Washington Irving by Charles Dudley Warner

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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:--

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