BUT Irving’s ship is sailing on through the darkness while I have
been making this “aside,” and the “Blackbird” is in motion; for I
hear the swish of the river, and the lights on shore are dancing by
the port-holes. Mr. Abbey’s fine military band, from the Metropolitan
Opera House, has come on board; so also has a band of waiters from the
Brunswick. Breakfast is being spread in the saloon. The brigands from
the ladies’ cabin have laid aside their slouch hats and cloaks. They
look as harmless and as amiable as any company of English journalists.
Night and dark-lanterns might convert the mildest-mannered crowd into
the appearance of a pirate crew.
I wish the Irving guest of my first chapter could see and talk to
these interviewers. I learn that they represent journals at Boston,
Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, and other cities besides New York.
One of them has interviewed Lord Coleridge; another was with Grant
during the war; a third was with Lee. They have all had interesting
experiences. One is an Englishman; another hails from “bonnie
Scotland.” There is no suggestion of rowdyism among them. I owe them
an apology on the “excuse accuse” principle, for saying these things;
but the “interviewer” is not understood in England; he is often abused
in America, and I should like to do him justice. These gentlemen of
the press who are going out to meet Irving are reporters. Socially
they occupy the lowest station of journalism, though their work is
of primary importance. Intellectually they are capable men, and the
best of them write graphically, and with an artistic sense of the
picturesque. They should, and no doubt do, develop into accomplished
and powerful journalists; for theirs is the best of education. They
study mankind; they come in contact with the most prominent of American
statesmen; they talk with all great foreigners who visit the United
States; they are admitted into close intercourse with the leading
spirits of the age; they have chatted on familiar terms with Lincoln,
Sheridan, Grant, Garfield, Huxley, Coleridge, Arnold, Patti, Bernhardt,
Nilsson, and they will presently have added to the long list of their
personal acquaintances Irving and Miss Terry. They are travellers, and,
of necessity, observers. Their presscard is a talisman that opens to
them all doors of current knowledge; and I am bound to say that these
men on board the “Blackbird” are, in conversation and manners, quite
worthy of the trust reposed in them by the several great journals which
they represent.