Transcriber’s Note: Italic text is enclosed in _underscores_; boldface
text is enclosed in =equals signs=.
AMERICAN
LITERARY MASTERS
BY LEON H. VINCENT
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT 1906 BY LEON H. VINCENT
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published March 1906_
TO
GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY
PREFACE
_The nineteen men of letters whose work is reviewed in this volume
represent an important half-century of our national literary life. The
starting-point is the year 1809, the date of “A History of New York by
Diedrich Knickerbocker.” No author is included whose reputation does
not rest, in part, on some notable book published before 1860._
_Readers of modern French criticism will not need to be told that
the plan of dividing the studies into short sections was taken from
Faguet’s admirable “Dix-Septième Siècle.”_
_I am indebted for many helpful criticisms to Mr. James R. Joy, to
Miss Mary Charlotte Priest, and especially to Mr. Lindsay Swift of the
Boston Public Library._
_L. H. V._
_January 23, 1906._
_Contents_
WASHINGTON IRVING
I. _His Life_ 3
II. _His Character_ 10
III. _The Writer_ 13
IV. _Early Work: Knickerbocker’s History, Sketch Book,
Bracebridge Hall, Tales of a Traveller_ 14
V. _Historical Writings: Columbus, Conquest of Granada,
Mahomet_ 20
VI. _Spanish Romance: The Alhambra, Legends of the Conquest
of Spain_ 24
VII. _American History and Travel: A Tour on the Prairies,
Astoria, Life of Washington_ 27
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
I. _His Life_ 35
II. _His Character_ 44
III. _The Literary Craftsman_ 46
IV. _The Poet_ 50
V. _Latest Poetical Work: The Iliad and the Odyssey_ 58
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
I. _His Life_ 65
II. _His Character_ 72
III. _The Writer_ 74
IV. _Romances of the American Revolution: The Spy, Lionel
Lincoln_ 75
V. _The Leather-Stocking Tales and Other Indian Stories_
77
VI. _The Sea Stories from The Pilot to Miles Wallingford_
82
VII. _Old-World Romance and New-World Satire: The Bravo, The
Heidenmauer, The Headsman, Homeward Bound, Home as
Found_ 89
VIII. _Travels, History, Political Writings, and Latest
Novels_ 93
GEORGE BANCROFT
I. _His Life_ 101
II. _His Character_ 108
III. _The Writer_ 110
IV. _The History of the United States_ 113
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
I. _His Life_ 123
II. _His Character_ 128
III. _The Writer_ 130
IV. _The Histories_ 132
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
I. _His Life_ 147
II. _His Character_ 157
III. _The Writer_ 159
IV. _Nature, Addresses, and Lectures_ 160
V. _The Essays, Representative Men, English Traits,
Conduct of Life_ 166
VI. _The Poems_ 176
VII. _Latest Books_ 182
EDGAR ALLAN POE
I. _His Life_ 189
II. _His Character_ 198
III. _The Prose Writer_ 201
IV. _Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque_ 203
V. _The Critic_ 211
VI. _The Poet_ 215
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
I. _His Life_ 221
II. _His Character_ 228
III. _The Poet_ 230
IV. _Outre-Mer, Hyperion, Kavanagh_ 233
V. _Voices of the Night, Ballads, Spanish Student, Belfry
of Bruges, The Seaside and the Fireside_ 236
VI. _Evangeline, Hiawatha, Miles Standish, Tales of a
Wayside Inn_ 240
VII. _Christus, Judas Maccabæus, Pandora, Michael Angelo_
245
VIII. _Last Works_ 249
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
I. _His Life_ 255
II. _His Character_ 264
III. _The Poet_ 266
IV. _Narrative and Legendary Verse_ 269
V. _Voices of Freedom, Songs of Labor, In War Time_ 273
VI. _Snow-Bound, Tent on the Beach, Pennsylvania Pilgrim,
Vision of Echard_ 277
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
I. _His Life_ 287
II. _His Character_ 293
III. _The Writer_ 296
IV. _The Short Stories: Twice-Told Tales, Mosses from an
Old Manse, The Snow-Image_ 298
V. _The Great Romances: Scarlet Letter, House of the Seven
Gables, Blithedale Romance, Marble Faun_ 302
VI. _Latest and Posthumous Writings: Our Old Home,
Note-Books, Dolliver Romance_ 314
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
I. _His Life_ 321
II. _His Character_ 325
III. _The Writer_ 327
IV. _The Books_ 328
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
I. _His Life_ 337
II. _The Man_ 341
III. _The Writer_ 344
IV. _The Autocrat and its Companions, Over the Teacups, Our
Hundred Days in Europe_ 345
V. _The Poet_ 349
VI. _Fiction and Biography_ 352
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
I. _His Life_ 359
II. _His Character_ 365
III. _The Writer_ 367
IV. _The Histories_ 369
FRANCIS PARKMAN
I. _His Life_ 379
II. _His Character_ 383
III. _The Writer_ 385
IV. _Early Work: Oregon Trail, Conspiracy of Pontiac,
Vassall Morton_ 387
V. _France and England in North America_ 390
BAYARD TAYLOR
I. _His Life_ 401
II. _His Character_ 407
III. _The Artist_ 409
IV. _Poetical Works_ 410
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
I. _His Life_ 417
II. _The Man_ 423
III. _The Writer and the Orator_ 424
IV. _Nile Notes of a Howadji, Prue and I, Trumps_ 427
V. _The Easy Chair_ 430
VI. _Orations and Addresses_ 433
DONALD GRANT MITCHELL
I. _His Life_ 439
II. _The Author and the Man_ 442
III. _The Writings_ 444
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 451
I. _His Life_ 453
II. _Lowell’s Character_ 461
III. _Poet and Prose Writer_ 463
IV. _Poems, The Biglow Papers, Fable for Critics, Vision of
Sir Launfal_ 465
V. _Under the Willows, The Cathedral, Commemoration Ode,
Three Memorial Poems, Heartsease and Rue_ 469
VI. _Fireside Travels, My Study Windows, Among my Books,
Latest Literary Essays_ 474
VII. _Political Addresses and Papers_ 479
WALT WHITMAN
I. _His Life_ 485
II. _The Growth of a Reputation_ 490
III. _The Writer_ 492
IV. _Leaves of Grass_ 494
V. _Specimen Days and Collect_ 503
VI. _Whitman’s Character_ 504
I
_Washington Irving_
REFERENCES:
[=E. A. Duyckinck=]: _Irvingiana, a Memorial of Washington
Irving_, 1860.
=W. C. Bryant=: _A Discourse on the Life, Character, and Genius
of Washington Irving_, 1860.
=Pierre M. Irving=: _The Life and Letters of Washington Irving_,
1862–64.
=C. D. Warner=: _The Work of Washington Irving_, 1893.
I
HIS LIFE
Scotch and English blood flowed in Washington Irving’s veins. His
father, William Irving (whose ancestry has been traced by genealogical
enthusiasts to De Irwyn, armor-bearer to Robert Bruce), was a native
of Shapinsha, one of the Orkney Islands; his mother, Sarah (Sanders)
Irving, came from Falmouth.
At the time of his marriage William Irving was a petty officer on an
armed packet-ship plying between Falmouth and New York. Two years
later (1763) he gave up seafaring, settled in New York, and started
a mercantile business. He enjoyed a competency, but like other
patriotic citizens suffered from the demoralization of trade during
the Revolution. His character suggested that of the old Scotch
covenanter. Though not without tenderness, he was in the main strict
and puritanical.
Washington Irving was born in New York on April 3, 1783. He was the
youngest of a family of eleven, five of whom died in childhood. Irving
could perfectly remember the great patriot for whom he was named. He
was much indebted to the good old Scotchwoman, his nurse, who, seeing
Washington enter a shop on Broadway, darted in after him and presented
her small charge with ‘Please your Excellency, here’s a bairn that’s
called after ye!’ ‘General Washington,’ said Irving, recounting the
incident in after years, ‘then turned his benevolent face full upon me,
smiled, laid his hand on my head, and gave me his blessing.... I was
but five years old, yet I can feel that hand upon my head even now.’
Up to the age of fifteen Irving attended such schools as New York
afforded. He was not precocious. He came home from school one day (he
was then about eight) and remarked to his mother: ‘The madame says I am
a dunce; isn’t it a pity?’
Two of his brothers had been sent to Columbia College; that he was
not, may be attributed partly to ill health, partly to an indolent
waywardness of disposition and to the indulgence so often granted
the youngest member of a large family. Always an inveterate reader,
he contrived in time to educate himself by methods unapproved of
pedagogical science. He decided on a legal career and entered the
office of a well-known practitioner, Henry Masterton. During the two
years he was there he acquired some law and attained ‘considerable
proficiency in belles-lettres.’ He studied for a time with Brockholst
Livingston (afterwards judge of the Supreme Court), and later with
Josiah Ogden Hoffman.
As a boy Irving had always ‘scribbled’ more or less, and in 1802 he
scribbled to some purpose, contributing the ‘Jonathan Oldstyle’ letters
to the ‘Morning Chronicle,’ a paper founded and edited by his brother
Peter Irving. His ambitions seemed likely to be frustrated by poor
health, and a trip abroad was advised. He went to the Mediterranean,
visited Italy, and spent a little time in France and England. The
journey was not without adventures. He saw Nelson’s fleet on its way
to Trafalgar; his boat was overhauled by pirates near Elba; and in
Rome he met Madame de Staël, who almost overpowered him by her amazing
volubility and the pertinacity of her questioning.
On his return home Irving passed his examinations (November, 1806), and
was admitted to the bar with but slender legal outfit, as he frankly
confessed. He was enrolled among the counsel for the defence at the
trial of Aaron Burr at Richmond. There was no thought of taxing his
untried legal skill; he was to be useful to the cause as a writer in
case his services were needed.
Law gave place to literature. Irving and J. K. Paulding projected a
paper, _Salmagundi_, to be ‘mainly characterized by a spirit of fun and
sarcastic drollery.’ William T. Irving joined in the venture. The first
number appeared on January 24, 1807. The editors issued it when they
were so minded, and after publishing twenty numbers, brought it to an
almost unceremonious close.
The following year Peter and Washington Irving began writing a
burlesque account of their native town, a parody on Mitchill’s _A
Picture of New York_. Peter was called to Liverpool to take charge of
the English interests of Irving and Smith, and it fell to Washington
to recast the chapters already written and complete the narrative.
The book outgrew the design (as is the tendency of parodies), and was
published on December 6, 1809, as _A History of New York from the
Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich
Knickerbocker_. It was received by the New York Historical Society, to
whom it was dedicated, with astonishment, and by the old Dutch families
with mingled emotions, among which that of exuberant delight was not in
every case the most prominent.
For two years Irving conducted the ‘Analectic Magazine,’ published in
Philadelphia. During the exciting months which followed the British
attack on Washington (August, 1814), he was military secretary to the
governor of New York. Being of adventurous spirit, he welcomed with
joy the prospect of accompanying his friend Stephen Decatur on the
expedition to Algiers. Disappointed in this and unable to get the
fever of travel out of his blood, he sailed for England (May, 1815),
intending nothing more than a visit to his brother in Liverpool and to
a married sister in Birmingham.
Peter Irving had been ill, and in consequence his affairs had fallen
into disorder. Washington undertook to disentangle them. He was
unsuccessful. To the intense mortification of the brothers they were
compelled to go into bankruptcy (1818), and Washington began casting
about for a way to supplement his slender income. He refused an
advantageous offer at home, and determined to remain in England. A
literary project had taken shape in his mind, and he proceeded to carry
it out.
In May, 1819, Irving published the first part of _The Sketch Book
of Geoffrey Crayon_, containing five papers, one of which, ‘Rip Van
Winkle,’ is a little masterpiece. The attitude of the public towards
this venture convinced Irving that he might live by the profession of
letters. _The Sketch Book_ was followed by _Bracebridge Hall, or the
Humorists_ (1822), and by the _Tales of a Traveller_ (1824). This last
date marks a period in Irving’s literary life.
The years which Irving spent abroad had their anxieties, their
depressions, their dull days, their long periods of drudgery. It is
a temptation to dwell on their pleasures and their triumphs. Irving
was fortunate in his friendships. He knew Scott, Campbell, Moore, and
Jeffrey, and had the amusement on one occasion of seeing his visiting
list revised by Rogers. He met Mrs. Siddons, marvelled at Belzoni, was
amused by the antics of Lady Caroline Lamb, breakfasted at Holland
House, and visited Thomas Hope at his country seat. In Paris he was
presented to Talma by John Howard Payne, ‘the young American Roscius
of former days,’ who had now ‘outgrown all tragic symmetry.’ He became
(in time) persona gratissima to John Murray, his English publisher; and
to be dear to one’s publisher must always be accounted among the great
rewards of literature.
At the instance of Alexander Everett, the American Minister to Spain,
Irving, in February, 1826, went to Madrid to translate Navarrete’s
forthcoming collection of documents relating to Columbus. He presently
abandoned the plan for a more grateful task, the writing of an
independent account of the discovery of America, based on Navarrete,
and on ample materials supplied by the library of Rich, the American
consul at Madrid. To this he devoted himself with immense energy. The
work was published in 1828, and was soon followed by the _Conquest of
Granada_ and _Voyages of the Companions of Columbus_.
In 1829 Irving became Secretary of the American Legation in London.
The Royal Society of Literature voted him one of their fifty guinea
gold medals, in recognition of his services to the study of history.
The honor, distinguished in itself, became doubly so to the recipient
because the other of the two awards for that year was bestowed on
Hallam. In June, 1830, the University of Oxford conferred on Irving the
degree of LL. D. In April, 1832, he sailed for America. He had been
absent seventeen years.
After travels in various parts of the United States, including a long
journey to the far West with the commissioner to the Indian tribes,
Irving settled near Tarrytown. His home was a little Dutch cottage
‘all made up of gable ends, and as full of angles and corners as
an old cocked hat.’ Familiarly called ‘The Roost’ by its inmates,
this ‘doughty and valorous little pile’ is known to the world as
‘Sunnyside.’ With the exception of the four years (1842–46) he passed
in Spain as Minister Plenipotentiary, ‘Sunnyside’ was Irving’s
abiding-place until his death.
His later writings are: _The Alhambra_, 1832; _The Crayon Miscellany_
(comprising _A Tour on the Prairies_, _Abbotsford and Newstead
Abbey_, and _Legends of the Conquest of Spain_), 1835; _Astoria_
(with Pierre M. Irving), 1836; _Adventures of Captain Bonneville,
U. S. A._ (edited), 1837; _Life of Goldsmith_, 1849; _Mahomet and his
Successors_, 1849–50; _The Chronicles of Wolfert’s Roost_, 1855; _The
Life of Washington_, 1855–59.
Attempts were made to draw Irving into political life. He was offered
a nomination for Congress; Tammany Hall ‘unanimously and vociferously’
declared him its candidate for mayor of New York; and President Van
Buren would have made him Secretary of the Navy. All these honors
he felt himself obliged to refuse. He accepted the Spanish mission
(offered by President Tyler at the instance of his Secretary of State,
Daniel Webster), because he believed himself not wholly unfitted for
the charge, and because it honored in him the profession of letters.
Irving’s intellectual powers were at perfect command up to the
beginning of the last year of his life. Then his health began to fail
markedly, and the final volume of his _Washington_ cost him effort he
could ill afford. He died suddenly on November 28, 1859, and was buried
in the cemetery at Sleepy Hollow.
II
IRVING’S CHARACTER
Irving was broad-minded, tolerant, amiable, incapable of envy, quick to
forget an affront, and always willing to think the best of humanity.
His tactfulness was due in part to his large experience of life, but
more to the possession of a nature that was sweet, serene, frank,
and unsophisticated. For Irving was no courtier; he could as little
flatter as practise the more odious forms of deceit. His gifts of irony
and ridicule, supplemented with an extraordinary power of humorous
delineation, were never abused. It might be said of him, as of another
great satirist, that ‘he never inflicted a wound.’
His modesty was excessive. It is impossible to find in his writings
or his correspondence any hint that he was inclined to put unusual
value on his work. Grateful as he was for praise, it would never have
occurred to him that he had a right to it. With all his knowledge of
the world he was singularly diffident. Moore hit off this trait when he
said that Geoffrey Crayon was ‘not strong as a lion, but delightful as
a domestic animal.’
Not his least admirable virtue was a spirit of helpfulness where his
brother authors were concerned. Irving was ‘officious’ in the good
old sense of the word, glad to be of service to his fellows, untiring
in efforts to promote their welfare. He could praise their work, too,
without disheartening qualifications. The good he enjoyed, the bad he
put to one side. And he never forgot a kindness. A publisher who had
once befriended him, though fallen on evil days, found himself still
able to command some of Irving’s best manuscripts.
Criticism never angered Irving. Personal attacks (of which he had his
share) were suffered with quiet dignity. He rarely defended himself,
and then only when the attack was outrageous. He could speak pointedly
if the need were. His reply to William Leggett, who accused him in
‘The Plain Dealer’ of ‘literary pusillanimity’ and double dealing,
is a model of effectiveness. One paragraph will show its quality.
Imputing no malevolence to Leggett, who doubtless acted from honest
feelings hastily excited by a misapprehension of the facts, Irving
says: ‘You have been a little too eager to give an instance of that
“plain dealing” which you have recently adopted as your war-cry. Plain
dealing, sir, is a great merit when accompanied by magnanimity, and
exercised with a just and generous spirit; but if pushed too far, and
made the excuse for indulging every impulse of passion or prejudice, it
may render a man, especially in your situation, a very offensive, if
not a very mischievous member of the community.’
Something may be known of a man by observing his attitude at the
approach of old age. Irving’s beautiful serenity was characteristic.
People were kind to him, but he thought their kindness extraordinary.
He wondered whether old gentlemen were becoming fashionable.
III
THE WRITER
Irving’s prose is distinguished for grace and sweetness. It is
unostentatious, natural, easy. At its best it comes near to being a
model of good prose. The most striking effects are produced by the
simplest means. Never does the writer appear to be searching for an
out-of-the-way term. He accepts what lies at hand. The word in question
is almost obvious and often conventional, but invariably apt.
For a writer who produced so much the style is remarkably homogeneous.
It is an exaggeration to speak of it as overcharged with color. There
are passages of much splendor, but Irving’s taste was too refined to
admit of his indulging in rhetorical excesses. Nor is the style quite
so mellifluous as it seemed to J. W. Croker, who said: ‘I can no more
go on all day with one of his [Irving’s] books than I could go on all
day sucking a sugar-plum.’ The truth is that Irving is one of the most
human and companionable of writers, and his English is just the sort to
prompt one to go on all day with him.
Yet there is a want of ruggedness, the style is almost too perfectly
controlled. It lacks the strength and energy born of deep thought and
passionate conviction, and it must be praised (as it may be without
reserve) for urbanity and masculine grace.
IV
EARLY WORK
_KNICKERBOCKER’S HISTORY_, _SKETCH BOOK_, _BRACEBRIDGE HALL_, _TALES OF
A TRAVELLER_
The dignified appearance of Diedrich Knickerbocker’s learned work,
the quiet simplicity of the principal title, and the sober dedication
gave no hint to the serious-minded that they were buying one of
the most extraordinary books of humor in the English language. The
deception could not last long, but it is to be hoped that on the day of
publication some honest seeker after knowledge took a copy home with
the intent to profit at once by its stores of erudition.
On a basis of historical truth Irving reared a delightfully grotesque
historical edifice. The method is analogous to that children employ
when they put a candle on the floor that they may laugh at the odd
shadows of themselves cast on wall and ceiling. The figures are
monstrous, distorted, yet always resembling. Nothing could be at once
more lifelike and more unreal than Irving’s account of New Amsterdam
and its people under the three Dutch governors.
Here is a world of amusement to be had for the asking. One reader will
enjoy the ironical philosophy, another the sly thrusts at current
politics, a third the boisterous fun of certain episodes, such as the
fight between stout Risingh and Peter Stuyvesant, the hint of which
may have been caught from Fielding’s account of how Molly Seagrim
valorously put her enemies to flight. But the book will always be most
cherished for its quaint pictures of snug and drowsy comfort, for its
world of broad-bottomed burghers, amphibious housewives, and demure
Dutch damsels wooed by inarticulate lovers smoking long pipes, and for
the rich Indian summer atmosphere with which the poet-humorist invested
the scenes of a not wholly idyllic past.
_The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon_ is in one respect well named; it
has the heterogeneous character that we associate with an artist’s
portfolio. Notes of travel, stories, meditations, and portraits are
thrown together in pleasant disorder. A paper on ‘Roscoe’ is followed
by the sketch entitled ‘The Wife,’ and the history of ‘Rip Van Winkle’
is succeeded by an essay on the attitude of English writers towards
America. In another sense the volume is not a mere sketch-book,
for each sketch is a highly finished picture. Here is often a
self-consciousness radically unlike the abandon of the _History of
New York_. At times Irving falls quite into the ‘Keepsake’ manner. A
faint aroma as of withered rose leaves steals from the pages, a languid
atmosphere of sweet melancholy dear to the early Nineteenth Century.
Other pages are breezy enough. The five chapters on Christmas at
Bracebridge Hall, the essay on ‘Little Britain,’ on the ‘Mutability
of Literature,’ and that on ‘John Bull’ are emphatically not in the
‘Keepsake’ vein. Of themselves they would have sufficed to redeem
_The Sketch Book_ from the worst charge that can be brought against a
piece of literature,--the charge of being merely fashionable. But the
extraordinary vitality which this book has enjoyed for eighty-five
years it owes in the main to ‘Rip Van Winkle’ and ‘The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow.’ Written in small form, embodying simple incidents, saturated
with humor, classic in their conciseness of style, these stories are
faultless examples of Irving’s art.
Irving dearly loved a lovable vagabond, and Rip is his ideal. The story
is told in a succession of pictures. The reader visualizes scenery,
character, incident, the purple mountains, the village nestling at
their feet, the ne’er-do-weel whom children love, the termagant wife,
the junto before the inn door, the journey into the mountains, the
strange little beings at their solemn game, the draught of the fatal
liquor, the sleep, the awakening, the return home, the bewilderment,
the recognition,--do we not know it by heart? Have we not read the
narrative a hundred times, trying in vain to penetrate the secret of
its perfection? Something of the logic of poetry went into the creation
of this idyl. We are left with the feeling that Irving himself could
not have changed a word for the better.
‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ is etched with a deeper stroke, is
broader, more farcical. There is no pathos, but downright fun and
frolic from the first line to the last. The audacious exaggeration
of every feature in the portrait of Ichabod Crane is inimitably
clever. The schoolmaster gets no pity and needs none. And the reader
is justified in his unsympathetic attitude when later he learns that
Ichabod, instead of having been carried off by the headless Hessian,
merely changed his quarters, and when last heard of had studied law,
written for the newspapers, and gone into politics.
In _Bracebridge Hall_ Geoffrey Crayon returns to the English country
house where he had spent a Christmas, to enjoy at leisure old manners,
old customs, old-world ideas and people. Never were simpler materials
used in the making of a book; never was a more entertaining book
compounded of such simple materials. The incidents are of the most
quiet sort, a walk, a dinner, a visit to a neighboring grange or to a
camp of gypsies, a reading in the library or the telling of a story
after dinner. The philosophy is naïve, but the humor is exquisite and
unflagging.
The reader meets his old friends, the Squire, Master Simon, old
Christy, and the Oxonian. New characters are introduced, Lady
Lillycraft and General Harbottle, Ready-money Jack, Slingsby the
schoolmaster, and the Radical who reads Cobbett, and goes armed with
pamphlets and arguments. Among them all none is more attractive than
the Squire. With his scorn of commercialism, his love of ancient
customs, his good-humored tolerance of gypsies and poachers, with his
body of maxims from Peacham and other old writers, and his amusing
contempt for Lord Chesterfield--these and other delightful traits make
Mr. Bracebridge one of the most ingratiating characters in fiction.
_Bracebridge Hall_ contains interpolated stories, the ‘Stout
Gentleman,’ the ‘Student of Salamanca,’ and the finely finished tale of
‘Annette Delabarre.’ The papers of Diedrich Knickerbocker are not yet
exhausted; having furnished Rip and Ichabod to _The Sketch Book_ they
now contribute to _Bracebridge Hall_ the story of ‘Dolph Heyliger.’
The _Tales of a Traveller_, a medley of episodes and sketches, is
divided into four parts. In the first part the Nervous Gentleman of
Bracebridge Hall continues his narrations. These adventures, supposed
to have been told at a hunt dinner, or at breakfast the following
morning, are intertwined, Arabian Nights fashion, story within story.
They are grotesque (the ‘Bold Dragoon,’ with the richly humorous
account of the dance of the furniture), or weird and ghastly (the
‘German Student’), or romantic (the ‘Young Italian’).
The second part, ‘Buckthorne and his Friends,’ displays the seamy side
of English dramatic and literary life. Modern realism had not yet been
invented, and it is easy to laugh over the sorrows of Flimsy, who, in
his coat of Lord Townley cut and dingy-white stockinet pantaloons,
bears a closer relation to Mr. Vincent Crummles than to any one of the
characters of _A Mummer’s Wife_.
Part third, the ‘Italian Banditti,’ is in a style which no longer
interests, though many worse written narratives do. But in the last
part, ‘The Money-Diggers,’ Irving comes back to his own. He is again
wandering along the shores of the pleasant island of Mannahatta,
fishing at Hellegat, lying under the trees at Corlear Hook while a Cape
Cod whaler tells the story of ‘The Devil and Tom Walker.’ Ramm Rapelye
fills his chair at the club and smokes and grunts, ever maintaining a
mastiff-like gravity. Once more we see the little old city which had
not entirely lost its picturesque Dutch features. Here stands Wolfert
Webber’s house, with its gable end of yellow brick turned toward the
street. ‘The gigantic sunflowers loll their broad jolly faces over
the fences, seeming to ogle most affectionately the passers-by.’
Dirk Waldron, ‘the son of four fathers,’ sits in Webber’s kitchen,
feasting his eyes on the opulent charms of Amy. He says nothing,
but at intervals fills the old cabbage-grower’s pipe, strokes the
tortoise-shell cat, or replenishes the teapot from the bright copper
kettle singing before the fire. ‘All these quiet little offices may
seem of trifling import; but when true love is translated into Low
Dutch, it is in this way it eloquently expresses itself.’
Had Irving’s reputation depended on the four books just now
characterized, it would have been a great reputation and the note of
originality precisely what we now find it. But there was need of work
in other fields to show the catholicity of his interests and the range
of his powers.
V
HISTORICAL WRITINGS
_COLUMBUS_, _CONQUEST OF GRANADA_, _MAHOMET_
The _Life and Voyages of Columbus_ is written in the spirit of tempered
hero-worship. It is free from the extravagance of partisans who make
a god of Columbus, and from the skeptical cavillings of those who
apparently are not unwilling to rob the great explorer of any claim he
may possess to virtue or ability. As Irving conceives him, Columbus
is a many-sided man, infinitely patient when patience is required,
doggedly obstinate if the need be, crafty or open, daring in the
highest degree, having that audacity which seems to quell the powers
of nature, yet devout, with a touch of the superstition characteristic
of his time and his belief.
On many questions, fine points of ethnography, geography, navigation
and the like, Irving neither could nor did he presume to speak finally.
History has to be rewritten every few years wherever these questions
are involved. But the letters of Columbus, the testimony of his
contemporaries, the reports of friend and enemy, throw an unchanging
light on character. The march of science can neither dim nor augment
that light. Irving was emphatically a judge of human nature. He needed
no help in making up his mind what sort of man Columbus was. Modern
scholars with their magnificent scientific equipment sometimes forget
that cartography, invaluable though it is, is after all a poor guide
to character. And yet, by the testimony of one of those same modern
scholars, Irving’s life of the Admiral, as a trustworthy and popular
résumé, is still the best.
One often wishes Irving had been less temperate. The barbarous tyranny
of the Spaniards over the Indians of Hispaniola stirs the reader to
deepest indignation. He longs for such treatment of the theme as
Carlyle might possibly have given. Here is need of thunderbolts of
wrath like unto those wielded by the Jupiter Tonans of history. But
taken as a whole, the book has extraordinary virtues. It is a clear,
full, well-ordered, picturesque, and readable narrative of the great
explorer’s career. There is no better, nor is there likely to be a
better. He who has time to read but one book on the discoverer of
America will not go amiss in reading this one. He who proposes to read
many books on the subject may well elect to read Irving’s first.
The supplementary _Voyages of the Companions of Columbus_ narrates
the adventures of Ojeda, that dare-devil of the high seas, of
Nicuesa, of Vasco Nuñez, of Ponce de Leon. Though wanting the unity
of the preceding volumes, these narratives are of high interest, and
for vigor, animation, and picturesqueness must rank among the most
attractive examples of Irving’s work.
While making collateral studies bearing on the life of Columbus, Irving
became so captivated with the romantic and chivalrous story of the fall
of Granada that he found himself unable to complete his more sober
task until he had sketched a rough outline of the new book. When the
_Columbus_ was sent to the press, Irving made a tour of Andalusia,
visited certain memorable scenes of the war, and on his return to
Seville elaborated his sketch into the ornate and glowing picture known
as _A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada, by Fray Antonio Agapida_.
The book is commonly described as romance rather than history. It was
written with a view to rescuing the ancient chronicle of the conquest
from the mass of amatory and sentimental tradition with which it was
incrusted, and of presenting it in its legitimate brilliancy. Irving
believed, too, that the world had forgotten or had failed to realize
how stern the conflict was. In the fifteenth century it was regarded
as a Holy War. Christian bigot was arrayed against Moslem bigot.
Atrocities of the blackest sort were perpetrated and justified in the
name of religion. The title-page says that the narrative is taken from
the manuscript of one Fray Antonio Agapida. The brother is an imaginary
character, a personification of monkish zeal and intolerance. When the
slaughter of the infidels has been unusually great, Fray Antonio makes
his appearance, like the ‘chorus’ of a play, and thanks God with much
unction. Through this mouth-piece Irving gives ironical voice to that
sentiment it is impossible not to feel in contemplating the barbarities
of a ‘holy’ war. A few readers were disturbed by the fiction of the
old monk. They ought to have liked him. He is an amusing personage and
comes too seldom on the stage.
The _Life of Mahomet and his Successors_ has been spoken of as
‘comparatively a failure.’ If a book which sums up the available
knowledge of the time on the subject, which is written in clear, pure
English, which is throughout of high interest, in other words, which
has solidity, beauty, and a large measure of the literary quality--if
such a book is comparatively a failure, one hardly knows what can be
the critic’s standard of measurement. Irving was not acquainted with
Arabic. He drew his materials from Spanish and German sources. Yet it
is not too much to say that no better general account of Mahomet and
the early caliphs has been written.
VI
SPANISH ROMANCE
_THE ALHAMBRA_, _LEGENDS OF THE CONQUEST OF SPAIN_
For three or four months Irving lived in the ancient Moorish palace
and fortress known as the Alhambra. In his own phrase he ‘succeeded
to the throne of Boabdil.’ The place charmed him beyond all others in
the Old World. His craving for antiquity, his love of the exotic, his
passion for romance, his delight in day-dreaming were here completely
satisfied. He loved the huge pile, so rough and forbidding without,
so graceful and attractive within. The splendor of its storied past
intoxicated him. He roamed at will through its courts and halls,
steeping himself in history and tradition. He was amused at the life
of the petty human creatures, nesting bird-like in the crannies and
nooks of the vast edifice. To observe their habits, record their
superstitious fancies, listen to their tales, sympathize with their
ambitions or their sorrows, was occupation enough. The history of
the place could be studied in the parchment-clad folios of the Jesuit
library. As for the legends, they abounded everywhere. The scattered
leaves were then brought together in the volume called _Tales of the
Alhambra_.
It is a Spanish arabesque. No book displays to better advantage the
wayward charm of Irving’s literary genius. Whether recounting old
stories of buried Moorish gold and Arabian necromancy, or describing
the loves of Manuel and bright-eyed Dolores, or extolling the grace
and intelligence of Carmen, he is equally happy. There was a needy
and shiftless denizen of the place, one Mateo Ximenes, who captured
Irving’s heart by describing himself as ‘a son of the Alhambra.’ A
ribbon-weaver by trade and an idler by choice, he attached himself to
the newcomer and refused to be shaken off. If it was impossible to
be rid of him, it was equally impossible not to like him. Life was
a prolonged holiday for Mateo during Geoffrey Crayon’s residence.
Whatever obligations he had, of a domestic or a business nature, were
joyfully set aside that he might wait upon the visitor. He became
Irving’s ‘prime-minister and historiographer-royal,’ doing his errands,
aiding in his explorations, and between times unfolding his accumulated
treasures of legend and tradition. He was flattered by the credence
given his stories, and when the reign of el rey Chico the second came
to an end, no one lamented more than Mateo, left now ‘to his old brown
cloak, and his starveling mystery of ribbon-weaving.’
Though not published until after Irving’s return to America, _The
Legends of the Conquest of Spain_ is a part of the harvest of this same
period. The book describes the decline of the Gothic power under Witiza
and Roderick, the treason of Count Julian, the coming of the Arabians
under Taric and Muza, and the downfall of Christian supremacy in the
Spanish peninsula. Irving was a magician in handling words, and this
volume is rich in proof of it. Here may be found passages of the utmost
brilliancy, such as the description of Roderick’s assault upon the
necromantic tower of Hercules, and the opening of the golden casket.
The _Legends_ serves a double purpose. As a book of entertainment pure
and simple it is unsurpassed. It is also a spur to the reader to make
his way into wider fields, and to learn yet more of that people whose
history could give rise to these beautiful illustrations of chivalry
and courage.
VII
AMERICAN HISTORY AND TRAVEL
_A TOUR ON THE PRAIRIES_, _ASTORIA_, _LIFE OF WASHINGTON_
The list of Irving’s writings between 1835 and 1855 comprises eight
titles. Two of these books have been commented on. The others may be
despatched in a paragraph, as the old reviewers used to say.
_Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey_ is an aftermath of the English
harvest of impressions and experiences. The _Life of Goldsmith_,
based originally on Prior’s useful but heavy work, and rewritten
when Forster’s book appeared, is accounted one of the most graceful
of literary biographies. _Wolfert’s Roost_ is a medley of delightful
papers on birds, Indians, old Dutch villages, and modern American
adventurers, together with a handful of Spanish stories and legends.
There is a group of three books dealing with American frontier life
and western exploration. The first of these, _A Tour on the Prairies_,
shows how readily the trained man of letters can turn his hand to any
subject. Who would have thought that the prose poet of the Alhambra
was also able to do justice to the trapper and the Pawnee? _Astoria_
(the first draft of which was made by Pierre M. Irving) is an
account of John Jacob Astor’s commercial enterprise in the Northwest.
Irving was amused when an English review pronounced the book his
masterpiece. He had really taken a deeper interest in the work than
he supposed possible when Astor urged it upon him. _Bonneville_ in a
manner supplements _Astoria_, and was written from notes and journals
furnished by the hardy explorer whose name the book bears.
It was fitting that Irving should crown the literary labors of forty
years with a life of Washington. He had a deep veneration for the
memory of the great American. The theme was peculiarly grateful to
him. He seems to have regarded the work as something more than a
self-imposed and pleasant literary task--it was a duty to which he was
in the highest degree committed, a duty at once pious and patriotic.
Though he had begun early to ponder his subject, Irving was nearly
seventy when he commenced the actual writing; and notwithstanding
the book far outgrew the original plan, he was able to bring it to a
successful conclusion.
Three quarters of the first volume are devoted to Washington’s
history up to his thirty-second year. It is a graphic account of the
young student, the surveyor, the envoy to the Indians, the captain
of militia. Irving shows how it is possible to present the ‘real’
Washington without recourse to exaggerated realism. The remainder
of the volume is given to an outline of the causes leading to the
Revolution, to the affair of Lexington and Concord, the Battle of
Bunker Hill, Washington’s election to the post of commander-in-chief,
and the beginning of military operations around Boston. The next three
volumes are a history of the Revolutionary War, with Washington always
the central figure. The fifth volume covers Washington’s political
life, and his last years at Mount Vernon.
Of two notable characteristics of this book, the first is its
extraordinary readableness. To be sure the Revolution was a great
event, and Irving was a gifted writer. Nevertheless for a historian who
delights in movement, color, variety, the Revolutionary War must often
seem no better than a desert of tedious fact relieved now and then by
an oasis of brilliant exploit. Irving complained of the dulness of many
parts of the theme. Notwithstanding this he brought to the work so much
of his peculiar winsomeness that the _Washington_ is a book always to
be taken up with pleasure and laid down with regret.
The second notable characteristic is the freedom from extravagance
either of praise or of blame. The crime and the disgrace of Arnold do
not color adversely the historian’s view of what Arnold was and did
in 1776. No indignant partisan has told with greater pathos the story
of André. Nothing could be more temperate than Irving’s attitude
towards the Tories, or, as it is now fashionable to call them, the
Loyalists of the American Revolution. He could not deny sympathy to
these unfortunates who found themselves caught between the upper and
lower millstones, a people who in many cases were unable to go over
heart and soul to the cause of the King, and who found it even more
difficult to espouse the cause of their own countrymen. Even the
enemies of Washington, that is to say, the enemies of his own political
and military household, are treated with utmost fairness.
For Washington himself, Irving has only admiration, which, however,
he is able to express without fulsome panegyric. He dwells on the
great leader’s magnanimity, on his evenness of temper, his infinite
patience, his freedom from trace of vanity, self-interest, or sectional
prejudice, his confidence in the justness of the cause, and his trust
in Providence, a trust which faltered least when circumstances were
most adverse. Irving admired unstintedly the warrior who could hold
in check trained and seasoned European soldiers with ‘an apparently
undisciplined rabble,’ the ‘American Fabius’ who, when the time was
ripe, was found to possess ‘enterprise as well as circumspection,
energy as well as endurance.’
The personal side of the biography is not neglected, but no emphasis is
laid on particulars of costume, manners, speech, what Washington ate
and drank, and said about his neighbors. Irving could have had little
sympathy with the modern rage for knowing the size of a great man’s
collar and the number of his footgear. The passion for such details is
legitimate, but it is a passion which needs to be firmly controlled. In
brief, throughout the work emphasis is laid where emphasis belongs, on
the character of Washington, who was the soul of the Revolutionary War,
and then on the moral grandeur of that great struggle for human rights.
* * * * *
A historian of American literature says: ‘Irving had no message.’ He
was not indeed enslaved by a theory literary or political; neither was
he passionate for some reform and convinced that his particular reform
was paramount. But he who gave to the world a series of writings which,
in addition to being exquisite examples of literary art, are instinct
with humor, brotherly kindness, and patriotism, can hardly be said not
to have had a message.
Irving rendered an immense service to the biographical study of
history. Columbus, Mahomet, the princes and warriors of the Holy War,
are made real to us. Nor is this all. His books help to counteract that
tendency of the times to make history a recondite science. History
cannot be confined to the historians and erudite readers alone. Said
Freeman to his Oxford audience one day: ‘Has anybody read the essay
on Race and Language in the third series of my Historical Essays? It
is very stiff reading, so perhaps nobody has.’ And one suspects that
Freeman rejoiced a little to think it was ‘stiff reading.’
Nevertheless the public insists on its right to know the main
facts. And as Leslie Stephen says, ‘the main facts are pretty well
ascertained. Darnley was blown up, whoever supplied the powder, and the
Spanish Armada certainly came somehow to grief.’ That man of letters is
a benefactor who, like Irving, can give his audience the main facts,
expressed in terms which make history more readable even than romance.
Irving perfected the short story. His genius was fecundative. Many
a writer of gift and taste, and at least one writer of genius, owes
Irving a debt which can be acknowledged but which cannot be paid.
Deriving much from his literary predecessors, and gladly acknowledging
the measure of his obligation, Irving by the originality of his work
placed fresh obligations on those who came after him.
With his stories of Dutch life he conquered a new domain. That these
stories remain in their first and untarnished beauty is due to Irving’s
rich humor and ‘golden style,’ and to that indescribable quality of
genius by which it lifts its creations out of the local and provincial,
and endows them with a charm which all can understand and enjoy.
II
_William Cullen Bryant_
REFERENCES:
=G. W. Curtis=: _The Life, Character, and Writings of William
Cullen Bryant_, Commemorative Address before the New York
Historical Society, 1878.
=Parke Godwin=: _A Biography of William Cullen Bryant_, 1883.
=John Bigelow=: _William Cullen Bryant_, ‘American Men of
Letters,’ 1890.
=W. A. Bradley=: _William Cullen Bryant_, ‘English Men of
Letters,’ 1905.
I
HIS LIFE
The author of ‘Thanatopsis’ was born at Cummington, a village among
the hills of western Massachusetts, on November 3, 1794. Through his
father, Doctor Peter Bryant, a physician, he traced his ancestry to
Stephen Bryant, an early settler at Duxbury; through his mother, Sarah
Snell, he had ‘a triple claim’ to ‘Mayflower’ origin.
Doctor Bryant was a many-sided man. He collected books, read poetry
(Horace was his favorite), wrote satirical verse, was a musician and
something of a mechanic. He was an ardent Federalist, a member of the
Massachusetts legislature for several terms, and then of the senate.
He possessed in high degree the art of imparting knowledge. Medical
students thought themselves fortunate in being allowed to study under
his direction. Doctor Bryant’s father and grandfather were both
physicians, and he hoped that his second-born (who was named in honor
of the Scottish practitioner, William Cullen) would follow in the
ancestral footsteps.
Bryant began to make verses in his eighth year. At ten he wrote an
‘address’ in heroic couplets, which got into newspaper print. The
boy used to pray that he might write verses which would endure. A
political satire, _The Embargo or Sketches of the Times_, ‘by a youth
of thirteen,’ if not in the nature of evidence that the prayer had been
answered, so delighted Doctor Bryant that he printed it in a pamphlet
(1808). A second issue containing additional poems was brought out the
next year. To this the author put his name.
Bryant was taught Greek by his uncle, the Reverend Thomas Snell
of Brookfield, and mathematics by the Reverend Moses Hallock of
Plainfield. He entered the Sophomore class at Williams College in
October, 1810, and left the following May. He was to have spent the two
succeeding years at Yale, but the plan had to be abandoned for want of
money. Some time during the summer of 1811 ‘Thanatopsis’ was written in
its first form and laid aside.
The poet began reading law with Judge Samuel Howe of Worthington,
who once reproached his pupil ‘for giving to Wordsworth’s _Lyrical
Ballads_ time that belonged to Blackstone and Chitty.’ He continued his
studies under William Baylies of Bridgewater, was admitted to the bar
at Plymouth in August, 1815, practised awhile at Plainfield, and then
removed to Great Barrington. The lines ‘To a Waterfowl’ were written
the night of the young lawyer’s arrival in Plainfield.