XVII

WASHINGTON IRVING, HUMORIST AND HISTORIAN

Antecedents.

IN the year which saw the United States admitted into the commonwealth of nations a child was born in New York city who should eventually be considered worthy to sit among the makers of literature in England. This honor had not been accorded to any of his predecessors, however interesting theological, political, or scientific emanations from America had been to foreigners devoted to such discussions. Something broader than these specialties was asked and something finer than the form of treatment thus far prevailing. The harmonious compound of vision and reflection, the sight of the eye and the creative imagination, stirring the heart and delighting the sense of fitness, and so appealing to race sympathies as to secure permanent appreciation - this combination, or a similar one, which creates literature had not been completely effected by any experimenter here previous to Washington Irving. Nor can it be said that he was the final lucky accident succeeding many approaches. New York had not been preeminently a literary centre. The Irving family, though with a proclivity for letters, were not descendants of a long line of cultivated ancestors, as was often the case with some New England authors. Young Washington himself was through his school days at sixteen, and, though a bookish boy, was also a stroller over Manhattan Island with a

keen eye for what was going on, and a wistful gaze after the sails that filled away for lands remote. In fine, the missing link in the evolution theory here is so long that it is easier and safer to say that he occurred, as Goldsmith and Addison occurred; they with the advantages of the university, he with the cultivation which travel brings and citizenship of the wide world. Providence bestowed upon him large endowments, of which he made the most and the best.

"Knicker

tory of

New York."

His first venture by himself, after the "Salmagundi" experiment with his brother William and Paulding, must have added to the encouragement which that bocker's His had already given him. "The History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty," with its account of the unutterable ponderings of Walter the Doubter, the disastrous projects of William the Testy, and the chivalric achievements of Peter the Headstrong, came very near being what the author asserted, "the only authentic history of the times that ever hath been or ever will be written." If history is a reproduction of life, as well as a record of events, no better representation of a former age to illustrate and ridicule the on-goings of a later one is likely to be made by any successor of Diedrich Knickerbocker. For example:

"Such was the happy reign of Wouter Van Twiller, celebrated in many a long-forgotten song as the real golden age, the rest being nothing but counterfeit, copper-washed coin. In that delightful period a sweet and holy calm reigned over the whole province. The burgomaster smoked his pipe in peace; the substantial solace of his domestic cares, after her daily toils were done, sat soberly at the door, with her arms crossed over her

apron of snowy white without being insulted by ribald streetwalkers or vagabond boys- those unlucky urchins who do so infest our streets, displaying under the roses of youth the thorns and briers of iniquity. Then it was that the lover with ten breeches and the damsel with petticoats half a score indulged in in all the endearments of virtuous love without fear and without reproach. Happy would it have been for New Amsterdam could it always have existed in this state of blissful ignorance and lovely simplicity, but alas! the days of childhood are too sweet to last."

As for the writer's own, he prolonged them to the latest extremity. As a companion of jolly fellows, as a desirable young man in society, and as a traveller in America and Europe he always seemed younger than he was. He was in no haste to begin life nor ambitious to enter upon a career- especially at the bar, to which he was admitted by the utmost charity of construction as to his knowledge of the law. This, however, was the most dignified of his delays before getting down to the business of his life of letters, with which clients did not greatly interfere. Like his own worthies of Pavonia, "drifting quietly on until they were roused by an uncommon tossing and agitation of their vessels" in Hell Gate, he allowed himself to drift with the stream until the failure of the business in which

he had a share threw him upon his oars. Then it was that he turned his back upon the frolic of "Salmagundi" and the caricaturing of New Amsterdam arising out of mud in a vapor of tobacco smoke and peopled with the "fat, somniferous, and respectable families that flourished and slumbered in the early days of Walter the Doubter," or were disturbed by the untimely reforms of Peter the Testy. All this was rough and ready 'prentice work to what was to follow under the pressure of that kind of

necessity which has settled frisky genius into the harness before and since his days. Moreover, some account must be taken of the crushing sorrow which came into his happy life in the death of the woman who was its chief joy and would have been his wife, whose memory was a hallowed presence to the end of his days. In after years when he had girded himself for his vocation the bright spirit was unquenched, but it shone in a man who had been chastened by adversity and uplifted and enlarged by grief. To his natural humor was added a tender pathos, which made his next book full of the human element that attracts and holds all readers with irresistible charm.

"The Sketch

"The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent," is what its title implies, a collection of short, suggestive outlines of narration and incident, struck off with Book." the fidelity to nature and certainty of touch which belong to an accomplished artist. A few masterly strokes reveal much more than themselves, and intimate possibilities far beyond the limited range which the author allowed himself. For example, everybody knows how "Rip Van Winkle" has been illustrated by the dramatization to which Joseph Jefferson has given a masterly interpretation. And yet it is a dull imagination which has not seen without assistance the vagabond Rip, his dog and gun and termagant spouse, and what was left of these after the twenty years' nap, as clearly portrayed in the suggestive lines of Irving.

"He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean, well-oiled fowling piece he found an old fire-lock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off and the stock worm-eaten. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty gun and turned his steps homeward. He had now entered the skirts of

the village. A troop of strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him and pointing at his gray beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he recognized for an old acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. Strange names were over the doors strange faces at the windows-everything was strange."

This is a portrayal to whose realism little can be added by brush or the living picture. It may be superbly represented, but it was all there before for the ordinary reader, set in simple words, but always the right ones in the right place.

"It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own house, which he approached with silent awe, expecting every moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay the roof fallen in, the windows shattered and the doors off the hinges. A half-starved dog that looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. My very dog,' sighed poor Rip, has forgotten me!""

This seems simple and easy to do. The reader thinks that it is the very way he himself should have described the old fellow if he had seen him. To test the matter, let the habit of Franklin be imitated. Read the story once more and rewrite it; then compare versions. Previous to the author's, however, was the greater achievement of inventing, or if it was an adaptation of a German legend, of adapting the character to the drowsy atmosphere of the Catskills.

The genius which produced the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and thirty other sketches, was instantly recognized in England. Walter Scott's quick appreciation and generous assistance brought the new author into pleasant and profitable relations with the chief publishers of London,