by Ariadne Gilbert, May 1913
A biographical sketch of Washington Irving. Irving really did meet George Washington as a child. "Mrs. Siddons and the Kembles" refer to actors of the time, stage acting still considered an unsavory profession by a strict Presbyterian family. The "Scott" referred to was the writer Sir Walter Scott.
"Please, Your Honor, here 's a bairn was named after you." Lizzie, the Scotch nurse, pushed into the shop, dragging a short-legged boy by the arm till they were close to the President's side. "Here 's a bairn was named after you," she repeated encouragingly. And then President Washington knew what she meant, and laid his hand on the child's tumbled hair in blessing. The boy who received that blessing was Washington Irving. He lived near by, at 128 William Street, below Fulton Street, in New York City. Eight children were crowded into that two-story city house: William, Ann, Peter, Catharine, Ebenezer. John, Sarah, and Washington. Over the brood presided a stern father and a gentle mother who loved and understood.
Doubtless, as the years advanced, that mother knew that her youngest child, Washington, would learn, like all other children, from every source that claimed his interest. Though he was taught hardly more than his alphabet, in the queer little school in Ann Street, he was taught much else by life in the city. He used to "haunt the pier heads in fine weather," to watch the ships "fare forth" with lessening sails: and. there at the wharves, from the smell of salt water, the call of sea-birds, and the flapping canvas, he was learning a love of adventure, and was even planning to sail away as his father had done before the war. At home, he trained himself to the hardships of a sailor's life by eating salt pork, fat and greasy,—a thing he loathed: and by getting out of bed at night to lie on the hard floor. Monkey-like, he was learning to climb from roof to roof of the city houses for the pure fun of dropping mysterious stones down mysterious chimneys, and clambering back, half giddy, but chuckling at the wonder he had aroused, for he was always a roguish lad. From the queerly dressed Dutch people, with their queerer language, he was learning that there were other lands besides his own. From the high-vaulted roof of Trinity Church, with its darkness, and beauty, and deep-swelling music, he was learning that there were other religions than the strict Scotch Presbyterianism of his father. He even learned, in time, that dancing and the theater had their own charms; and he secretly took lessons in the one, and let himself down from the attic window to go to the other.
"Oh, Washington, if you were only good!" the dear impulsive mother used to say. And yet, in her secret heart, she must have felt that the child was "good" who was always sweet and sunny and loving.
Perhaps it was because she shared his thirst for adventure that she won his confidence. Not allowed by his father to read
Robinson Crusoe and "Sindbad the Sailor," Washington used to read them at night in bed, or under his desk at school. He liked those books better than his book of sums; such stories carried him into the wild world of his longing, and partly quenched his thirst for adventure—a taste that lasted a lifetime.
In 1800, when Irving was seventeen, he made his first voyage up the Hudson to Albany. In those days, a journey from New York to Albany was like a journey to Europe to-day. Washington's older sisters, Ann and Catharine, who had married young, were living near Albany, and he was to visit them. Boylike, he packed his trunk at the first mention of the trip; but as the sloop would not sail without a certain amount of freight and a certain number of passengers, he unpacked and repacked many times before her cargo was ready and the wonderful journey began.
To almost any one, that first sail through the Hudson Highlands is a dream of beauty; to Irving it was a wonder and a rapture. The stern mountains, crowned with forests; the eagles, sailing and screaming; the roar of "unseen streams dashing down precipices"; and then the anchoring at night in the darkness and mystery of the overhanging cliffs, and drifting asleep to the plaintive call of the whippoorwill—it was all new to the city boy, who had never left the New York streets before, except to wander in the woods with dog and gun.
That journey was the beginning of his many travels. Though he went into Mr. Hoffman's office the next year to study law, he did not continue long at the work. An incessant cough soon developed into consumptive tendencies, and, in July, 1803, his employer, who loved him like a father, invited him to join a party of seven on a trip to Canada.
The hardships of this journey, however, were a poor medicine. Beyond Albany, they traveled mainly by wagons, over roads so bad and through woods so thick, that they often had to get out and walk. "The whole country was a wilderness," writes Irving. "We floated down the Black River in a scow; we toiled through forests in wagons drawn by oxen; we slept in hunters' cabins, and were once four and twenty hours without food; but all was romance to me."
Naturally, when he returned home, his family found him worse rather than better. Accordingly, feeling that something must be done to save him, the older brothers put their money together—William, who was best able, giving the greatest share—and engaged his passage on a ship sailing for Bordeaux, May 19, 1804. "There 's a chap who will go overboard before we get across," commented the captain, eying Irving suspiciously.
On ship his sleeping quarters were in the cabin, with sixteen others "besides the master and mate." "I have often passed the greater part of the night walking the deck," Washington wrote to William; and again, "When I cannot get a dinner to suit my taste, I endeavor to get a taste to suit my dinner." His letters breathe a spirit of gaiety, and are hopefully full of his own physical improvement, for he was never a man to complain.
And yet his trip was not all joy: now we read of his Christmas at sea, in a dull, pouring rain, with the captain snoring in his berth; now of a "villainous crew of pirates" who attacked the ship.
After Irving reached port, life, like the sea, seemed smoother; but now he fell a prey to the tempting distractions of travel. His greatest fault was, no doubt, a lack of steadiness of aim.
Like a bee, he flew from flower to flower, wherever honey seemed the sweetest. To be sure, he had gone abroad for his health; but the brothers who had sent him expected him to turn the time and money to some definitely good account. For a short time, the art galleries in Rome fired Washington with an ambition to "turn painter," for he loved wild landscapes and color, while he declared that "cold, raw tints" gave him rheumatism. This art craze, however, amounted to a mere temporary dabbling. Moreover, though his expense book gives account of two months' tuition in French and of the purchase of a botanical dictionary, we do not picture Irving as studying either French or botany very hard. His social instincts were a real impediment to any study. William, in bitter disappointment, declared that he was scouring through Italy in too short a time, "leaving Florence on the left and Venice on the right." for the sake of "good company." In fact, the younger brother's bump of sociability was very large. In London he met Mrs. Siddons and the Kembles. Fascinated with foreign life and foreign people, he hated the student side of travel, and was frankly tired of churches, palaces, and cathedrals. All his countries were peopled. That is why "Bracebridge Hall" and
The Sketch-Book are so alive.
We are not surprised, then, to find that, on his return to New York, he plunged into society life; nevertheless he resumed the writing of occasional sketches—a practice which he had begun before leaving his native land. As a partner of Paulding and of William Irving, he issued in twenty numbers a series of brilliant and original papers called "Salmagundi." These were reprinted in London in 1811.
While Irving was abroad, the harsh news of his father's and his sister Nancy's death had come, so that, on his return, we must picture him living alone with his mother in the old house (now torn down) on the corner of William and Ann Streets. There he wrote his
Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle,
Salmagundi, and
History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker.
Right in the midst of this work came the most terrible bereavement of Irving's life. Under the encouragement of his employer, the fatherly Mr. Hoffman, Irving had attempted to continue the study of the law. Through Mr. Hoffman's friendship, too, and the openness of his hospitable home, the young man had learned to love Mr. Hoffman's young daughter, Matilda. She was hardly more than a beautiful child, but he loved her for all that she was, and for all that she promised to be. Just when they were happiest, however, Matilda caught a terrible cold, and, within two months, she was taken away from him forever. That sorrow lay too deep for any of Irv- ing's family or any of his friends to touch. He never found words to utter his sorrow. He was twenty-six when she died, and she was only seventeen. But through all his long, lonely life, he cherished her dear love; after his death, was found, among his treasures, a lovely miniature, a lock of fair hair, and a slip of paper bearing her name, "Matilda Hoffman." Through all his travels he had her Bible and prayer-book with him, and through all the years, her memory.
It was nearly thirty years after Matilda's death, that one of Mr. Hoffman's granddaughters, who was rummaging in a drawer for music, found a piece of faded embroidery. "Washington." said Mr. Hoffman, "this is a piece of poor Matilda's work." But Irving had grown suddenly grave and silent, and in a few moments had said good night and gone home.
That Irving tried to lift the clouds from his own spirit is proved by the fact that, in the midst of his sorrow, he continued his
Knickerbocker's History, a book rippling and sparkling with merriment. He himself was Diedrich Knickerbocker, and it was he who "would sit by the old Dutch housewives with a child on his knee or a purring grimalkin on his lap." If some of the Dutch were nettled by his picture of their ways, others saw that he was writing in "pure wantonness of fun," and that none of his laughter left a sting. Years later, however, Irving himself wrote, "It was a confounded impudent thing in such a youngster as I was, to be meddling in this way with old family names."
Yet this special gift of finding fun in little things and interest in nothings filled his days with life. Except for wide traveling, there were few events to light his lonely way. The warmth of his family affections was always one of the sweetest and strongest things in his nature; now he was helping Ebenezer and his many children; now bolstering up Peter with money loans, always offered with that sweet graciousness that was a part of his generous delicacy.
He and Peter and Ebenezer formed a merchants' firm, to which Washington, though he detested the "drudgery of regular business," lent his time and interest till it was firmly on its feet. This required him to live for a few months in Washington, D. C. His spirit now, as in all his other travels, was the same. "I left home determined to be pleased with everything, or, if not pleased, to be amused."
On his return to New York the following spring, he went into bachelor quarters, with his friend Brevoort, on Broadway near Bowling Green. It was a jovial time, free and peaceful, but broken, with the peace of the nation, by news of the War of 1812. Irving, adventuresome and loyal, joined the governor's staff posted at Sackett's Harbor. His letters of that time are full of "breastworks, and pickets of reinforced militia," but also of his own good health, "all the better for hard traveling," and of "love to Mother and the family."
Soon after the news of the victory of New Orleans and the tidings of peace, Irving sailed for Europe, little dreaming that he would stay for seventeen years. He had expected to return in a short time and settle down beside his dear old mother for the rest of her life. These plans and hopes, however, were suddenly broken by the news of her death in 1817. That was the saddest event of his travels; the happiest was his friendship with Scott.
At Abbotsford, Scott made Irving more than welcome, and found in him a kindred spirit. They were both glad, hearty, natural men who loved outdoors in the same boyish way. Moreover, Scott found in Irving a man who needed no explanations—a man who could tramp with him through his own Tweedside, and understand all its beauty. We can imagine how welcome the Scotchman's cordiality was to Irving's fireside heart! To be included as part of Scott's home, not only by the father and mother and four children, but by the cat, the packs of barking dogs, and the noble horses—that was what Irving loved; for, in spite of his outward cheer, he suffered from the loneliness of the inner self. As he said, he was not meant to be a bachelor; and when he writes letters of blessing on the wives and children of Brevoort and Paulding and others, there is an undertone of pathos in the music. "You and Brevoort have given me the slip. ... I cannot hear of my old cronies, snugly nestled down with good wives and fine children round them, but I feel for the moment desolate and forlorn."
That is all he says, and he puts it jestingly then; but the unsaid thoughts lie deep. "Irving's smile is one of the sweetest I know," said a friend; "but he can look very, very sad."
But enough of the hidden sadness of this partner of the sunlight. Let us go with the companionable Irving on his travels, and go in his spirit—as conquerors of loneliness.
A rapid journey ours must be, a journey of seventeen years in part of an hour; and yet we must have time for slow steps in the silent Abbey—the most hallowed spot of all England—and time to bow our souls in reverence while the "deep-laboring organ" rolls its music up to heaven. And we shall need time to enjoy the English Christmas as Irving enjoyed it. "While I lay musing on my pillow," he writes, "I heard the sound of little feet pattering outside of the door, and a whispering consultation. Presently a choir of small voices chanted forth an old Christmas carol, the burden of which was
"'Rejoice, our Saviour he was born
On Christmas Day in the morning.' I rose softly, slipped on my clothes, opened the door suddenly, and beheld one of the most beautiful little fairy groups that a painter could imagine. It consisted of a boy and two girls, the eldest not more than six, and lovely as seraphs. They were going the rounds of the house and singing at every chamber door; but my sudden appearance frightened them into mute bashfulness. They remained for a moment playing on their lips with their fingers, and now and then stealing a shy glance from under their eyebrows, until, as if by one impulse, they scampered away, and as they turned an angle of the gallery, I heard them laughing in triumph at their escape." Friendly and glad, Irving was heartily welcomed into the English home; and when he left that brother-land, with what a kindly feeling did he grace its memory to the world! And what a benediction he sheds in his "Peace be within thy walls, oh England! and plenteousness within thy palaces."
So much for his books of English travel; his books on Spain are no less charming. In fact, Spain must have been even more fascinating to a man of Irving's imagination; to the mind that conceived the mystic dwarfs and "wicked flagon" of Rip Van Winkle and the headless horsemen of Sleepy Hollow. Spain was a land rich in legend as well as steeped in beauty. The roads were infested with robbers. Every Andalusian carried a saber. There was often a lantern hidden beneath his cloak.
Sometimes, as Irving rode through the stern country, "the deep tones of the cathedral bell would echo through the valley." Then "the shepherd paused on the fold of the hill, the muleteer in the midst of the road; each took off his hat and remained motionless for a time, murmuring his evening prayer."
"Who wants water-water colder than snow?" came the carrier's cry as they neared the city. The shaggy little donkey, with water jars hung on each side, was all too willing to wait.
Arrived at the Alhambra, Irving found it at once a fortress and a palace, every stone breathing poetry and romance. "A little old fairy queen lived under the staircase, plying her needle and singing from morning till night." The Andalusians lay on the grass or danced to the guitar, and everywhere were groves of orange and citron and the music of singing birds and tinkling fountains. It was an enchanted palace. In the evening, Irving took his lamp and, in a "mere halo of light," stole dreamily through the "waste halls and mysterious galleries." There were no sounds but echoes. Everything, even the garden, was deserted. Nevertheless the scent of roses and laurel, the shimmer of moonlight, the murmur of hidden streams, had made the garden a fairy-land, only it was a fairy-land where flitting bat and hooting owl were much at home. To Irving, the owl had a vast knowledge of "astronomy and the moon," and he respected the knowledge which he could not share. In short, the Alhambra just suited his fancy; and when, as he said, the summons came to return into the "bustle and business of the dusty world," that summons ended one of the pleasantest dreams of his life—"a life, perhaps you may think, too much made up of dreams."
But poets should not be bound, nor birds caged; nor do we need to take the poet at his own low estimate, eliven to hospitality, and, consequently, open to many interruptions, inclined to postpone, and hating the labors of rewriting, Irving was, nevertheless, a hard worker. Those seventeen years were not all dreams. To them we owe "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," written "by candle-light in foggy London"; "Bracebridge Hall," dashed off in Paris in six weeks; and "Rip Van Winkle," which was not, as some have supposed, drawn from life, but was an imagined picture; when Irving wrote that story, he had never visited the Catskills; he had merely seen them from the river on his boyhood's first journey. To these years, moreover, we owe a longer, harder work than any of the rest—
The Life of Columbus. When the poet Longfellow took his early morning walks in Madrid, he often saw Irving writing at his open study-window at six o'clock; he had risen at five to work on the
Life. "I must make enough money," he would say to himself, "to be sure of my bread and cheese."
As a rule, however, Irving had a great indifference to money-getting. Perhaps this will partly account for his rare generosity, though I think generosity was in his blood. With his customary faithfulness, he gave
The Sketch-Book to his old publisher, Moses Thomas, even at the risk of loss. Utterly without envy, he pushed Bryant's work before the public, popularized Scott in America, gave plots to Poe, and, most generous of all, resigned, in favor of Prescott, his whole scheme for writing on the
Conquest of Mexico, though Irving had hugged the hope of such a work since childhood, and had definitely written on it for over a year. Perhaps, blessed with eyesight himself, he thought he would do his blind friend this service. At all events, without consulting any one, he burned his own manuscript. It was a great sacrifice, but Prescott never knew. Imagine how hard it was for such a warm nature as Irving's to be misjudged by his best friends. But he was misjudged. Some went so far as to think that those seventeen years spent abroad were a proof that he did not love his country and home; whereas Irving was all too weary of foreign society. He was, to quote his letters, "tired of being among strangers." If ever there was a home-loving man. it was Irving. During those seventeen long years he felt himself
Strange tenant of a thousand homes
And friendless with ten thousand friends. He called it what it was, "a poor, wandering life." "I have been tossed about 'hither and thither' and whither I would not; have been at the
levee and the drawing-room, been at routs and balls, and dinners and country-seats, been hand and glove with nobility and
mob-ility, until, like Trim, I have satisfied the sentiment, and am now preparing to make my escape from all this splendid confusion."
But the world did not understand. The newspaper attacks hurt him. At last criticism became too keen for his sensitive nature to bear. Then began for him "sleepless nights and joyless days" with the sharp thought that the "kindness of his own countrymen was withering toward him." Even Brevoort and Paulding, even his brothers, began to chide him with not wanting to return.
When he did stand before them once again, however, with his truth-telling, sunlight face, they questioned his love no more. Irving's return to New York was heralded by a dinner in his honor. Now Irving, as Moore said, had never been "strong as a lion," though he was "delightful as a domestic animal." He himself said it was "physically impossible for him to make a speech." A manuscript under his plate did not help at all. When, at a dinner in England, he had been announced with loud cheers, he had simply responded, "I beg to return you my sincere thanks." And now when, before his fellow-countrymen, the toast was proposed, "To our illustrious guest, thrice welcome to his native land." the shy author who hated speech-making could only stammer and blush. "I trembled for him," said one of his friends, "until I saw him seize the handle of a knife and commence gesticulating with that; then I knew he would get on."
"I am asked how long I mean to remain here," Irving said. "They know but little of my heart and feelings who can ask me that question. I answer, As long as I live." He hesitated, stood still, and looked about him, the old genial smile beaming from his dark gray eyes. Then a rousing cheer told him that he had won again the trust of all, and he sat down satisfied—a tired exile welcomed home.
Except as Irving was twice sent to Europe by our nation, once to England as secretary of legation, and once as minister to Spain, he did stay home all the rest of his life. It is as a home-maker and a home-lover that he was happiest and best known, and no part of life was so sweet to him as the life at Sunnyside. Let us visit him there in his own little house among the trees. Though the house is small, and already filled with his nieces, there is always room for one more. Let us take the train from New York for Irvington, near Tarrytown. Sunnyside, a ten-acre farm, bought by Irving in 1835. is only about ten minutes' walk from the station. The grounds look out on the blue Hudson. There is a cove and a cozy beach, and a spring "welling up at the bottom of the bank." A stony brook, shaded by trees, "babbles down the ravine, throwing itself into the little cove." On the rock at the edge of the lawn, Irving often sits, resting in his love of the shining river, and building his "castles at seventy" as he did at seven. The house described by Irving is a "little old-fashioned stone mansion, all made up of gable-ends, and as full of angles and corners as an old cocked hat." It used to be called "Wolfert 's Roost" (or Rest), and over the door is an old motto meaning "pleasure in quiet," a motto that was written in its master's heart.
Though you may not find any of the old Indian arrow-heads about the place, nor Brom Bones's pumpkin in the garden, you will find the spirit of Wolfert 's Roost unchanged. Crickets skip in the grass; humming-birds whir among the trumpet-vines; the phoebe-bird and wren have built under the eaves. The thick mantle of Melrose ivy, which almost hides the eastern end of Sunnyside, grew from one of Scott's slips.
Within, Sunnyside is plainly furnished: there are not even many books. Everything, however, looks comfortable and made for use. For instance, the writing-table is a mass of disorder. It is one of the sweet elements of our welcome that nothing is changed to receive us. And we can visit Irving's "tree-encircled farm." Those two elms on the lawn were planted by the author's own hands; he carried the saplings on his shoulder. The fruits and vegetables, he will tell you, were raised at "very little more than twice the market-price." Now, purring thunderously. Imp will come and rub his silky head against you, and Toby will bark a greeting and dash away to the other pets. There are cows and setting geese, cooing pigeons, and "squadrons of snowy" ducks. Dandy and Billy, the old coach-horses, are as "sleek as seals," and "Gentleman Dick," Irving's saddle-horse, puts his cheek against his master's and lays his head on his shoulder. Though Irving will say nothing about it, perhaps you will notice that the saddle hanging near is an old one, furbished up. The father of so many borrowed children could not afford a new saddle.
"Dick now and then cuts daisies with me on his back; but that 's to please himself, not me," laughs Irving, patting the horse's glossy side; and perhaps he may add that Gentleman Dick has thrown him once. It was after a second accident, when Irving was seventy-two, that his nieces forced him to sell this "Gentleman that had proved no gentleman." "Poor Dick!" Irving said. "His character was very much misunderstood by all but myself."
That word "all" covered a big household. Irving's dearest brother. Peter, had died, and so had William and John; but Ebenezer. now growing very deaf, and his sister Catharine made their home at Sunnyside, and there were six adoring nieces who kept Irving "almost as happy" as if he were "a married man."
To see how happy he was, we should have visited him at Christmas, when "The Tappan Zee was covered with sparkling ice and the opposite hills with snow," and when holly reddened the hearth of Sunnyside. Then, indeed, the cottage rang with shouts, while the king of the cottage tiptoed round to be first with his "Merry Christmas," acted a jovial Santa Claus, and filled all the stockings with presents.
His understanding of children was wonderful. Once when he had amused two fretful little things on a long train journey, the mother thanked him with, "Any one can see you 're a father of a large family." There are two delightful stories of Irving and the boys who robbed his orchard. One day he was met by a little fellow who came up to him with winning secrecy and said, "I 'll show you the old man's best tree, if you 'll shake it for me." Agreed. "By George, sir!" laughed Irving, "if he did n't take me to the very best tree on my own place!"
Another time, when he came unexpectedly on an apple squad, he said, picking out the leader, "Boy, these are very poor apples. I know a much better tree." Then he led them on, skulking in the shadows and dodging the gardener, in true boy style. "Be quiet! Keep near the hedge!" he cautioned.
"We 're afraid the old gentleman will catch us."
"He 's not there now. There, the best tree 's just beyond the hedge!"
The prickly hedge tore the boys' trousers and faces and hands, but the seekers were too near their spoil to be daunted.
'Now, boys, this is the tree I spoke of, and I am the owner of it—Mr. Irving." There was a pause, during which the boys intently studied the grass. "Don't be afraid," Irving went on, "I sha'n't punish you; the prickly hedge has done that. I only wish that when you take my fruit, you would come to me and ask for it." He gave them a genial, forgiving smile, and was gone, the dear old man with the heart of a boy and the immortal spirit of play.
Up to the very end of life, at seventy-six, he could laugh at pain and sleeplessness, and at weariness of mind and body. Let no one underrate the heroism of those last years—the hard work wrought with aching hands. With the press dogging Irving's heels, the
Life of Goldsmith was written in sixty days. He spoke of his writings as "literary babblings," or as "water spilt on the ground." Many times during the composition of the
Life of Washington, his last work, he was at the point of putting it into the fire. His letters and journal show that writing had become a "toil of head, a fagging of the pen." Often he would be scribbling in his study at half-past twelve at night, long after the family were abed and asleep, or he would "rise at midnight, light his lamp, and write for an hour or two." If he rested in the evening, with the girls sewing round him, it was because he had "passed the whole morning in his study hard at work," and had "earned his recreation."
Through those last years, though he made a pitiful struggle for sleep, asthma and nervousness combined against him, except when he slept from pure exhaustion. And still he made merry. Turning to one of his nieces, he said: "I am apt to be rather fatigued, my dear, by my night's rest."
Always he kept his sunniness. "Happy is he who can grow smooth as an old shilling as he wears out; he has endured the rubs of life to some purpose," he said.
And he did grow smooth and tuneful and placid. Though his voice was hoarse and his step faltering, his gray eyes held their twinkle, and his heart was young and singing to the end.
One frosty November day. the solemn bells told the farmers and sailors, the boys who loved the apples, and all the waiting neighbors of the glen, that the master of Sunnyside had gone.
Sunnyside was left, as we might expect, to Ebenezer and his daughter, "to be kept forever as an Irving rally place." But Irving left a far greater bequest to all who will but take it. Besides his books, rich in humor and kindliness, and written in "the language of the heart," he left the dear example of one who loved and lost, and smiled, and gave; of one who sought the good and found it, whether in music or pictures, free country, books, or people; and of one who sheds a constant blessing, even now, like the sunshine from the sky.
