drollery, and innocent +mischief. His sportiveness and disinclination to religious seriousness +gave his mother some anxiety, and she would look at him, says his +biographer, with a half mournful admiration, and exclaim, "O Washington! +if you were only good!" He had a love of music, which became later in +life a passion, and great fondness for the theatre. The stolen delight +of the theatre he first tasted in company with a boy who was somewhat +his senior, but destined to be his literary comrade,--James K. Paulding, +whose sister was the wife of Irving's brother William. Whenever he could +afford this indulgence, he stole away early to the theatre in John +Street, remained until it was time to return to the family prayers at +nine, after which he would retire to his room, slip through his window +and down the roof to a back alley, and return to enjoy the after-piece. + +Young Irving's school education was desultory, pursued under several +more or less incompetent masters, and was over at the age of sixteen. +The teaching does not seem to have had much discipline or solidity; he +studied Latin a few months, but made no other incursion into the +classics. The handsome, tender-hearted, truthful, susceptible boy was no +doubt a dawdler in routine studies, but he assimilated what suited him. +He found his food in such pieces of English literature as were floating +about, in "Robinson Crusoe" and "Sinbad;" at ten he was inspired by a +translation of "Orlando Furioso;" he devoured books of voyages and +travel; he could turn a neat verse, and his scribbling propensities +were exercised in the composition of childish plays. The fact seems to +be that the boy was a dreamer and saunterer; he himself says that he +used to wander about the pier heads in fine weather, watch the ships +departing on long voyages, and dream of going to the ends of the earth. +His brothers Peter and John had been sent to Columbia College, and it is +probable that Washington would have had the same advantage if he had not +shown a disinclination to methodical study. At the age of sixteen he +entered a law office, but he was a heedless student, and never acquired +either a taste for the profession or much knowledge of law. While he sat +in the law office, he read literature, and made considerable progress in +his self-culture; but he liked rambling and society quite as well as +books. In 1798 we find him passing a summer holiday in Westchester +County, and exploring with his gun the Sleepy Hollow region which he was +afterwards to make an enchanted realm; and in 1800 he made his first +voyage up the Hudson, the beauties of which he was the first to +celebrate, on a visit to a married sister who lived in the Mohawk +Valley. In 1802 he became a law clerk in the office of Josiah Ogden +Hoffman, and began that enduring intimacy with the refined and charming +Hoffman family which was so deeply to influence all his life. His health +had always been delicate, and his friends were now alarmed by symptoms +of pulmonary weakness. This physical disability no doubt had much to do +with his disinclination to severe study. For the next two or three years +much time was consumed in excursions up the Hudson and the Mohawk, and +in adventurous journeys as far as the wilds of Ogdensburg and to +Montreal, to the great improvement of his physical condition, and in the +enjoyment of the gay society of Albany, Schenectady, Ballston, and +Saratoga Springs. These explorations and visits gave him material for +future use, and exercised his pen in agreeable correspondence; but his +tendency at this time, and for several years afterwards, was to the idle +life of a man of society. Whether the literary impulse which was born in +him would have ever insisted upon any but an occasional and fitful +expression, except for the necessities of his subsequent condition, is +doubtful. + +Irving's first literary publication was a series of letters, signed +Jonathan Oldstyle, contributed in 1802 to the "Morning Chronicle," a +newspaper then recently established by his brother Peter. The attention +that these audacious satires of the theatre, the actors, and their +audience attracted is evidence of the literary poverty of the period. +The letters are open imitations of the "Spectator" and the "Tatler," and +although sharp upon local follies are of no consequence at present +except as foreshadowing the sensibility and quiet humor of the future +author, and his chivalrous devotion to woman. What is worthy of note is +that a boy of nineteen should turn aside from his caustic satire to +protest against the cruel and unmanly habit of jesting at ancient +maidens. It was enough for him that they are women, and possess the +strongest claim upon our admiration, tenderness, and protection. + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + MANHOOD: FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE. + + +Irving's health, always delicate, continued so much impaired when he +came of age, in 1804, that his brothers determined to send him to +Europe. On the 19th of May he took passage for Bordeaux in a sailing +vessel, which reached the mouth of the Garonne on the 25th of June. His +consumptive appearance when he went on board caused the captain to say +to himself, "There's a chap who will go overboard before we get across;" +but his condition was much improved by the voyage. + +He stayed six weeks at Bordeaux to improve himself in the language, and +then set out for the Mediterranean. In the diligence he had some merry +companions, and the party amused itself on the way. It was their habit +to stroll about the towns in which they stopped, and talk with whomever +they met. Among his companions was a young French officer and an +eccentric, garrulous doctor from America. At Tonneins, on the Garonne, +they entered a house where a number of girls were quilting. The girls +gave Irving a needle and set him to work. He could not understand their +patois, and they could not comprehend his bad French, and they got on +very merrily. At last the little doctor told them that the interesting +young man was an English prisoner whom the French officer had in +custody. Their merriment at once gave place to pity. "Ah! le pauvre +garcon!" said one to another; "he is merry, however, in all his +trouble." "And what will they do with him?" asked a young woman. "Oh, +nothing of consequence," replied the doctor; "perhaps shoot him, or cut +off his head." The good souls were much distressed; they brought him +wine, loaded his pockets with fruit, and bade him good-by with a hundred +benedictions. Over forty years after, Irving made a detour, on his way +from Madrid to Paris, to visit Tonneins, drawn thither solely by the +recollection of this incident, vaguely hoping perhaps to apologize to +the tender-hearted villagers for the imposition. His conscience, had +always pricked him for it; "It was a shame," he said, "to leave them +with such painful impressions." The quilting party had dispersed by that +time. "I believe I recognized the house," he says; "and I saw two or +three old women who might once have formed part of the merry group of +girls; but I doubt whether they recognized, in the stout elderly +gentleman, thus rattling in his carriage through their streets, the pale +young English prisoner of forty years since." + +Bonaparte was emperor. The whole country was full of suspicion. The +police suspected the traveler, notwithstanding his passport, of being an +Englishman and a spy, and dogged him at every step. He arrived at +Avignon, full of enthusiasm at the thought of seeing the tomb of Laura. +"Judge of my surprise," he writes, "my disappointment, and my +indignation, when I was told that the church, tomb, and all were utterly +demolished in the time of the Revolution. Never did the Revolution, its +authors and its consequences, receive a more hearty and sincere +execration than at that moment. Throughout the whole of my journey I +had found reason to exclaim against it for depriving me of some valuable +curiosity or celebrated monument, but this was the severest +disappointment it had yet occasioned." This view of the Revolution is +very characteristic of Irving, and perhaps the first that would occur to +a man of letters. The journey was altogether disagreeable, even to a +traveler used to the rough jaunts in an American wilderness: the inns +were miserable; dirt, noise, and insolence reigned without control. But +it never was our author's habit to stroke the world the wrong way: "When +I cannot get a dinner to suit my taste, I endeavor to get a taste to +suit my dinner." And he adds: "There is nothing I dread more than to be +taken for one of the Smell-fungi of this world. I therefore endeavor to +be pleased with everything about me, and with the masters, mistresses, +and servants of the inns, particularly when I perceive they have 'all +the dispositions in the world' to serve me; as Sterne says, 'It is +enough for heaven and ought to be enough for me.'" + +The traveler was detained at Marseilles, and five weeks at Nice, on one +frivolous pretext of the police or another, and did not reach Genoa +till the 20th of October. At Genoa there was a delightful society, and +Irving seems to have been more attracted by that than by the historical +curiosities. His health was restored, and his spirits recovered +elasticity in the genial hospitality; he was surrounded by friends to +whom he became so much attached that it was with pain he parted from +them. The gayety of city life, the levees of the Doge, and the balls +were not unattractive to the handsome young man; but what made Genoa +seem like home to him was his intimacy with a few charming families, +among whom he mentions those of Mrs. Bird, Madame Gabriac, and Lady +Shaftesbury. From the latter he experienced the most cordial and +unreserved friendship; she greatly interested herself in his future, and +furnished him with letters from herself and the nobility to persons of +the first distinction in Florence, Rome, and Naples. + +Late in December Irving sailed for Sicily in a Genoese packet. Off the +island of Planoca it was overpowered and captured by a little pickaroon, +with lateen sails and a couple of guns, and a most villainous crew, in +poverty-stricken garments, rusty cutlasses in their hands and stilettos +and pistols stuck in their waistbands. The pirates thoroughly ransacked +the vessel, opened all the trunks and portmanteaus, but found little +that they wanted except brandy and provisions. In releasing the vessel, +the ragamuffins seem to have had a touch of humor, for they gave the +captain a "receipt" for what they had taken, and an order on the British +consul at Messina to pay for the same. This old-time courtesy was hardly +appreciated at the moment. + +Irving passed a couple of months in Sicily, exploring with some +thoroughness the ruins, and making several perilous inland trips, for +the country was infested by banditti. One journey from Syracuse through +the centre of the island revealed more wretchedness than Irving supposed +existed in the world. The half-starved peasants lived in wretched cabins +and often in caverns, amid filth and vermin. "God knows my mind never +suffered so much as on this journey," he writes, "when I saw such scenes +of want and misery continually before me, without the power of +effectually relieving them." His stay in the ports was made agreeable by +the officers of American ships cruising in those waters. Every ship was +a home, and every officer a friend. He had a boundless capacity for +good-fellowship. At Messina he chronicles the brilliant spectacle of +Lord Nelson's fleet passing through the straits in search of the French +fleet that had lately got out of Toulon. In less than a year, Nelson's +young admirer was one of the thousands that pressed to see the remains +of the great admiral as they lay in state at Greenwich, wrapped in the +flag that had floated at the mast-head of the Victory. + +From Sicily he passed over to Naples in a fruit boat which dodged the +cruisers, and reached Rome the last of March. Here he remained several +weeks, absorbed by the multitudinous attractions. In Italy the worlds of +music and painting were for the first time opened to him. Here he made +the acquaintance of Washington Allston, and the influence of this +friendship came near changing the whole course of his life. To return +home to the dry study of the law was not a pleasing prospect; the +masterpieces of art, the serenity of the sky, the nameless charm which +hangs about an Italian landscape, and Allston's enthusiasm as an artist, +nearly decided him to remain in Rome and adopt the profession of a +painter. But after indulging in this dream, it occurred to him that it +was not so much a natural aptitude for the art as the lovely scenery and +Allston's companionship that had attracted him to it. He saw something +of Roman society; Torlonia the banker was especially assiduous in his +attentions. It turned out when Irving came to make his adieus that +Torlonia had all along supposed him a relative of General Washington. +This mistake is offset by another that occurred later, after Irving had +attained some celebrity in England. An English lady passing through an +Italian gallery with her daughter stopped before a bust of Washington. +The daughter said, "Mother, who was Washington?" "Why, my dear, don't +you know?" was the astonished reply. "He wrote the 'Sketch-Book.'" It +was at the house of Baron von Humboldt, the Prussian minister, that +Irving first met Madame de Stael, who was then enjoying the celebrity +of "Delphine." He was impressed with her strength of mind, and somewhat +astounded at the amazing flow of her conversation, and the question upon +question with which she plied him. + +In May the wanderer was in Paris, and remained there four months, +studying French and frequenting the theatres with exemplary regularity. +Of his life in Paris there are only the meagrest reports, and he records +no observations upon political affairs. The town fascinated him more +than any other in Europe; he notes that the city is rapidly beautifying +under the emperor, that the people seem gay and happy, and _Vive la +bagatelle!_ is again the burden of their song. His excuse for remissness +in correspondence was, "I am a young man and in Paris." + +By way of the Netherlands he reached London in October and remained in +England till January. The attraction in London seems to have been the +theatre, where he saw John Kemble, Cooke, and Mrs. Siddons. Kemble's +acting seemed to him too studied and over-labored; he had the +disadvantage of a voice lacking rich, base tones. Whatever he did was +judiciously conceived and perfectly executed; it satisfied the head, but +rarely touched the heart. Only in the part of Zanga was the young critic +completely overpowered by his acting,--Kemble seemed to have forgotten +himself. Cooke, who had less range than Kemble, completely satisfied +Irving as Iago. Of Mrs. Siddons, who was then old, he scarcely dares to +give his impressions lest he should be thought extravagant. "Her looks," +he says, "her voice, her gestures, delighted me. She penetrated in a +moment to my heart. She froze and melted it by turns; a glance of her +eye, a start, an exclamation, thrilled through my whole frame. The more +I see her the more I admire her. I hardly breathe while she is on the +stage. She works up my feelings till I am like a mere child." Some years +later, after the publication of the "Sketch-Book," in a London assembly +Irving was presented to the tragedy queen, who had left the stage, but +had not laid aside its stately manner. She looked at him a moment, and +then in a deep-toned voice slowly enunciated, "You've made me weep." +The author was so disconcerted that he said not a word, and retreated in +confusion. After the publication of "Bracebridge Hall" he met her in +company again, and was persuaded to go through the ordeal of another +presentation. The stately woman fixed her eyes on him as before, and +slowly said, "You've made me weep again." This time the bashful author +acquitted himself with more honor. + +This first sojourn abroad was not immediately fruitful in a literary +way, and need not further detain us. It was the irresolute pilgrimage of +a man who had not yet received his vocation. Everywhere he was received +in the best society, and the charm of his manner and his ingenuous +nature made him everywhere a favorite. He carried that indefinable +passport which society recognizes and which needs no _vise_. He saw the +people who were famous, the women whose recognition is a social +reputation; he made many valuable friends; he frequented the theatre, he +indulged his passion for the opera; he learned how to dine, and to +appreciate the delights of a brilliant salon; he was picking up +languages; he was observing nature and men, and especially women. That +he profited by his loitering experience is plain enough afterward, but +thus far there is little to prophesy that Irving would be anything more +in life than a charming _flaneur_. + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + SOCIETY AND "SALMAGUNDI." + + +On Irving's return to America in February, 1806, with reestablished +health, life did not at first take on a more serious purpose. He was +admitted to the bar, but he still halted.[1] Society more than ever +attracted him and devoured his time. He willingly accepted the office of +"champion at the tea-parties;" he was one of a knot of young fellows of +literary tastes and convivial habits, who delighted to be known as "The +Nine Worthies," or "Lads of Kilkenny." In his letters of this period I +detect a kind of callowness and affectation which is not discernible in +his foreign letters and journal. + + [Footnote 1: Irving once illustrated his legal acquirements at + this time by the relation of the following anecdote to his + nephew: Josiah Ogden Hoffman and Martin Wilkins, an effective + and witty advocate, had been appointed to examine students for + admission. One student acquitted himself very lamely, and at + the supper which it was the custom for the candidates to give + to the examiners, when they passed upon their several merits, + Hoffman paused in coming to this one, and turning to Wilkins + said, as if in hesitation, though all the while intending to + admit him, "Martin, I think he knows a _little_ law." "Make it + stronger, Jo," was the reply; "_d----d_ little."] + +These social worthies had jolly suppers at the humble taverns of the +city, and wilder revelries in an old country house on the Passaic, which +is celebrated in the "Salmagundi" papers as Cockloft Hall. We are +reminded of the change of manners by a letter of Mr. Paulding, one of +his comrades, written twenty years after, who recalls to mind the keeper +of a porter house, "who whilom wore a long coat, in the pockets whereof +he jingled two bushels of sixpenny pieces, and whose daughter played the +piano to the accompaniment of broiled oysters." There was some +affectation of roystering in all this; but it was a time of social +good-fellowship, and easy freedom of manners in both sexes. At the +dinners there was much sentimental and bacchanalian singing; it was +scarcely good manners not to get a little tipsy; and to be laid under +the table by the compulsory bumper was not to the discredit of a guest. +Irving used to like to repeat an anecdote of one of his early friends, +Henry Ogden, who had been at one of these festive meetings. He told +Irving the next day that in going home he had fallen through a grating +which had been carelessly left open, into a vault beneath. The solitude, +he said, was rather dismal at first, but several other of the guests +fell in, in the course of the evening, and they had on the whole a +pleasant night of it. + +These young gentlemen liked to be thought "sad dogs." That they were +less abandoned than they pretended to be the sequel of their lives +shows: among Irving's associates at this time who attained honorable +consideration were John and Gouverneur Kemble, Henry Brevoort, Henry +Ogden, James K. Paulding, and Peter Irving. The saving influence for all +of them was the refined households they frequented and the association +of women who were high-spirited without prudery, and who united purity +and simplicity with wit, vivacity, and charm of manner. There is some +pleasant correspondence between Irving and Miss Mary Fairlie, a belle of +the time, who married the tragedian, Thomas A. Cooper; the "fascinating +Fairlie," as Irving calls her, and the Sophie Sparkle of the +"Salmagundi." Irving's susceptibility to the charms and graces of +women--a susceptibility which continued always fresh--was tempered and +ennobled by the most chivalrous admiration for the sex as a whole. He +placed them on an almost romantic pinnacle, and his actions always +conformed to his romantic ideal, although in his writings he sometimes +adopts the conventional satire which was more common fifty years ago +than now. In a letter to Miss Fairlie, written from Richmond, where he +was attending the trial of Aaron Burr, he expresses his exalted opinion +of the sex. It was said in accounting for the open sympathy of the +ladies with the prisoner that Burr had always been a favorite with them; +"but I am not inclined," he writes, "to account for it in so illiberal a +manner; it results from that merciful, that heavenly disposition, +implanted in the female bosom, which ever inclines in favor of the +accused and the unfortunate. You will smile at the high strain in which +I have indulged; believe me, it is because I feel it; and I love your +sex ten times better than ever."[1] + + [Footnote 1: An amusing story in connection with this Richmond + visit illustrates the romantic phase of Irving's character. + Cooper, who was playing at the theatre, needed small-clothes + for one of his parts; Irving lent him a pair,--knee-breeches + being still worn,--and the actor carried them off to Baltimore. + From that city he wrote that he had found in the pocket an + emblem of love, a mysterious locket of hair in the shape of a + heart. The history of it is curious: when Irving sojourned at + Genoa he was much taken with the beauty of a young Italian + lady, the wife of a Frenchman. He had never spoken with her, + but one evening before his departing he picked up from the + floor her handkerchief which she had dropped, and with more + gallantry than honesty carried it off to Sicily. His pocket was + picked of the precious relic while he was attending a religious + function in Catania, and he wrote to his friend Storm, the + consul at Genoa, deploring his loss. The consul communicated + the sad misfortune to the lovely Bianca, for that was the + lady's name, who thereupon sent him a lock of her hair, with + the request that he would come to see her on his return. He + never saw her again, but the lock of hair was inclosed in a + locket and worn about his neck, in memory of a radiant vision + that had crossed his path and vanished.] + +Personally, Irving must have awakened a reciprocal admiration. A drawing +by Vanderlyn, made in Paris in 1805, and a portrait by Jarvis in 1809, +present him to us in the fresh bloom of manly beauty. The face has an +air of distinction and gentle breeding; the refined lines, the poetic +chin, the sensitive mouth, the shapely nose, the large dreamy eyes, the +intellectual forehead, and the clustering brown locks are our ideal of +the author of the "Sketch-Book" and the pilgrim in Spain. His +biographer, Mr. Pierre M. Irving, has given no description of his +appearance; but a relative, who saw much of our author in his latter +years, writes to me: "He had dark gray eyes; a handsome straight nose, +which might perhaps be called large; a broad, high, full forehead, and a +small mouth. I should call him of medium height, about five feet eight +and a half to nine inches, and inclined to be a trifle stout. There was +no peculiarity about his voice; but it was pleasant and had a good +intonation. His smile was exceedingly genial, lighting up his whole face +and rendering it very attractive; while, if he were about to say +anything humorous, it would beam forth from his eyes even before the +words were spoken. As a young man his face was exceedingly handsome, and +his head was well covered with dark hair; but from my earliest +recollection of him he wore neither whiskers nor moustache, but a dark +brown wig, which, although it made him look younger, concealed a +beautifully shaped head." We can understand why he was a favorite in the +society of Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, and Albany, as well as +of New York, and why he liked to linger here and there, sipping the +social sweets, like a man born to leisure and seemingly idle observation +of life. + +It was in the midst of these social successes, and just after his +admission to the bar, that Irving gave the first decided evidence of the +choice of a career. This was his association with his eldest brother, +William, and Paulding in the production of "Salmagundi," a semi-monthly +periodical, in small duodecimo sheets, which ran with tolerable +regularity through twenty numbers, and stopped in full tide of success, +with the whimsical indifference to the public which had characterized +its every issue. Its declared purpose was "simply to instruct the young, +reform the old, correct the town, and castigate the age." In manner and +purpose it was an imitation of the "Spectator" and the "Citizen of the +World," and it must share the fate of all imitations; but its wit was +not borrowed, and its humor was to some extent original; and so +perfectly was it adapted to local conditions that it may be profitably +read to-day as a not untrue reflection of the manners and spirit of the +time and city. Its amusing audacity and complacent superiority, the +mystery hanging about its writers, its affectation of indifference to +praise or profit, its fearless criticism, lively wit, and irresponsible +humor, piqued, puzzled, and delighted the town. From the first it was an +immense success; it had a circulation in other cities, and many +imitations of it sprung up. Notwithstanding many affectations and +puerilities it is still readable to Americans. Of course, if it were +offered now to the complex and sophisticated society of New York, it +would fail to attract anything like the attention it received in the +days of simplicity and literary dearth; but the same wit, insight, and +literary art, informed with the modern spirit and turned upon the +follies and "whim-whams" of the metropolis, would doubtless have a great +measure of success. In Irving's contributions to it may be traced the +germs of nearly everything that he did afterwards; in it he tried the +various stops of his genius; he discovered his own power; his career was +determined; thereafter it was only a question of energy or necessity. + +In the summer of 1808 there were printed at Ballston-Spa--then the +resort of fashion and the arena of flirtation--seven numbers of a +duodecimo bagatelle in prose and verse, entitled "The Literary Picture +Gallery and Admonitory Epistles to the Visitors of Ballston-Spa, by +Simeon Senex, Esquire." This piece of summer nonsense is not referred to +by any writer who has concerned himself about Irving's life, but there +is reason to believe that he was a contributor to it if not the +editor.[1] + + [Footnote 1: For these stray reminders of the old-time gayety + of Ballston-Spa, I am indebted to J. Carson Brevoort, Esq., + whose father was Irving's most intimate friend, and who told + him that Irving had a hand in them.] + +In these yellow pages is a melancholy reflection of the gayety and +gallantry of the Sans Souci hotel seventy years ago. In this "Picture +Gallery," under the thin disguise of initials, are the portraits of +well-known belles of New York whose charms of person and graces of mind +would make the present reader regret his tardy advent into this world, +did not the "Admonitory Epistles," addressed to the same sex, remind him +that the manners of seventy years ago left much to be desired. In +respect of the habit of swearing, "Simeon" advises "Myra" that if ladies +were to confine themselves to a single round oath, it would be quite +sufficient; and he objects, when he is at the public table, to the +conduct of his neighbor who carelessly took up "Simeon's" fork and used +it as a tooth-pick. All this, no doubt, passed for wit in the beginning +of the century. Punning, broad satire, exaggerated compliment, verse +which has love for its theme and the "sweet bird of Venus" for its +object, an affectation of gallantry and of _ennui_, with anecdotes of +distinguished visitors, out of which the screaming fun has quite +evaporated, make up the staple of these faded mementos of ancient +watering-place. Yet how much superior is our comedy of to-day? The +beauty and the charms of the women of two generations ago exist only in +tradition; perhaps we should give to the wit of that time equal +admiration if none of it had been preserved. + +Irving, notwithstanding the success of "Salmagundi," did not immediately +devote himself to literature, nor seem to regard his achievements in it +as anything more than aids to social distinction. He was then, as +always, greatly influenced by his surroundings. These were unfavorable +to literary pursuits. Politics was the attractive field for preferment +and distinction; and it is more than probable that, even after the +success of the Knickerbocker history, he would have drifted through +life, half lawyer and half placeman, if the associations and stimulus of +an old civilization, in his second European residence, had not fired his +ambition. Like most young lawyers with little law and less clients, he +began to dabble in local politics. The experiment was not much to his +taste, and the association and work demanded, at that time, of a ward +politician soon disgusted him. "We have toiled through the purgatory of +an election," he writes to the fair Republican, Miss Fairlie, who +rejoiced in the defeat he and the Federals had sustained:-- + + "What makes me the more outrageous is, that I got fairly drawn into + the vortex, and before the third day was expired, I was as deep in + mud and politics as ever a moderate gentleman would wish to be; and + I drank beer with the multitude; and I talked hand-bill fashion + with the demagogues; and I shook hands with the mob, whom my heart + abhorreth. 'Tis true, for the first two days I maintained my + coolness and indifference. The first day I merely hunted for whim, + character, and absurdity, according to my usual custom; the second + day being rainy, I sat in the bar-room at the Seventh Ward, and + read a volume of 'Galatea,' which I found on a shelf; but before I + had got through a hundred pages, I had three or four good Feds + sprawling round me on the floor, and another with his eyes half + shut, leaning on my shoulder in the most affectionate manner, and + spelling a page of the book as if it had been an electioneering + hand-bill. But the third day--ah! then came the tug of war. My + patriotism then blazed forth, and I determined to save my country! + Oh, my friend, I have been in such holes and corners; such filthy + nooks and filthy corners; sweep offices and oyster cellars! 'I have + sworn brother to a leash of drawers, and can drink with any tinker + in his own language during my life,'--faugh! I shall not be able to + bear the smell of small beer and tobacco for a month to come.... + Truly this saving one's country is a nauseous piece of business, + and if patriotism is such a dirty virtue,--prythee, no more of it." + +He unsuccessfully solicited some civil appointment at Albany, a very +modest solicitation, which was never renewed, and which did not last +long, for he was no sooner there than he was "disgusted by the servility +and duplicity and rascality witnessed among the swarm of scrub +politicians." There was a promising young artist at that time in Albany, +and Irving wishes he were a man of wealth, to give him a helping hand; a +few acts of munificence of this kind by rich nabobs, he breaks out, +"would be more pleasing in the sight of Heaven, and more to the glory +and advantage of their country, than building a dozen shingle church +steeples, or buying a thousand venal votes at an election." This was in +the "good old times!" + +Although a Federalist, and, as he described himself, "an admirer of +General Hamilton, and a partisan with him in politics," he accepted a +retainer from Burr's friends in 1807, and attended his trial in +Richmond, but more in the capacity of an observer of the scene than a +lawyer. He did not share the prevalent opinion of Burr's treason, and +regarded him as a man so fallen as to be shorn of the power to injure +the country, one for whom he could feel nothing but compassion. That +compassion, however, he received only from the ladies of the city, and +the traits of female goodness manifested then sunk deep into Irving's +heart. Without pretending, he says, to decide on Burr's innocence or +guilt, "his situation is such as should appeal eloquently to the +feelings of every generous bosom. Sorry am I to say the reverse has been +the fact: fallen, proscribed, pre-judged, the cup of bitterness has been +administered to him with an unsparing hand. It has almost been +considered as culpable to evince toward him the least sympathy or +support; and many a hollow-hearted caitiff have I seen, who basked in +the sunshine of his bounty while in power, who now skulked from his +side, and even mingled among the most clamorous of his enemies.... I bid +him farewell with a heavy heart, and he expressed with peculiar warmth +and feeling his sense of the interest I had taken in his fate. I never +felt in a more melancholy mood than when I rode from his solitary +prison." This is a good illustration of Irving's tender-heartedness; but +considering Burr's whole character, it is altogether a womanish case of +misplaced sympathy with the cool slayer of Alexander Hamilton. + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. + + +Not long after the discontinuance of "Salmagundi," Irving in connection +with his brother Peter projected the work that was to make him famous. +At first nothing more was intended than a satire upon the "Picture of +New York," by Dr. Samuel Mitchell, just then published. It was begun as +a mere burlesque upon pedantry and erudition, and was well advanced, +when Peter was called by his business to Europe, and its completion was +fortunately left to Washington. In his mind the idea expanded into a +different conception. He condensed the mass of affected learning, which +was their joint work, into five introductory chapters,--subsequently he +said it would have been improved if it had been reduced to one, and it +seems to me it would have been better if that one had been thrown +away,--and finished "A History of New York," by Diedrich Knickerbocker, +substantially as we now have it. This was in 1809, when Irving was +twenty-six years old. + +But before this humorous creation was completed, the author endured the +terrible bereavement which was to color all his life. He had formed a +deep and tender passion for Matilda Hoffman, the second daughter of +Jeremiah Ogden Hoffman, in whose family he had long been on a footing of +the most perfect intimacy, and his ardent love was fully reciprocated. +He was restlessly casting about for some assured means of livelihood +which would enable him to marry, and perhaps his distrust of a literary +career was connected with this desire, when after a short illness Miss +Hoffman died, in the eighteenth year of her age. Without being a +dazzling beauty, she was lovely in person and mind, with most engaging +manners, a refined sensibility, and a delicate and playful humor. The +loss was a crushing blow to Irving, from the effects of which he never +recovered, although time softened the bitterness of his grief into a +tender and sacred memory. He could never bear to hear her name spoken +even by his most intimate friends, or any allusion to her. Thirty years +after her death, it happened one evening at the house of Mr. Hoffman, +her father, that a granddaughter was playing for Mr. Irving, and in +taking her music from the drawer, a faded piece of embroidery was +brought forth. "Washington," said Mr. Hoffman, picking it up, "this is a +piece of poor Matilda's workmanship." The effect was electric. He had +been talking in the sprightliest mood before, but he sunk at once into +utter silence, and in a few moments got up and left the house. + +After his death, in a private repository of which he always kept the +key, was found a lovely miniature, a braid of fair hair, and a slip of +paper, on which was written in his own hand, "Matilda Hoffman;" and with +these treasures were several pages of a memorandum in ink long since +faded. He kept through life her Bible and Prayer Book; they were placed +nightly under his pillow in the first days of anguish that followed her +loss, and ever after they were the inseparable companions of all his +wanderings. In this memorandum--which was written many years +afterwards--we read the simple story of his love:-- + + "We saw each other every day, and I became excessively attached to + her. Her shyness wore off by degrees. The more I saw of her the + more I had reason to admire her. Her mind seemed to unfold leaf by + leaf, and every time to discover new sweetness. Nobody knew her so + well as I, for she was generally timid and silent; but I in a + manner studied her excellence. Never did I meet with more intuitive + rectitude of mind, more native delicacy, more exquisite propriety + in word, thought, and action, than in this young creature. I am not + exaggerating; what I say was acknowledged by all who knew her. Her + brilliant little sister used to say that people began by admiring + her, but ended by loving Matilda. For my part, I idolized her. I + felt at times rebuked by her superior delicacy and purity, and as + if I was a coarse, unworthy being in comparison." + +At this time Irving was much perplexed about his career. He had "a fatal +propensity to belles-lettres;" his repugnance to the law was such that +his mind would not take hold of the study; he anticipated nothing from +legal pursuits or political employment; he was secretly writing the +humorous history, but was altogether in a low-spirited and disheartened +state. I quote again from the memorandum:-- + + "In the mean time I saw Matilda every day, and that helped to + distract me. In the midst of this struggle and anxiety she was + taken ill with a cold. Nothing was thought of it at first; but she + grew rapidly worse, and fell into a consumption. I cannot tell you + what I suffered. The ills that I have undergone in this life have + been dealt out to me drop by drop, and I have tasted all their + bitterness. I saw her fade rapidly away; beautiful, and more + beautiful, and more angelical to the last. I was often by her + bedside; and in her wandering state of mind she would talk to me + with a sweet, natural, and affecting eloquence, that was + overpowering. I saw more of the beauty of her mind in that + delirious state than I had ever known before. Her malady was rapid + in its career, and hurried her off in two months. Her dying + struggles were painful and protracted. For three days and nights I + did not leave the house, and scarcely slept. I was by her when she + died; all the family were assembled round her, some praying, others + weeping, for she was adored by them all. I was the last one she + looked upon. I have told you as briefly as I could what, if I were + to tell with all the incidents and feelings that accompanied it, + would fill volumes. She was but about seventeen years old when she + died. + + "I cannot tell you what a horrid state of mind I was in for a long + time. I seemed to care for nothing; the world was a blank to me. I + abandoned all thoughts of the law. I went into the country, but + could not bear solitude, yet could not endure society. There was a + dismal horror continually in my mind, that made me fear to be + alone. I had often to get up in the night, and seek the bedroom of + my brother, as if the having a human being by me would relieve me + from the frightful gloom of my own thoughts. + + "Months elapsed before my mind would resume any tone; but the + despondency I had suffered for a long time in the course of this + attachment, and the anguish that attended its catastrophe, seemed + to give a turn to my whole character, and throw some clouds into my + disposition, which have ever since hung about it. When I became + more calm and collected, I applied myself, by way of occupation, to + the finishing of my work. I brought it to a close, as well as I + could, and published it; but the time and circumstances in which it + was produced rendered me always unable to look upon it with + satisfaction. Still it took with the public, and gave me celebrity, + as an original work was something remarkable and uncommon in + America. I was noticed, caressed, and, for a time, elevated by the + popularity I had gained. I found myself uncomfortable in my + feelings in New York, and traveled about a little. Wherever I went + I was overwhelmed with attentions; I was full of youth and + animation, far different from the being I now am, and I was quite + flushed with this early taste of public favor. Still, however, the + career of gayety and notoriety soon palled on me. I seemed to drift + about without aim or object, at the mercy of every breeze; my heart + wanted anchorage. I was naturally susceptible, and tried to form + other attachments, but my heart would not hold on; it would + continually recur to what it had lost; and whenever there was a + pause in the hurry of novelty and excitement, I would sink into + dismal dejection. For years I could not talk on the subject of this + hopeless regret; I could not even mention her name; but her image + was continually before me, and I dreamt of her incessantly." + +This memorandum, it subsequently appeared, was a letter, or a transcript +of it, addressed to a married lady, Mrs. Foster, in which the story of +his early love was related, in reply to her question why he had never +married. It was in the year 1823, the year after the publication of +"Bracebridge Hall," while he sojourned in Dresden, that he became +intimate with an English family residing there, named Foster, and +conceived for the daughter, Miss Emily Foster, a warm friendship and +perhaps a deep attachment. The letter itself, which for the first time +broke the guarded seclusion of Irving's heart, is evidence of the tender +confidence that existed between him and this family. That this intimacy +would have resulted in marriage, or an offer of marriage, if the lady's +affections had not been preoccupied, the Fosters seem to have believed. +In an unauthorized addition to the "Life and Letters," inserted in the +English edition without the knowledge of the American editor, with some +such headings as, "History of his First Love brought to us, and +returned," and "Irving's Second Attachment," the Fosters tell the +interesting story of Irving's life in Dresden, and give many of his +letters, and an account of his intimacy with the family. From this +account I quote:-- + + "Soon after this, Mr. Irving, who had again for long felt 'the + tenderest interest warm his bosom, and finally enthrall his whole + soul,' made one vigorous and valiant effort to free himself from a + hopeless and consuming attachment. My mother counseled him, I + believe, for the best, and he left Dresden on an expedition of + several weeks into a country he had long wished to see, though, in + the main, it disappointed him; and he started with young Colbourne + (son of General Colbourne) as his companion. Some of his letters on + this journey are before the public; and in the agitation and + eagerness he there described, on receiving and opening letters from + us, and the tenderness in his replies,--the longing to be once more + in the little Pavilion, to which we had moved in the beginning of + the summer,--the letters (though carefully guarded by the delicacy + of her who intrusted them to the editor, and alone retained among + many more calculated to lay bare his true feelings), even + fragmentary as they are, point out the truth. + + "Here is the key to the journey to Silesia, the return to Dresden, + and, finally, to the journey from Dresden to Rotterdam in our + company, first planned so as to part at Cassel, where Mr. Irving + had intended to leave us and go down the Rhine, but subsequently + could not find in his heart to part. Hence, after a night of pale + and speechless melancholy, the gay, animated, happy countenance + with which he sprang to our coachbox to take his old seat on it, + and accompany us to Rotterdam. There even could he not part, but + joined us in the steamboat; and, after bearing us company as far as + a boat could follow us, at last tore himself away, to bury himself + in Paris, and try to work.... + + "It was fortunate, perhaps, that this affection was returned by the + _warmest friendship_ only, since it was destined that the + accomplishment of his wishes was impossible, for many obstacles + which lay in his way; and it is with pleasure I can truly say that + in time he schooled himself to view, also with friendship only, one + who for some time past has been the wife of another." + +Upon the delicacy of this revelation the biographer does not comment, +but he says that the idea that Irving thought of marriage at that time +is utterly disproved by the following passage from the very manuscript +which he submitted to Mrs. Foster:-- + + "You wonder why I am not married. I have shown you why I was not + long since. When I had sufficiently recovered from that loss, I + became involved in ruin. It was not for a man broken down in the + world, to drag down any woman to his paltry circumstances. I was + too proud to tolerate the idea of ever mending my circumstances by + matrimony. My time has now gone by; and I have growing claims upon + my thoughts and upon my means, slender and precarious as they are. + I feel as if I already had a family to think and provide for." + +Upon the question of attachment and depression, Mr. Pierre Irving +says:-- + + "While the editor does not question Mr. Irving's great enjoyment of + his intercourse with the Fosters, or his deep regret at parting + from them, he is too familiar with his occasional fits of + depression to have drawn from their recurrence on his return to + Paris any such inference as that to which the lady alludes. Indeed, + his 'memorandum book' and letters show him to have had, at this + time, sources of anxiety of quite a different nature. The allusion + to his having 'to put once more to sea' evidently refers to his + anxiety on returning to his literary pursuits, after a season of + entire idleness." + +It is not for us to question the judgment of the biographer, with his +full knowledge of the circumstances and his long intimacy with his +uncle; yet it is evident that Irving was seriously impressed at Dresden, +and that he was very much unsettled until he drove away the impression +by hard work with his pen; and it would be nothing new in human nature +and experience if he had for a time yielded to the attractions of +loveliness and a most congenial companionship, and had returned again to +an exclusive devotion to the image of the early loved and lost. + +That Irving intended never to marry is an inference I cannot draw either +from his fondness for the society of women, from his interest in the +matrimonial projects of his friends and the gossip which has feminine +attractions for its food, or from his letters to those who had his +confidence. In a letter written from Birmingham, England, March 15, +1816, to his dear friend Henry Brevoort, who was permitted more than +perhaps any other person to see his secret heart, he alludes, with +gratification, to the report of the engagement of James Paulding, and +then says:-- + + "It is what we must all come to at last. I see you are hankering + after it, and I confess I have done so for a long time past. We + are, however, past that period [Irving was thirty-two] when a man + marries suddenly and inconsiderately. We may be longer making a + choice, and consulting the convenience and concurrence of easy + circumstances, but we shall both come to it sooner or later. I + therefore recommend you to marry without delay. You have sufficient + means, connected with your knowledge and habits of business, to + support a genteel establishment, and I am certain that as soon as + you are married you will experience a change in your ideas. All + those vagabond, roving propensities will cease. They are the + offspring of idleness of mind and a want of something to fix the + feelings. You are like a bark without an anchor, that drifts about + at the mercy of every vagrant breeze or trifling eddy. Get a wife, + and she'll anchor you. But don't marry a fool because she has a + pretty face, and don't seek after a great belle. Get such a girl as + Mary ----, or get her if you can; though I am afraid she has still + an unlucky kindness for poor ----, which will stand in the way of + her fortunes. I wish to God they were rich, and married, and + happy!" + +The business reverses which befell the Irving brothers, and which drove +Washington to the toil of the pen, and cast upon him heavy family +responsibilities, defeated his plans of domestic happiness in marriage. +It was in this same year, 1816, when the fortunes of the firm were daily +becoming more dismal, that he wrote to Brevoort, upon the report that +the latter was likely to remain a bachelor: "We are all selfish beings. +Fortune by her tardy favors and capricious freaks seems to discourage +all my matrimonial resolves, and if I am doomed to live an old bachelor, +I am anxious to have good company. I cannot bear that all my old +companions should launch away into the married state, and leave me alone +to tread this desolate and sterile shore." And, in view of a possible +life of scant fortune, he exclaims: "Thank Heaven, I was brought up in +simple and inexpensive habits, and I have satisfied myself that, if need +be, I can resume them without repining or inconvenience. Though I am +willing, therefore, that Fortune should shower her blessings upon me, +and think I can enjoy them as well as most men, yet I shall not make +myself unhappy if she chooses to be scanty, and shall take the position +allotted me with a cheerful and contented mind." + +When Irving passed the winter of 1823 in the charming society of the +Fosters at Dresden, the success of the "Sketch-Book" and "Bracebridge +Hall" had given him assurance of his ability to live comfortably by the +use of his pen. + +To resume. The preliminary announcement of the History was a humorous +and skillful piece of advertising. Notices appeared in the newspapers of +the disappearance from his lodging of "a small, elderly gentleman, +dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of +Knickerbocker." Paragraphs from week to week, purporting to be the +result of inquiry, elicited the facts that such an old gentleman had +been seen traveling north in the Albany stage; that his name was +Diedrich Knickerbocker; that he went away owing his landlord; and that +he left behind a very curious kind of a written book, which would be +sold to pay his bills if he did not return. So skillfully was this +managed that one of the city officials was on the point of offering a +reward for the discovery of the missing Diedrich. This little man in +knee-breeches and cocked hat was the germ of the whole "Knickerbocker +legend," a fantastic creation, which in a manner took the place of +history, and stamped upon the commercial metropolis of the New World the +indelible Knickerbocker name and character; and even now in the city it +is an undefined patent of nobility to trace descent from "an old +Knickerbocker family." + +The volume, which was first printed in Philadelphia, was put forth as a +grave history of the manners and government under the Dutch rulers, and +so far was the covert humor carried that it was dedicated to the New +York Historical Society. Its success was far beyond Irving's +expectation. It met with almost universal acclaim. It is true that some +of the old Dutch inhabitants who sat down to its perusal, expecting to +read a veritable account of the exploits of their ancestors, were +puzzled by the indirection of its commendation; and several excellent +old ladies of New York and Albany were in blazing indignation at the +ridicule put upon the old Dutch people, and minded to ostracize the +irreverent author from all social recognition. As late as 1818, in an +address before the Historical Society, Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck, Irving's +friend, showed the deep irritation the book had caused, by severe +strictures on it as a "coarse caricature." But the author's winning ways +soon dissipated the social cloud, and even the Dutch critics were +erelong disarmed by the absence of all malice in the gigantic humor of +the composition. One of the first foreigners to recognize the power and +humor of the book was Walter Scott. "I have never," he wrote, "read +anything so closely resembling the style of Dean Swift as the annals of +Diedrich Knickerbocker. I have been employed these few evenings in +reading them aloud to Mrs. S. and two ladies who are our guests, and our +sides have been absolutely sore with laughing. I think, too, there are +passages which indicate that the author possesses power of a different +kind, and has some touches which remind me of Sterne." + +The book is indeed an original creation, and one of the few masterpieces +of humor. In spontaneity, freshness, breadth of conception, and joyous +vigor, it belongs to the spring-time of literature. It has entered into +the popular mind as no other American book ever has, and it may be said +to have created a social realm which, with all its whimsical conceit, +has almost historical solidity. The Knickerbocker pantheon is almost as +real as that of Olympus. The introductory chapters are of that +elephantine facetiousness which pleased our great-grandfathers, but +which is exceedingly tedious to modern taste; and the humor of the book +occasionally has a breadth that is indelicate to our apprehension, +though it perhaps did not shock our great-grandmothers. But, +notwithstanding these blemishes, I think the work has more enduring +qualities than even the generation which it first delighted gave it +credit for. The world, however, it must be owned, has scarcely yet the +courage of its humor, and dullness still thinks it necessary to +apologize for anything amusing. There is little doubt that Irving +himself supposed that his serious work was of more consequence to the +world. + +It seems strange that after this success Irving should have hesitated to +adopt literature as his profession. But for two years, and with leisure, +he did nothing. He had again some hope of political employment in a +small way; and at length he entered into a mercantile partnership with +his brothers, which was to involve little work for him, and a share of +the profits that should assure his support, and leave him free to follow +his fitful literary inclinations. Yet he seems to have been mainly +intent upon society and the amusements of the passing hour, and, without +the spur of necessity to his literary capacity, he yielded to the +temptations of indolence, and settled into the unpromising position of a +"man about town." Occasionally, the business of his firm and that of +other importing merchants being imperiled by some threatened action of +Congress, Irving was sent to Washington to look after their interests. +The leisurely progress he always made to the capital through the +seductive society of Philadelphia and Baltimore did not promise much +business dispatch. At the seat of government he was certain to be +involved in a whirl of gayety. His letters from Washington are more +occupied with the odd characters he met than with the measures of +legislation. These visits greatly extended his acquaintance with the +leading men of the country; his political leanings did not prevent an +intimacy with the President's family, and Mrs. Madison and he were sworn +friends. + +It was of the evening of his first arrival in Washington that he writes: +"I emerged from dirt and darkness into the blazing splendor of Mrs. +Madison's drawing-room. Here I was most graciously received; found a +crowded collection of great and little men, of ugly old women and +beautiful young ones, and in ten minutes was hand and glove with half +the people in the assemblage. Mrs. Madison is a fine, portly, buxom +dame, who has a smile and a pleasant word for everybody. Her sisters, +Mrs. Cutts and Mrs. Washington, are like two merry wives of Windsor; but +as to Jemmy Madison,--oh, poor Jemmy!--he is but a withered little +apple-john." + +Odd characters congregated then in Washington as now. One honest fellow, +who, by faithful fagging at the heels of Congress, had obtained a +profitable post under government, shook Irving heartily by the hand, and +professed himself always happy to see anybody that came from New York; +"somehow or another, it was _natteral_ to him," being the place where he +was _first_ born. Another fellow-townsman was "endeavoring to obtain a +deposit in the Mechanics' Bank, in case the United States Bank does not +obtain a charter. He is as deep as usual; shakes his head and winks +through his spectacles at everybody he meets. He swore to me the other +day that he had not told anybody what his opinion was,--whether the bank +ought to have a charter or not. Nobody in Washington knew what his +opinion was--not one--nobody; he defied any one to say what it +was--'anybody--damn the one! No, sir, nobody knows;' and if he had added +nobody cares, I believe honest ---- would have been exactly in the +right. Then there's his brother George: 'Damn that fellow,--knows eight +or nine languages; yes, sir, nine languages,--Arabic, Spanish, Greek, +Ital--And there's his wife, now,--she and Mrs. Madison are always +together. Mrs. Madison has taken a great fancy to her little daughter. +Only think, sir, that child is only six years old, and talks the Italian +like a book, by ----; little devil learnt it from an Italian +servant,--damned clever fellow; lived with my brother George ten years. +George says he would not part with him for all Tripoli,'" etc. + +It was always difficult for Irving, in those days, to escape from the +genial blandishments of Baltimore and Philadelphia. Writing to Brevoort +from Philadelphia, March 16, 1811, he says: "The people of Baltimore are +exceedingly social and hospitable to strangers, and I saw that if I once +let myself get into the stream I should not be able to get out under a +fortnight at least; so, being resolved to push home as expeditiously as +was honorably possible, I resisted the world, the flesh, and the devil +at Baltimore; and after three days' and nights' stout carousal, and a +fourth's sickness, sorrow, and repentance, I hurried off from that +sensual city." + +Jarvis, the artist, was at that time the eccentric and elegant lion of +society in Baltimore. "Jack Randolph" had recently sat to him for his +portrait. "By the bye [the letter continues] that little 'hydra and +chimera dire,' Jarvis, is in prodigious circulation at Baltimore. The +gentlemen have all voted him a rare wag and most brilliant wit; and the +ladies pronounce him one of the queerest, ugliest, most agreeable little +creatures in the world. The consequence is there is not a ball, +tea-party, concert, supper, or other private regale but that Jarvis is +the most conspicuous personage; and as to a dinner, they can no more do +without him than they could without Friar John at the roystering revels +of the renowned Pantagruel." Irving gives one of his _bon mots_ which +was industriously repeated at all the dinner tables, a profane sally, +which seemed to tickle the Baltimoreans exceedingly. Being very much +importuned to go to church, he resolutely refused, observing that it was +the same thing whether he went or stayed at home. "If I don't go," said +he, "the minister says I'll be d----d, and I'll be d----d if I do go." + +This same letter contains a pretty picture, and the expression of +Irving's habitual kindly regard for his fellow-men:-- + + "I was out visiting with Ann yesterday, and met that little + assemblage of smiles and fascinations, Mary Jackson. She was + bounding with youth, health, and innocence, and good humor. She had + a pretty straw hat, tied under her chin with a pink ribbon, and + looked like some little woodland nymph, just turned out by spring + and fine weather. God bless her light heart, and grant it may never + know care or sorrow! It's enough to cure spleen and melancholy only + to look at her. + + "Your familiar pictures of home made me extremely desirous again + to be there.... I shall once more return to sober life, satisfied + with having secured three months of sunshine in this valley of + shadows and darkness. In this space of time I have seen + considerable of the world, but I am sadly afraid I have not grown + wiser thereby, inasmuch as it has generally been asserted by the + sages of every age that wisdom consists in a knowledge of the + wickedness of mankind, and the wiser a man grows the more + discontented he becomes with those around him. Whereas, woe is me, + I return in infinitely better humor with the world than I ever was + before, and with a most melancholy good opinion and good will for + the great mass of my fellow-creatures!" + +Free intercourse with men of all parties, he thought, tends to divest a +man's mind of party bigotry. + + "One day [he writes] I am dining with a knot of honest, furious + Federalists, who are damning all their opponents as a set of + consummate scoundrels, panders of Bonaparte, etc. The next day I + dine, perhaps, with some of the very men I have heard thus + anathematized, and find them equally honest, warm, and indignant; + and if I take their word for it, I had been dining the day before + with some of the greatest knaves in the nation, men absolutely paid + and suborned by the British government." + +His friends at this time attempted to get him appointed secretary of +legation to the French mission, under Joel Barlow, then minister, but he +made no effort to secure the place. Perhaps he was deterred by the +knowledge that the author of "The Columbiad" suspected him, though +unjustly, of some strictures on his great epic. He had in mind a book of +travel in his own country, in which he should sketch manners and +characters; but nothing came of it. The peril to trade involved in the +War of 1812 gave him some forebodings, and aroused him to exertion. He +accepted the editorship of a periodical called "Select Reviews," +afterwards changed to the "Analectic Magazine," for which he wrote +sketches, some of which were afterwards put into the "Sketch-Book," and +several reviews and naval biographies. A brief biography of Thomas +Campbell was also written about this time, as introductory to an edition +of "Gertrude of Wyoming." But the slight editorial care required by the +magazine was irksome to a man who had an unconquerable repugnance to +all periodical labor. + +In 1813 Francis Jeffrey made a visit to the United States. Henry +Brevoort, who was then in London, wrote an anxious letter to Irving to +impress him with the necessity of making much of Mr. Jeffrey. "It is +essential," he says, "that Jeffrey may imbibe a just estimate of the +United States and its inhabitants; he goes out strongly biased in our +favor, and the influence of his good opinion upon his return to this +country will go far to efface the calumnies and the absurdities that +have been laid to our charge by ignorant travelers. Persuade him to +visit Washington, and by all means to see the Falls of Niagara." The +impression seems to have prevailed that if Englishmen could be made to +take a just view of the Falls of Niagara the misunderstandings between +the two countries would be reduced. Peter Irving, who was then in +Edinburgh, was impressed with the brilliant talent of the editor of the +"Review," disguised as it was by affectation, but he said he "would not +give the Minstrel for a wilderness of Jeffreys." + +The years from 1811 to 1815, when he went abroad for the second time, +were passed by Irving in a sort of humble waiting on Providence. His +letters to Brevoort during this period are full of the _ennui_ of +irresolute youth. He idled away weeks and months in indolent enjoyment +in the country; he indulged his passion for the theatre when opportunity +offered; and he began to be weary of a society which offered little +stimulus to his mind. His was the temperament of the artist, and America +at that time had little to evoke or to satisfy the artistic feeling. +There were few pictures and no galleries; there was no music, except the +amateur torture of strings which led the country dance, or the martial +inflammation of fife and drum, or the sentimental dawdling here and +there over the ancient harpsichord, with the songs of love, and the +broad or pathetic staves and choruses of the convivial table; and there +was no literary atmosphere. + +After three months of indolent enjoyment in the winter and spring of +1811, Irving is complaining to Brevoort in June of the enervation of his +social life: "I do want most deplorably to apply my mind to something +that will arouse and animate it; for at present it is very indolent and +relaxed, and I find it very difficult to shake off the lethargy that +enthralls it. This makes me restless and dissatisfied with myself, and I +am convinced I shall not feel comfortable and contented until my mind is +fully employed. Pleasure is but a transient stimulus, and leaves the +mind more enfeebled than before. Give me rugged toils, fierce +disputation, wrangling controversy, harassing research,--give me +anything that calls forth the energies of the mind; but for Heaven's +sake shield me from those calms, those tranquil slumberings, those +enervating triflings, those siren blandishments, that I have for some +time indulged in, which lull the mind into complete inaction, which +benumb its powers, and cost it such painful and humiliating struggles to +regain its activity and independence!" + +Irving at this time of life seemed always waiting by the pool for some +angel to come and trouble the waters. To his correspondent, who was in +the wilds of Michilimackinac, he continues to lament his morbid +inability. The business in which his thriving brothers were engaged was +the importation and sale of hardware and cutlery, and that spring his +services were required at the "store." "By all the martyrs of Grub +Street [he exclaims], I'd sooner live in a garret, and starve into the +bargain, than follow so sordid, dusty, and soul-killing a way of life, +though certain it would make me as rich as old Croesus, or John Jacob +Astor himself!" The sparkle of society was no more agreeable to him than +the rattle of cutlery. "I have scarcely [he writes] seen anything of the +----s since your departure; business and an amazing want of inclination +have kept me from their threshold. Jim, that sly poacher, however, +prowls about there, and vitrifies his heart by the furnace of their +charms. I accompanied him there on Sunday evening last, and found the +Lads and Miss Knox with them. S---- was in great spirits, and played the +sparkler with such great success as to silence the whole of us excepting +Jim, who was the _agreeable rattle_ of the evening. God defend me from +such vivacity as hers, in future,--such smart speeches without meaning, +such bubble and squeak nonsense! I'd as lieve stand by a frying-pan for +an hour and listen to the cooking of apple fritters. After two hours' +dead silence and suffering on my part I made out to drag him off, and +did not stop running until I was a mile from the house." Irving gives +his correspondent graphic pictures of the social warfare in which he was +engaged, the "host of rascally little tea-parties" in which he was +entangled; and some of his portraits of the "divinities," the +"blossoms," and the beauties of that day would make the subjects of them +flutter with surprise in the church-yards where they lie. The writer was +sated with the "tedious commonplace of fashionable society," and +languishing to return to his books and his pen. + +In March, 1812, in the shadow of the war and the depression of business, +Irving was getting out a new edition of the "Knickerbocker," which +Inskeep was to publish, agreeing to pay $1,200 at six months for an +edition of fifteen hundred. The modern publisher had not then arisen and +acquired a proprietary right in the brains of the country, and the +author made his bargains like an independent being who owned himself. + +Irving's letters of this period are full of the gossip of the town and +the matrimonial fate of his acquaintances. The fascinating Mary Fairlie +is at length married to Cooper, the tragedian, with the opposition of +her parents, after a dismal courtship and a cloudy prospect of +happiness. "Goodhue is engaged to Miss Clarkson, the sister to the +pretty one. The engagement suddenly took place as they walked from +church on Christmas Day, and report says the action was shorter than any +of our naval victories, for the lady struck on the first broadside." The +war colored all social life and conversation. "This war [the letter is +to Brevoort, who is in Europe] has completely changed the face of things +here. You would scarcely recognize our old peaceful city. Nothing is +talked of but armies, navies, battles, etc." The same phenomenon was +witnessed then that was observed in the war for the Union: "Men who had +loitered about, the hangers-on and encumbrances of society, have all at +once risen to importance, and been the only useful men of the day." The +exploits of our young navy kept up the spirits of the country. There was +great rejoicing when the captured frigate Macedonian was brought into +New York, and was visited by the curious as she lay wind-bound above +Hell Gate. "A superb dinner was given to the naval heroes, at which all +the great eaters and drinkers of the city were present. It was the +noblest entertainment of the kind I ever witnessed. On New Year's Eve a +grand ball was likewise given, where there was a vast display of great +and little people. The Livingstons were there in all their glory. Little +Rule Britannia made a gallant appearance at the head of a train of +beauties, among whom were the divine H----, who looked very inviting, +and the little Taylor, who looked still more so. Britannia was +gorgeously dressed in a queer kind of hat of stiff purple and silver +stuff, that had marvelously the appearance of copper, and made us +suppose that she had procured the real Mambrino helmet. Her dress was +trimmed with what we simply mistook for scalps, and supposed it was in +honor of the nation; but we blushed at our ignorance on discovering that +it was a gorgeous trimming of marten tips. Would that some eminent +furrier had been there to wonder and admire!" + +With a little business and a good deal of loitering, waiting upon the +whim of his pen, Irving passed the weary months of the war. As late as +August, 1814, he is still giving Brevoort, who has returned, and is at +Rockaway Beach, the light gossip of the town. It was reported that +Brevoort and Dennis had kept a journal of their foreign travel, "which +is so exquisitely humorous that Mrs. Cooper, on only looking at the +first word, fell into a fit of laughing that lasted half an hour." +Irving is glad that he cannot find Brevoort's flute, which the latter +requested should be sent to him: "I do not think it would be an innocent +amusement for you, as no one has a right to entertain himself at the +expense of others." In such dallying and badinage the months went on, +affairs every day becoming more serious. Appended to a letter of +September 9, 1814, is a list of twenty well-known mercantile houses that +had failed within the preceding three weeks. Irving himself, shortly +after this, enlisted in the war, and his letters thereafter breathe +patriotic indignation at the insulting proposals of the British and +their rumored attack on New York, and all his similes, even those having +love for their subject, are martial and bellicose. Item: "The gallant +Sam has fairly changed front, and, instead of laying siege to Douglas +castle, has charged sword in hand, and carried little Cooper's +entrenchments." + +As a Federalist and an admirer of England, Irving had deplored the war, +but his sympathies were not doubtful after it began, and the burning of +the national Capitol by General Ross aroused him to an active +participation in the struggle. He was descending the Hudson in a +steamboat when the tidings first reached him. It was night, and the +passengers had gone into the cabin, when a man came on board with the +news, and in the darkness related the particulars: the burning of the +President's house and government offices, and the destruction of the +Capitol, with the library and public archives. In the momentary silence +that followed, somebody raised his voice, and in a tone of complacent +derision "wondered what _Jimmy_ Madison would say now." "Sir," cried +Mr. Irving, in a burst of indignation that overcame his habitual +shyness, "do you seize upon such a disaster only for a sneer? Let me +tell you, sir, it is not now a question about _Jimmy_ Madison or _Jimmy_ +Armstrong. The pride and honor of the nation are wounded; the country is +insulted and disgraced by this barbarous success, and every loyal +citizen would feel the ignominy and be earnest to avenge it." There was +an outburst of applause, and the sneerer was silenced. "I could not see +the fellow," said Mr. Irving, in relating the anecdote, "but I let fly +at him in the dark." + +The next day he offered his services to Governor Tompkins, and was made +the governor's aid and military secretary, with the right to be +addressed as Col. Washington Irving. He served only four months in this +capacity, when Governor Tompkins was called to the session of the +legislature at Albany. Irving intended to go to Washington and apply for +a commission in the regular army, but he was detained at Philadelphia by +the affairs of his magazine, until news came in February, 1815, of the +close of the war. In May of that year he embarked for England to visit +his brother, intending only a short sojourn. He remained abroad +seventeen years. + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + LIFE IN EUROPE: LITERARY ACTIVITY. + + +When Irving sailed from New York, it was with lively anticipations of +witnessing the stirring events to follow the return of Bonaparte from +Elba. When he reached Liverpool the curtain had fallen in Bonaparte's +theatre. The first spectacle that met the traveler's eye was the mail +coaches, darting through the streets, decked with laurel and bringing +the news of Waterloo. As usual, Irving's sympathies were with the +unfortunate. "I think," he says, writing of the exile of St. Helena, +"the cabinet has acted with littleness toward him. In spite of all his +misdeeds he is a noble fellow [_pace_ Madame de Remusat], and I am +confident will eclipse, in the eyes of posterity, all the crowned +wiseacres that have crushed him by their overwhelming confederacy. If +anything could place the Prince Regent in a more ridiculous light, it is +Bonaparte suing for his magnanimous protection. Every compliment paid +to this bloated sensualist, this inflation of sack and sugar, turns to +the keenest sarcasm." + +After staying a week with his brother Peter, who was recovering from an +indisposition, Irving went to Birmingham, the residence of his +brother-in-law, Henry Van Wart, who had married his youngest sister, +Sarah; and from thence to Sydenham, to visit Campbell. The poet was not +at home. To Mrs. Campbell Irving expressed his regret that her husband +did not attempt something on a grand scale. + + "'It is unfortunate for Campbell,' said she, 'that he lives in the + same age with Scott and Byron.' I asked why. 'Oh,' said she, 'they + write so much and so rapidly. Mr. Campbell writes slowly, and it + takes him some time to get under way; and just as he has fairly + begun out comes one of their poems, that sets the world agog, and + quite daunts him, so that he throws by his pen in despair.' I + pointed out the essential difference in their kinds of poetry, and + the qualities which insured perpetuity to that of her husband. 'You + can't persuade Campbell of that,' said she. 'He is apt to + undervalue his own works, and to consider his own little lights + put out, whenever they come blazing out with their great torches.' + + "I repeated the conversation to Scott some time afterward, and it + drew forth a characteristic comment. 'Pooh!' said he, good + humoredly; 'how can Campbell mistake the matter so much? Poetry + goes by quality, not by bulk. My poems are mere cairngorms, wrought + up, perhaps, with a cunning hand, and may pass well in the market + as long as cairngorms are the fashion; but they are mere Scotch + pebbles, after all. Now, Tom Campbell's are real diamonds, and + diamonds of the first water.'" + +Returning to Birmingham, Irving made excursions to Kenilworth, Warwick, +and Stratford-on-Avon, and a tour through Wales with James Renwick, a +young American of great promise, who at the age of nineteen had for a +time filled the chair of natural philosophy in Columbia College. He was +a son of Mrs. Jane Renwick, a charming woman and a life-long friend of +Irving, the daughter of the Rev. Andrew Jeffrey, of Lochmaben, Scotland, +and famous in literature as "The Blue-Eyed Lassie" of Burns. From +another song, "When first I saw my Jeanie's Face," which does not +appear in the poet's collected works, the biographer quotes:-- + + "But, sair, I doubt some happier swain + Has gained my Jeanie's favor; + If sae, may every bliss be hers, + Tho' I can never have her. + + "But gang she east, or gang she west, + 'Twixt Nith and Tweed all over, + While men have eyes, or ears, or taste, + She'll always find a lover." + +During Irving's protracted stay in England he did not by any means lose +his interest in his beloved New York and the little society that was +always dear to him. He relied upon his friend Brevoort to give him the +news of the town, and in return he wrote long letters,--longer and more +elaborate and formal than this generation has leisure to write or to +read; letters in which the writer laid himself out to be entertaining, +and detailed his emotions and state of mind as faithfully as his travels +and outward experiences. + +No sooner was our war with England over than our navy began to make a +reputation for itself in the Mediterranean. In his letter of August, +1815, Irving dwells with pride on Decatur's triumph over the Algerine +pirates. He had just received a letter from that "worthy little tar, +Jack Nicholson," dated on board the Flambeau, off Algiers. In it +Nicholson says that "they fell in with and captured the admiral's ship, +and _killed him_." Upon which Irving remarks: "As this is all that +Jack's brevity will allow him to say on the subject, I should be at a +loss to know whether they killed the admiral _before_ or _after_ his +capture. The well-known humanity of our tars, however, induces me to the +former conclusion." Nicholson, who has the honor of being alluded to in +"The Croakers," was always a great favorite with Irving. His gallantry +on shore was equal to his bravery at sea, but unfortunately his +diffidence was greater than his gallantry; and while his susceptibility +to female charms made him an easy and a frequent victim, he could never +muster the courage to declare his passion. Upon one occasion, when he +was desperately enamored of a lady whom he wished to marry, he got +Irving to write for him a love-letter, containing an offer of his heart +and hand. The enthralled but bashful sailor carried the letter in his +pocket till it was worn out, without ever being able to summon pluck +enough to deliver it. + +While Irving was in Wales the Wiggins family and Madame Bonaparte passed +through Birmingham, on their way to Cheltenham. Madame was still +determined to assert her rights as a Bonaparte. Irving cannot help +expressing sympathy for Wiggins: "The poor man has his hands full, with +such a bevy of beautiful women under his charge, and all doubtless bent +on pleasure and admiration." He hears, however, nothing further of her, +except the newspapers mention her being at Cheltenham. "There are so +many stars and comets thrown out of their orbits, and whirling about the +world at present, that a little star like Madame Bonaparte attracts but +slight attention, even though she draw after her so sparkling a tail as +the Wiggins family." In another letter he exclaims: "The world is surely +topsy-turvy, and its inhabitants shaken out of place: emperors and +kings, statesmen and philosophers, Bonaparte, Alexander, Johnson, and +the Wigginses, all strolling about the face of the earth." + +The business of the Irving brothers soon absorbed all Washington's time +and attention. Peter was an invalid, and the whole weight of the +perplexing affairs of the failing firm fell upon the one who detested +business, and counted every hour lost that he gave to it. His letters +for two years are burdened with harassments in uncongenial details and +unsuccessful struggles. Liverpool, where he was compelled to pass most +of his time, had few attractions for him, and his low spirits did not +permit him to avail himself of such social advantages as were offered. +It seems that our enterprising countrymen flocked abroad, on the +conclusion of peace. "This place [writes Irving] swarms with Americans. +You never saw a more motley race of beings. Some seem as if just from +the woods, and yet stalk about the streets and public places with all +the easy nonchalance that they would about their own villages. Nothing +can surpass the dauntless independence of all form, ceremony, fashion, +or reputation of a downright, unsophisticated American. Since the war, +too, particularly, our lads seem to think they are 'the salt of the +earth' and the legitimate lords of creation. It would delight you to +see some of them playing Indian when surrounded by the wonders and +improvements of the Old World. It is impossible to match these fellows +by anything this side the water. Let an Englishman talk of the battle of +Waterloo, and they will immediately bring up New Orleans and Plattsburg. +A thoroughbred, thoroughly appointed soldier is nothing to a Kentucky +rifleman," etc., etc. In contrast to this sort of American was Charles +King, who was then abroad: "Charles is exactly what an American should +be abroad: frank, manly, and unaffected in his habits and manners, +liberal and independent in his opinions, generous and unprejudiced in +his sentiments towards other nations, but most loyally attached to his +own." There was a provincial narrowness at that date and long after in +America, which deprecated the open-minded patriotism of King and of +Irving as it did the clear-sighted loyalty of Fenimore Cooper. + +The most anxious time of Irving's life was the winter of 1815-16. The +business worry increased. He was too jaded with the din of pounds, +shillings, and pence to permit his pen to invent facts or to adorn +realities. Nevertheless, he occasionally escapes from the tread-mill. In +December he is in London, and entranced with the acting of Miss O'Neil. +He thinks that Brevoort, if he saw her, would infallibly fall in love +with this "divine perfection of a woman." He writes: "She is, to my +eyes, the most soul-subduing actress I ever saw; I do not mean from her +personal charms, which are great, but from the truth, force, and pathos +of her acting. I have never been so completely melted, moved, and +overcome at a theatre as by her performances.... Kean, the prodigy, is +to me insufferable. He is vulgar, full of trick, and a complete +mannerist. This is merely my opinion. He is cried up as a second +Garrick, as a reformer of the stage, etc. It may be so. He may be right, +and all the other actors wrong. This is certain: he is either very good +or very bad. I think decidedly the latter; and I find no medium opinions +concerning him. I am delighted with Young, who acts with great judgment, +discrimination, and feeling. I think him much the best actor at present +on the English stage.... In certain characters, such as may be classed +with Macbeth, I do not think that Cooper has his equal in England. Young +is the only actor I have seen who can compare with him." Later, Irving +somewhat modified his opinion of Kean. He wrote to Brevoort: "Kean is a +strange compound of merits and defects. His excellence consists in +sudden and brilliant touches, in vivid exhibitions of passion and +emotion. I do not think him a discriminating actor, or critical either +at understanding or delineating character; but he produces effects which +no other actor does." + +In the summer of 1816, on his way from Liverpool to visit his sister's +family at Birmingham, Irving tarried for a few days at a country place +near Shrewsbury on the border of Wales, and while there encountered a +character whose portrait is cleverly painted. It is interesting to +compare this first sketch with the elaboration of it in the essay on The +Angler in the "Sketch-Book." + + "In one of our morning strolls [he writes, July 15th] along the + banks of the Aleen, a beautiful little pastoral stream that rises + among the Welsh mountains and throws itself into the Dee, we + encountered a veteran angler of old Isaac Walton's school. He was + an old Greenwich out-door pensioner, had lost one leg in the battle + of Camperdown, had been in America in his youth, and indeed had + been quite a rover, but for many years past had settled himself + down in his native village, not far distant, where he lived very + independently on his pension and some other small annual sums, + amounting in all to about L40. His great hobby, and indeed the + business of his life, was to angle. I found he had read Isaac + Walton very attentively; he seemed to have imbibed all his + simplicity of heart, contentment of mind, and fluency of tongue. We + kept company with him almost the whole day, wandering along the + beautiful banks of the river, admiring the ease and elegant + dexterity with which the old fellow managed his angle, throwing the + fly with unerring certainty at a great distance and among + overhanging bushes, and waving it gracefully in the air, to keep it + from entangling, as he stumped with his staff and wooden leg from + one bend of the river to another. He kept up a continual flow of + cheerful and entertaining talk, and what I particularly liked him + for was, that though we tried every way to entrap him into some + abuse of America and its inhabitants, there was no getting him to + utter an ill-natured word concerning us. His whole conversation and + deportment illustrated old Isaac's maxims as to the benign + influence of angling over the human heart.... I ought to mention + that he had two companions--one, a ragged, picturesque varlet, that + had all the air of a veteran poacher, and I warrant would find any + fish-pond in the neighborhood in the darkest night; the other was a + disciple of the old philosopher, studying the art under him, and + was son and heir apparent to the landlady of the village tavern." + +A contrast to this pleasing picture is afforded by some character +sketches at the little watering-place of Buxton, which our kindly +observer visited the same year. + + "At the hotel where we put up [he writes] we had a most singular + and whimsical assemblage of beings. I don't know whether you were + ever at an English watering-place, but if you have not been, you + have missed the best opportunity of studying English oddities, both + moral and physical. I no longer wonder at the English being such + excellent caricaturists, they have such an inexhaustible number and + variety of subjects to study from. The only care should be not to + follow fact too closely, for I'll swear I have met with characters + and figures that would be condemned as extravagant, if faithfully + delineated by pen or pencil. At a watering-place like Buxton, where + people really resort for health, you see the great tendency of the + English to run into excrescences and bloat out into grotesque + deformities. As to noses, I say nothing of them, though we had + every variety: some snubbed and turned up, with distended nostrils, + like a dormer window on the roof of a house; others convex and + twisted like a buck-handled knife; and others magnificently + efflorescent, like a full-blown cauliflower. But as to the persons + that were attached to these noses, fancy any distortion, + protuberance, and fungous embellishment that can be produced in the + human form by high and gross feeding, by the bloating operations of + malt liquors, and by the rheumy influence of a damp, foggy, + vaporous climate. One old fellow was an exception to this, for + instead of acquiring that expansion and sponginess to which old + people are prone in this country, from the long course of internal + and external soakage they experience, he had grown dry and stiff in + the process of years. The skin of his face had so shrunk away that + he could not close eyes or mouth--the latter, therefore, stood on a + perpetual ghastly grin, and the former on an incessant stare. He + had but one serviceable joint in his body, which was at the bottom + of the backbone, and that creaked and grated whenever he bent. He + could not raise his feet from the ground, but skated along the + drawing-room carpet whenever he wished to ring the bell. The only + sign of moisture in his whole body was a pellucid drop that I + occasionally noticed on the end of a long, dry nose. He used + generally to shuffle about in company with a little fellow that was + fat on one side and lean on the other. That is to say, he was + warped on one side as if he had been scorched before the fire; he + had a wry neck, which made his head lean on one shoulder; his hair + was smugly powdered, and he had a round, smirking, smiling, apple + face, with a bloom on it like that of a frost-bitten leaf in + autumn. We had an old, fat general by the name of Trotter, who had, + I suspect, been promoted to his high rank to get him out of the way + of more able and active officers, being an instance that a man may + occasionally rise in the world through absolute lack of merit. I + could not help watching the movements of this redoubtable old Hero, + who, I'll warrant, has been the champion and safeguard of half the + garrison towns in England, and fancying to myself how Bonaparte + would have delighted in having such toast-and-butter generals to + deal with. This old cad is doubtless a sample of those generals + that flourished in the old military school, when armies would + manoeuvre and watch each other for months; now and then have a + desperate skirmish, and, after marching and countermarching about + the 'Low Countries' through a glorious campaign, retire on the + first pinch of cold weather into snug winter quarters in some fat + Flemish town, and eat and drink and fiddle through the winter. + Boney must have sadly disconcerted the comfortable system of these + old warriors by the harrowing, restless, cut-and-slash mode of + warfare that he introduced. He has put an end to all the old _carte + and tierce_ system in which the cavaliers of the old school fought + so decorously, as it were with a small sword in one hand and a + chapeau bras in the other. During his career there has been a sad + laying on the shelf of old generals who could not keep up with the + hurry, the fierceness and dashing of the new system; and among the + number I presume has been my worthy house-mate, old Trotter. The + old gentleman, in spite of his warlike title, had a most pacific + appearance. He was large and fat, with a broad, hazy, muffin face, + a sleepy eye, and a full double chin. He had a deep ravine from + each corner of his mouth, not occasioned by any irascible + contraction of the muscles, but apparently the deep-worn channels + of two rivulets of gravy that oozed out from the huge mouthfuls + that he masticated. But I forbear to dwell on the odd beings that + were congregated together in one hotel. I have been thus prolix + about the old general because you desired me in one of your letters + to give you ample details whenever I happened to be in company with + the 'great and glorious,' and old Trotter is more deserving of the + epithet than any of the personages I have lately encountered." + +It was at the same resort of fashion and disease that Irving observed a +phenomenon upon which Brevoort had commented as beginning to be +noticeable in America. + + "Your account [he writes] of the brevity of the old lady's nether + garments distresses me.... I cannot help observing that this + fashion of short skirts must have been invented by the French + ladies as a complete trick upon John Bull's 'woman-folk.' It was + introduced just at the time the English flocked in such crowds to + Paris. The French women, you know, are remarkable for pretty feet + and ankles, and can display them in perfect security. The English + are remarkable for the contrary. Seeing the proneness of the + English women to follow French fashions, they therefore led them + into this disastrous one, and sent them home with their petticoats + up to their knees, exhibiting such a variety of sturdy little legs + as would have afforded Hogarth an ample choice to match one of his + assemblages of queer heads. It is really a great source of + curiosity and amusement on the promenade of a watering-place to + observe the little sturdy English women, trudging about in their + stout leather shoes, and to study the various 'understandings' + betrayed to view by this mischievous fashion." + +The years passed rather wearily in England. Peter continued to be an +invalid, and Washington himself, never robust, felt the pressure more +and more of the irksome and unprosperous business affairs. Of his own +want of health, however, he never complains; he maintains a patient +spirit in the ill turns of fortune, and his impatience in the business +complications is that of a man hindered from his proper career. The +times were depressing. + + "In America [he writes to Brevoort] you have financial + difficulties, the embarrassments of trade, the distress of + merchants, but here you have what is far worse, the distress of the + poor--not merely mental sufferings, but the absolute miseries of + nature: hunger, nakedness, wretchedness of all kinds that the + laboring people in this country are liable to. In the best of times + they do but subsist, but in adverse times they starve. How the + country is to extricate itself from its present embarrassment, how + it is to escape from the poverty that seems to be overwhelming it, + and how the government is to quiet the multitudes that are already + turbulent and clamorous, and are yet but in the beginning of their + real miseries, I cannot conceive." + +The embarrassments of the agricultural and laboring classes and of the +government were as serious in 1816 as they have again become in 1881. + +During 1817 Irving was mostly in the depths of gloom, a prey to the +monotony of life and torpidity of intellect. Rays of sunlight pierce the +clouds occasionally. The Van Wart household at Birmingham was a frequent +refuge for him, and we have pretty pictures of the domestic life there; +glimpses of Old Parr, whose reputation as a gourmand was only second to +his fame as a Grecian, and of that delightful genius, the Rev. Rann +Kennedy, who might have been famous if he had ever committed to paper +the long poems that he carried about in his head, and the engaging sight +of Irving playing the flute for the little Van Warts to dance. During +the holidays Irving paid another visit to the haunts of Isaac Walton, +and his description of the adventures and mishaps of a pleasure party +on the banks of the Dove suggest that the incorrigible bachelor was +still sensitive to the allurements of life, and liable to wander over +the "dead-line" of matrimonial danger. He confesses that he was all day +in Elysium. "When we had descended from the last precipice," he says, +"and come to where the Dove flowed musically through a verdant +meadow--then--fancy me, oh, thou 'sweetest of poets,' wandering by the +course of this romantic stream--a lovely girl hanging on my arm, +pointing out the beauties of the surrounding scenery, and repeating in +the most dulcet voice tracts of heaven-born poetry. If a strawberry +smothered in cream has any consciousness of its delicious situation, it +must feel as I felt at that moment." Indeed, the letters of this doleful +year are enlivened by so many references to the graces and attractions +of lovely women, seen and remembered, that insensibility cannot be +attributed to the author of the "Sketch-Book." + +The death of Irving's mother in the spring of 1817 determined him to +remain another year abroad. Business did not improve. His +brother-in-law Van Wart called a meeting of his creditors, the Irving +brothers floundered on into greater depths of embarrassment, and +Washington, who could not think of returning home to face poverty in New +York, began to revolve a plan that would give him a scanty but +sufficient support. The idea of the "Sketch-Book" was in his mind. He +had as yet made few literary acquaintances in England. It is an +illustration of the warping effect of friendship upon the critical +faculty that his opinion of Moore at this time was totally changed by +subsequent intimacy. At a later date the two authors became warm friends +and mutual admirers of each other's productions. In June, 1817, "Lalla +Rookh" was just from the press, and Irving writes to Brevoort: "Moore's +new poem is just out. I have not sent it to you, for it is dear and +worthless. It is written in the most effeminate taste, and fit only to +delight boarding-school girls and lads of nineteen just in their first +loves. Moore should have kept to songs and epigrammatic conceits. His +stream of intellect is too small to bear expansion--it spreads into +mere surface." Too much cream for the strawberry! + +Notwithstanding business harassments in the summer and fall of 1817 he +found time for some wandering about the island; he was occasionally in +London, dining at Murray's, where he made the acquaintance of the elder +D'Israeli and other men of letters (one of his notes of a dinner at +Murray's is this: "Lord Byron told Murray that he was much happier after +breaking with Lady Byron--he hated this still, quiet life"); he was +publishing a new edition of the "Knickerbocker," illustrated by Leslie +and Allston; and we find him at home in the friendly and brilliant +society of Edinburgh; both the magazine publishers, Constable and +Blackwood, were very civil to him, and Mr. Jeffrey (Mrs. Renwick was his +sister) was very attentive; and he passed some days with Walter Scott, +whose home life he so agreeably describes in his sketch of "Abbotsford." +He looked back longingly to the happy hours there (he writes to his +brother): "Scott reading, occasionally, from 'Prince Arthur'; telling +border stories or characteristic anecdotes; Sophy Scott singing with +charming _naivete_ a little border song; the rest of the family disposed +in listening groups, while greyhounds, spaniels, and cats bask in +unbounded indulgence before the fire. Everything about Scott is perfect +character and picture." + +In the beginning of 1818 the business affairs of the brothers became so +irretrievably involved that Peter and Washington went through the +humiliating experience of taking the bankrupt act. Washington's +connection with the concern was little more than nominal, and he felt +small anxiety for himself, and was eager to escape from an occupation +which had taken all the elasticity out of his mind. But on account of +his brothers, in this dismal wreck of a family connection, his soul was +steeped in bitterness. Pending the proceedings of the commissioners, he +shut himself up day and night to the study of German, and while waiting +for the examination used to walk up and down the room, conning over the +German verbs. + +In August he went up to London and cast himself irrevocably upon the +fortune of his pen. He had accumulated some materials, and upon these +he set to work. Efforts were made at home to procure for him the +position of Secretary of Legation in London, which drew from him the +remark, when they came to his knowledge, that he did not like to have +his name hackneyed about among the office-seekers in Washington. +Subsequently his brother William wrote him that Commodore Decatur was +keeping open for him the office of Chief Clerk in the Navy Department. +To the mortification and chagrin of his brothers, Washington declined +the position. He was resolved to enter upon no duties that would +interfere with his literary pursuits. + +This resolution, which exhibited a modest confidence in his own powers, +and the energy with which he threw himself into his career, showed the +fibre of the man. Suddenly, by the reverse of fortune, he who had been +regarded as merely the ornamental genius of the family became its stay +and support. If he had accepted the aid of his brothers, during the +experimental period of his life, in the loving spirit of confidence in +which it was given, he was not less ready to reverse the relations when +the time came; the delicacy with which his assistance was rendered, the +scrupulous care taken to convey the feeling that his brothers were doing +him a continued favor in sharing his good fortune, and their own +unjealous acceptance of what they would as freely have given if +circumstances had been different, form one of the pleasantest instances +of brotherly concord and self-abnegation. I know nothing more admirable +than the life-long relations of this talented and sincere family. + +Before the "Sketch-Book" was launched, and while Irving was casting +about for the means of livelihood, Walter Scott urged him to take the +editorship of an Anti-Jacobin periodical in Edinburgh. This he declined +because he had no taste for politics, and because he was averse to +stated, routine literary work. Subsequently Mr. Murray offered him a +salary of a thousand guineas to edit a periodical to be published by +himself. This was declined, as also was another offer to contribute to +the "London Quarterly" with the liberal pay of one hundred guineas an +article. For the "Quarterly" he would not write, because, he says, "it +has always been so hostile to my country, I cannot draw a pen in its +service." This is worthy of note in view of a charge made afterwards, +when he was attacked for his English sympathies, that he was a frequent +contributor to this anti-American review. His sole contributions to it +were a gratuitous review of the book of an American author, and an +explanatory article, written at the desire of his publisher, on the +"Conquest of Granada." It is not necessary to dwell upon the small +scandal about Irving's un-American feeling. If there was ever a man who +loved his country and was proud of it; whose broad, deep, and strong +patriotism did not need the saliency of ignorant partisanship, it was +Washington Irving. He was like his namesake an American, and with the +same pure loyalty and unpartisan candor. + +The first number of the "Sketch-Book" was published in America in May, +1819. Irving was then thirty-six years old. The series was not completed +till September, 1820. The first installment was carried mainly by two +papers, "The Wife" and "Rip Van Winkle;" the one full of tender pathos +that touched all hearts, because it was recognized as a genuine +expression of the author's nature; and the other a happy effort of +imaginative humor,--one of those strokes of genius that recreate the +world and clothe it with the unfading hues of romance; the theme was an +old-world echo, transformed by genius into a primal story that will +endure as long as the Hudson flows through its mountains to the sea. A +great artist can paint a great picture on a small canvas. + +The "Sketch-Book" created a sensation in America, and the echo of it was +not long in reaching England. The general chorus of approval and the +rapid sale surprised Irving, and sent his spirits up, but success had +the effect on him that it always has on a fine nature. He writes to +Leslie: "Now you suppose I am all on the alert, and full of spirit and +excitement. No such thing. I am just as good for nothing as ever I was; +and, indeed, have been flurried and put out of my way by these puffings. +I feel something as I suppose you did when your picture met with +success,--anxious to do something better, and at a loss what to do." + +It was with much misgiving that Irving made this venture. "I feel great +diffidence," he writes Brevoort, March 3, 1819, "about this reappearance +in literature. I am conscious of my imperfections, and my mind has been +for a long time past so pressed upon and agitated by various cares and +anxieties, that I fear it has lost much of its cheerfulness and some of +its activity. I have attempted no lofty theme, nor sought to look wise +and learned, which appears to be very much the fashion among our +American writers at present. I have preferred addressing myself to the +feelings and fancy of the reader more than to his judgment. My writings +may appear, therefore, light and trifling in our country of philosophers +and politicians. But if they possess merit in the class of literature to +which they belong, it is all to which I aspire in the work. I seek only +to blow a flute accompaniment in the national concert, and leave others +to play the fiddle and French-horn." This diffidence was not assumed. +All through his career, a breath of criticism ever so slight acted +temporarily like a hoar-frost upon his productive power. He always saw +reasons to take sides with his critic. Speaking of "vanity" in a letter +of March, 1820, when Scott and Lockhart and all the Reviews were in a +full chorus of acclaim, he says: "I wish I did possess more of it, but +it seems my curse at present to have anything but confidence in myself +or pleasure in anything I have written." + +In a similar strain he had written, in September, 1819, on the news of +the cordial reception of the "Sketch-Book" in America:-- + + "The manner in which the work has been received and the eulogiums + that have been passed upon it in the American papers and periodical + works, have completely overwhelmed me. They go far, _far_ beyond my + most sanguine expectations, and indeed are expressed with such + peculiar warmth and kindness as to affect me in the tenderest + manner. The receipt of your letter, and the reading of some of the + criticisms this morning, have rendered me nervous for the whole + day. I feel almost appalled by such success, and fearful that it + cannot be real, or that it is not fully merited, or that I shall + not act up to the expectations that may be formed. We are + whimsically constituted beings. I had got out of conceit of all + that I had written, and considered it very questionable stuff; and + now that it is so extravagantly bepraised, I begin to feel afraid + that I shall not do as well again. However, we shall see as we get + on. As yet I am extremely irregular and precarious in my fits of + composition. The least thing puts me out of the vein, and even + applause flurries me and prevents my writing, though of course it + will ultimately be a stimulus.... + + "I have been somewhat touched by the manner in which my writings + have been noticed in the 'Evening Post.' I had considered Coleman + as cherishing an ill-will toward me, and, to tell the truth, have + not always been the most courteous in my opinions concerning him. + It is a painful thing either to dislike others or to fancy they + dislike us, and I have felt both pleasure and self-reproach at + finding myself so mistaken with respect to Mr. Coleman. I like to + out with a good feeling as soon as it rises, and so I have dropt + Coleman a line on the subject. + + "I hope you will not attribute all this sensibility to the kind + reception I have met to an author's vanity. I am sure it proceeds + from very different sources. Vanity could not bring the tears into + my eyes as they have been brought by the kindness of my countrymen. + I have felt cast down, blighted, and broken-spirited, and these + sudden rays of sunshine agitate me more than they revive me. I + hope--I hope I may yet do something more worthy of the + appreciation lavished on me." + +Irving had not contemplated publishing in England, but the papers began +to be reprinted, and he was obliged to protect himself. He offered the +sketches to Murray, the princely publisher, who afterwards dealt so +liberally with him, but the venture was declined in a civil note, +written in that charming phraseology with which authors are familiar, +but which they would in vain seek to imitate. Irving afterwards greatly +prized this letter. He undertook the risks of the publication himself, +and the book sold well, although "written by an author the public knew +nothing of, and published by a bookseller who was going to ruin." In a +few months Murray, who was thereafter proud to be Irving's publisher, +undertook the publication of the two volumes of the "Sketch-Book," and +also of the "Knickerbocker" history, which Mr. Lockhart had just been +warmly praising in "Blackwood's." Indeed, he bought the copyright of the +"Sketch-Book" for two hundred pounds. The time for the publisher's +complaisance had arrived sooner even than Scott predicted in one of his +kindly letters to Irving, "when + + 'Your name is up and may go + From Toledo to Madrid.'" + +Irving passed five years in England. Once recognized by the literary +world, whatever was best in the society of letters and of fashion was +open to him. He was a welcome guest in the best London houses, where he +met the foremost literary personages of the time, and established most +cordial relations with many of them; not to speak of statesmen, +soldiers, and men and women of fashion, there were the elder D'Israeli, +Southey, Campbell, Hallam, Gifford, Milman, Foscolo, Rogers, Scott, and +Belzoni fresh from his Egyptian explorations. In Irving's letters this +old society passes in review: Murray's drawing-rooms; the amusing +blue-stocking coteries of fashion of which Lady Caroline Lamb was a +promoter; the Countess of Besborough's, at whose house The Duke could be +seen; the Wimbledon country seat of Lord and Lady Spence; Belzoni, a +giant of six feet five, the centre of a group of eager auditors of the +Egyptian marvels; Hallam, affable and unpretending, and a copious +talker; Gifford, a small, shriveled, deformed man of sixty, with +something of a humped back, eyes that diverge, and a large mouth, +reclining on a sofa, propped up by cushions, with none of the petulance +that you would expect from his Review, but a mild, simple, unassuming +man,--he it is who prunes the contributions and takes the sting out of +them (one would like to have seen them before the sting was taken out); +and Scott, the right honest-hearted, entering into the passing scene +with the hearty enjoyment of a child, to whom literature seems a sport +rather than a labor or ambition, an author void of all the petulance, +egotism, and peculiarities of the craft. We have Moore's authority for +saying that the literary dinner described in the "The Tales of a +Traveller," whimsical as it seems and pervaded by the conventional +notion of the relations of publishers and authors, had a personal +foundation. Irving's satire of both has always the old-time Grub Street +flavor, or at least the reminiscent tone, which is, by the way, quite +characteristic of nearly everything that he wrote about England. He was +always a little in the past tense. Buckthorne's advice to his friend +is, never to be eloquent to an author except in praise of his own works, +or, what is nearly as acceptable, in disparagement of the work of his +contemporaries. "If ever he speaks favorably of the productions of a +particular friend, dissent boldly from him; pronounce his friend to be a +blockhead; never fear his being vexed. Much as people speak of the +irritability of authors, I never found one to take offense at such +contradictions. No, no, sir, authors are particularly candid in +admitting the faults of their friends." At the dinner Buckthorne +explains the geographical boundaries in the land of literature: you may +judge tolerably well of an author's popularity by the wine his +bookseller gives him. "An author crosses the port line about the third +edition, and gets into claret; and when he has reached the sixth or +seventh, he may revel in champagne and burgundy." The two ends of the +table were occupied by the two partners, one of whom laughed at the +clever things said by the poet, while the other maintained his +sedateness and kept on carving. "His gravity was explained to us by my +friend Buckthorne. He informed me that the concerns of the house were +admirably distributed among the partners. Thus, for instance, said he, +the grave gentleman is the carving partner, who attends to the joints; +and the other is the laughing partner, who attends to the jokes." If any +of the jokes from the lower end of the table reached the upper end, they +seldom produced much effect. "Even the laughing partner did not think it +necessary to honor them with a smile; which my neighbor Buckthorne +accounted for by informing me that there was a certain degree of +popularity to be obtained before a bookseller could afford to laugh at +an author's jokes." + +In August, 1820, we find Irving in Paris, where his reputation secured +him a hearty welcome: he was often at the Cannings' and at Lord +Holland's; Talma, then the king of the stage, became his friend, and +there he made the acquaintance of Thomas Moore, which ripened into a +familiar and lasting friendship. The two men were drawn to each other; +Irving greatly admired the "noble-hearted, manly, spirited little +fellow, with a mind as generous as his fancy is brilliant." Talma was +playing Hamlet to overflowing houses, which hung on his actions with +breathless attention, or broke into ungovernable applause; ladies were +carried fainting from the boxes. The actor is described as short in +stature, rather inclined to fat, with a large face and a thick neck; his +eyes are bluish, and have a peculiar cast in them at times. He said to +Irving that he thought the French character much changed--graver; the +day of the classic drama, mere declamation and fine language, had gone +by; the Revolution had taught them to demand real life, incident, +passion, character. Irving's life in Paris was gay enough, and seriously +interfered with his literary projects. He had the fortunes of his +brother Peter on his mind also, and invested his earnings, then and for +some years after, in enterprises for his benefit that ended in +disappointment. + +The "Sketch-Book" was making a great fame for him in England. Jeffrey, +in the "Edinburgh Review," paid it a most flattering tribute, and even +the savage "Quarterly" praised it. A rumor attributed it to Scott, who +was always masquerading; at least, it was said, he might have revised +it, and should have the credit of its exquisite style. This led to a +sprightly correspondence between Lady Littleton, the daughter of Earl +Spencer, one of the most accomplished and lovely women of England, and +Benjamin Rush, Minister to the Court of St. James, in the course of +which Mr. Rush suggested the propriety of giving out under his official +seal that Irving was the author of "Waverley." "Geoffrey Crayon is the +most fashionable fellow of the day," wrote the painter Leslie. Lord +Byron, in a letter to Murray, underscored his admiration of the author, +and subsequently said to an American: "His Crayon,--I know it by heart; +at least, there is not a passage that I cannot refer to immediately." +And afterwards he wrote to Moore, "His writings are my delight." There +seemed to be, as some one wrote, "a kind of conspiracy to hoist him over +the heads of his contemporaries." Perhaps the most satisfactory evidence +of his popularity was his publisher's enthusiasm. The publisher is an +infallible contemporary barometer. + +It is worthy of note that an American should have captivated public +attention at the moment when Scott and Byron were the idols of the +English-reading world. + +In the following year Irving was again in England, visiting his sister +in Birmingham, and tasting moderately the delights of London. He was, +indeed, something of an invalid. An eruptive malady,--the revenge of +nature, perhaps, for defeat in her earlier attack on his +lungs,--appearing in his ankles, incapacitated him for walking, +tormented him at intervals, so that literary composition was impossible, +sent him on pilgrimages to curative springs, and on journeys undertaken +for distraction and amusement, in which all work except that of seeing +and absorbing material had to be postponed. He was subject to this +recurring invalidism all his life, and we must regard a good part of the +work he did as a pure triumph of determination over physical +discouragement. This year the fruits of his interrupted labor appeared +in "Bracebridge Hall," a volume that was well received, but did not add +much to his reputation, though it contained "Dolph Heyliger," one of his +most characteristic Dutch stories, and the "Stout Gentleman," one of +his daintiest and most artistic bits of restrained humor.[1] + + [Footnote 1: I was once [says his biographer] reading aloud in + his presence a very flattering review of his works, which had + been sent him by the critic in 1848, and smiled as I came to + this sentence: "His most comical pieces have always a serious + end in view." "You laugh," said he, with that air of whimsical + significance so natural to him, "but it is true. I have kept + that to myself hitherto, but that man has found me out. He has + detected the moral of the _Stout Gentleman_."] + +Irving sought relief from his malady by an extended tour in Germany. He +sojourned some time in Dresden, whither his reputation had preceded him, +and where he was cordially and familiarly received, not only by the +foreign residents, but at the prim and antiquated little court of King +Frederick Augustus and Queen Amalia. Of Irving at this time Mrs. Emily +Fuller (_nee_ Foster), whose relations with him have been referred to, +wrote in 1860:-- + + "He was thoroughly a gentleman, not merely in external manners and + look, but to the inner-most fibres and core of his heart: + sweet-tempered, gentle, fastidious, sensitive, and gifted with the + warmest affections; the most delightful and invariably interesting + companion; gay and full of humor, even in spite of occasional fits + of melancholy, which he was, however, seldom subject to when with + those he liked; a gift of conversation that flowed like a full + river in sunshine,--bright, easy, and abundant." + +Those were pleasant days at Dresden, filled up with the society of +bright and warm-hearted people, varied by royal boar hunts, stiff +ceremonies at the little court, tableaux, and private theatricals, yet +tinged with a certain melancholy, partly constitutional, that appears in +most of his letters. His mind was too unsettled for much composition. He +had little self-confidence, and was easily put out by a breath of +adverse criticism. At intervals he would come to the Fosters to read a +manuscript of his own. + + "On these occasions strict orders were given that no visitor should + be admitted till the last word had been read, and the whole praised + or criticised, as the case may be. Of criticism, however, we were + very spare, as a slight word would put him out of conceit of a + whole work. One of the best things he has published was thrown + aside, unfinished, for years, because the friend to whom he read + it, happening, unfortunately, not to be well, and sleepy, did not + seem to take the interest in it he expected. Too easily + discouraged, it was not till the latter part of his career that he + ever appreciated himself as an author. One condemning whisper + sounded louder in his ear than the plaudits of thousands." + +This from Miss Emily Foster, who elsewhere notes his kindliness in +observing life:-- + + "Some persons, in looking upon life, view it as they would view a + picture, with a stern and criticising eye. He also looks upon life + as a picture, but to catch its beauties, its lights,--not its + defects and shadows. On the former he loves to dwell. He has a + wonderful knack at shutting his eyes to the sinister side of + anything. Never beat a more kindly heart than his; alive to the + sorrows, but not to the faults, of his friends, but doubly alive to + their virtues and goodness. Indeed, people seemed to grow more good + with one so unselfish and so gentle." + +In London, some years later:-- + + "He was still the same; time changed him very little. His + conversation was as interesting as ever [he was always an excellent + relater]; his dark gray eyes still full of varying feeling; his + smile half playful, half melancholy, but ever kind. All that was + mean, or envious, or harsh, he seemed to turn from so completely + that, when with him, it seemed that such things were not. All + gentle and tender affections, Nature in her sweetest or grandest + moods, pervaded his whole imagination, and left no place for low or + evil thoughts; and when in good spirits, his humor, his droll + descriptions, and his fun would make the gravest or the saddest + laugh." + +As to Irving's "state of mind" in Dresden, it is pertinent to quote a +passage from what we gather to be a journal kept by Miss Flora Foster:-- + + "He has written. He has confessed to my mother, as to a true and + dear friend, his love for E----, and his conviction of its utter + hopelessness. He feels himself unable to combat it. He thinks he + must try, by absence, to bring more peace to his mind. Yet he + cannot bear to give up our friendship,--an intercourse become so + dear to him, and so necessary to his daily happiness. Poor Irving!" + +It is well for our peace of mind that we do not know what is going down +concerning us in "journals." On his way to the Herrnhuthers, Mr. Irving +wrote to Mrs. Foster:-- + + "When I consider how I have trifled with my time, suffered painful + vicissitudes of feeling, which for a time damaged both mind and + body,--when I consider all this, I reproach myself that I did not + listen to the first impulse of my mind, and abandon Dresden long + since. And yet I think of returning! Why should I come back to + Dresden? The very inclination that dooms me thither should furnish + reasons for my staying away." + +In this mood, the Herrnhuthers, in their right-angled, whitewashed +world, were little attractive. + + "If the Herrnhuthers were right in their notions, the world would + have been laid out in squares and angles and right lines, and + everything would have been white and black and snuff-color, as they + have been clipped by these merciless retrenchers of beauty and + enjoyment. And then their dormitories! Think of between one and two + hundred of these simple gentlemen cooped up at night in one great + chamber! What a concert of barrel-organs in this great resounding + saloon! And then their plan of marriage! The very birds of the air + choose their mates from preference and inclination; but this + detestable system of _lot_! The sentiment of love may be, and is, + in a great measure, a fostered growth of poetry and romance, and + balderdashed with false sentiment; but with all its vitiations, it + is the beauty and the charm, the flavor and the fragrance, of all + intercourse between man and woman; it is the rosy cloud in the + morning of life; and if it does too often resolve itself into the + shower, yet, to my mind, it only makes our nature more fruitful in + what is excellent and amiable." + +Better suited him Prague, which is certainly a part of the "naughty +world" that Irving preferred:-- + + "Old Prague still keeps up its warrior look, and swaggers about + with its rusty corselet and helm, though both sadly battered. There + seems to me to be an air of style and fashion about the first + people of Prague, and a good deal of beauty in the fashionable + circle. This, perhaps, is owing to my contemplating it from a + distance, and my imagination lending it tints occasionally. Both + actors and audience, contemplated from the pit of a theatre, look + better than when seen in the boxes and behind the scenes. I like to + contemplate society in this way occasionally, and to dress it up by + the help of fancy, to my own taste. When I get in the midst of it, + it is too apt to lose its charm, and then there is the trouble and + _ennui_ of being obliged to take an active part in the farce; but + to be a mere spectator is amusing. I am glad, therefore, that I + brought no letters to Prague. I shall leave it with a favorable + idea of its society and manners, from knowing nothing accurate of + either; and with a firm belief that every pretty woman I have seen + is an angel, as I am apt to think every pretty woman, until I have + found her out." + +In July, 1823, Irving returned to Paris, to the society of the Moores +and the fascinations of the gay town, and to fitful literary work. Our +author wrote with great facility and rapidity when the inspiration was +on him, and produced an astonishing amount of manuscript in a short +period; but he often waited and fretted through barren weeks and months +for the movement of his fitful genius. His mind was teeming constantly +with new projects, and nothing could exceed his industry when once he +had taken a work in hand; but he never acquired the exact methodical +habits which enable some literary men to calculate their power and +quantity of production as accurately as that of a cotton mill. + +The political changes in France during the period of Irving's long +sojourn in Paris do not seem to have taken much of his attention. In a +letter dated October 5, 1824, he says: "We have had much bustle in Paris +of late, between the death of one king and the succession of another. I +have become a little callous to public sights, but have, +notwithstanding, been to see the funeral of the late king, and the +entrance into Paris of the present one. Charles X. begins his reign in a +very conciliating manner, and is really popular. The Bourbons have +gained great accession of power within a few years." + +The succession of Charles X. was also observed by another foreigner, who +was making agreeable personal notes at that time in Paris, but who is +not referred to by Irving, who for some unexplained reason failed to +meet the genial Scotsman at breakfast. Perhaps it is to his failure to +do so that he owes the semi-respectful reference to himself in Carlyle's +"Reminiscences." Lacking the stimulus to his vocabulary of personal +acquaintance, Carlyle simply wrote: "Washington Irving was said to be in +Paris, a kind of lion at that time, whose books I somewhat esteemed. +One day the Emerson-Tennant people bragged that they had engaged him to +breakfast with us at a certain _cafe_ next morning. We all attended +duly, Strackey among the rest, but no Washington came. 'Couldn't rightly +come,' said Malcolm to me in a judicious _aside_, as we cheerfully +breakfasted without him. I never saw Washington at all, but still have a +mild esteem of the good man." This ought to be accepted as evidence of +Carlyle's disinclination to say ill-natured things of those he did not +know. + +The "Tales of a Traveller" appeared in 1824. In the author's opinion, +with which the best critics agreed, it contained some of his best +writing. He himself said in a letter to Brevoort, "There was more of an +artistic touch about it, though this is not a thing to be appreciated by +the many." It was rapidly written. The movement has a delightful +spontaneity, and it is wanting in none of the charms of his style, +unless, perhaps, the style is over-refined; but it was not a novelty, +and the public began to criticise and demand a new note. This may have +been one reason why he turned to a fresh field and to graver themes. +For a time he busied himself on some American essays of a semi-political +nature, which were never finished, and he seriously contemplated a Life +of Washington; but all these projects were thrown aside for one that +kindled his imagination,--the Life of Columbus; and in February, 1826, +he was domiciled at Madrid, and settled down to a long period of +unremitting and intense labor. + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + IN SPAIN. + + +Irving's residence in Spain, which was prolonged till September, 1829, +was the most fruitful period in his life, and of considerable +consequence to literature. It is not easy to overestimate the debt of +Americans to the man who first opened to them the fascinating domain of +early Spanish history and romance. We can conceive of it by reflecting +upon the blank that would exist without "The Alhambra," "The Conquest of +Granada," "The Legends of the Conquest of Spain," and I may add the +popular loss if we had not "The Lives of Columbus and his Companions." +Irving had the creative touch, or at least the magic of the pen, to give +a definite, universal, and romantic interest to whatever he described. +We cannot deny him that. A few lines about the inn of the Red Horse at +Stratford-on-Avon created a new object of pilgrimage right in the +presence of the house and tomb of the poet. And how much of the romantic +interest of all the English-reading world in the Alhambra is due to him; +the name invariably recalls his own, and every visitor there is +conscious of his presence. He has again and again been criticised almost +out of court, and written down to the rank of the mere idle humorist; +but as often as I take up "The Conquest of Granada" or "The Alhambra" I +am aware of something that has eluded the critical analysis, and I +conclude that if one cannot write for the few it may be worth while to +write for the many. + +It was Irving's intention, when he went to Madrid, merely to make a +translation of some historical documents which were then appearing, +edited by M. Navarrete, from the papers of Bishop Las Casas and the +journals of Columbus, entitled "The Voyages of Columbus." But when he +found that this publication, although it contained many documents, +hitherto unknown, that threw much light on the discovery of the New +World, was rather a rich mass of materials for a history than a history +itself, and that he had access in Madrid libraries to great collections +of Spanish colonial history, he changed his plan, and determined to +write a Life of Columbus. His studies for this led him deep into the old +chronicles and legends of Spain, and out of these, with his own travel +and observation, came those books of mingled fables, sentiment, fact, +and humor which are after all the most enduring fruits of his residence +in Spain. + +Notwithstanding his absorption in literary pursuits, Irving was not +denied the charm of domestic society, which was all his life his chief +delight. The house he most frequented in Madrid was that of Mr. +D'Oubril, the Russian Minister. In his charming household were Madame +D'Oubril and her niece, Mademoiselle Antoinette Bollviller, and Prince +Dolgorouki, a young _attache_ of the legation. His letters to Prince +Dolgorouki and to Mademoiselle Antoinette give a most lively and +entertaining picture of his residence and travels in Spain. In one of +them to the prince, who was temporarily absent from the city, we have +glimpses of the happy hours, the happiest of all hours, passed in this +refined family circle. Here is one that exhibits the still fresh +romance in the heart of forty-four years:-- + + "Last evening, at your house, we had one of the most lovely + tableaux I ever beheld. It was the conception of Murillo, + represented by Madame A----. Mademoiselle Antoinette arranged the + tableau with her usual good taste, and the effect was enchanting. + It was more like a vision of something spiritual and celestial than + a representation of anything merely mortal; or rather it was woman + as in my romantic days I have been apt to imagine her, approaching + to the angelic nature. I have frequently admired Madame A----as a + mere beautiful woman, when I have seen her dressed up in the + fantastic attire of the _mode_; but here I beheld her elevated into + a representative of the divine purity and grace, exceeding even the + _beau ideal_ of the painter, for she even surpassed in beauty the + picture of Murillo. I felt as if I could have knelt down and + worshiped her. Heavens! what power women would have over us, if + they knew how to sustain the attractions which nature has bestowed + upon them, and which we are so ready to assist by our imaginations! + For my part, I am superstitious in my admiration of them, and like + to walk in a perpetual delusion, decking them out as divinities. I + thank no one to undeceive me, and to prove that they are mere + mortals." + +And he continues in another strain:-- + + How full of interest everything is connected with the old times in + Spain! I am more and more delighted with the old literature of the + country, its chronicles, plays, and romances. It has the wild vigor + and luxuriance of the forests of my native country, which, however + savage and entangled, are more captivating to my imagination than + the finest parks and cultivated woodlands. + + "As I live in the neighborhood of the library of the Jesuits' + College of St. Isidoro, I pass most of my mornings there. You + cannot think what a delight I feel in passing through its + galleries, filled with old parchment-bound books. It is a perfect + wilderness of curiosity to me. What a deep-felt, quiet luxury there + is in delving into the rich ore of these old, neglected volumes! + How these hours of uninterrupted intellectual enjoyment, so + tranquil and independent, repay one for the _ennui_ and + disappointment too often experienced in the intercourse of society! + How they serve to bring back the feelings into a harmonious tone, + after being jarred and put out of tune by the collisions with the + world!" + +With the romantic period of Spanish history Irving was in ardent +sympathy. The story of the Saracens entranced his mind; his imagination +disclosed its Oriental quality while he pored over the romance and the +ruin of that land of fierce contrasts, of arid wastes beaten by the +burning sun, valleys blooming with intoxicating beauty, cities of +architectural splendor and picturesque squalor. It is matter of regret +that he, who seemed to need the southern sun to ripen his genius, never +made a pilgrimage into the East, and gave to the world pictures of the +lands that he would have touched with the charm of their own color and +the witchery of their own romance. + +I will quote again from the letters, for they reveal the man quite as +well as the more formal and better known writings. His first sight of +the Alhambra is given in a letter to Mademoiselle Bollviller:-- + + "Our journey through La Mancha was cold and uninteresting, + excepting when we passed through the scenes of some of the exploits + of Don Quixote. We were repaid, however, by a night amidst the + scenery of the Sierra Morena, seen by the light of the full moon. I + do not know how this scenery would appear in the daytime, but by + moonlight it is wonderfully wild and romantic, especially after + passing the summit of the Sierra. As the day dawned we entered the + stern and savage defiles of the Despena Perros, which equals the + wild landscapes of Salvator Rosa. For some time we continued + winding along the brinks of precipices, overhung with cragged and + fantastic rocks; and after a succession of such rude and sterile + scenes we swept down to Carolina, and found ourselves in another + climate. The orange-trees, the aloes, and myrtle began to make + their appearance; we felt the warm temperature of the sweet South, + and began to breathe the balmy air of Andalusia. At Andujar we were + delighted with the neatness and cleanliness of the houses, the + _patios_ planted with orange and citron trees, and refreshed by + fountains. We passed a charming evening on the banks of the famous + Guadalquivir, enjoying the mild, balmy air of a southern evening, + and rejoicing in the certainty that we were at length in this land + of promise.... + + "But Granada, _bellissima_ Granada! Think what must have been our + delight when, after passing the famous bridge of Pinos, the scene + of many a bloody encounter between Moor and Christian, and + remarkable for having been the place where Columbus was overtaken + by the messenger of Isabella, when about to abandon Spain in + despair, we turned a promontory of the arid mountains of Elvira, + and Granada, with its towers, its Alhambra, and its snowy + mountains, burst upon our sight! The evening sun shone gloriously + upon its red towers as we approached it, and gave a mellow tone to + the rich scenery of the vega. It was like the magic glow which + poetry and romance have shed over this enchanting place.... + + "The more I contemplate these places, the more my admiration is + awakened for the elegant habits and delicate taste of the Moorish + monarchs. The delicately ornamented walls; the aromatic groves, + mingling with the freshness and the enlivening sounds of fountains + and rivers of water; the retired baths, bespeaking purity and + refinement; the balconies and galleries, open to the fresh mountain + breeze, and overlooking the loveliest scenery of the valley of the + Darro and the magnificent expanse of the vega,--it is impossible to + contemplate this delicious abode and not feel an admiration of the + genius and the poetical spirit of those who first devised this + earthly paradise. There is an intoxication of heart and soul in + looking over such scenery at this genial season. All nature is just + teeming with new life, and putting on the first delicate verdure + and bloom of spring. The almond-trees are in blossom; the fig-trees + are beginning to sprout; everything is in the tender bud, the + young leaf, or the half-open flower. The beauty of the season is + but half developed, so that while there is enough to yield present + delight there is the flattering promise of still further enjoyment. + Good heavens! after passing two years amidst the sunburnt wastes of + Castile, to be let loose to rove at large over this fragrant and + lovely land!" + +It was not easy, however, even in the Alhambra, perfectly to call up the +past:-- + + "The verity of the present checks and chills the imagination in its + picturings of the past. I have been trying to conjure up images of + Boabdil passing in regal splendor through these courts; of his + beautiful queen; of the Abencerrages, the Gomares, and the other + Moorish cavaliers, who once filled these halls with the glitter of + arms and the splendor of Oriental luxury; but I am continually + awakened from my reveries by the jargon of an Andalusian peasant + who is setting out rose-bushes, and the song of a pretty Andalusian + girl who shows the Alhambra, and who is chanting a little romance + that has probably been handed down from generation to generation + since the time of the Moors." + +In another letter, written from Seville, he returns to the subject of +the Moors. He is describing an excursion to Alcala de la Guadayra:-- + + "Nothing can be more charming than the windings of the little river + among banks hanging with gardens and orchards of all kinds of + delicate southern fruits, and tufted with flowers and aromatic + plants. The nightingales throng this lovely little valley as + numerously as they do the gardens of Aranjuez. Every bend of the + river presents a new landscape, for it is beset by old Moorish + mills of the most picturesque forms, each mill having an embattled + tower,--a memento of the valiant tenure by which those gallant + fellows, the Moors, held this earthly paradise, having to be ready + at all times for war, and as it were to work with one hand and + fight with the other. It is impossible to travel about Andalusia + and not imbibe a kind feeling for those Moors. They deserved this + beautiful country. They won it bravely; they enjoyed it generously + and kindly. No lover ever delighted more to cherish and adorn a + mistress, to heighten and illustrate her charms, and to vindicate + and defend her against all the world than did the Moors to + embellish, enrich, elevate, and defend their beloved Spain. + Everywhere I meet traces of their sagacity, courage, urbanity, high + poetical feeling, and elegant taste. The noblest institutions in + this part of Spain, the best inventions for comfortable and + agreeable living, and all those habitudes and customs which throw a + peculiar and Oriental charm over the Andalusian mode of living may + be traced to the Moors. Whenever I enter these beautiful marble + _patios_, set out with shrubs and flowers, refreshed by fountains, + sheltered with awnings from the sun; where the air is cool at + noonday, the ear delighted in sultry summer by the sound of falling + water; where, in a word, a little paradise is shut up within the + walls of home, I think on the poor Moors, the inventors of all + these delights. I am at times almost ready to join in sentiment + with a worthy friend and countryman of mine whom I met in Malaga, + who swears the Moors are the only people that ever deserved the + country, and prays to Heaven that they may come over from Africa + and conquer it again." + +In a following paragraph we get a glimpse of a world, however, that the +author loves still more:-- + + "Tell me everything about the children. I suppose the discreet + princess will soon consider it an indignity to be ranked among the + number. I am told she is growing with might and main, and is + determined not to stop until she is a woman outright. I would give + all the money in my pocket to be with those dear little women at + the round table in the saloon, or on the grass-plot in the garden, + to tell them some marvelous tales." + +And again:-- + + "Give my love to all my dear little friends of the round table, + from the discreet princess down to the little blue-eyed boy. Tell + _la petite Marie_ that I still remain true to her, though + surrounded by all the beauties of Seville; and that I swear (but + this she must keep between ourselves) that there is not a little + woman to compare with her in all Andalusia." + +The publication of "The Life of Columbus," which had been delayed by +Irving's anxiety to secure historical accuracy in every detail, did not +take place till February, 1828. For the English copyright Mr. Murray +paid him L3,150. He wrote an abridgment of it, which he presented to his +generous publisher, and which was a very profitable book (the first +edition of ten thousand copies sold immediately). This was followed by +the "Companions," and by "The Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada," for +which he received two thousand guineas. "The Alhambra" was not published +till just before Irving's return to America, in 1832, and was brought +out by Mr. Bentley, who bought it for one thousand guineas. + +"The Conquest of Granada," which I am told Irving in his latter years +regarded as the best of all his works, was declared by Coleridge "a +_chef-d'oeuvre_ of its kind." I think it bears re-reading as well as any +of the Spanish books. Of the reception of the "Columbus" the author was +very doubtful. Before it was finished he wrote:-- + + "I have lost confidence in the favorable disposition of my + countrymen, and look forward to cold scrutiny and stern criticism, + and this is a line of writing in which I have not hitherto + ascertained my own powers. Could I afford it, I should like to + write, and to lay my writings aside when finished. There is an + independent delight in study and in the creative exercise of the + pen; we live in a world of dreams, but publication lets in the + noisy rabble of the world, and there is an end of our dreaming." + +In a letter to Brevoort, February 23, 1828, he fears that he can never +regain + + "That delightful confidence which I once enjoyed of not the good + opinion, but the good will, of my countrymen. To me it is always + ten times more gratifying to be liked than to be admired; and I + confess to you, though I am a little too proud to confess it to the + world, the idea that the kindness of my countrymen toward me was + withering caused me for a long time the most weary depression of + spirits, and disheartened me from making any literary exertions." + +It has been a popular notion that Irving's career was uniformly one of +ease. In this same letter he exclaims: "With all my exertions, I seem +always to keep about up to my chin in troubled water, while the world, I +suppose, thinks I am sailing smoothly, with wind and tide in my favor." + +In a subsequent letter to Brevoort, dated at Seville, December 26, 1828, +occurs almost the only piece of impatience and sarcasm that this long +correspondence affords. "Columbus" had succeeded beyond his expectation, +and its popularity was so great that some enterprising American had +projected an abridgment, which it seems would not be protected by the +copyright of the original. Irving writes:-- + + "I have just sent to my brother an abridgment of 'Columbus' to be + published immediately, as I find some paltry fellow is pirating an + abridgment. Thus every line of life has its depredation. 'There be + land rats and water rats, land pirates and water pirates,--I mean + thieves,' as old Shylock says. I feel vexed at this shabby attempt + to purloin this work from me, it having really cost me more toil + and trouble than all my other productions, and being one that I + trusted would keep me current with my countrymen; but we are making + rapid advances in literature in America, and have already attained + many of the literary vices and diseases of the old countries of + Europe. We swarm with reviewers, though we have scarce original + works sufficient for them to alight and prey upon, and we closely + imitate all the worst tricks of the trade and of the craft in + England. Our literature, before long, will be like some of those + premature and aspiring whipsters, who become old men before they + are young ones, and fancy they prove their manhood by their + profligacy and their diseases." + +But the work had an immediate, continued, and deserved success. It was +critically contrasted with Robertson's account of Columbus, and it is +open to the charge of too much rhetorical color here and there, and it +is at times too diffuse; but its substantial accuracy is not questioned, +and the glow of the narrative springs legitimately from the romance of +the theme. Irving understood, what our later historians have fully +appreciated, the advantage of vivid individual portraiture in historical +narrative. His conception of the character and mission of Columbus is +largely outlined, but firmly and most carefully executed, and is one of +the noblest in literature. I cannot think it idealized, though it +required a poetic sensibility to enter into sympathy with the +magnificent dreamer, who was regarded by his own generation as the fool +of an idea. A more prosaic treatment would have utterly failed to +represent that mind, which existed from boyhood in an ideal world, and, +amid frustrated hopes, shattered plans, and ignoble returns for his +sacrifices, could always rebuild its glowing projects, and conquer +obloquy and death itself with immortal anticipations. + +Towards the close of his residence in Spain, Irving received +unexpectedly the appointment of Secretary of Legation to the Court of +St. James, at which Louis McLane was American Minister; and after some +hesitation, and upon the urgency of his friends, he accepted it. He was +in the thick of literary projects. One of these was the History of the +Conquest of Mexico, which he afterwards surrendered to Mr. Prescott and +another was the "Life of Washington," which was to wait many years for +fulfillment. His natural diffidence and his reluctance to a routine life +made him shrink from the diplomatic appointment; but once engaged in it, +and launched again in London society, he was reconciled to the +situation. Of honors there was no lack, nor of the adulation of social +and literary circles. In April, 1830, the Royal Society of Literature +awarded him one of the two annual gold medals placed at the disposal of +the society by George IV., to be given to authors of literary works of +eminent merit, the other being voted to the historian Hallam; and this +distinction was followed by the degree of D.C.L. from the University of +Oxford,--a title which the modest author never used. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + RETURN TO AMERICA: SUNNYSIDE: THE MISSION TO MADRID. + + +In 1831 Mr. Irving was thrown, by his diplomatic position, into the +thick of the political and social tumult, when the Reform Bill was +pending and war was expected in Europe. It is interesting to note that +for a time he laid aside his attitude of the dispassionate observer, and +caught the general excitement. He writes in March, expecting that the +fate of the cabinet will be determined in a week, looking daily for +decisive news from Paris, and fearing dismal tidings from Poland. +"However," he goes on to say in a vague way, "the great cause of all the +world will go on. What a stirring moment it is to live in! I never took +such intense interest in newspapers. It seems to me as if life were +breaking out anew with me, or that I were entering upon quite a new and +almost unknown career of existence, and I rejoice to find my +sensibilities, which were waning as to many objects of past interest, +reviving with all their freshness and vivacity at the scenes and +prospects opening around me." He expects the breaking of the thralldom +of falsehood woven over the human mind; and, more definitely, hopes that +the Reform Bill will prevail. Yet he is oppressed by the gloom hanging +over the booksellers' trade, which he thinks will continue until reform +and cholera have passed away. + +During the last months of his residence in England, the author renewed +his impressions of Stratford (the grateful landlady of the Red Horse Inn +showed him a poker which was locked up among the treasures of her house, +on which she had caused to be engraved "Geoffrey Crayon's Sceptre"); +spent some time at Newstead Abbey; and had the sorrowful pleasure in +London of seeing Scott once more, and for the last time. The great +novelist, in the sad eclipse of his powers, was staying in the city, on +his way to Italy, and Mr. Lockhart asked Irving to dine with him. It was +but a melancholy repast. "Ah," said Scott, as Irving gave him his arm, +after dinner, "the times are changed, my good fellow, since we went over +the Eildon Hills together. It is all nonsense to tell a man that his +mind is not affected when his body is in this state." + +Irving retired from the legation in September, 1831, to return home, the +longing to see his native land having become intense; but his arrival in +New York was delayed till May, 1832. + +If he had any doubts of the sentiments of his countrymen toward him, his +reception in New York dissipated them. America greeted her most famous +literary man with a spontaneous outburst of love and admiration. The +public banquet in New York, that was long remembered for its brilliancy, +was followed by the tender of the same tribute in other cities,--an +honor which his unconquerable shrinking from this kind of publicity +compelled him to decline. The "Dutch Herodotus, Diedrich Knickerbocker," +to use the phrase of a toast, having come out of one such encounter with +fair credit, did not care to tempt Providence further. The thought of +making a dinner-table speech threw him into a sort of whimsical +panic,--a noble infirmity, which characterized also Hawthorne and +Thackeray. + +The enthusiasm manifested for the homesick author was equaled by his own +for the land and the people he supremely loved. Nor was his surprise at +the progress made during seventeen years less than his delight in it. +His native place had become a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants; +the accumulation of wealth and the activity of trade astonished him, and +the literary stir was scarcely less unexpected. The steamboat had come +to be used, so that he seemed to be transported from place to place by +magic; and on a near view the politics of America seemed not less +interesting than those of Europe. The nullification battle was set; the +currency conflict still raged; it was a time of inflation and land +speculation; the West, every day more explored and opened, was the land +of promise for capital and energy. Fortunes were made in a day by buying +lots in "paper towns." Into some of these speculations Irving put his +savings; the investments were as permanent as they were unremunerative. + +Irving's first desire, however, on his recovery from the state of +astonishment into which these changes plunged him, was to make himself +thoroughly acquainted with the entire country and its development. To +this end he made an extended tour in the South and West, which passed +beyond the bounds of frontier settlement. The fruit of his excursion +into the Pawnee country, on the waters of the Arkansas, a region +untraversed by white men, except solitary trappers, was "A Tour on the +Prairies," a sort of romance of reality, which remains to-day as good a +description as we have of hunting adventure on the plains. It led also +to the composition of other books on the West, which were more or less +mere pieces of book-making for the market. + +Our author was far from idle. Indeed, he could not afford to be. +Although he had received considerable sums from his books, and perhaps +enough for his own simple wants, the responsibility of the support of +his two brothers, Peter and Ebenezer, and several nieces, devolved upon +him. And, besides, he had a longing to make himself a home, where he +could pursue his calling undisturbed, and indulge the sweets of domestic +and rural life, which of all things lay nearest his heart. And these +two undertakings compelled him to be diligent with his pen to the end of +his life. The spot he chose for his "Roost" was a little farm on the +bank of the river at Tarrytown, close to his old Sleepy Hollow haunt, +one of the loveliest, if not the most picturesque, situations on the +Hudson. At first he intended nothing more than a summer retreat, +inexpensive and simply furnished. But his experience was that of all who +buy, and renovate, and build. The farm had on it a small stone Dutch +cottage, built about a century before, and inhabited by one of the Van +Tassels. This was enlarged, still preserving the quaint Dutch +characteristics; it acquired a tower and a whimsical weathercock, the +delight of the owner ("it was brought from Holland by Gill Davis, the +King of Coney Island, who says he got it from a windmill which they were +demolishing at the gate of Rotterdam, which windmill has been mentioned +in 'Knickerbocker'"), and became one of the most snug and picturesque +residences on the river. When the slip of Melrose ivy, which was +brought over from Scotland by Mrs. Renwick and given to the author, had +grown and well overrun it, the house, in the midst of sheltering groves +and secluded walks, was as pretty a retreat as a poet could desire. But +the little nook proved to have an insatiable capacity for swallowing up +money, as the necessities of the author's establishment increased: there +was always something to be done to the grounds; some alterations in the +house; a green-house, a stable, a gardener's cottage, to be built,--and +to the very end the outlay continued. The cottage necessitated economy +in other personal expenses, and incessant employment of his pen. But +Sunnyside, as the place was named, became the dearest spot on earth to +him; it was his residence, from which he tore himself with reluctance, +and to which he returned with eager longing; and here, surrounded by +relatives whom he loved, he passed nearly all the remainder of his +years, in as happy conditions, I think, as a bachelor ever enjoyed. His +intellectual activity was unremitting, he had no lack of friends, there +was only now and then a discordant note in the general estimation of his +literary work, and he was the object of the most tender care from his +nieces. Already, he writes, in October, 1838, "my little cottage is well +stocked. I have Ebenezer's five girls, and himself also, whenever he can +be spared from town; sister Catherine and her daughter; Mr. Davis +occasionally, with casual visits from all the rest of our family +connection. The cottage, therefore, is never lonely." I like to dwell in +thought upon this happy home, a real haven of rest after many +wanderings; a seclusion broken only now and then by enforced absence, +like that in Madrid as minister, but enlivened by many welcome guests. +Perhaps the most notorious of these was a young Frenchman, a "somewhat +quiet guest," who, after several months' imprisonment on board a French +man-of-war, was set on shore at Norfolk, and spent a couple of months in +New York and its vicinity, in 1837. This visit was vividly recalled to +Irving in a letter to his sister, Mrs. Storrow, who was in Paris in +1853, and had just been presented at court:-- + + "Louis Napoleon and Eugenie Montijo, Emperor and Empress of France! + one of whom I have had a guest at my cottage on the Hudson; the + other, whom, when a child, I have had on my knee at Granada. It + seems to cap the climax of the strange dramas of which Paris has + been the theatre during my life-time. I have repeatedly thought + that each grand _coup de theatre_ would be the last that would + occur in my time; but each has been succeeded by another equally + striking; and what will be the next, who can conjecture? + + "The last time I saw Eugenie Montijo she was one of the reigning + belles of Madrid; and she and her giddy circle had swept away my + charming young friend, the beautiful and accomplished ---- ----, + into their career of fashionable dissipation. Now Eugenie is upon a + throne, and ---- a voluntary recluse in a convent of one of the + most rigorous orders! Poor ----! Perhaps, however, her fate may + ultimately be the happiest of the two. 'The storm' with her 'is + o'er, and she's at rest;' but the other is launched upon a + returnless shore, on a dangerous sea, infamous for its tremendous + shipwrecks. Am I to live to see the catastrophe of her career, and + the end of this suddenly conjured-up empire, which seems to be of + 'such stuff as dreams are made of'?" + +As we have seen, the large sums Irving earned by his pen were not spent +in selfish indulgence. His habits and tastes were simple, and little +would have sufficed for his individual needs. He cared not much for +money, and seemed to want it only to increase the happiness of those who +were confided to his care. A man less warm-hearted and more selfish, in +his circumstances, would have settled down to a life of more ease and +less responsibility. + +To go back to the period of his return to America. He was now past +middle life, having returned to New York in his fiftieth year. But he +was in the full flow of literary productiveness. I have noted the dates +of his achievements, because his development was somewhat tardy compared +with that of many of his contemporaries; but he had the "staying" +qualities. The first crop of his mind was of course the most original; +time and experience had toned down his exuberant humor; but the spring +of his fancy was as free, his vigor was not abated, and his art was more +refined. Some of his best work was yet to be done. And it is worthy of +passing mention, in regard to his later productions, that his admirable +sense of literary proportion, which is wanting in many good writers, +characterized his work to the end. + +High as his position was as a man of letters at this time, the +consideration in which he was held was much broader than that,--it was +that of one of the first citizens of the Republic. His friends, readers, +and admirers were not merely the literary class and the general public, +but included nearly all the prominent statesmen of the time. Almost any +career in public life would have been open to him if he had lent an ear +to their solicitations. But political life was not to his taste, and it +would have been fatal to his sensitive spirit. It did not require much +self-denial, perhaps, to decline the candidacy for mayor of New York, or +the honor of standing for Congress; but he put aside also the +distinction of a seat in Mr. Van Buren's Cabinet as Secretary of the +Navy. His main reason for declining it, aside from a diffidence in his +own judgment in public matters, was his dislike of the turmoil of +political life in Washington, and his sensitiveness to personal attacks +which beset the occupants of high offices. But he also had come to a +political divergence with Mr. Van Buren. He liked the man,--he liked +almost everybody,--and esteemed him as a friend, but he apprehended +trouble from the new direction of the party in power. Irving was almost +devoid of party prejudice, and he never seemed to have strongly marked +political opinions. Perhaps his nearest confession to a creed is +contained in a letter he wrote to a member of the House of +Representatives, Gouverneur Kemble, a little time before the offer of a +position in the cabinet, in which he said that he did not relish some +points of Van Buren's policy, nor believe in the honesty of some of his +elbow counselors. I quote a passage from it:-- + + "As far as I know my own mind, I am thoroughly a republican, and + attached, from complete conviction, to the institutions of my + country; but I am a republican without gall, and have no bitterness + in my creed. I have no relish for Puritans, either in religion or + politics, who are for pushing principles to an extreme, and for + overturning everything that stands in the way of their own zealous + career.... Ours is a government of compromise. We have several + great and distinct interests bound up together, which, if not + separately consulted and severally accommodated may harass and + impair each other.... I always distrust the soundness of political + councils that are accompanied by acrimonious and disparaging + attacks upon any great class of our fellow-citizens. Such are those + urged to the disadvantage of the great trading and financial + classes of our country." + +During the ten years preceding his mission to Spain, Irving kept fagging +away at the pen, doing a good deal of miscellaneous and ephemeral work. +Among his other engagements was that of regular contributor to the +"Knickerbocker Magazine," for a salary of two thousand dollars. He wrote +the editor that he had observed that man, as he advances in life, is +subject to a plethora of the mind, occasioned by an accumulation of +wisdom upon the brain, and that he becomes fond of telling long stories +and doling out advice, to the annoyance of his friends. To avoid +becoming the bore of the domestic circle, he proposed to ease off this +surcharge of the intellect by inflicting his tediousness on the public +through the pages of the periodical. The arrangement brought reputation +to the magazine (which was published in the days when the honor of +being in print was supposed by the publisher to be ample compensation to +the scribe), but little profit to Mr. Irving. During this period he +interested himself in an international copyright, as a means of +fostering our young literature. He found that a work of merit, written +by an American who had not established a commanding name in the market, +met very cavalier treatment from our publishers, who frankly said that +they need not trouble themselves about native works, when they could +pick up every day successful books from the British press, for which +they had to pay no copyright. Irving's advocacy of the proposed law was +entirely unselfish, for his own market was secure. + +His chief works in these ten years were, "A Tour on the Prairies," +"Recollections of Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey," "The Legends of the +Conquest of Spain," "Astoria" (the heavy part of the work of it was done +by his nephew Pierre), "Captain Bonneville," and a number of graceful +occasional papers, collected afterwards under the title of "Wolfert's +Roost." Two other books may properly be mentioned here, although they +did not appear until after his return from his absence of four years and +a half at the court of Madrid; these are the "Biography of Goldsmith" +and "Mahomet and his Successors." At the age of sixty-six, he laid aside +the "Life of Washington," on which he was engaged, and rapidly "threw +off" these two books. The "Goldsmith" was enlarged from a sketch he had +made twenty-five years before. It is an exquisite, sympathetic piece of +work, without pretension or any subtle verbal analysis, but on the whole +an excellent interpretation of the character. Author and subject had +much in common: Irving had at least a kindly sympathy for the +vagabondish inclinations of his predecessor, and with his humorous and +cheerful regard of the world; perhaps it is significant of a deeper +unity in character that both, at times, fancied they could please an +intolerant world by attempting to play the flute. The "Mahomet" is a +popular narrative, which throws no new light on the subject; it is +pervaded by the author's charm of style and equity of judgment, but it +lacks the virility of Gibbon's masterly picture of the Arabian prophet +and the Saracenic onset. + +We need not dwell longer upon this period. One incident of it, however, +cannot be passed in silence: that was the abandonment of his life-long +project of writing the History of the Conquest of Mexico to Mr. William +H. Prescott. It had been a scheme of his boyhood; he had made +collections of materials for it during his first residence in Spain; and +he was actually and absorbedly engaged in the composition of the first +chapters, when he was sounded by Mr. Cogswell, of the Astor Library, in +behalf of Mr. Prescott. Some conversation showed that Mr. Prescott was +contemplating the subject upon which Mr. Irving was engaged, and the +latter instantly authorized Mr. Cogswell to say that he abandoned it. +Although our author was somewhat far advanced, and Mr. Prescott had not +yet collected his materials, Irving renounced the glorious theme in such +a manner that Prescott never suspected the pain and loss it cost him, +nor the full extent of his own obligation. Some years afterwards Irving +wrote to his nephew that in giving it up he in a manner gave up his +bread, as he had no other subject to supply its place: "I was," he +wrote, "dismounted from my _cheval de bataille_, and have never been +completely mounted since." But he added that he was not sorry for the +warm impulse that induced him to abandon the subject, and that Mr. +Prescott's treatment of it had justified his opinion of him. +Notwithstanding Prescott's very brilliant work, we cannot but feel some +regret that Irving did not write a Conquest of Mexico. His method, as he +outlined it, would have been the natural one. Instead of partially +satisfying the reader's curiosity in a preliminary essay, in which the +Aztec civilization was exposed, Irving would have begun with the entry +of the conquerors, and carried his reader step by step onward, letting +him share all the excitement and surprise of discovery which the +invaders experienced, and learn of the wonders of the country in the +manner most likely to impress both the imagination and the memory; and +with his artistic sense of the value of the picturesque he would have +brought into strong relief the _dramatis personae_ of the story. + +In 1842, Irving was tendered the honor of the mission to Madrid. It was +an entire surprise to himself and to his friends. He came to look upon +this as the "crowning honor of his life," and yet when the news first +reached him he paced up and down his room, excited and astonished, +revolving in his mind the separation from home and friends, and was +heard murmuring, half to himself and half to his nephew, "It is +hard,--very hard; yet I must try to bear it. God tempers the wind to the +shorn lamb." His acceptance of the position was doubtless influenced by +the intended honor to his profession, by the gratifying manner in which +it came to him, by his desire to please his friends, and the belief, +which was a delusion, that diplomatic life in Madrid would offer no +serious interruption to his "Life of Washington," in which he had just +become engaged. The nomination, the suggestion of Daniel Webster, +Tyler's Secretary of State, was cordially approved by the President and +cabinet, and confirmed almost by acclamation in the Senate. "Ah," said +Mr. Clay, who was opposing nearly all the President's appointments, +"this is a nomination everybody will concur in!" "If a person of more +merit and higher qualification," wrote Mr. Webster in his official +notification, "had presented himself, great as is my personal regard +for you, I should have yielded it to higher considerations." No other +appointment could have been made so complimentary to Spain, and it +remains to this day one of the most honorable to his own country. + +In reading Irving's letters written during his third visit abroad, you +are conscious that the glamour of life is gone for him, though not his +kindliness towards the world, and that he is subject to few illusions; +the show and pageantry no longer enchant,--they only weary. The novelty +was gone, and he was no longer curious to see great sights and great +people. He had declined a public dinner in New York, and he put aside +the same hospitality offered by Liverpool and by Glasgow. In London he +attended the Queen's grand fancy ball, which surpassed anything he had +seen in splendor and picturesque effect. "The personage," he writes, +"who appeared least to enjoy the scene seemed to me to be the little +Queen herself. She was flushed and heated, and evidently fatigued and +oppressed with the state she had to keep up and the regal robes in +which she was arrayed, and especially by a crown of gold, which weighed +heavy on her brow, and to which she was continually raising her hand to +move it slightly when it pressed. I hope and trust her real crown sits +easier." The bearing of Prince Albert he found prepossessing, and he +adds, "He speaks English very well;" as if that were a useful +accomplishment for an English Prince Consort. His reception at court and +by the ministers and diplomatic corps was very kind, and he greatly +enjoyed meeting his old friends, Leslie, Rogers, and Moore. At Paris, in +an informal presentation to the royal family, he experienced a very +cordial welcome from the King and Queen and Madame Adelaide, each of +whom took occasion to say something complimentary about his writings; +but he escaped as soon as possible from social engagements. "Amidst all +the splendors of London and Paris, I find my imagination refuses to take +fire, and my heart still yearns after dear little Sunnyside." Of an +anxious friend in Paris, who thought Irving was ruining his prospects by +neglecting to leave his card with this or that duchess who had sought +his acquaintance, he writes: "He attributes all this to very excessive +modesty, not dreaming that the empty intercourse of saloons with people +of rank and fashion could be a bore to one who has run the rounds of +society for the greater part of half a century, and who likes to consult +his own humor and pursuits." + +When Irving reached Madrid the affairs of the kingdom had assumed a +powerful dramatic interest, wanting in none of the romantic elements +that characterize the whole history of the peninsula. "The future career +[he writes] of this gallant soldier, Espartero, whose merits and +services have placed him at the head of the government, and the future +fortunes of these isolated little princesses, the Queen and her sister, +have an uncertainty hanging about them worthy of the fifth act in a +melodrama." The drama continued, with constant shifting of scene, as +long as Irving remained in Spain, and gave to his diplomatic life +intense interest, and at times perilous excitement. His letters are full +of animated pictures of the changing progress of the play; and although +they belong rather to the gossip of history than to literary biography, +they cannot be altogether omitted. The duties which the minister had to +perform were unusual, delicate, and difficult; but I believe he +acquitted himself of them with the skill of a born diplomatist. When he +went to Spain before, in 1826, Ferdinand VII. was, by aid of French +troops, on the throne, the liberties of the kingdom were crushed, and +her most enlightened men were in exile. While he still resided there, in +1829, Ferdinand married, for his fourth wife, Maria Christina, sister of +the King of Naples, and niece of the Queen of Louis Philippe. By her he +had two daughters, his only children. In order that his own progeny +might succeed him, he set aside the Salique law (which had been imposed +by France) just before his death, in 1833, and revived the old Spanish +law of succession. His eldest daughter, then three years old, was +proclaimed Queen, by the name of Isabella II., and her mother guardian +during her minority, which would end at the age of fourteen. Don Carlos, +the king's eldest brother, immediately set up the standard of rebellion, +supported by the absolutist aristocracy, the monks, and a great part of +the clergy. The liberals rallied to the Queen. The Queen Regent did +not, however, act in good faith with the popular party: she resisted all +salutary reform, would not restore the Constitution of 1812 until +compelled to by a popular uprising, and disgraced herself by a +scandalous connection with one Munos, one of the royal body guards. She +enriched this favorite and amassed a vast fortune for herself, which she +sent out of the country. In 1839, when Don Carlos was driven out of the +country by the patriot soldier Espartero, she endeavored to gain him +over to her side, but failed. Espartero became Regent, and Maria +Christina repaired to Paris, where she was received with great +distinction by Louis Philippe, and Paris became the focus of all sorts +of machinations against the constitutional government of Spain, and of +plots for its overthrow. One of these had just been defeated at the time +of Irving's arrival. It was a desperate attempt of a band of soldiers of +the rebel army to carry off the little Queen and her sister, which was +frustrated only by the gallant resistance of the halberdiers in the +palace. The little princesses had scarcely recovered from the horror of +this night attack when our minister presented his credentials to the +Queen through the Regent, thus breaking a diplomatic dead-lock, in which +he was followed by all the other embassies except the French. I take +some passages from the author's description of his first audience at the +royal palace:-- + + "We passed through the spacious court, up the noble staircase, and + through the long suites of apartments of this splendid edifice, + most of them silent and vacant, the casements closed to keep out + the heat, so that a twilight reigned throughout the mighty pile, + not a little emblematical of the dubious fortunes of its inmates. + It seemed more like traversing a convent than a palace. I ought to + have mentioned that in ascending the grand staircase we found the + portal at the head of it, opening into the royal suite of + apartments, still bearing the marks of the midnight attack upon the + palace in October last, when an attempt was made to get possession + of the persons of the little Queen and her sister, to carry them + off.... The marble casements of the doors had been shattered in + several places, and the double doors themselves pierced all over + with bullet holes, from the musketry that played upon them from the + staircase during that eventful night. What must have been the + feelings of those poor children, on listening, from their + apartment, to the horrid tumult, the outcries of a furious + multitude, and the reports of fire-arms echoing and reverberating + through the vaulted halls and spacious courts of this immense + edifice, and dubious whether their own lives were not the object of + the assault! + + "After passing through various chambers of the palace, now silent + and sombre, but which I had traversed in former days, on grand + court occasions in the time of Ferdinand VII., when they were + glittering with all the splendor of a court, we paused in a great + saloon, with high-vaulted ceiling incrusted with florid devices in + porcelain, and hung with silken tapestry, but all in dim twilight, + like the rest of the palace. At one end of the saloon the door + opened to an almost interminable range of other chambers, through + which, at a distance, we had a glimpse of some indistinct figures + in black. They glided into the saloon slowly, and with noiseless + steps. It was the little Queen, with her governess, Madame Mina, + widow of the general of that name, and her guardian, the excellent + Arguelles, all in deep mourning for the Duke of Orleans. The little + Queen advanced some steps within the saloon and then paused. Madame + Mina took her station a little distance behind her. The Count + Almodovar then introduced me to the Queen in my official capacity, + and she received me with a grave and quiet welcome, expressed in a + very low voice. She is nearly twelve years of age, and is + sufficiently well grown for her years. She had a somewhat fair + complexion, quite pale, with bluish or light gray eyes; a grave + demeanor, but a graceful deportment. I could not but regard her + with deep interest, knowing what important concerns depended upon + the life of this fragile little being, and to what a stormy and + precarious career she might be destined. Her solitary position, + also, separated from all her kindred except her little sister, a + mere effigy of royalty in the hands of statesmen, and surrounded by + the formalities and ceremonials of state, which spread sterility + around the occupant of a throne." + +I have quoted this passage not more on account of its intrinsic +interest, than as a specimen of the author's consummate art of conveying +an impression by what I may call the tone of his style; and this appears +in all his correspondence relating to this picturesque and eventful +period. During the four years of his residence the country was in a +constant state of excitement and often of panic. Armies were marching +over the kingdom. Madrid was in a state of siege, expecting an assault +at one time; confusion reigned amid the changing adherents about the +person of the child Queen. The duties of a minister were perplexing +enough, when the Spanish government was changing its character and its +_personnel_ with the rapidity of shifting scenes in a pantomime. "This +consumption of ministers," wrote Irving to Mr. Webster, "is appalling. +To carry on a negotiation with such transient functionaries is like +bargaining at the window of a railroad car: before you can get a reply +to a proposition the other party is out of sight." + +Apart from politics, Irving's residence was full of half-melancholy +recollections and associations. In a letter to his old comrade Prince +Dolgorouki, then Russian Minister at Naples, he recalls the days of +their delightful intercourse at the D'Oubrils:-- + + "Time dispels charms and illusions. You remember how much I was + struck with a beautiful young woman (I will not mention names) who + appeared in a tableau as Murillo's Virgin of the Assumption? She + was young, recently married, fresh and unhackneyed in society, and + my imagination decked her out with everything that was pure, + lovely, innocent, and angelic in womanhood. She was pointed out to + me in the theatre shortly after my arrival in Madrid. I turned with + eagerness to the original of the picture that had ever remained + hung up in sanctity in my mind. I found her still handsome, though + somewhat matronly in appearance, seated, _with her daughters,_ in + the box of a fashionable nobleman, younger than herself, rich in + purse but poor in intellect, and who was openly and notoriously her + _cavalier servante_. The charm was broken, the picture fell from + the wall. She may have the customs of a depraved country and + licentious state of society to excuse her; but I can never think of + her again in the halo of feminine purity and loveliness that + surrounded the Virgin of Murillo." + +During Irving's ministry he was twice absent, briefly in Paris and +London, and was called to the latter place for consultation in regard to +the Oregon boundary dispute, in the settlement of which he rendered +valuable service. Space is not given me for further quotations from +Irving's brilliant descriptions of court, characters, and society in +that revolutionary time, nor of his half-melancholy pilgrimage to the +southern scenes of his former reveries. But I will take a page from a +letter to his sister, Mrs. Paris, describing his voyage from Barcelona +to Marseilles, which exhibits the lively susceptibility of the author +and diplomat who was then in his sixty-first year:-- + + "While I am writing at a table in the cabin, I am sensible of the + power of a pair of splendid Spanish eyes which are occasionally + flashing upon me, and which almost seem to throw a light upon the + paper. Since I cannot break the spell, I will describe the owner of + them. She is a young married lady, about four or five and twenty, + middle sized, finely modeled, a Grecian outline of face, a + complexion sallow yet healthful, raven black hair, eyes dark, + large, and beaming, softened by long eyelashes, lips full and rosy + red, yet finely chiseled, and teeth of dazzling whiteness. She is + dressed in black, as if in mourning; on one hand is a black glove; + the other hand, ungloved, is small, exquisitely formed, with taper + fingers and blue veins. She has just put it up to adjust her + clustering black locks. I never saw female hand more exquisite. + Really, if I were a young man, I should not be able to draw the + portrait of this beautiful creature so calmly. + + "I was interrupted in my letter writing, by an observation of the + lady whom I was describing. She had caught my eye occasionally, as + it glanced from my letter toward her. 'Really, Senor,' said she, at + length, with a smile, 'one would think you were a painter taking my + likeness.' I could not resist the impulse. 'Indeed,' said I, 'I am + taking it; I am writing to a friend the other side of the world, + discussing things that are passing before me, and I could not help + noting down one of the best specimens of the country that I had met + with.' A little bantering took place between the young lady, her + husband, and myself, which ended in my reading off, as well as I + could into Spanish, the description I had just written down. It + occasioned a world of merriment, and was taken in excellent part. + The lady's cheek, for once, mantled with the rose. She laughed, + shook her head, and said I was a very fanciful portrait painter; + and the husband declared that, if I would stop at St. Filian, all + the ladies in the place would crowd to have their portraits + taken,--my pictures were so flattering. I have just parted with + them. The steamship stopped in the open sea, just in front of the + little bay of St. Filian; boats came off from shore for the party. + I helped the beautiful original of the portrait into the boat, and + promised her and her husband if ever I should come to St. Filian I + would pay them a visit. The last I noticed of her was a Spanish + farewell wave of her beautiful white hand, and the gleam of her + dazzling teeth as she smiled adieu. So there's a very tolerable + touch of romance for a gentleman of my years." + +When Irving announced his recall from the court of Madrid, the young +Queen said to him in reply: "You may take with you into private life the +intimate conviction that your frank and loyal conduct has contributed to +draw closer the amicable relations which exist between North America and +the Spanish nation, and that your distinguished personal merits have +gained in my heart the appreciation which you merit by more than one +title." The author was anxious to return. From the midst of court life +in April, 1845, he had written: "I long to be once more back at dear +little Sunnyside, while I have yet strength and good spirits to enjoy +the simple pleasures of the country, and to rally a happy family group +once more about me. I grudge every year of absence that rolls by. +To-morrow is my birthday. I shall then be sixty-two years old. The +evening of life is fast drawing over me; still I hope to get back among +my friends while there is a little sunshine left." + +It was the 19th of September, 1846, says his biographer, "when the +impatient longing of his heart was gratified, and he found himself +restored to his home for the thirteen years of happy life still +remaining to him." + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. + + +The Knickerbocker's "History of New York" and the "Sketch-Book" never +would have won for Irving the gold medal of the Royal Society of +Literature, or the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford. + +However much the world would have liked frankly to honor the writer for +that which it most enjoyed and was under most obligations for, it would +have been a violent shock to the constitution of things to have given +such honor to the mere humorist and the writer of short sketches. The +conventional literary proprieties must be observed. Only some laborious, +solid, and improving work of the pen could sanction such distinction,--a +book of research or an historical composition. It need not necessarily +be dull, but it must be grave in tone and serious in intention, in order +to give the author high recognition. + +Irving himself shared this opinion. He hoped, in the composition of his +"Columbus" and his "Washington," to produce works which should justify +the good opinion his countrymen had formed of him, should reasonably +satisfy the expectations excited by his lighter books, and lay for him +the basis of enduring reputation. All that he had done before was the +play of careless genius, the exercise of frolicsome fancy, which might +amuse and perhaps win an affectionate regard for the author, but could +not justify a high respect or secure a permanent place in literature. +For this, some work of scholarship and industry was needed. + +And yet everybody would probably have admitted that there was but one +man then living who could have created and peopled the vast and humorous +world of the Knickerbockers; that all the learning of Oxford and +Cambridge together would not enable a man to draw the whimsical portrait +of Ichabod Crane, or to outline the fascinating legend of Rip Van +Winkle; while Europe was full of scholars of more learning than Irving, +and writers of equal skill in narrative, who might have told the story +of Columbus as well as he told it and perhaps better. The +under-graduates of Oxford who hooted their admiration of the shy author +when he appeared in the theatre to receive his complimentary degree +perhaps understood this, and expressed it in their shouts of "Diedrich +Knickerbocker," "Ichabod Crane," "Rip Van Winkle." + +Irving's "gift" was humor; and allied to this was sentiment. These +qualities modified and restrained each other; and it was by these that +he touched the heart. He acquired other powers which he himself may have +valued more highly, and which brought him more substantial honors; but +the historical compositions, which he and his contemporaries regarded as +a solid basis of fame, could be spared without serious loss, while the +works of humor, the first fruits of his genius, are possessions in +English literature the loss of which would be irreparable. The world may +never openly allow to humor a position "above the salt," but it clings +to its fresh and original productions, generation after generation, +finding room for them in its accumulating literary baggage, while more +"important" tomes of scholarship and industry strew the line of its +march. + +I feel that this study of Irving as a man of letters would be +incomplete, especially for the young readers of this generation, if it +did not contain some more extended citations from those works upon which +we have formed our estimate of his quality. We will take first a few +passages from the "History of New York." + + * * * * * + +It has been said that Irving lacked imagination. That, while he had +humor and feeling and fancy, he was wanting in the higher quality, which +is the last test of genius. We have come to attach to the word +"imagination" a larger meaning than the mere reproduction in the mind of +certain absent objects of sense that have been perceived; there must be +a suggestion of something beyond these, and an ennobling suggestion, if +not a combination, that amounts to a new creation. Now, it seems to me +that the transmutation of the crude and theretofore unpoetical +materials, which he found in the New World, into what is as absolute a +creation as exists in literature, was a distinct work of the +imagination. Its humorous quality does not interfere with its largeness +of outline, nor with its essential poetic coloring. For, whimsical and +comical as is the "Knickerbocker" creation, it is enlarged to the +proportion of a realm, and over that new country of the imagination is +always the rosy light of sentiment. + +This largeness of modified conception cannot be made apparent in such +brief extracts as we can make, but they will show its quality and the +author's humor. The Low-Dutch settlers of the Nieuw Nederlandts are +supposed to have sailed from Amsterdam in a ship called the Goede Vrouw, +built by the carpenters of that city, who always model their ships on +the fair forms of their countrywomen. This vessel, whose beauteous model +was declared to be the greatest belle in Amsterdam, had one hundred feet +in the beam, one hundred feet in the keel, and one hundred feet from the +bottom of the stern-post to the taffrail. Those illustrious adventurers +who sailed in her landed on the Jersey flats, preferring a marshy +ground, where they could drive piles and construct dykes. They made a +settlement at the Indian village of Communipaw, the egg from which was +hatched the mighty city of New York. In the author's time this place had +lost its importance:-- + + "Communipaw is at present but a small village pleasantly situated, + among rural scenery, on that beauteous part of the Jersey shore + which was known in ancient legends by the name of Pavonia,[1] and + commands a grand prospect of the superb bay of New York. It is + within but half an hour's sail of the latter place, provided you + have a fair wind, and may be distinctly seen from the city. Nay, it + is a well-known fact, which I can testify from my own experience, + that on a clear still summer evening, you may hear, from the + Battery of New York, the obstreperous peals of broad-mouthed + laughter of the Dutch negroes at Communipaw, who, like most other + negroes, are famous for their risible powers. This is peculiarly + the case on Sunday evenings, when, it is remarked by an ingenious + and observant philosopher who has made great discoveries in the + neighborhood of this city, that they always laugh loudest, which he + attributes to the circumstance of their having their holiday + clothes on. + + "These negroes, in fact, like the monks of the dark ages, engross + all the knowledge of the place, and being infinitely more + adventurous and more knowing than their masters, carry on all the + foreign trade; making frequent voyages to town in canoes loaded + with oysters, buttermilk, and cabbages. They are great astrologers, + predicting the different changes of weather almost as accurately as + an almanac; they are moreover exquisite performers on + three-stringed fiddles; in whistling they almost boast the + far-famed powers of Orpheus's lyre, for not a horse or an ox in the + place, when at the plough or before the wagon, will budge a foot + until he hears the well-known whistle of his black driver and + companion. And from their amazing skill at casting up accounts upon + their fingers, they are regarded with as much veneration us were + the disciples of Pythagoras of yore, when initiated into the sacred + quaternary of numbers. + + "As to the honest burghers of Communipaw, like wise men and sound + philosophers, they never look beyond their pipes, nor trouble their + heads about any affairs out of their immediate neighborhood; so + that they live in profound and enviable ignorance of all the + troubles, anxieties, and revolutions of this distracted planet. I + am even told that many among them do verily believe that Holland, + of which they have heard so much from tradition, is situated + somewhere on Long Island,--that _Spiking-devil_ and _the Narrows_ + are the two ends of the world,--that the country is still under the + dominion of their High Mightinesses,--and that the city of New York + still goes by the name of Nieuw Amsterdam. They meet every Saturday + afternoon at the only tavern in the place, which bears as a sign a + square-headed likeness of the Prince of Orange, where they smoke a + silent pipe, by way of promoting social conviviality, and + invariably drink a mug of cider to the success of Admiral Van + Tromp, who they imagine is still sweeping the British channel with + a broom at his mast-head. + + "Communipaw, in short, is one of the numerous little villages in + the vicinity of this most beautiful of cities, which are so many + strongholds and fastnesses, whither the primitive manners of our + Dutch forefathers have retreated, and where they are cherished with + devout and scrupulous strictness. The dress of the original + settlers is handed down inviolate, from father to son: the + identical broad-brimmed hat, broad-skirted coat, and broad-bottomed + breeches, continue from generation to generation; and several + gigantic knee-buckles of massy silver are still in wear, that made + gallant display in the days of the patriarchs of Communipaw. The + language likewise continues unadulterated by barbarous innovations; + and so critically correct is the village schoolmaster in his + dialect, that his reading of a Low-Dutch psalm has much the same + effect on the nerves as the filing of a handsaw." + + [Footnote 1: Pavonia in the ancient maps, is given to a tract + of country extending from about Hoboken to Amboy.] + +The early prosperity of this settlement is dwelt on with satisfaction by +the author:-- + + "The neighboring Indians in a short time became accustomed to the + uncouth sound of the Dutch language, and an intercourse gradually + took place between them and the new-comers. The Indians were much + given to long talks, and the Dutch to long silence;--in this + particular, therefore, they accommodated each other completely. The + chiefs would make long speeches about the big bull, the Wabash, and + the Great Spirit, to which the others would listen very + attentively, smoke their pipes, and grunt _yah, mynher_,--whereat + the poor savages were wondrously delighted. They instructed the new + settlers in the best art of curing and smoking tobacco, while the + latter, in return, made them drunk with true Hollands,--and then + taught them the art of making bargains. + + "A brisk trade for furs was soon opened; the Dutch traders were + scrupulously honest in their dealings and purchased by weight, + establishing it as an invariable table of avoirdupois, that the + hand of a Dutchman weighed one pound, and his foot two pounds. It + is true, the simple Indians were often puzzled by the great + disproportion between bulk and weight, for let them place a bundle + of furs, never so large, in one scale, and a Dutchman put his hand + or foot in the other, the bundle was sure to kick the beam;--never + was a package of furs known to weigh more than two pounds in the + market of Communipaw! + + "This is a singular fact,--but I have it direct from my + great-great-grandfather, who had risen to considerable importance + in the colony, being promoted to the office of weigh-master, on + account of the uncommon heaviness of his foot. + + "The Dutch possessions in this part of the globe began now to + assume a very thriving appearance, and were comprehended under the + general title of Nieuw Nederlandts, on account, as the Sage Vander + Donck observes, of their great resemblance to the Dutch + Netherlands,--which indeed was truly remarkable, excepting that the + former were rugged and mountainous, and the latter level and + marshy. About this time the tranquillity of the Dutch colonists was + doomed to suffer a temporary interruption. In 1614, Captain Sir + Samuel Argal, sailing under a commission from Dale, governor of + Virginia, visited the Dutch settlements on Hudson River, and + demanded their submission to the English crown and Virginian + dominion. To this arrogant demand, as they were in no condition to + resist it, they submitted for the time, like discreet and + reasonable men. + + "It does not appear that the valiant Argal molested the settlement + of Communipaw; on the contrary, I am told that when his vessel + first hove in sight, the worthy burghers were seized with such a + panic, that they fell to smoking their pipes with astonishing + vehemence; insomuch that they quickly raised a cloud, which, + combining with the surrounding woods and marshes, completely + enveloped and concealed their beloved village, and overhung the + fair regions of Pavonia--so that the terrible Captain Argal passed + on totally unsuspicious that a sturdy little Dutch settlement lay + snugly couched in the mud, under cover of all this pestilent vapor. + In commemoration of this fortunate escape, the worthy inhabitants + have continued to smoke, almost without intermission, unto this + very day; which is said to be the cause of the remarkable fog which + often hangs over Communipaw of a clear afternoon." + +The golden age of New York was under the reign of Walter Van Twiller, +the first governor of the province, and the best it ever had. In his +sketch of this excellent magistrate Irving has embodied the abundance +and tranquillity of those halcyon days:-- + + "The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from a + long line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away + their lives, and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in + Rotterdam; and who had comported themselves with such singular + wisdom and propriety, that they were never either heard or talked + of--which, next to being universally applauded, should be the + object of ambition of all magistrates and rulers. There are two + opposite ways by which some men make a figure in the world: one, by + talking faster than they think, and the other, by holding their + tongues and not thinking at all. By the first, many a smatterer + acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts; by the other, many + a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be + considered the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual + remark, which I would not, for the universe, have it thought I + apply to Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up + within himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke, except in + monosyllables; but then it was allowed he seldom said a foolish + thing. So invincible was his gravity that he was never known to + laugh or even to smile through the whole course of a long and + prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered in his presence, that + set light-minded hearers in a roar, it was observed to throw him + into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he would deign to inquire + into the matter, and when, after much explanation, the joke was + made as plain as a pike-staff, he would continue to smoke his pipe + in silence, and at length, knocking out the ashes, would exclaim, + 'Well! I see nothing in all that to laugh about.' + + "With all his reflective habits, he never made up his mind on a + subject. His adherents accounted for this by the astonishing + magnitude of his ideas. He conceived every subject on so grand a + scale that he had not room in his head to turn it over and examine + both sides of it. Certain it is, that, if any matter were + propounded to him on which ordinary mortals would rashly determine + at first glance, he would put on a vague, mysterious look, shake + his capacious head, smoke some time in profound silence, and at + length observe, that 'he had his doubts about the matter'; which + gained him the reputation of a man slow of belief and not easily + imposed upon. What is more, it has gained him a lasting name; for + to this habit of the mind has been attributed his surname of + Twiller; which is said to be a corruption of the original Twijfler, + or, in plain English, _Doubter_. + + "The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed and + proportioned, as though it had been moulded by the hands of some + cunning Dutch statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur. + He was exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five + inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such + stupendous dimensions, that dame Nature, with all her sex's + ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck capable of + supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined the attempt, and + settled it firmly on the top of his backbone, just between the + shoulders. His body was oblong and particularly capacious at + bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was + a man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of + walking. His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the + weight they had to sustain; so that when erect he had not a little + the appearance of a beer-barrel on skids. His face, that infallible + index of the mind, presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by any of + those lines and angles which disfigure the human countenance with + what is termed expression. Two small gray eyes twinkled feebly in + the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a hazy firmament, + and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll of + everything that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and + streaked with dusky red, like a spitzenberg apple. + + "His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four + stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and + doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the + four-and-twenty. Such was the renowned Wouter Van Twiller,--a true + philosopher, for his mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly + settled below, the cares and perplexities of this world. He had + lived in it for years, without feeling the least curiosity to know + whether the sun revolved round it, or it round the sun; and he had + watched, for at least half a century, the smoke curling from his + pipe to the ceiling, without once troubling his head with any of + those numerous theories by which a philosopher would have perplexed + his brain, in accounting for its rising above the surrounding + atmosphere. + + "In his council he presided with great state and solemnity. He sat + in a huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of the + Hague, fabricated by an experienced timmerman of Amsterdam, and + curiously carved about the arms and feet into exact imitations of + gigantic eagle's claws. Instead of a sceptre, he swayed a long + Turkish pipe, wrought with jasmin and amber, which had been + presented to a stadtholder of Holland at the conclusion of a treaty + with one of the petty Barbary powers. In this stately chair would + he sit, and this magnificent pipe would he smoke, shaking his + right knee with a constant motion, and fixing his eye for hours + together upon a little print of Amsterdam, which hung in a black + frame against the opposite wall of the council-chamber. Nay, it has + even been said, that when any deliberation of extraordinary length + and intricacy was on the carpet, the renowned Wouter would shut his + eyes for full two hours at a time, that he might not be disturbed + by external objects; and at such times the internal commotion of + his mind was evinced by certain regular guttural sounds, which his + admirers declared were merely the noise of conflict, made by his + contending doubts and opinions.... + + "I have been the more anxious to delineate fully the person and + habits of Wouter Van Twiller, from the consideration that he was + not only the first but also the best governor that ever presided + over this ancient and respectable province; and so tranquil and + benevolent was his reign, that I do not find throughout the whole + of it a single instance of any offender being brought to + punishment,--a most indubitable sign of a merciful governor, and a + case unparalleled, excepting in the reign of the illustrious King + Log, from whom, it is hinted, the renowned Van Twiller was a lineal + descendant. + + "The very outset of the career of this excellent magistrate was + distinguished by an example of legal acumen that gave flattering + presage of a wise and equitable administration. The morning after + he had been installed in office, and at the moment that he was + making his breakfast from a prodigious earthen dish, filled with + milk and Indian pudding, he was interrupted by the appearance of + Wandle Schoonhoven, a very important old burgher of New Amsterdam, + who complained bitterly of one Barent Bleecker, inasmuch as he + refused to come to a settlement of accounts, seeing that there was + a heavy balance in favor of the said Wandle. Governor Van Twiller, + as I have already observed, was a man of few words; he was likewise + a mortal enemy to multiplying writings--or being disturbed at his + breakfast. Having listened attentively to the statement of Wandle + Schoonhoven, giving an occasional grunt, as he shoveled a spoonful + of Indian pudding into his mouth,--either as a sign that he + relished the dish, or comprehended the story,--he called unto him + his constable, and pulling out of his breeches-pocket a huge + jack-knife, dispatched it after the defendant as a summons, + accompanied by his tobacco-box as a warrant. + + "This summary process was as effectual in those simple days as was + the seal-ring of the great Haroun Alraschid among the true + believers. The two parties being confronted before him, each + produced a book of accounts, written in a language and character + that would have puzzled any but a High-Dutch commentator, or a + learned decipherer of Egyptian obelisks. The sage Wouter took them + one after the other, and having poised them in his hands, and + attentively counted over the number of leaves, fell straightway + into a very great doubt, and smoked for half an hour without saying + a word; at length, laying his finger beside his nose, and shutting + his eyes for a moment, with the air of a man who has just caught a + subtle idea by the tail, he slowly took his pipe from his mouth, + puffed forth a column of tobacco-smoke, and with marvelous gravity + and solemnity pronounced, that, having carefully counted over the + leaves and weighed the books, it was found, that one was just as + thick and as heavy as the other: therefore, it was the final + opinion of the court that the accounts were equally balanced: + therefore, Wandle should give Barent a receipt, and Barent should + give Wandle a receipt, and the constable should pay the costs. + + "This decision, being straightway made known, diffused general joy + throughout New Amsterdam, for the people immediately perceived that + they had a very wise and equitable magistrate to rule over them. + But its happiest effect was, that not another lawsuit took place + throughout the whole of his administration; and the office of + constable fell into such decay, that there was not one of those + losel scouts known in the province for many years. I am the more + particular in dwelling on this transaction, not only because I deem + it one of the most sage and righteous judgments on record, and well + worthy the attention of modern magistrates, but because it was a + miraculous event in the history of the renowned Wouter--being the + only time he was ever known to come to a decision in the whole + course of his life." + +This peaceful age ended with the accession of William the Testy, and the +advent of the enterprising Yankees. During the reigns of William Kieft +and Peter Stuyvesant, between the Yankees of the Connecticut and the +Swedes of the Delaware, the Dutch community knew no repose, and the +"History" is little more than a series of exhausting sieges and +desperate battles, which would have been as heroic as any in history if +they had been attended with loss of life. The forces that were gathered +by Peter Stuyvesant for the expedition to avenge upon the Swedes the +defeat at Fort Casimir, and their appearance on the march, give some +notion of the military prowess of the Dutch. Their appearance, when they +were encamped on the Bowling Green, recalls the Homeric age:-- + + "In the centre, then, was pitched the tent of the men of battle of + the Manhattoes, who, being the inmates of the metropolis, composed + the lifeguards of the governor. These were commanded by the valiant + Stoffel Brinkerhoof, who, whilom had acquired such immortal fame at + Oyster Bay; they displayed as a standard a beaver _rampant_ on a + field of orange, being the arms of the province, and denoting the + persevering industry and the amphibious origin of the Nederlands. + + "On their right hand might be seen the vassals of that renowned + Mynheer, Michael Paw, who lorded it over the fair regions of + ancient Pavonia, and the lands away south even unto the Navesink + mountains, and was moreover patroon of Gibbet Island. His standard + was borne by his trusty squire, Cornelius Van Vorst; consisting of + a huge oyster _recumbent_ upon a sea-green field; being the + armorial bearings of his favorite metropolis Communipaw. He brought + to the camp a stout force of warriors, heavily armed, being each + clad in ten pair of linsey-woolsey breeches, and overshadowed by + broad-brimmed beavers, with short pipes twisted in their hat-bands. + These were the men who vegetated in the mud along the shores of + Pavonia, being of the race of genuine copperheads, and were fabled + to have sprung from oysters. + + "At a little distance was encamped the tribe of warriors who came + from the neighborhood of Hell-gate. These were commanded by the Suy + Dams, and the Van Dams,--incontinent hard swearers, as their names + betoken. They were terrible looking fellows, clad in broad-skirted + gaberdines, of that curious colored cloth called thunder and + lightning,--and bore as a standard three devil's darning-needles, + _volant_, in a flame-colored field. + + "Hard by was the tent of the men of battle from the marshy borders + of the Waale-Boght and the country thereabouts. These were of a + sour aspect, by reason that they lived on crabs, which abound in + these parts. They were the first institutors of that honorable + order of knighthood called _Fly-market shirks_, and, if tradition + speak true, did likewise introduce the far-famed step in dancing + called 'double trouble.' They were commanded by the fearless + Jacobus Varra Vanger,--and had, moreover, a jolly band of + Breuckelen ferry-men, who performed a brave concerto on conch + shells. + + "But I refrain from pursuing this minute description which goes on + to describe the warriors of Bloemen-dael, and Weehawk, and + Hoboken, and sundry other places, well known in history and song; + for now do the notes of martial music alarm the people of New + Amsterdam, sounding afar from beyond the walls of the city. But + this alarm was in a little while relieved, for lo! from the midst + of a vast cloud of dust, they recognized the brimstone-colored + breeches and splendid silver leg of Peter Stuyvesant, glaring in + the sunbeams; and beheld him approaching at the head of a + formidable army, which he had mustered along the banks of the + Hudson. And here the excellent but anonymous writer of the + Stuyvesant manuscript breaks out into a brave and glorious + description of the forces, as they defiled through the principal + gate of the city, that stood by the head of Wall Street. + + "First of all came the Van Bummels, who inhabit the pleasant + borders of the Bronx: these were short fat men, wearing exceeding + large trunk-breeches, and were renowned for feats of the trencher. + They were the first inventors of suppawn, or mush and milk.--Close + in their rear marched the Van Vlotens, of Kaatskill, horrible + quaffers of new cider, and arrant braggarts in their liquor.--After + them came the Van Pelts of Groodt Esopus, dexterous horsemen, + mounted upon goodly switch-tailed steeds of the Esopus breed. These + were mighty hunters of minks and musk-rats, whence came the word + _Peltry_.--Then the Van Nests of Kinderhoeck, valiant robbers of + birds'-nests, as their name denotes. To these, if report may be + believed, are we indebted for the invention of slap-jacks, or + buckwheat-cakes.--Then the Van Higginbottoms, of Wapping's creek. + These came armed with ferules and birchen rods, being a race of + schoolmasters, who first discovered the marvelous sympathy between + the seat of honor and the seat of intellect,--and that the shortest + way to get knowledge into the head was to hammer it into the + bottom.--Then the Van Grolls, of Antony's Nose, who carried their + liquor in fair round little pottles, by reason they could not bouse + it out of their canteens, having such rare long noses.--Then the + Gardeniers, of Hudson and thereabouts, distinguished by many + triumphant feats, such as robbing water-melon patches, smoking + rabbits out of their holes, and the like, and by being great lovers + of roasted pigs' tails. These were the ancestors of the renowned + congressman of that name.--Then the Van Hoesens, of Sing-Sing, + great choristers and players upon the jews-harp. These marched two + and two, singing the great song of St. Nicholas.--Then the + Couenhovens, of Sleepy Hollow. These gave birth to a jolly race of + publicans, who first discovered the magic artifice of conjuring a + quart of wine into a pint bottle.--Then the Van Kortlandts, who + lived on the wild banks of the Croton, and were great killers of + wild ducks, being much spoken of for their skill in shooting with + the long bow.--Then the Van Bunschotens, of Nyack and Kakiat, who + were the first that did ever kick with the left foot. They were + gallant bushwhackers and hunters of raccoons by moonlight.--Then + the Van Winkles, of Haerlem, potent suckers of eggs, and noted for + running of horses, and running up of scores at taverns. They were + the first that ever winked with both eyes at once.--Lastly came the + KNICKERBOCKERS, of the great town of Scaghtikoke, where the folk + lay stones upon the houses in windy weather, lest they should be + blown away. These derive their name, as some say, from _Knicker_, + to shake, and _Beker_, a goblet, indicating thereby that they were + sturdy toss-pots of yore; but, in truth, it was derived from + _Knicker_, to nod, and _Boeken_, books: plainly meaning that they + were great nodders or dozers over books. From them did descend the + writer of this history." + +In the midst of Irving's mock-heroics, he always preserves a substratum +of good sense. An instance of this is the address of the redoubtable +wooden-legged governor, on his departure at the head of his warriors to +chastise the Swedes:-- + + "Certain it is, not an old woman in New Amsterdam but considered + Peter Stuyvesant as a tower of strength, and rested satisfied that + the public welfare was secure so long as he was in the city. It is + not surprising, then, that they looked upon his departure as a sore + affliction. With heavy hearts they draggled at the heels of his + troop, as they marched down to the river-side to embark. The + governor, from the stern of his schooner, gave a short but truly + patriarchal address to his citizens, wherein he recommended them to + comport like loyal and peaceable subjects--to go to church + regularly on Sundays, and to mind their business all the week + besides. That the women should be dutiful and affectionate to their + husbands,--looking after nobody's concerns but their + own,--eschewing all gossipings and morning gaddings,--and carrying + short tongues and long petticoats. That the men should abstain from + intermeddling in public concerns, intrusting the cares of + government to the officers appointed to support them,--staying at + home, like good citizens, making money for themselves, and getting + children for the benefit of their country. That the burgomasters + should look well to the public interest,--not oppressing the poor + nor indulging the rich,--not tasking their ingenuity to devise new + laws, but faithfully enforcing those which were already + made,--rather bending their attention to prevent evil than to + punish it; ever recollecting that civil magistrates should consider + themselves more as guardians of public morals than rat-catchers + employed to entrap public delinquents. Finally, he exhorted them, + one and all, high and low, rich and poor, to conduct themselves _as + well as they could_, assuring them that if they faithfully and + conscientiously complied with this golden rule, there was no danger + but that they would all conduct themselves well enough. This done, + he gave them a paternal benediction, the sturdy Antony sounded a + most loving farewell with his trumpet, the jolly crews put up a + shout of triumph, and the invincible armada swept off proudly down + the bay." + +The account of an expedition against Fort Christina deserves to be +quoted in full, for it is an example of what war might be, full of +excitement, and exercise, and heroism, without danger to life. We take +up the narrative at the moment when the Dutch host,-- + + "Brimful of wrath and cabbage,"-- + +and excited by the eloquence of the mighty Peter, lighted their pipes, +and charged upon the fort. + + "The Swedish garrison, ordered by the cunning Risingh not to fire + until they could distinguish the whites of their assailants' eyes, + stood in horrid silence on the covert-way, until the eager Dutchmen + had ascended the glacis. Then did they pour into them such a + tremendous volley, that the very hills quaked around, and were + terrified even unto an incontinence of water, insomuch that certain + springs burst forth from their sides, which continue to run unto + the present day. Not a Dutchman but would have bitten the dust + beneath that dreadful fire, had not the protecting Minerva kindly + taken care that the Swedes should, one and all, observe their usual + custom of shutting their eyes and turning away their heads at the + moment of discharge. + + "The Swedes followed up their fire by leaping the counterscarp, and + falling tooth and nail upon the foe with curious outcries. And now + might be seen prodigies of valor, unmatched in history or song. + Here was the sturdy Stoffel Brinkerhoff brandishing his + quarter-staff, like the giant Blanderon his oak-tree (for he + scorned to carry any other weapon), and drumming a horrific tune + upon the hard heads of the Swedish soldiery. There were the Van + Kortlandts, posted at a distance, like the Locrian archers of yore, + and plying it most potently with the long-bow, for which they were + so justly renowned. On a rising knoll were gathered the valiant + men of Sing-Sing, assisting marvelously in the fight by chanting + the great song of St. Nicholas; but as to the Gardeniers of Hudson, + they were absent on a marauding party, laying waste the neighboring + water-melon patches. + + "In a different part of the field were the Van Grolls of Antony's + Nose, struggling to get to the thickest of the fight, but horribly + perplexed in a defile between two hills, by reason of the length of + their noses. So also the Van Bunschotens of Nyack and Kakiat, so + renowned for kicking with the left foot, were brought to a stand + for want of wind, in consequence of the hearty dinner they had + eaten, and would have been put to utter rout but for the arrival of + a gallant corps of voltigeurs, composed of the Hoppers, who + advanced nimbly to their assistance on one foot. Nor must I omit to + mention the valiant achievements of Antony Van Corlear, who, for a + good quarter of an hour, waged stubborn fight with a little pursy + Swedish drummer, whose hide he drummed most magnificently, and whom + he would infallibly have annihilated on the spot, but that he had + come into the battle with no other weapon but his trumpet. + + "But now the combat thickened. On came the mighty Jacobus Varra + Vanger and the fighting-men of the Wallabout; after them thundered + the Van Pelts of Esopus, together with the Van Rippers and the Van + Brunts, bearing down all before them; then the Suy Dams, and the + Van Dams, pressing forward with many a blustering oath, at the head + of the warriors of Hell-gate, clad in their thunder-and-lightning + gaberdines; and lastly, the standard-bearers and body-guard of + Peter Stuyvesant, bearing the great beaver of the Manhattoes. + + "And now commenced the horrid din, the desperate struggle, the + maddening ferocity, the frantic desperation, the confusion and + self-abandonment of war. Dutchman and Swede commingled, tugged, + panted, and blowed. The heavens were darkened with a tempest of + missives. Bang! went the guns; whack! went the broad-swords; thump! + went the cudgels; crash! went the musket-stocks; blows, kicks, + cuffs, scratches, black eyes and bloody noses swelling the horrors + of the scene! Thick thwack, cut and hack, helter-skelter, + higgledy-piggledy, hurly-burly, head-over-heels, rough-and-tumble! + Dunder and blixum! swore the Dutchmen; splitter and splutter! cried + the Swedes. Storm the works! shouted Hardkoppig Peter. Fire the + mine! roared stout Risingh. Tanta-rar-ra-ra! twanged the trumpet of + Antony Van Corlear;--until all voice and sound became + unintelligible,--grunts of pain, yells of fury, and shouts of + triumph mingling in one hideous clamor. The earth shook as if + struck with a paralytic stroke; trees shrunk aghast, and withered + at the sight; rocks burrowed in the ground like rabbits; and even + Christina Creek turned from its course and ran up a hill in + breathless terror! + + "Long hung the contest doubtful; for though a heavy shower of rain, + sent by the "cloud-compelling Jove," in some measure cooled their + ardor, as doth a bucket of water thrown on a group of fighting + mastiffs, yet did they but pause for a moment, to return with + tenfold fury to the charge. Just at this juncture a vast and dense + column of smoke was seen slowly rolling toward the scene of battle. + The combatants paused for a moment, gazing in mute astonishment, + until the wind, dispelling the murky cloud, revealed the flaunting + banner of Michael Paw, the Patroon of Communipaw. That valiant + chieftain came fearlessly on at the head of a phalanx of oyster-fed + Pavonians and a _corps de reserve_ of the Van Arsdales and Van + Bummels, who had remained behind to digest the enormous dinner they + had eaten. These now trudged manfully forward, smoking their pipes + with outrageous vigor, so as to raise the awful cloud that has been + mentioned, but marching exceedingly slow, being short of leg, and + of great rotundity in the belt. + + "And now the deities who watched over the fortunes of the + Nederlanders having unthinkingly left the field, and stepped into a + neighboring tavern to refresh themselves with a pot of beer, a + direful catastrophe had wellnigh ensued. Scarce had the myrmidons + of Michael Paw attained the front of battle, when the Swedes, + instructed by the cunning Risingh, leveled a shower of blows full + at their tobacco-pipes. Astounded at this assault, and dismayed at + the havoc of their pipes, these ponderous warriors gave way, and + like a drove of frightened elephants broke through the ranks of + their own army. The little Hoppers were borne down in the surge; + the sacred banner emblazoned with the gigantic oyster of Communipaw + was trampled in the dirt; on blundered and thundered the + heavy-sterned fugitives, the Swedes pressing on their rear and + applying their feet _a parte poste_ of the Van Arsdales and the Van + Bummels with a vigor that prodigiously accelerated their movements; + nor did the renowned Michael Paw himself fail to receive divers + grievous and dishonorable visitations of shoe-leather. + + "But what, oh Muse! was the rage of Peter Stuyvesant, when from + afar he saw his army giving way! In the transports of his wrath he + sent forth a roar, enough to shake the very hills. The men of the + Manhattoes plucked up new courage at the sound, or, rather, they + rallied at the voice of their leader, of whom they stood more in + awe than of all the Swedes in Christendom. Without waiting for + their aid, the daring Peter dashed, sword in hand, into the + thickest of the foe. Then might be seen achievements worthy of the + days of the giants. Wherever he went the enemy shrank before him; + the Swedes fled to right and left, or were driven, like dogs, into + their own ditch; but as he pushed forward, singly with headlong + courage, the foe closed behind and hung upon his rear. One aimed a + blow full at his heart; but the protecting power which watches over + the great and good turned aside the hostile blade and directed it + to a side-pocket, where reposed an enormous iron tobacco-box, + endowed, like the shield of Achilles, with supernatural powers, + doubtless from bearing the portrait of the blessed St. Nicholas. + Peter Stuyvesant turned like an angry bear upon the foe, and + seizing him, as he fled, by an immeasurable queue, 'Ah, whoreson + caterpillar,' roared he, 'here's what shall make worms' meat of + thee!' so saying he whirled his sword and dealt a blow that would + have decapitated the varlet, but that the pitying steel struck + short and shaved the queue forever from his crown. At this moment + an arquebusier leveled his piece from a neighboring mound, with + deadly aim; but the watchful Minerva, who had just stopped to tie + up her garter, seeing the peril of her favorite hero, sent old + Boreas with his bellows, who, as the match descended to the pan, + gave a blast that blew the priming from the touch-hole. + + "Thus waged the fight, when the stout Risingh, surveying the field + from the top of a little ravelin, perceived his troops banged, + beaten, and kicked by the invincible Peter. Drawing his falchion, + and uttering a thousand anathemas, he strode down to the scene of + combat with some such thundering strides as Jupiter is said by + Hesiod to have taken when he strode down the spheres to hurl his + thunder-bolts at the Titans. + + "When the rival heroes came face to face, each made a prodigious + start in the style of a veteran stage-champion. Then did they + regard each other for a moment with the bitter aspect of two + furious ram-cats on the point of a clapper-clawing. Then did they + throw themselves into one attitude, then into another, striking + their swords on the ground, first on the right side, then on the + left: at last at it they went with incredible ferocity. Words + cannot tell the prodigies of strength and valor displayed in this + direful encounter,--an encounter compared to which the far-famed + battles of Ajax with Hector, of AEneas with Turnus, Orlando with + Rodomont, Guy of Warwick with Colbrand the Dane, or of that + renowned Welsh knight, Sir Owen of the Mountains, with the giant + Guylon, were all gentle sports and holiday recreations. At length + the valiant Peter, watching his opportunity, aimed a blow enough to + cleave his adversary to the very chine; but Risingh, nimbly raising + his sword, warded it off so narrowly, that, glancing on one side, + it shaved away a huge canteen in which he carried his + liquor,--thence pursuing its trenchant course, it severed off a + deep coat-pocket, stored with bread and cheese,--which provant, + rolling among the armies, occasioned a fearful scrambling between + the Swedes and Dutchmen, and made the general battle to wax more + furious than ever. + + "Enraged to see his military stores laid waste, the stout Risingh, + collecting all his forces, aimed a mighty blow full at the hero's + crest. In vain did his fierce little cocked hat oppose its course. + The biting steel clove through the stubborn ram beaver, and would + have cracked the crown of any one not endowed with supernatural + hardness of head; but the brittle weapon shivered in pieces on the + skull of Hardkoppig Piet, shedding a thousand sparks, like beams of + glory, round his grizzly visage. + + "The good Peter reeled with the blow, and turning up his eyes + beheld a thousand suns, besides moons and stars, dancing about the + firmament; at length, missing his footing, by reason of his wooden + leg, down he came on his seat of honor with a crash which shook the + surrounding hills, and might have wrecked his frame, had he not + been received into a cushion softer than velvet, which Providence, + or Minerva, or St. Nicholas, or some cow, had benevolently prepared + for his reception. + + "The furious Risingh, in despite of the maxim, cherished by all + true knights, that 'fair play is a jewel,' hastened to take + advantage of the hero's fall; but, as he stooped to give a fatal + blow, Peter Stuyvesant dealt him a thwack over the sconce with his + wooden leg, which set a chime of bells ringing triple bob-majors in + his cerebellum. The bewildered Swede staggered with the blow, and + the wary Peter seizing a pocket-pistol, which lay hard by, + discharged it full at the head of the reeling Risingh. Let not my + reader mistake; it was not a murderous weapon loaded with powder + and ball, but a little sturdy stone pottle charged to the muzzle + with a double dram of true Dutch courage, which the knowing Antony + Van Corlear carried about him by way of replenishing his valor, and + which had dropped from his wallet during his furious encounter with + the drummer. The hideous weapon sang through the air, and true to + its course as was the fragment of a rock discharged at Hector by + bully Ajax, encountered the head of the gigantic Swede with + matchless violence. + + "This heaven-directed blow decided the battle. The ponderous + pericranium of General Jan Risingh sank upon his breast; his knees + tottered under him; a deathlike torpor seized upon his frame, and + he tumbled to the earth with such violence that old Pluto started + with affright, lest he should have broken through the roof of his + infernal palace. + + "His fall was the signal of defeat and victory: the Swedes gave + way, the Dutch pressed forward; the former took to their heels, the + latter hotly pursued. Some entered with them, pell-mell, through + the sally-port; others stormed the bastion, and others scrambled + over the curtain. Thus in a little while the fortress of Fort + Christina, which, like another Troy, had stood a siege of full ten + hours, was carried by assault, without the loss of a single man on + either side. Victory, in the likeness of a gigantic ox-fly, sat + perched upon the cocked hat of the gallant Stuyvesant; and it was + declared by all the writers whom he hired to write the history of + his expedition that on this memorable day he gained a sufficient + quantity of glory to immortalize a dozen of the greatest heroes in + Christendom!" + +In the "Sketch-Book," Irving set a kind of fashion in narrative essays, +in brief stories of mingled humor and pathos, which was followed for +half a century. He himself worked the same vein in "Bracebridge Hall," +and "Tales of a Traveller." And there is no doubt that some of the most +fascinating of the minor sketches of Charles Dickens, such as the story +of the Bagman's Uncle, are lineal descendants of, if they were not +suggested by, Irving's "Adventure of My Uncle," and the "Bold Dragoon." + +The taste for the leisurely description and reminiscent essay of the +"Sketch-Book" does not characterize the readers of this generation, and +we have discovered that the pathos of its elaborated scenes is somewhat +"literary." The sketches of "Little Britain," and "Westminster Abbey," +and, indeed, that of "Stratford-on-Avon," will for a long time retain +their place in selections of "good reading;" but the "Sketch-Book" is +only floated, as an original work, by two papers, the "Rip Van Winkle" +and the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow;" that is to say by the use of the +Dutch material, and the elaboration of the "Knickerbocker Legend," which +was the great achievement of Irving's life. This was broadened and +deepened and illustrated by the several stories of the "Money Diggers," +of "Wolfert Webber" and "Kidd the Pirate," in "The Tales of a +Traveller," and by "Dolph Heyliger" in "Bracebridge Hall." Irving was +never more successful than in painting the Dutch manners and habits of +the early time, and he returned again and again to the task until he not +only made the shores of the Hudson and the islands of New York harbor +and the East River classic ground, but until his conception of Dutch +life in the New World had assumed historical solidity and become a +tradition of the highest poetic value. If in the multiplicity of books +and the change of taste the bulk of Irving's works shall go out of +print, a volume made up of his Knickerbocker history and the legends +relating to the region of New York and the Hudson would survive as long +as anything that has been produced in this country. + +The philosophical student of the origin of New World society may find +food for reflection in the "materiality" of the basis of the +civilization of New York. The picture of abundance and of enjoyment of +animal life is perhaps not overdrawn in Irving's sketch of the home of +the Van Tassels, in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." It is all the extract +we can make room for from that careful study:-- + + "Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening in each + week, to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van + Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. + She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; + ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her father's peaches, + and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast + expectations. She was, withal, a little of a coquette, as might be + perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and + modern fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the + ornaments of pure yellow gold which her great-great-grandmother had + brought over from Saardam; the tempting stomacher of the olden + time; and withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the + prettiest foot and ankle in the country round. + + "Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the sex; and it + is not to be wondered at that so tempting a morsel soon found favor + in his eyes, more especially after he had visited her in her + paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a + thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, + sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his + own farm; but within those everything was snug, happy, and + well-conditioned. He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud + of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance rather than the + style in which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the banks + of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks in + which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A great elm-tree + spread its broad branches over it, at the foot of which bubbled up + a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well, + formed of a barrel, and then stole sparkling away through the grass + to a neighboring brook, that bubbled along among alders and dwarf + willows. Hard by the farm-house was a vast barn, that might have + served for a church, every window and crevice of which seemed + bursting forth with the treasures of the farm. The flail was busily + resounding within it from morning till night; swallows and martins + skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with + one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their + heads under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others + swelling and cooing and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the + sunshine on the roof. Sleek, unwieldy porkers were grunting in the + repose and abundance of their pens, whence sallied forth, now and + then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately + squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying + whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through + the farm-yard, and guinea fowls fretting about it, like + ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. + Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a + husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished + wings, and crowing in the pride and gladness of his + heart--sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then + generously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and children to + enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered. + + "The pedagogue's mouth watered as he looked upon this sumptuous + promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind's eye he + pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding + in his belly, and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly + put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of + crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy, and the ducks + pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent + competency of onion-sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the + future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey + but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, + and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and even bright + chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side-dish, with + uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous + spirit disdained to ask while living. + + "As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his + great green eyes over the fat meadow-lands, the rich fields of + wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchard + burdened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of + Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit + these domains, and his imagination expanded with the idea how they + might be readily turned into cash, and the money invested in + immense tracts of wild land and shingle palaces in the wilderness. + Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and presented to + him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children, mounted + on the top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and + kettles dangling beneath; and he beheld himself bestriding a pacing + mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, + Tennessee, or the Lord knows where. + + "When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was complete. + It was one of those spacious farm-houses, with high-ridged, but + lowly-sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from the first + Dutch settlers; the low projecting eaves forming a piazza along the + front, capable of being closed up in bad weather. Under this were + hung flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, and nets for + fishing in the neighboring river. Benches were built along the + sides for summer use; and a great spinning-wheel at one end, and a + churn at the other, showed the various uses to which this important + porch might be devoted. From this piazza the wondering Ichabod + entered the hall, which formed the centre of the mansion and the + place of usual residence. Here, rows of resplendent pewter, ranged + on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag + of wool ready to be spun; in another a quantity of linsey-woolsey + just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried + apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled + with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep + into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark + mahogany tables shone like mirrors; and irons, with their + accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of + asparagus tops; mock-oranges and conch-shells decorated the + mantelpiece; strings of various colored birds' eggs were suspended + above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from the centre of the room, + and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense + treasures of old silver and well-mended china." + +It is an abrupt transition from these homely scenes, which humor +commends to our liking, to the chivalrous pageant unrolled for us in the +"Conquest of Granada." The former are more characteristic and the more +enduring of Irving's writings, but as a literary artist his genius lent +itself just as readily to Oriental and mediaeval romance as to the +Knickerbocker legend; and there is no doubt that the delicate perception +he had of chivalric achievements gave a refined tone to his mock +heroics, which greatly heightened their effect. It may almost be claimed +that Irving did for Granada and the Alhambra what he did, in a totally +different way, for New York and its vicinity. + +The first passage I take from the "Conquest" is the description of the +advent at Cordova of the Lord Scales, Earl of Rivers, who was brother of +the queen of Henry VII., a soldier who had fought at Bosworth field, and +now volunteered to aid Ferdinand and Isabella in the extermination of +the Saracens. The description is put into the mouth of Fray Antonio +Agapida, a fictitious chronicler invented by Irving, an unfortunate +intervention which gives to the whole book an air of unveracity:-- + + "'This cavalier [he observes] was from the far island of England, + and brought with him a train of his vassals; men who had been + hardened in certain civil wars which raged in their country. They + were a comely race of men, but too fair and fresh for warriors, not + having the sunburnt, warlike hue of our old Castilian soldiery. + They were huge feeders also, and deep carousers, and could not + accommodate themselves to the sober diet of our troops, but must + fain eat and drink after the manner of their own country. They were + often noisy and unruly, also, in their wassail; and their quarter + of the camp was prone to be a scene of loud revel and sudden brawl. + They were, withal, of great pride, yet it was not like our + inflammable Spanish pride: they stood not much upon the _pundonor_, + the high punctilio, and rarely drew the stiletto in their disputes; + but their pride was silent and contumelious. Though from a remote + and somewhat barbarous island, they believed themselves the most + perfect men upon earth, and magnified their chieftain, the Lord + Scales, beyond the greatest of their grandees. With all this, it + must be said of them that they were marvelous good men in the + field, dexterous archers, and powerful with the battle-axe. In + their great pride and self-will, they always sought to press in the + advance and take the post of danger, trying to outvie our Spanish + chivalry. They did not rush on fiercely to the fight, nor make a + brilliant onset like the Moorish and Spanish troops, but they went + into the fight deliberately, and persisted obstinately, and were + slow to find out when they were beaten. Withal they were much + esteemed yet little liked by our soldiery, who considered them + staunch companions in the field, yet coveted but little fellowship + with them in the camp. + + "'Their commander, the Lord Scales, was an accomplished cavalier, + of gracious and noble presence and fair speech; it was a marvel to + see so much courtesy in a knight brought up so far from our + Castilian court. He was much honored by the king and queen, and + found great favor with the fair dames about the court, who indeed + are rather prone to be pleased with foreign cavaliers. He went + always in costly state, attended by pages and esquires, and + accompanied by noble young cavaliers of his country, who had + enrolled themselves under his banner, to learn the gentle exercise + of arms. In all pageants and festivals, the eyes of the populace + were attracted by the singular bearing and rich array of the + English earl and his train, who prided themselves in always + appearing in the garb and manner of their country--and were indeed + something very magnificent delectable, and strange to behold.' + + "The worthy chronicler is no less elaborate in his description of + the masters of Santiago, Calatrava, and Alcantara, and their + valiant knights, armed at all points, and decorated with the badges + of their orders. These, he affirms, were the flower of Christian + chivalry; being constantly in service they became more steadfast + and accomplished in discipline than the irregular and temporary + levies of feudal nobles. Calm, solemn, and stately, they sat like + towers upon their powerful chargers. On parades they manifested + none of the show and ostentation of the other troops: neither, in + battle, did they endeavor to signalize themselves by any fiery + vivacity, or desperate and vainglorious exploit,--everything, with + them, was measured and sedate; yet it was observed that none were + more warlike in their appearance in the camp, or more terrible for + their achievements in the field. + + "The gorgeous magnificence of the Spanish nobles found but little + favor in the eyes of the sovereigns. They saw that it caused a + competition in expense ruinous to cavaliers of moderate fortune; + and they feared that a softness and effeminacy might thus be + introduced, incompatible with the stern nature of the war. They + signified their disapprobation to several of the principal + noblemen, and recommended a more sober and soldier-like display + while in actual service. + + "'These are rare troops for a tournay, my lord [said Ferdinand to + the Duke of Infantado, as he beheld his retainers glittering in + gold and embroidery]; but gold, though gorgeous, is soft and + yielding: iron is the metal for the field.' + + "'Sire [replied the duke], if my men parade in gold, your majesty + will find they fight with steel.' The king smiled, but shook his + head, and the duke treasured up his speech in his heart." + +Our author excels in such descriptions as that of the progress of +Isabella to the camp of Ferdinand after the capture of Loxa, and of the +picturesque pageantry which imparted something of gayety to the brutal +pastime of war:-- + + "It was in the early part of June that the queen departed from + Cordova, with the Princess Isabella and numerous ladies of her + court. She had a glorious attendance of cavaliers and pages, with + many guards and domestics. There were forty mules for the use of + the queen, the princess and their train. + + "As this courtly cavalcade approached the Rock of the Lovers, on + the banks of the river Yeguas, they beheld a splendid train of + knights advancing to meet them. It was headed by that accomplished + cavalier the Marques Duke de Cadiz, accompanied by the adelantado + of Andalusia. He had left the camp the day after the capture of + Illora, and advanced thus far to receive the queen and escort her + over the borders. The queen received the marques with distinguished + honor, for he was esteemed the mirror of chivalry. His actions in + this war had become the theme of every tongue, and many hesitated + not to compare him in prowess with the immortal Cid. + + "Thus gallantly attended, the queen entered the vanquished frontier + of Granada, journeying securely along the pleasant banks of the + Xenel, so lately subject to the scourings of the Moors. She stopped + at Loxa, where she administered aid and consolation to the wounded, + distributing money among them for their support, according to their + rank. + + "The king, after the capture of Illora, had removed his camp before + the fortress of Moclin, with an intention of besieging it. Thither + the queen proceeded, still escorted through the mountain roads by + the Marques of Cadiz. As Isabella drew near to the camp, the Duke + del Infantado issued forth a league and a half to receive her, + magnificently arrayed, and followed by all his chivalry in glorious + attire. With him came the standard of Seville, borne by the + men-at-arms of that renowned city, and the Prior of St. Juan, with + his followers. They ranged themselves in order of battle, on the + left of the road by which the queen was to pass. + + "The worthy Agapida is loyally minute in his description of the + state and grandeur of the Catholic sovereigns. The queen rode a + chestnut mule, seated in a magnificent saddle-chair, decorated with + silver gilt. The housings of the mule were of fine crimson cloth; + the borders embroidered with gold; the reins and head-piece were of + satin, curiously embossed with needlework of silk, and wrought with + golden letters. The queen wore a brial or regal skirt of velvet, + under which were others of brocade; a scarlet mantle, ornamented in + the Moresco fashion; and a black hat, embroidered round the crown + and brim. + + "The infanta was likewise mounted on a chestnut mule, richly + caparisoned. She wore a brial or skirt of black brocade, and a + black mantle ornamented like that of the queen. + + "When the royal cavalcade passed by the chivalry of the Duke del + Infantado, which was drawn out in battle array, the queen made a + reverence to the standard of Seville, and ordered it to pass to the + right hand. When she approached the camp, the multitude ran forth + to meet her, with great demonstrations of joy; for she was + universally beloved by her subjects. All the battalions sallied + forth in military array, bearing the various standards and banners + of the camp, which were lowered in salutation as she passed. + + "The king now came forth in royal state, mounted on a superb + chestnut horse, and attended by many grandees of Castile. He wore a + jubon or close vest of crimson cloth, with cuisses or short skirts + of yellow satin, a loose cassock of brocade, a rich Moorish + scimiter, and a hat with plumes. The grandees who attended him were + arrayed with wonderful magnificence, each according to his taste + and invention. + + "These high and mighty princes [says Antonio Agapida] regarded each + other with great deference, as allied sovereigns rather than with + connubial familiarity, as mere husband and wife. When they + approached each other, therefore, before embracing, they made three + profound reverences, the queen taking off her hat, and remaining in + a silk net or cawl, with her face uncovered. The king then + approached and embraced her, and kissed her respectfully on the + cheek. He also embraced his daughter the princess; and, making the + sign of the cross, he blessed her, and kissed her on the lips. + + "The good Agapida seems scarcely to have been more struck with the + appearance of the sovereigns than with that of the English earl. He + followed [says he] immediately after the king, with great pomp, + and, in an extraordinary manner, taking precedence of all the rest. + He was mounted '_a la guisa_,' or with long stirrups, on a superb + chestnut horse, with trappings of azure silk which reached to the + ground. The housings were of mulberry, powdered with stars of gold. + He was armed in proof, and wore over his armor a short French + mantle of black brocade; he had a white French hat with plumes, and + carried on his left arm a small round buckler, banded with gold. + Five pages attended him, apparelled in silk and brocade, and + mounted on horses sumptuously caparisoned; he had also a train of + followers, bravely attired after the fashion of his country. + + "He advanced in a chivalrous and courteous manner, making his + reverences first to the queen and infanta, and afterwards to the + king. Queen Isabella received him graciously, complimenting him on + his courageous conduct at Loxa, and condoling with him on the loss + of his teeth. The earl, however, made light of his disfiguring + wound, saying that 'our blessed Lord, who had built all that house, + had opened a window there, that he might see more readily what + passed within;' whereupon the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida is more + than ever astonished at the pregnant wit of this island cavalier. + The earl continued some little distance by the side of the royal + family, complimenting them all with courteous speeches, his horse + curveting and caracoling, but being managed with great grace and + dexterity,--leaving the grandees and the people at large not more + filled with admiration at the strangeness and magnificence of his + state than at the excellence of his horsemanship. + + "To testify her sense of the gallantry and services of this noble + English knight, who had come from so far to assist in their wars, + the queen sent him the next day presents of twelve horses, with + stately tents, fine linen, two beds with coverings of gold brocade, + and many other articles of great value." + +The protracted siege of the city of Granada was the occasion of feats of +arms and hostile courtesies which rival in brilliancy any in the +romances of chivalry. Irving's pen is never more congenially employed +than in describing these desperate but romantic encounters. One of the +most picturesque of these was known as "the queen's skirmish." The royal +encampment was situated so far from Granada that only the general aspect +of the city could be seen as it rose from the vega, covering the sides +of the hills with its palaces and towers. Queen Isabella expressed a +desire for a nearer view of the city, whose beauty was renowned +throughout the world, and the courteous Marques of Cadiz proposed to +give her this perilous gratification. + + "On the morning of June the 18th, a magnificent and powerful train + issued from the Christian camp. The advanced guard was composed of + legions of cavalry, heavily armed, looking like moving masses of + polished steel. Then came the king and queen, with the prince and + princesses, and the ladies of the court, surrounded by the royal + body-guard, sumptuously arrayed, composed of the sons of the most + illustrious houses of Spain; after these was the rear-guard, a + powerful force of horse and foot; for the flower of the army + sallied forth that day. The Moors gazed with fearful admiration at + this glorious pageant, wherein the pomp of the court was mingled + with the terrors of the camp. It moved along in radiant line, + across the vega, to the melodious thunders of martial music, while + banner and plume, and silken scarf, and rich brocade, gave a gay + and gorgeous relief to the grim visage of iron war that lurked + beneath. + + "The army moved towards the hamlet of Zubia, built on the skirts of + the mountain to the left of Granada, and commanding a view of the + Alhambra, and the most beautiful quarter of the city. As they + approached the hamlet, the Marques of Villena, the Count Urena, and + Don Alonzo de Aguilar filed off with their battalions, and were + soon seen glittering along the side of the mountain above the + village. In the mean time the Marques of Cadiz, the Count de + Tendilla, the Count de Cabra, and Don Alonzo Fernandez, senior of + Alcaudrete and Montemayor, drew up their forces in battle array on + the plain below the hamlet, presenting a living barrier of loyal + chivalry between the sovereigns and the city. + + "Thus securely guarded, the royal party alighted, and, entering one + of the houses of the hamlet, which had been prepared for their + reception, enjoyed a full view of the city from its terraced roof. + The ladies of the court gazed with delight at the red towers of the + Alhambra, rising from amid shady groves, anticipating the time when + the Catholic sovereigns should be enthroned within its walls, and + its courts shine with the splendor of Spanish chivalry. 'The + reverend prelates and holy friars, who always surrounded the queen, + looked with serene satisfaction,' says Fray Antonio Agapida, 'at + this modern Babylon, enjoying the triumph that awaited them, when + those mosques and minarets should be converted into churches, and + goodly priests and bishops should succeed to the infidel alfaquis.' + + "When the Moors beheld the Christians thus drawn forth in full + array in the plain, they supposed it was to offer battle, and + hesitated not to accept it. In a little while the queen beheld a + body of Moorish cavalry pouring into the vega, the riders managing + their fleet and fiery steeds with admirable address. They were + richly armed, and clothed in the most brilliant colors, and the + caparisons of their steeds flamed with gold and embroidery. This + was the favorite squadron of Muza, composed of the flower of the + youthful cavaliers of Granada. Others succeeded, some heavily + armed, others _a la gineta_, with lance and buckler; and lastly + came the legions of foot-soldiers, with arquebus and cross-bow, and + spear and scimiter. + + "When the queen saw this army issuing from the city, she sent to + the Marques of Cadiz, and forbade any attack upon the enemy, or the + acceptance of any challenge to a skirmish; for she was loth that + her curiosity should cost the life of a single human being. + + "The marques promised to obey, though sorely against his will; and + it grieved the spirit of the Spanish cavaliers to be obliged to + remain with sheathed swords while bearded by the foe. The Moors + could not comprehend the meaning of this inaction of the + Christians, after having apparently invited a battle. They sallied + several times from their ranks, and approached near enough to + discharge their arrows; but the Christians were immovable. Many of + the Moorish horsemen galloped close to the Christian ranks, + brandishing their lances and scimiters, and defying various + cavaliers to single combat; but Ferdinand had rigorously prohibited + all duels of this kind, and they dared not transgress his orders + under his very eye. + + "Here, however, the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida, in his enthusiasm + for the triumphs of the faith, records the following incident, + which we fear is not sustained by any grave chronicler of the + times, but rests merely on tradition, or the authority of certain + poets and dramatic writers, who have perpetuated the tradition in + their works. While this grim and reluctant tranquillity prevailed + along the Christian line, says Agapida, there rose a mingled shout + and sound of laughter near the gate of the city. A Moorish + horseman, armed at all points, issued forth, followed by a rabble, + who drew back as he approached the scene of danger. The Moor was + more robust and brawny than was common with his countrymen. His + visor was closed; he bore a huge buckler and a ponderous lance; his + scimiter was of a Damascus blade, and his richly ornamented dagger + was wrought by an artificer of Fez. He was known by his device to + be Tarfe, the most insolent, yet valiant, of the Moslem + warriors--the same who had hurled into the royal camp his lance, + inscribed to the queen. As he rode slowly along in front of the + army, his very steed, prancing with fiery eye and distended + nostril, seemed to breathe defiance to the Christians. + + "But what were the feelings of the Spanish cavaliers when they + beheld, tied to the tail of his steed, and dragged in the dust, the + very inscription, 'AVE MARIA,' which Hernan Perez del Pulgar had + affixed to the door of the mosque! A burst of horror and + indignation broke forth from the army. Hernan was not at hand to + maintain his previous achievement; but one of his young companions + in arms, Garcilasso de la Vega by name, putting spurs to his horse, + galloped to the hamlet of Zubia, threw himself on his knees before + the king, and besought permission to accept the defiance of this + insolent infidel, and to revenge the insult offered to our Blessed + Lady. The request was too pious to be refused. Garcilasso remounted + his steed, closed his helmet, graced by four sable plumes, grasped + his buckler of Flemish workmanship, and his lance of matchless + temper, and defied the haughty Moor in the midst of his career. A + combat took place in view of the two armies and of the Castilian + court. The Moor was powerful in wielding his weapons, and + dexterous in managing his steed. He was of larger frame than + Garcilasso, and more completely armed, and the Christians trembled + for their champion. The shock of their encounter was dreadful; + their lances were shivered and sent up splinters in the air. + Garcilasso was thrown back in his saddle--his horse made a wide + career before he could recover, gather up the reins, and return to + the conflict. They now encountered each other with swords. The Moor + circled round his opponent, as a hawk circles when about to make a + swoop; his steed obeyed his rider with matchless quickness; at + every attack of the infidel, it seemed as if the Christian knight + must sink beneath his flashing scimiter. But if Garcilasso was + inferior to him in power, he was superior in agility; many of his + blows he parried; others he received upon his Flemish shield, which + was proof against the Damascus blade. The blood streamed from + numerous wounds received by either warrior. The Moor, seeing his + antagonist exhausted, availed himself of his superior force, and, + grappling, endeavored to wrest him from his saddle. They both fell + to earth; the Moor placed his knee upon the breast of his victim, + and, brandishing his dagger, aimed a blow at his throat. A cry of + despair was uttered by the Christian warriors, when suddenly they + beheld the Moor rolling lifeless in the dust. Garcilasso had + shortened his sword, and, as his adversary raised his arm to + strike, had pierced him to the heart. 'It was a singular and + miraculous victory,' says Fray Antonio Agapida; 'but the Christian + knight was armed by the sacred nature of his cause, and the Holy + Virgin gave him strength, like another David, to slay this gigantic + champion of the Gentiles.' + + "The laws of chivalry were observed throughout the combat--no one + interfered on either side. Garcilasso now despoiled his adversary; + then, rescuing the holy inscription of 'AVE MARIA' from its + degrading situation, he elevated it on the point of his sword, and + bore it off as a signal of triumph, amidst the rapturous shouts of + the Christian army. + + "The sun had now reached the meridian, and the hot blood of the + Moors was inflamed by its rays, and by the sight of the defeat of + their champion. Muza ordered two pieces of ordnance to open a fire + upon the Christians. A confusion was produced in one part of their + ranks: Muza called to the chiefs of the army, 'Let us waste no more + time in empty challenges--let us charge upon the enemy: he who + assaults has always an advantage in the combat.' So saying, he + rushed forward, followed by a large body of horse and foot, and + charged so furiously upon the advance guard of the Christians, that + he drove it in upon the battalion of the Marques of Cadiz. + + "The gallant marques now considered himself absolved from all + further obedience to the queen's commands. He gave the signal to + attack. 'Santiago!' was shouted along the line; and he pressed + forward to the encounter, with his battalion of twelve hundred + lances. The other cavaliers followed his example, and the battle + instantly became general. + + "When the king and queen beheld the armies thus rushing to the + combat, they threw themselves on their knees, and implored the Holy + Virgin to protect her faithful warriors. The prince and princess, + the ladies of the court, and the prelates and friars who were + present, did the same; and the effect of the prayers of these + illustrious and saintly persons was immediately apparent. The + fierceness with which the Moors had rushed to the attack was + suddenly cooled; they were bold and adroit for a skirmish, but + unequal to the veteran Spaniards in the open field. A panic seized + upon the foot-soldiers--they turned and took to flight. Muza and + his cavaliers in vain endeavored to rally them. Some took refuge in + the mountains; but the greater part fled to the city, in such + confusion that they overturned and trampled upon each other. The + Christians pursued them to the very gates. Upwards of two thousand + were either killed, wounded, or taken prisoners; and the two pieces + of ordnance were brought off as trophies of the victory. Not a + Christian lance but was bathed that day in the blood of an infidel. + + "Such was the brief but bloody action which was known among the + Christian warriors by the name of "The Queen's Skirmish;" for when + the Marques of Cadiz waited upon her majesty to apologize for + breaking her commands, he attributed the victory entirely to her + presence. The queen, however, insisted that it was all owing to her + troops being led on by so valiant a commander. Her majesty had not + yet recovered from her agitation at beholding so terrible a scene + of bloodshed, though certain veterans present pronounced it as gay + and gentle a skirmish as they had ever witnessed." + +The charm of "The Alhambra" is largely in the leisurely, loitering, +dreamy spirit in which the temporary American resident of the ancient +palace-fortress entered into its mouldering beauties and romantic +associations, and in the artistic skill with which he wove the +commonplace daily life of his attendants there into the more brilliant +woof of its past. The book abounds in delightful legends, and yet these +are all so touched with the author's airy humor that our credulity is +never overtaxed; we imbibe all the romantic interest of the place +without for a moment losing our hold upon reality. The enchantments of +this Moorish paradise become part of our mental possessions, without the +least shock to our common sense. After a few days of residence in the +part of the Alhambra occupied by Dame Tia Antonia and her family, of +which the handmaid Dolores was the most fascinating member, Irving +succeeded in establishing himself in a remote and vacant part of the +vast pile, in a suite of delicate and elegant chambers, with secluded +gardens and fountains, that had once been occupied by the beautiful +Elizabeth of Farnese, daughter of the Duke of Parma, and more than four +centuries ago by a Moorish beauty named Lindaraxa, who flourished in the +court of Muhamed the Left-Handed. These solitary and ruined chambers had +their own terrors and enchantments, and for the first nights gave the +author little but sinister suggestions and grotesque food for his +imagination. But familiarity dispersed the gloom and the superstitious +fancies. + + "In the course of a few evenings a thorough change took place in + the scene and its associations. The moon, which when I took + possession of my new apartments was invisible, gradually gained + each evening upon the darkness of the night, and at length rolled + in full splendor above the towers, pouring a flood of tempered + light into every court and hall. The garden beneath my window, + before wrapped in gloom, was gently lighted up; the orange and + citron trees were tipped with silver; the fountain sparkled in the + moonbeams, and even the blush of the rose was faintly visible. + + "I now felt the poetic merit of the Arabic inscription on the + walls: 'How beauteous is this garden; where the flowers of the + earth vie with the stars of heaven. What can compare with the vase + of yon alabaster fountain filled with crystal water? nothing but + the moon in her fullness, shining in the midst of an unclouded + sky!' + + "On such heavenly nights I would sit for hours at my window + inhaling the sweetness of the garden, and musing on the checkered + fortunes of those whose history was dimly shadowed out in the + elegant memorials around. Sometimes, when all was quiet, and the + clock from the distant cathedral of Granada struck the midnight + hour, I have sallied out on another tour and wandered over the + whole building; but how different from my first tour! No longer + dark and mysterious; no longer peopled with shadowy foes; no longer + recalling scenes of violence and murder; all was open, spacious, + beautiful; everything called up pleasing and romantic fancies; + Lindaraxa once more walked in her garden; the gay chivalry of + Moslem Granada once more glittered about the Court of Lions! Who + can do justice to a moonlight night in such a climate and such a + place? The temperature of a summer midnight in Andalusia is + perfectly ethereal. We seem lifted up into a purer atmosphere; we + feel a serenity of soul, a buoyancy of spirits, an elasticity of + frame, which render mere existence happiness. But when moonlight is + added to all this, the effect is like enchantment. Under its + plastic sway the Alhambra seems to regain its pristine glories. + Every rent and chasm of time, every mouldering tint and + weather-stain, is gone; the marble resumes its original whiteness; + the long colonnades brighten in the moonbeams; the halls are + illuminated with a softened radiance,--we tread the enchanted + palace of an Arabian tale! + + "What a delight, at such a time, to ascend to the little airy + pavilion of the queen's toilet (el tocador de la reyna), which, + like a bird-cage, overhangs the valley of the Darro, and gaze from + its light arcades upon the moonlight prospect! To the right, the + swelling mountains of the Sierra Nevada, robbed of their + ruggedness and softened into a fairy land, with their snowy summits + gleaming like silver clouds against the deep blue sky. And then to + lean over the parapet of the Tocador and gaze down upon Granada and + the Albaycin spread out like a map below; all buried in deep + repose; the white palaces and convents sleeping in the moonshine, + and beyond all these the vapory vega fading away like a dreamland + in the distance. + + "Sometimes the faint click of castanets rise from the Alameda, + where some gay Andalusians are dancing away the summer night. + Sometimes the dubious tones of a guitar and the notes of an amorous + voice, tell perchance the whereabout of some moonstruck lover + serenading his lady's window. + + "Such is a faint picture of the moonlight nights I have passed + loitering about the courts and halls and balconies of this most + suggestive pile; 'feeding my fancy with sugared suppositions,' and + enjoying that mixture of reverie and sensation which steal away + existence in a southern climate; so that it has been almost morning + before I have retired to bed, and been lulled to sleep by the + falling waters of the fountain of Lindaraxa." + +One of the writer's vantage points of observation was a balcony of the +central window of the Hall of Ambassadors, from which he had a +magnificent prospect of mountain, valley, and vega, and could look down +upon a busy scene of human life in an alameda, or public walk, at the +foot of the hill, and the suburb of the city, filling the narrow gorge +below. Here the author used to sit for hours, weaving histories out of +the casual incidents passing under his eye, and the occupations of the +busy mortals below. The following passage exhibits his power in +transmuting the commonplace life of the present into material perfectly +in keeping with the romantic associations of the place:-- + + "There was scarce a pretty face or a striking figure that I daily + saw, about which I had not thus gradually framed a dramatic story, + though some of my characters would occasionally act in direct + opposition to the part assigned them, and disconcert the whole + drama. Reconnoitring one day with my glass the streets of the + Albaycin, I beheld the procession of a novice about to take the + veil; and remarked several circumstances which excited the + strongest sympathy in the fate of the youthful being thus about to + be consigned to a living tomb. I ascertained to my satisfaction + that she was beautiful, and, from the paleness of her cheek, that + she was a victim rather than a votary. She was arrayed in bridal + garments, and decked with a chaplet of white flowers, but her heart + evidently revolted at this mockery of a spiritual union, and + yearned after its earthly loves. A tall stern-looking man walked + near her in the procession: it was, of course, the tyrannical + father, who, from some bigoted or sordid motive, had compelled this + sacrifice. Amid the crowd was a dark handsome youth, in Andalusian + garb, who seemed to fix on her an eye of agony. It was doubtless + the secret lover from whom she was forever to be separated. My + indignation rose as I noted the malignant expression painted on the + countenances of the attendant monks and friars. The procession + arrived at the chapel of the convent; the sun gleamed for the last + time upon the chaplet of the poor novice, as she crossed the fatal + threshold and disappeared within the building. The throng poured in + with cowl, and cross, and minstrelsy; the lover paused for a moment + at the door. I could divine the tumult of his feelings; but he + mastered them, and entered. There was a long interval. I pictured + to myself the scene passing within: the poor novice despoiled of + her transient finery, and clothed in the conventual garb; the + bridal chaplet taken from her brow, and her beautiful head shorn of + its long silken tresses. I heard her murmur the irrevocable vow. I + saw her extended on a bier; the death-pall spread over her; the + funeral service performed that proclaimed her dead to the world; + her sighs were drowned in the deep tones of the organ, and the + plaintive requiem of the nuns; the father looked on, unmoved, + without a tear; the lover--no--my imagination refused to portray + the anguish of the lover--there the picture remained a blank. + + "After a time the throng again poured forth and dispersed various + ways, to enjoy the light of the sun and mingle with the stirring + scenes of life; but the victim, with her bridal chaplet, was no + longer there. The door of the convent closed that severed her from + the world forever. I saw the father and the lover issue forth; they + were in earnest conversation. The latter was vehement in his + gesticulations; I expected some violent termination to my drama; + but an angle of a building interfered and closed the scene. My eye + afterwards was frequently turned to that convent with painful + interest. I remarked late at night a solitary light twinkling from + a remote lattice of one of its towers. 'There,' said I, 'the + unhappy nun sits weeping in her cell, while perhaps her lover paces + the street below in unavailing anguish.' + + "--The officious Mateo interrupted my meditations and destroyed in + an instant the cobweb tissue of my fancy. With his usual zeal he + had gathered facts concerning the scene, which put my fictions all + to flight. The heroine of my romance was neither young nor + handsome; she had no lover; she had entered the convent of her own + free will, as a respectable asylum, and was one of the most + cheerful residents within its walls. + + "It was some little while before I could forgive the wrong done me + by the nun in being thus happy in her cell, in contradiction to all + the rules of romance; I diverted my spleen, however, by watching, + for a day or two, the pretty coquetries of a dark-eyed brunette, + who, from the covert of a balcony shrouded with flowering shrubs + and a silken awning, was carrying on a mysterious correspondence + with a handsome, dark, well-whiskered cavalier, who lurked + frequently in the street beneath her window. Sometimes I saw him at + an early hour, stealing forth wrapped to the eyes in a mantle. + Sometimes he loitered at a corner, in various disguises, apparently + waiting for a private signal to slip into the house. Then there was + the tinkling of a guitar at night, and a lantern shifted from place + to place in the balcony. I imagined another intrigue like that of + Almaviva, but was again disconcerted in all my suppositions. The + supposed lover turned out to be the husband of the lady, and a + noted contrabandista; and all his mysterious signs and movements + had doubtless some smuggling scheme in view. + + "--I occasionally amused myself with noting from this balcony the + gradual changes of the scenes below, according to the different + stages of the day. + + "Scarce has the gray dawn streaked the sky, and the earliest cock + crowed from the cottages of the hill-side, when the suburbs give + sign of reviving animation; for the fresh hours of dawning are + precious in the summer season in a sultry climate. All are anxious + to get the start of the sun, in the business of the day. The + muleteer drives forth his loaded train for the journey; the + traveler slings his carbine behind his saddle, and mounts his steed + at the gate of the hostel; the brown peasant from the country urges + forward his loitering beasts, laden with panniers of sunny fruit + and fresh dewy vegetables, for already the thrifty housewives are + hastening to the market. + + "The sun is up and sparkles along the valley, tipping the + transparent foliage of the groves. The matin bells resound + melodiously through the pure bright air, announcing the hour of + devotion. The muleteer halts his burdened animals before the + chapel, thrusts his staff through his belt behind, and enters with + hat in hand, smoothing his coal-black hair, to hear a mass, and to + put up a prayer for a prosperous wayfaring across the sierra. And + now steals forth on fairy foot the gentle Senora, in trim basquina, + with restless fan in hand, and dark eye flashing from beneath the + gracefully folded mantilla; she seeks some well-frequented church + to offer up her morning orisons; but the nicely adjusted dress, the + dainty shoe and cobweb stocking, the raven tresses exquisitely + braided, the fresh-plucked rose, gleaming among them like a gem, + show that earth divides with Heaven the empire of her thoughts. + Keep an eye upon her, careful mother, or virgin aunt, or vigilant + duenna, whichever you may be, that walk behind! + + "As the morning advances, the din of labor augments on every side; + the streets are thronged with man, and steed, and beast of burden, + and there is a hum and murmur, like the surges of the ocean. As the + sun ascends to his meridian, the hum and bustle gradually decline; + at the height of noon there is a pause. The panting city sinks into + lassitude, and for several hours there is a general repose. The + windows are closed, the curtains drawn, the inhabitants retired + into the coolest recesses of their mansions; the full-fed monk + snores in his dormitory; the brawny porter lies stretched on the + pavement beside his burden; the peasant and the laborer sleep + beneath the trees of the Alameda, lulled by the sultry chirping of + the locust. The streets are deserted, except by the water-carrier, + who refreshes the ear by proclaiming the merits of his sparkling + beverage, 'colder than the mountain snow (_mas fria que la + nieve_).' + + "As the sun declines, there is again a gradual reviving, and when + the vesper bell rings out his sinking knell, all nature seems to + rejoice that the tyrant of the day has fallen. Now begins the + bustle of enjoyment, when the citizens pour forth to breathe the + evening air, and revel away the brief twilight in the walks and + gardens of the Darro and Xenil. + + "As night closes, the capricious scene assumes new features. Light + after light gradually twinkles forth; here a taper from a balconied + window; there a votive lamp before the image of a saint. Thus, by + degrees, the city emerges from the pervading gloom, and sparkles + with scattered lights, like the starry firmament. Now break forth + from court and garden, and street and lane, the tinkling of + innumerable guitars, and the clicking of castanets; blending, at + this lofty height, in a faint but general concert. 'Enjoy the + moment' is the creed of the gay and amorous Andalusian, and at no + time does he practice it more zealously than on the balmy nights of + summer, wooing his mistress with the dance, the love-ditty, and + the passionate serenade." + +How perfectly is the illusion of departed splendor maintained in the +opening of the chapter on "The Court of Lions." + + "The peculiar charm of this old dreamy palace is its power of + calling up vague reveries and picturings of the past, and thus + clothing naked realities with the illusions of the memory and the + imagination. As I delight to walk in these 'vain shadows,' I am + prone to seek those parts of the Alhambra which are most favorable + to this phantasmagoria of the mind; and none are more so than the + Court of Lions, and its surrounding halls. Here the hand of time + has fallen the lightest, and the traces of Moorish elegance and + splendor exist in almost their original brilliancy. Earthquakes + have shaken the foundations of this pile, and rent its rudest + towers; yet see! not one of those slender columns has been + displaced, not an arch of that light and fragile colonnade given + way, and all the fairy fretwork of these domes, apparently as + unsubstantial as the crystal fabrics of a morning's frost, exist + after the lapse of centuries, almost as fresh as if from the hand + of the Moslem artist. I write in the midst of these mementos of the + past, in the fresh hour of early morning, in the fated Hall of the + Abencerrages. The blood-stained fountain, the legendary monument of + their massacre, is before me; the lofty jet almost casts its dew + upon my paper. How difficult to reconcile the ancient tale of + violence and blood with the gentle and peaceful scene around! + Everything here appears calculated to inspire kind and happy + feelings, for everything is delicate and beautiful. The very light + falls tenderly from above, through the lantern of a dome tinted and + wrought as if by fairy hands. Through the ample and fretted arch of + the portal I behold the Court of Lions, with brilliant sunshine + gleaming along its colonnades and sparkling in its fountains. The + lively swallow dives into the court, and, rising with a surge, + darts away twittering over the roofs; the busy bee toils humming + among the flower-beds; and painted butterflies hover from plant to + plant, and flutter up and sport with each other in the sunny air. + It needs but a slight exertion of the fancy to picture some pensive + beauty of the harem loitering in these secluded haunts of Oriental + luxury. + + "He, however, who would behold this scene under an aspect more in + unison with its fortunes, let him come when the shadows of evening + temper the brightness of the court, and throw a gloom into the + surrounding halls. Then nothing can be more serenely melancholy, or + more in harmony with the tale of departed grandeur. + + "At such times I am apt to seek the Hall of Justice, whose deep + shadowy arcades extend across the upper end of the court. Here was + performed, in presence of Ferdinand and Isabella and their + triumphant court, the pompous ceremonial of high mass, on taking + possession of the Alhambra. The very cross is still to be seen upon + the wall, where the altar was erected, and where officiated the + Grand Cardinal of Spain, and others of the highest religious + dignitaries of the land. I picture to myself the scene when this + place was filled with the conquering host, that mixture of mitred + prelate and shaven monk, and steel-clad knight and silken courtier; + when crosses and crosiers and religious standards were mingled with + proud armorial ensigns and the banners of the haughty chiefs of + Spain, and flaunted in triumph through these Moslem halls. I + picture to myself Columbus, the future discoverer of a world, + taking his modest stand in a remote corner, the humble and + neglected spectator of the pageant. I see in imagination the + Catholic sovereigns prostrating themselves before the altar, and + pouring forth thanks for their victory; while the vaults resound + with sacred minstrelsy and the deep-toned Te Deum. + + "The transient illusion is over,--the pageant melts from the + fancy,--monarch, priest, and warrior return into oblivion with the + poor Moslems over whom they exulted. The hall of their triumph is + waste and desolate. The bat flits about its twilight vault, and the + owl hoots from the neighboring tower of Comares." + +It is a Moslem tradition that the court and army of Boabdil, the +Unfortunate, the last Moorish King of Granada, are shut up in the +mountain by a powerful enchantment, and that it is written in the book +of fate that when the enchantment is broken, Boabdil will descend from +the mountain at the head of his army, resume his throne in the Alhambra, +and gathering together the enchanted warriors from all parts of Spain, +reconquer the Peninsula. Nothing in this volume is more amusing and at +the same time more poetic and romantic than the story of "Governor Manco +and the Soldier," in which this legend is used to cover the exploit of a +dare-devil contrabandista. But it is too long to quote. I take, +therefore, another story, which has something of the same elements, that +of a merry, mendicant student of Salamanca, Don Vicente by name, who +wandered from village to village, and picked up a living by playing the +guitar for the peasants, among whom, he was sure of a hearty welcome. +In the course of his wandering he had found a seal-ring, having for its +device the cabalistic sign, invented by King Solomon the Wise, and of +mighty power in all cases of enchantment. + + "At length he arrived at the great object of his musical + vagabondizing, the far-famed city of Granada, and hailed with + wonder and delight its Moorish towers, its lovely vega, and its + snowy mountains glistening through a summer atmosphere. It is + needless to say with what eager curiosity he entered its gates and + wandered through its streets, and gazed upon its Oriental + monuments. Every female face peering through a window or beaming + from a balcony was to him a Zorayda or a Zelinda, nor could he meet + a stately dame on the Alameda but he was ready to fancy her a + Moorish princess, and to spread his student's robe beneath her + feet. + + "His musical talent, his happy humor, his youth and his good looks, + won him a universal welcome in spite of his ragged robes, and for + several days he led a gay life in the old Moorish capital and its + environs. One of his occasional haunts was the fountain of + Avellanos, in the valley of Darro. It is one of the popular resorts + of Granada, and has been so since the days of the Moors; and here + the student had an opportunity of pursuing his studies of female + beauty; a branch of study to which he was a little prone. + + "Here he would take his seat with his guitar, improvise + love-ditties to admiring groups of majos and majas, or prompt with + his music the ever-ready dance. He was thus engaged one evening + when he beheld a padre of the church advancing, at whose approach + every one touched the hat. He was evidently a man of consequence; + he certainly was a mirror of good if not of holy living; robust and + rosy-faced, and breathing at every pore with the warmth of the + weather and the exercise of the walk. As he passed along he would + every now and then draw a maravedi out of his pocket and bestow it + on a beggar, with an air of signal beneficence. 'Ah, the blessed + father!' would be the cry; 'long life to him, and may he soon be a + bishop!' + + "To aid his steps in ascending the hill he leaned gently now and + then on the arm of a handmaid, evidently the pet-lamb of this + kindest of pastors. Ah, such a damsel! Andalus from head to foot; + from the rose in her hair, to the fairy shoe and lacework stocking; + Andalus in every movement; in every undulation of the body:--ripe, + melting Andalus! But then so modest!--so shy!--ever, with downcast + eyes, listening to the words of the padre; or, if by chance she let + flash a side glance, it was suddenly checked and her eyes once more + cast to the ground. + + "The good padre looked benignantly on the company about the + fountain, and took his seat with some emphasis on a stone bench, + while the handmaid hastened to bring him a glass of sparkling + water. He sipped it deliberately and with a relish, tempering it + with one of those spongy pieces of frosted eggs and sugar so dear + to Spanish epicures, and on returning the glass to the hand of the + damsel pinched her cheek with infinite loving-kindness. + + "'Ah, the good pastor!' whispered the student to himself; 'what a + happiness would it be to be gathered into his fold with such a + pet-lamb for a companion!' + + "But no such good fare was likely to befall him. In vain he essayed + those powers of pleasing which he had found so irresistible with + country curates and country lasses. Never had he touched his guitar + with such skill; never had he poured forth more soul-moving + ditties, but he had no longer a country curate or country lass to + deal with. The worthy priest evidently did not relish music, and + the modest damsel never raised her eyes from the ground. They + remained but a short time at the fountain; the good padre hastened + their return to Granada. The damsel gave the student one shy glance + in retiring; but it plucked the heart out of his bosom! + + "He inquired about them after they had gone. Padre Tomas was one + of the saints of Granada, a model of regularity; punctual in his + hour of rising; his hour of taking a paseo for an appetite; his + hours of eating; his hour of taking his siesta; his hour of playing + his game of tresillo, of an evening, with some of the dames of the + cathedral circle; his hour of supping, and his hour of retiring to + rest, to gather fresh strength for another day's round of similar + duties. He had an easy sleek mule for his riding; a matronly + housekeeper skilled in preparing tidbits for his table; and the + pet-lamb, to smooth his pillow at night and bring him his chocolate + in the morning. + + "Adieu now to the gay, thoughtless life of the student; the + side-glance of a bright eye had been the undoing of him. Day and + night he could not get the image of this most modest damsel out of + his mind. He sought the mansion of the padre. Alas! it was above + the class of houses accessible to a strolling student like himself. + The worthy padre had no sympathy with him; he had never been + _Estudiante sopista_, obliged to sing for his supper. He blockaded + the house by day, catching a glance of the damsel now and then as + she appeared at a casement; but these glances only fed his flame + without encouraging his hope. He serenaded her balcony at night, + and at one time was flattered by the appearance of something white + at a window. Alas, it was only the night-cap of the padre. + + "Never was lover more devoted; never damsel more shy: the poor + student was reduced to despair. At length arrived the eve of St. + John, when the lower classes of Granada swarm into the country, + dance away the afternoon, and pass midsummer's night on the banks + of the Darro and the Xenil. Happy are they who on this eventful + night can wash their faces in those waters just as the cathedral + bell tells midnight; for at that precise moment they have a + beautifying power. The student, having nothing to do, suffered + himself to be carried away by the holiday-seeking throng until he + found himself in the narrow valley of the Darro, below the lofty + hill and ruddy towers of the Alhambra. The dry bed of the river; + the rocks which border it; the terraced gardens which overhang it, + were alive with variegated groups, dancing under the vines and + fig-trees to the sound of the guitar and castanets. + + "The student remained for some time in doleful dumps, leaning + against one of the huge misshapen stone pomegranates which adorn + the ends of the little bridge over the Darro. He cast a wistful + glance upon the merry scene, where every cavalier had his dame; or, + to speak more appropriately, every Jack his Jill; sighed at his + own solitary state, a victim to the black eye of the most + unapproachable of damsels, and repined at his ragged garb, which + seemed to shut the gate of hope against him. + + "By degrees his attention was attracted to a neighbor equally + solitary with himself. This was a tall soldier, of a stern aspect + and grizzled beard, who seemed posted as a sentry at the opposite + pomegranate. His face was bronzed by time; he was arrayed in + ancient Spanish armor, with buckler and lance, and stood immovable + as a statue. What surprised the student was, that though thus + strangely equipped, he was totally unnoticed by the passing throng, + albeit that many almost brushed against him. + + "'This is a city of old time peculiarities,' thought the student, + 'and doubtless this is one of them with which the inhabitants are + too familiar to be surprised.' His own curiosity, however, was + awakened, and being of a social disposition, he accosted the + soldier. + + "'A rare old suit of armor that which you wear, comrade. May I ask + what corps you belong to?' + + "The soldier gasped out a reply from a pair of jaws which seemed to + have rusted on their hinges. + + "'The royal guard of Ferdinand and Isabella.' + + "'Santa Maria! Why, it is three centuries since that corps was in + service.' + + "'And for three centuries have I been mounting guard. Now I trust + my tour of duty draws to a close. Dost thou desire fortune?' + + "The student held up his tattered cloak in reply. + + "'I understand thee. If thou hast faith and courage, follow me, and + thy fortune is made.' + + "'Softly, comrade, to follow thee would require small courage in + one who has nothing to lose but life and an old guitar, neither of + much value; but my faith is of a different matter, and not to be + put in temptation. If it be any criminal act by which I am to mend + my fortune, think not my ragged cloak will make me undertake it.' + + "The soldier turned on him a look of high displeasure. 'My sword,' + said he, 'has never been drawn but in the cause of the faith and + the throne. I am a _Cristiano viejo_; trust in me and fear no + evil.' + + "The student followed him wondering. He observed that no one heeded + their conversation, and that the soldier made his way through the + various groups of idlers unnoticed, as if invisible. + + "Crossing the bridge, the soldier led the way by a narrow and steep + path past a Moorish mill and aqueduct, and up the ravine which + separates the domains of the Generalife from those of the Alhambra. + The last ray of the sun shone upon the red battlements of the + latter, which beetled far above; and the convent-bells were + proclaiming the festival of the ensuing day. The ravine was + overshadowed by fig-trees, vines, and myrtles, and the outer towers + and walls of the fortress. It was dark and lonely, and the + twilight-loving bats began to flit about. At length the soldier + halted at a remote and ruined tower apparently intended to guard a + Moorish aqueduct. He struck the foundation with the butt-end of his + spear. A rumbling sound was heard, and the solid stones yawned + apart, leaving an opening as wide as a door. + + "'Enter in the name of the Holy Trinity', said the soldier, 'and + fear nothing.' The student's heart quaked, but he made the sign of + the cross, muttered his Ave Maria, and followed his mysterious + guide into a deep vault cut out of the solid rock under the tower, + and covered with Arabic inscriptions. The soldier pointed to a + stone seat hewn along one side of the vault. 'Behold,' said he, 'my + couch for three hundred years.' The bewildered student tried to + force a joke. 'By the blessed St. Anthony,' said he, 'but you must + have slept soundly, considering the hardness of your couch.' + + "'On the contrary, sleep has been a stranger to these eyes; + incessant watchfulness has been my doom. Listen to my lot. I was + one of the royal guards of Ferdinand and Isabella; but was taken + prisoner by the Moors in one of their sorties, and confined a + captive in this tower. When preparations were made to surrender the + fortress to the Christian sovereigns, I was prevailed upon by an + alfaqui, a Moorish priest, to aid him in secreting some of the + treasures of Boabdil in this vault. I was justly punished for my + fault. The alfaqui was an African necromancer, and by his infernal + arts cast a spell upon me--to guard his treasures. Something must + have happened to him, for he never returned, and here have I + remained ever since, buried alive. Years and years have rolled + away; earthquakes have shaken this hill; I have heard stone by + stone of the tower above tumbling to the ground, in the natural + operation of time; but the spell-bound walls of this vault set both + time and earthquakes at defiance. + + "'Once every hundred years, on the festival of St. John, the + enchantment ceases to have thorough sway; I am permitted to go + forth and post myself upon the bridge of the Darro, where you met + me, waiting until some one shall arrive who may have power to break + this magic spell. I have hitherto mounted guard there in vain. I + walk as in a cloud, concealed from mortal sight. You are the first + to accost me for now three hundred years. I behold the reason. I + see on your finger the seal-ring of Solomon the Wise, which is + proof against all enchantment. With you it remains to deliver me + from this awful dungeon, or to leave me to keep guard here for + another hundred years.' + + "The student listened to this tale in mute wonderment. He had heard + many tales of treasures shut up under strong enchantment in the + vaults of the Alhambra, but had treated them as fables. He now felt + the value of the seal-ring, which had, in a manner, been given to + him by St. Cyprian. Still, though armed by so potent a talisman, it + was an awful thing to find himself _tete-a-tete_ in such a place + with an enchanted soldier, who, according to the laws of nature, + ought to have been quietly in his grave for nearly three centuries. + + "A personage of this kind, however, was quite out of the ordinary + run, and not to be trifled with, and he assured him he might rely + upon his friendship and good will to do everything in his power for + his deliverance. + + "'I trust to a motive more powerful than friendship,' said the + soldier. + + "He pointed to a ponderous iron coffer, secured by locks inscribed + with Arabic characters. 'That coffer,' said he, 'contains countless + treasure in gold and jewels and precious stones. Break the magic + spell by which I am enthralled, and one half of this treasure shall + be thine.' + + "'But how am I to do it?' + + "'The aid of a Christian priest and a Christian maid is necessary. + The priest to exorcise the powers of darkness; the damsel to touch + this chest with the seal of Solomon. This must be done at night. + But have a care. This is solemn work, and not to be effected by the + carnal-minded. The priest must be a _Cristiano viejo_, a model of + sanctity; and must mortify the flesh before he comes here, by a + rigorous fast of four-and-twenty hours: and as to the maiden, she + must be above reproach, and proof against temptation. Linger not in + finding such aid. In three days my furlough is at an end; if not + delivered before midnight of the third, I shall have to mount guard + for another century.' + + "'Fear not,' said the student, 'I have in my eye the very priest + and damsel you describe; but how am I to regain admission to this + tower?' + + "'The seal of Solomon will open the way for thee.' + + "The student issued forth from the tower much more gayly than he + had entered. The wall closed behind him, and remained solid as + before. + + "The next morning he repaired boldly to the mansion of the priest, + no longer a poor strolling student, thrumming his way with a + guitar; but an ambassador from the shadowy world, with enchanted + treasures to bestow. No particulars are told of his negotiation, + excepting that the zeal of the worthy priest was easily kindled at + the idea of rescuing an old soldier of the faith and a strong box + of King Chico from the very clutches of Satan; and then what alms + might be dispensed, what churches built, and how many poor + relatives enriched with the Moorish treasure! + + "As to the immaculate handmaid, she was ready to lend her hand, + which was all that was required, to the pious work; and if a shy + glance now and then might be believed, the ambassador began to find + favor in her modest eyes. + + "The greatest difficulty, however, was the fast to which the good + padre had to subject himself. Twice he attempted it, and twice the + flesh was too strong for the spirit. It was only on the third day + that he was enabled to withstand the temptations of the cupboard; + but it was still a question whether he would hold out until the + spell was broken. + + "At a late hour of the night the party groped their way up the + ravine by the light of a lantern, and bearing a basket with + provisions for exorcising the demon of hunger so soon as the other + demons should be laid in the Red Sea. + + "The seal of Solomon opened their way into the tower. They found + the soldier seated on the enchanted strong-box, awaiting their + arrival. The exorcism was performed in due style. The damsel + advanced and touched the locks of the coffer with the seal of + Solomon. The lid flew open; and such treasures of gold and jewels + and precious stones as flashed upon the eye! + + "'Here's cut and come again!' cried the student, exultingly, as he + proceeded to cram his pockets. + + "'Fairly and softly,' exclaimed the soldier. 'Let us get the coffer + out entire, and then divide.' + + "They accordingly went to work with might and main; but it was a + difficult task; the chest was enormously heavy, and had been + imbedded there for centuries. While they were thus employed the + good dominie drew on one side and made a vigorous onslaught on the + basket, by way of exorcising the demon of hunger which was raging + in his entrails. In a little while a fat capon was devoured, and + washed down by a deep potation of Val de penas; and, by way of + grace after meat, he gave a kind-hearted kiss to the pet-lamb who + waited on him. It was quietly done in a corner, but the tell-tale + walls babbled it forth as if in triumph. Never was chaste salute + more awful in its effects. At the sound the soldier gave a great + cry of despair; the coffer, which was half raised, fell back in its + place and was locked once more. Priest, student, and damsel found + themselves outside of the tower, the wall of which closed with a + thundering jar. Alas! the good padre had broken his fast too soon! + + "When recovered from his surprise, the student would have reentered + the tower, but learnt to his dismay that the damsel, in her fright, + had let fall the seal of Solomon; it remained within the vault. + + "In a word, the cathedral bell tolled midnight; the spell was + renewed; the soldier was doomed to mount guard for another hundred + years, and there he and the treasure remain to this day--and all + because the kind-hearted padre kissed his handmaid. 'Ah, father! + father!' said the student, shaking his head ruefully, as they + returned down the ravine, 'I fear there was less of the saint than + the sinner in that kiss!' + + * * * * * + + "Thus ends the legend as far as it has been authenticated. There is + a tradition, however, that the student had brought off treasure + enough in his pocket to set him up in the world; that he prospered + in his affairs, that the worthy padre gave him the pet-lamb in + marriage, by way of amends for the blunder in the vault; that the + immaculate damsel proved a pattern for wives as she had been for + handmaids, and bore her husband a numerous progeny; that the first + was a wonder; it was born seven months after her marriage, and + though a seven-months' boy, was the sturdiest of the flock. The + rest were all born in the ordinary course of time. + + "The story of the enchanted soldier remains one of the popular + traditions of Granada, though told in a variety of ways; the common + people affirm that he still mounts guard on mid-summer eve, beside + the gigantic stone pomegranate on the bridge of the Darro; but + remains invisible excepting to such lucky mortal as may possess the + seal of Solomon." + +These passages from the most characteristic of Irving's books, do not by +any means exhaust his variety, but they afford a fair measure of his +purely literary skill, upon which his reputation must rest. To my +apprehension this "charm" in literature is as necessary to the +amelioration and enjoyment of human life as the more solid achievements +of scholarship. That Irving should find it in the prosaic and +materialistic conditions of the New World as well as in the +tradition-laden atmosphere of the Old, is evidence that he possessed +genius of a refined and subtle quality if not of the most robust order. + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + LAST YEARS: THE CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE. + + +The last years of Irving's life, although full of activity and +enjoyment,--abated only by the malady which had so long tormented +him,--offer little new in the development of his character, and need not +much longer detain us. The calls of friendship and of honor were many, +his correspondence was large, he made many excursions to scenes that +were filled with pleasant memories, going even as far south as Virginia, +and he labored assiduously at the "Life of Washington,"--attracted +however now and then by some other tempting theme. But his delight was +in the domestic circle at Sunnyside. It was not possible that his +occasional melancholy vein should not be deepened by change and death +and the lengthening shade of old age. Yet I do not know the closing days +of any other author of note that were more cheerful serene, and happy +than his. Of our author, in these latter days, Mr. George William Curtis +put recently into his "Easy Chair" papers an artistically-touched little +portrait: "Irving was as quaint a figure," he says, "as the Diedrich +Knickerbocker in the preliminary advertisement of the 'History of New +York.' Thirty years ago he might have been seen on an autumnal afternoon +tripping with an elastic step along Broadway, with 'low-quartered' shoes +neatly tied, and a Talma cloak--a short garment that hung from the +shoulders like the cape of a coat. There was a chirping, cheery, +old-school air in his appearance which was undeniably Dutch, and most +harmonious with the associations of his writing. He seemed, indeed, to +have stepped out of his own books; and the cordial grace and humor of +his address, if he stopped for a passing chat, were delightfully +characteristic. He was then our most famous man of letters, but he was +simply free from all self-consciousness and assumption and dogmatism." +Congenial occupation was one secret of Irving's cheerfulness and +contentment, no doubt. And he was called away as soon as his task was +done, very soon after the last volume of the "Washington" issued from +the press. Yet he lived long enough to receive the hearty approval of it +from the literary men whose familiarity with the Revolutionary period +made them the best judges of its merits. + +He had time also to revise his works. It is perhaps worthy of note that +for several years, while he was at the height of his popularity, his +books had very little sale. From 1842 to 1848 they were out of print, +with the exception of some stray copies of a cheap Philadelphia edition, +and a Paris collection (a volume of this, at my hand, is one of a series +entitled a "Collection of Ancient and Modern _British_ Authors"), they +were not to be found. The Philadelphia publishers did not think there +was sufficient demand to warrant a new edition. Mr. Irving and his +friends judged the market more wisely, and a young New York publisher +offered to assume the responsibility. This was Mr. George P. Putnam. The +event justified his sagacity and his liberal enterprise; from July, +1848, to November, 1859, the author received on his copyright over +eighty-eight thousand dollars. And it should be added that the relations +between author and publisher, both in prosperity and in times of +business disaster, reflect the highest credit upon both. If the like +relations always obtained we should not have to say: "May the Lord pity +the authors in this world, and the publishers in the next." + +I have outlined the life of Washington Irving in vain, if we have not +already come to a tolerably clear conception of the character of the man +and of his books. If I were exactly to follow his literary method I +should do nothing more. The idiosyncrasies of the man are the strength +and weakness of his works. I do not know any other author whose writings +so perfectly reproduce his character, or whose character may be more +certainly measured by his writings. His character is perfectly +transparent: his predominant traits were humor and sentiment; his +temperament was gay with a dash of melancholy; his inner life and his +mental operations were the reverse of complex, and his literary method +is simple. He _felt_ his subject, and he expressed his conception not so +much by direct statement or description as by almost imperceptible +touches and shadings here and there, by a diffused tone and color, with +very little show of analysis. Perhaps it is a sufficient definition to +say that his method was the sympathetic. In the end the reader is put in +possession of the luminous and complete idea upon which the author has +been brooding, though he may not be able to say exactly how the +impression has been conveyed to him; and I doubt if the author could +have explained his sympathetic process. He certainly would have lacked +precision in any philosophical or metaphysical theme, and when, in his +letters, he touches upon politics there is a little vagueness of +definition that indicates want of mental grip in that direction. But in +the region of feeling his genius is sufficient to his purpose; either +when that purpose is a highly creative one, as in the character and +achievements of his Dutch heroes, or merely that of portraiture, as in +the "Columbus" and the "Washington." The analysis of a nature so simple +and a character so transparent as Irving's, who lived in the sunlight +and had no envelope of mystery, has not the fascination that attaches to +Hawthorne. + +Although the direction of his work as a man of letters was largely +determined by his early surroundings,--that is, by his birth in a land +void of traditions, and into a society without much literary life, so +that his intellectual food was of necessity a foreign literature that +was at the moment becoming a little antiquated in the land of its birth, +and his warm imagination was forced to revert to the past for that +nourishment which his crude environment did not offer,--yet he was by +nature a retrospective man. His face was set towards the past, not +towards the future. He never caught the restlessness of this century, +nor the prophetic light that shone in the faces of Coleridge, Shelley, +and Keats; if he apprehended the stir of the new spirit he still, by +mental affiliation, belonged rather to the age of Addison than to that +of Macaulay. And his placid, retrospective, optimistic strain pleased a +public that were excited and harrowed by the mocking and lamenting of +Lord Byron, and, singularly enough, pleased even the great pessimist +himself. + +His writings induce to reflection, to quiet musing, to tenderness for +tradition; they amuse, they entertain, they call a check to the +feverishness of modern life; but they are rarely stimulating or +suggestive. They are better adapted, it must be owned, to please the +many than the critical few, who demand more incisive treatment and a +deeper consideration of the problems of life. And it is very fortunate +that a writer who can reach the great public and entertain it can also +elevate and refine its tastes, set before it high ideas, instruct it +agreeably, and all this in a style that belongs to the best literature. +It is a safe model for young readers; and for young readers there is +very little in the overwhelming flood of to-day that is comparable to +Irving's books, and, especially, it seems to me, because they were not +written for children. + +Irving's position in American literature, or in that of the English +tongue, will only be determined by the slow settling of opinion, which +no critic can foretell, and the operation of which no criticism seems +able to explain. I venture to believe, however, that the verdict will +not be in accord with much of the present prevalent criticism. The +service that he rendered to American letters no critic disputes; nor is +there any question of our national indebtedness to him for investing a +crude and new land with the enduring charms of romance and tradition. In +this respect, our obligation to him is that of Scotland to Scott and +Burns; and it is an obligation due only, in all history, to here and +there a fortunate creator to whose genius opportunity is kind. The +Knickerbocker Legend and the romance with which Irving has invested the +Hudson are a priceless legacy; and this would remain an imperishable +possession in popular tradition if the literature creating it were +destroyed. This sort of creation is unique in modern times. New York is +the Knickerbocker city; its whole social life remains colored by his +fiction; and the romantic background it owes to him in some measure +supplies to it what great age has given to European cities. This +creation is sufficient to secure for him an immortality, a length of +earthly remembrance that all the rest of his writings together might +not give. + +Irving was always the literary man; he had the habits, the +idiosyncrasies, of his small genus. I mean that he regarded life not +from the philanthropic, the economic, the political, the philosophic, +the metaphysic, the scientific, or the theologic, but purely from the +literary point of view. He belongs to that small class of which Johnson +and Goldsmith are perhaps as good types as any, and to which America has +added very few. The literary point of view is taken by few in any +generation; it may seem to the world of very little consequence in the +pressure of all the complex interests of life, and it may even seem +trivial amid the tremendous energies applied to immediate affairs; but +it is the point of view that endures; if its creations do not mould +human life, like the Roman law, they remain to charm and civilize, like +the poems of Horace. You must not ask more of them than that. This +attitude toward life is defensible on the highest grounds. A man with +Irving's gifts has the right to take the position of an observer and +describer, and not to be called on for a more active participation in +affairs than he chooses to take. He is doing the world the highest +service of which he is capable, and the most enduring it can receive +from any man. It is not a question whether the work of the literary man +is higher than that of the reformer or the statesman; it is a distinct +work, and is justified by the result, even when the work is that of the +humorist only. We recognize this in the ease of the poet. Although +Goethe has been reproached for his lack of sympathy with the +liberalizing movement of his day (as if his novels were quieting social +influences), it is felt by this generation that the author of "Faust" +needs no apology that he did not spend his energies in the effervescing +politics of the German states. I mean, that while we may like or dislike +the man for his sympathy or want of sympathy, we concede to the author +the right of his attitude; if Goethe had not assumed freedom from moral +responsibility, I suppose that criticism of his aloofness would long ago +have ceased. Irving did not lack sympathy with humanity in the concrete; +it colored whatever he wrote. But he regarded the politics of his own +country, the revolutions in France, the long struggle in Spain, without +heat; and he held aloof from projects of agitation and reform, and +maintained the attitude of an observer, regarding the life about him +from the point of view of the literary artist, as he was justified in +doing. + +Irving had the defects of his peculiar genius, and these have no doubt +helped to fix upon him the complimentary disparagement of "genial." He +was not aggressive; in his nature he was wholly unpartisan, and full of +lenient charity; and I suspect that his kindly regard of the world, +although returned with kindly liking, cost him something of that respect +for sturdiness and force which men feel for writers who flout them as +fools in the main. Like Scott, he belonged to the idealists, and not to +the realists, whom our generation affects. Both writers stimulate the +longing for something better. Their creed was short: "Love God and honor +the King." It is a very good one for a literary man, and might do for a +Christian. The supernatural was still a reality in the age in which they +wrote, Irving's faith in God and his love of humanity were very simple; +I do not suppose he was much disturbed by the deep problems that have +set us all adrift. In every age, whatever is astir, literature, +theology, all intellectual activity, takes one and the same drift, and +approximates in color. The bent of Irving's spirit was fixed in his +youth, and he escaped the desperate realism of this generation, which +has no outcome, and is likely to produce little that is noble. + +I do not know how to account, on principles of culture which we +recognize, for our author's style. His education was exceedingly +defective, nor was his want of discipline supplied by subsequent +desultory application. He seems to have been born with a rare sense of +literary proportion and form; into this, as into a mould, were run his +apparently lazy and really acute observations of life. That he +thoroughly mastered such literature as he fancied there is abundant +evidence; that his style was influenced by the purest English models is +also apparent. But there remains a large margin for wonder how, with his +want of training, he could have elaborated a style which is +distinctively his own, and is as copious, felicitous in the choice of +words, flowing, spontaneous, flexible, engaging, clear, and as little +wearisome when read continuously in quantity as any in the English +tongue. This is saying a great deal, though it is not claiming for him +the compactness, nor the robust vigor, nor the depth of thought, of many +others masters in it. It is sometimes praised for its simplicity. It is +certainly lucid, but its simplicity is not that of Benjamin Franklin's +style; it is often ornate, not seldom somewhat diffuse, and always +exceedingly melodious. It is noticeable for its metaphorical felicity. +But it was not in the sympathetic nature of the author, to which I just +referred, to come sharply to the point. It is much to have merited the +eulogy of Campbell that he had "added clarity to the English tongue." +This elegance and finish of style (which seems to have been as natural +to the man as his amiable manner) is sometimes made his reproach, as if +it were his sole merit, and as if he had concealed under this charming +form a want of substance. In literature form is vital. But his case does +not rest upon that. As an illustration his "Life of Washington" may be +put in evidence. Probably this work lost something in incisiveness and +brilliancy by being postponed till the writer's old age. But whatever +this loss, it is impossible for any biography to be less pretentious in +style, or less ambitious in proclamation. The only pretension of matter +is in the early chapters, in which a more than doubtful genealogy is +elaborated, and in which it is thought necessary to Washington's dignity +to give a fictitious importance to his family and his childhood, and to +accept the southern estimate of the hut in which he was born as a +"mansion." In much of this false estimate Irving was doubtless misled by +the fables of Weems. But while he has given us a dignified portrait of +Washington, it is as far as possible removed from that of the smileless +prig which has begun to weary even the popular fancy. The man he paints +is flesh and blood, presented, I believe, with substantial faithfulness +to his character; with a recognition of the defects of his education and +the deliberation of his mental operations; with at least a hint of that +want of breadth of culture and knowledge of the past, the possession of +which characterized many of his great associates; and with no +concealment that he had a dower of passions and a temper which only +vigorous self-watchfulness kept under. But he portrays, with an +admiration not too highly colored, the magnificent patience, the courage +to bear misconstruction, the unfailing patriotism, the practical +sagacity, the level balance of judgment combined with the wisest +toleration, the dignity of mind, and the lofty moral nature which made +him the great man of his epoch. Irving's grasp of this character; his +lucid marshaling of the scattered, often wearisome and uninteresting +details of our dragging, unpicturesque Revolutionary War; his just +judgment of men; his even, almost judicial, moderation of tone; and his +admirable proportion of space to events, render the discussion of style +in reference to this work superfluous. Another writer might have made a +more brilliant performance: descriptions sparkling with antitheses, +characters projected into startling attitudes by the use of epithets; a +work more exciting and more piquant, that would have started a thousand +controversies, and engaged the attention by daring conjectures and +attempts to make a dramatic spectacle; a book interesting and notable, +but false in philosophy and untrue in fact. + +When the "Sketch-Book" appeared, an English critic said it should have +been first published in England, for Irving was an English writer. The +idea has been more than once echoed here. The truth is that while Irving +was intensely American in feeling he was first of all a man of letters, +and in that capacity he was cosmopolitan; he certainly was not insular. +He had a rare accommodation of tone to his theme. Of England, whose +traditions kindled his susceptible fancy, he wrote as Englishmen would +like to write about it. In Spain he was saturated with the romantic +story of the people and the fascination of the clime; and he was so true +an interpreter of both as to earn from the Spaniards the title of "the +poet Irving." I chanced once, in an inn at Frascati, to take up "The +Tales of a Traveller," which I had not seen for many years. I expected +to revive the somewhat faded humor and fancy of the past generation. +But I found not only a sprightly humor and vivacity which are modern, +but a truth to Italian local color that is very rare in any writer +foreign to the soil. As to America, I do not know what can be more +characteristically American than the Knickerbocker, the Hudson River +tales, the sketches of life and adventure in the far West. But +underneath all this diversity there is one constant quality,--the flavor +of the author. Open by chance and read almost anywhere in his score of +books,--it may be the "Tour on the Prairies," the familiar dream of the +Alhambra, or the narratives of the brilliant exploits of New World +explorers; surrender yourself to the flowing current of his transparent +style, and you are conscious of a beguilement which is the crowning +excellence of all lighter literature, for which we have no word but +"charm." + +The consensus of opinion about Irving in England and America for thirty +years was very remarkable. He had a universal popularity rarely enjoyed +by any writer. England returned him to America medalled by the king, +honored by the university which is chary of its favors, followed by the +applause of the whole English people. In English households, in +drawing-rooms of the metropolis, in political circles no less than among +the literary coteries, in the best reviews, and in the popular +newspapers the opinion of him was pretty much the same. And even in the +lapse of time and the change of literary fashion authors so unlike as +Byron and Dickens were equally warm in admiration of him. To the English +indorsement America added her own enthusiasm, which was as universal. +His readers were the million, and all his readers were admirers. Even +American statesmen, who feed their minds on food we know not of, read +Irving. It is true that the uncritical opinion of New York was never +exactly re-echoed in the cool recesses of Boston culture; but the +magnates of the "North American Review" gave him their meed of cordial +praise. The country at large put him on a pinnacle. If you attempt to +account for the position he occupied by his character, which won the +love of all men, it must be remembered that the quality which won this, +whatever its value, pervades his books also. + +And yet it must be said that the total impression left upon the mind by +the man and his works is not that of the greatest intellectual force. I +have no doubt that this was the impression he made upon his ablest +contemporaries. And this fact, when I consider the effect the man +produced, makes the study of him all the more interesting. As an +intellectual personality he makes no such impression, for instance, as +Carlyle, or a dozen other writers now living who could be named. The +incisive critical faculty was almost entirely wanting in him. He had +neither the power nor the disposition to cut his way transversely across +popular opinion and prejudice that Ruskin has, nor to draw around him +disciples equally well pleased to see him fiercely demolish to-day what +they had delighted to see him set up yesterday as eternal. He evoked +neither violent partisanship nor violent opposition. He was an extremely +sensitive man, and if he had been capable of creating a conflict he +would only have been miserable in it. The play of his mind depended upon +the sunshine of approval. And all this shows a certain want of +intellectual virility. + +A recent anonymous writer has said that most of the writing of our day +is characterized by an intellectual strain. I have no doubt that this +will appear to be the case to the next generation. It is a strain to say +something new even at the risk of paradox, or to say something in a new +way at the risk of obscurity. From this Irving was entirely free. There +is no visible straining to attract attention. His mood is calm and +unexaggerated. Even in some of his pathos, which is open to the +suspicion of being "literary," there is no literary exaggeration. He +seems always writing from an internal calm, which is the necessary +condition of his production. If he wins at all by his style, by his +humor, by his portraiture of scenes or of character, it is by a gentle +force, like that of the sun in spring. There are many men now living, or +recently dead, intellectual prodigies, who have stimulated thought, +upset opinions, created mental eras, to whom Irving stands hardly in as +fair a relation as Goldsmith to Johnson. What verdict the next +generation will put upon their achievements I do not know; but it is +safe to say that their position and that of Irving as well will depend +largely upon the affirmation or the reversal of their views of life and +their judgments of character. I think the calm work of Irving will stand +when much of the more startling and perhaps more brilliant intellectual +achievement of this age has passed away. + +And this leads me to speak of Irving's moral quality, which I cannot +bring myself to exclude from a literary estimate, even in the face of +the current gospel of art for art's sake. There is something that made +Scott and Irving personally loved by the millions of their readers, who +had only the dimmest of ideas of their personality. This was some +quality perceived in what they wrote. Each one can define it for +himself; there it is, and I do not see why it is not as integral a part +of the authors--an element in the estimate of their future position--as +what we term their intellect, their knowledge, their skill, or their +art. However you rate it, you cannot account for Irving's influence in +the world without it. In his tender tribute to Irving, the great-hearted +Thackeray, who saw as clearly as anybody the place of mere literary art +in the sum total of life, quoted the dying words of Scott to +Lockhart,--"Be a good man, my dear." We know well enough that the great +author of "The Newcomes" and the great author of "The Heart of +Midlothian" recognized the abiding value in literature of integrity, +sincerity, purity, charity, faith. These are beneficences; and Irving's +literature, walk round it and measure it by whatever critical +instruments you will, is a beneficent literature. The author loved good +women and little children and a pure life; he had faith in his +fellow-men, a kindly sympathy with the lowest, without any subservience +to the highest; he retained a belief in the possibility of chivalrous +actions, and did not care to envelop them in a cynical suspicion; he was +an author still capable of an enthusiasm.* His books are wholesome, full +of sweetness and charm, of humor without any sting, of amusement without +any stain; and their more solid qualities are marred by neither pedantry +nor pretension. + + *Transcriber's note: Word printed as "enthusiam" in original text. + +Washington Irving died on the 28th of November, 1859, at the close of a +lovely day of that Indian Summer which is nowhere more full of a +melancholy charm than on the banks of the lower Hudson, and which was in +perfect accord with the ripe and peaceful close of his life. He was +buried on a little elevation overlooking Sleepy Hollow and the river he +loved, amidst the scenes which his magic pen has made classic and his +sepulchre hallows. + + + * * * * * + + + =Standard and Popular Library Books= + + SELECTED FROM THE CATALOGUE OF + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. + + +John Adams and Abigail Adams. + Familiar Letters of, during the Revolution. 12mo, $2.00. + +Louis Agassiz. + Methods of Study in Natural History. Illus. 16mo, $1.50. + Geological Sketches. First Series. 16mo, $1.50. + Geological Sketches. Second Series. 16mo, $1.50. + A Journey in Brazil. Illustrated. 8vo, $5.00. + +Thomas Bailey Aldrich. + Story of a Bad Boy. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50. + Marjorie Daw and Other People. 12mo, $1.50. + Prudence Palfrey. 12mo, $1.50. + The Queen of Sheba. 16mo, $1.50. + The Stillwater Tragedy. 12mo, $1.50. + From Ponkapog to Pesth. 16mo, $1.25. + Cloth of Gold and Other Poems. 12mo, $1.50. + Flower and Thorn. Later Poems. 16mo, $1.25. + Poems, Complete. 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