The last years of Irving's life, although full of activity and
enjoyment,--abated only by the malady which had so long tormented him,
--offer little new in the development of his character, and need not much
longer detain us. The calls of friendship and of honor were many, his
correspondence was large, he made many excursions to scenes that were
filled with pleasant memories, going even as far south as Virginia, and
he labored assiduously at the "Life of Washington,"--attracted, however,
now and then, by some other tempting theme. But his delight was in the
domestic circle at Sunnyside. It was not possible that his occasional
melancholy vein should not be deepened by change and death and the
lengthening shade of old age. Yet I do not know the closing days of any
other author of note that were more cheerful, serene, and happy than his.
Of our author, in these latter days, Mr. George William Curtis put
recently into his "Easy Chair" papers an artistically touched little
portrait. "Irving was as quaint a figure," he says, "as the Diedrich
Knickerbocker in the preliminary advertisement of the 'History of New
York.' Thirty years ago he might have been seen on an autumnal afternoon
tripping with an elastic step along Broadway, with 'low-quartered' shoes
neatly tied, and a Talma cloak--a short garment that lung from the
shoulders like the cape of a coat. There was a chirping, cheery,
old-school air in his appearance which was undeniably Dutch, and most
harmonious with the associations of his writing. He seemed, indeed, to
have stepped out of his own books; and the cordial grace and humor of his
address, if he stopped for a passing chat, were delightfully
characteristic. He was then our most famous man of letters, but he was
simply free from all self-consciousness and assumption and dogmatism."
Congenial occupation was one secret of Irving's cheerfulness and
contentment, no doubt. And he was called away as soon as his task was
done, very soon after the last volume of the "Washington" issued from the
press. Yet he lived long enough to receive the hearty approval of it
from the literary men whose familiarity with the Revolutionary period
made them the best judges of its merits.
He had time also to revise his works. It is perhaps worthy of note that
for several years, while he was at the height of his popularity, his
books had very little sale. From 1842 to 1848 they were out of print;
with the exception of some stray copies of a cheap Philadelphia edition,
and a Paris collection (a volume of this, at my hand, is one of a series
entitled a "Collection of Ancient and Modern British Authors"), they were
not to be found. The Philadelphia publishers did not think there was
sufficient demand to warrant a new edition. Mr. Irving and his friends
judged the market more wisely, and a young New York publisher offered to
assume the responsibility. This was Mr. George P. Putnam. The event
justified his sagacity and his liberal enterprise. From July, 1848, to
November, 1859, the author received on his copyright over eighty-eight
thousand dollars. And it should be added that the relations between
author and publisher, both in prosperity and in times of business
disaster, reflect the highest credit upon both. If the like relations
always obtained, we should not have to say, "May the Lord pity the
authors in this world, and the publishers in the next."
I have outlined the life of Washington Irving in vain, if we have not
already come to a tolerably clear conception of the character of the man
and of his books. If I were to follow his literary method exactly, I
should do nothing more. The idiosyncrasies of the man are the strength
and weakness of his works. I do not know any other author whose writings
so perfectly reproduce his character, or whose character may be more
certainly measured by his writings. His character is perfectly
transparent: his predominant traits were humor and sentiment; his
temperament was gay with a dash of melancholy; his inner life and his
mental operations were the reverse of complex, and his literary method is
simple. He felt his subject, and he expressed his conception not so much
by direct statement or description as by almost imperceptible touches and
shadings here and there, by a diffused tone and color, with very little
show of analysis. Perhaps it is a sufficient definition to say that his
method was the sympathetic. In the end the reader is put in possession
of the luminous and complete idea upon which the author has been
brooding, though he may not be able to say exactly how the impression has
been conveyed to him; and I doubt if the author could have explained his
sympathetic process. He certainly would have lacked precision in any
philosophical or metaphysical theme, and when, in his letters, he touches
upon politics, there is a little vagueness of definition that indicates
want of mental grip in that direction. But in the region of feeling his
genius is sufficient to his purpose; either when that purpose is a highly
creative one, as in the character and achievements of his Dutch heroes,
or merely that of portraiture, as in the "Columbus" and the "Washington."
The analysis of a nature so simple and a character so transparent as
Irving's, who lived in the sunlight and had no envelope of mystery, has
not the fascination that attaches to Hawthorne.
Although the direction of his work as a man of letters was largely
determined by his early surroundings,--that is, by his birth in a land
void of traditions, and into a society without much literary life, so
that his intellectual food was of necessity a foreign literature that was
at the moment becoming a little antiquated in the land of its birth, and
his warm imagination was forced to revert to the past for that
nourishment which his crude environment did not offer,--yet he was by
nature a retrospective man. His face was set towards the past, not
towards the future. He never caught the restlessness of this century,
nor the prophetic light that shone in the faces of Coleridge, Shelley,
and Keats; if he apprehended the stir of the new spirit, he still, by
mental affiliation, belonged rather to the age of Addison than to that of
Macaulay. And his placid, retrospective, optimistic strain pleased a
public that were excited and harrowed by the mocking and lamenting of
Lord Byron, and, singularly enough, pleased even the great pessimist
himself.
His writings induce to reflection; to quiet musing, to tenderness for
tradition; they amuse, they entertain, they call a check to the
feverishness of modern life; but they are rarely stimulating or
suggestive. They are better adapted, it must be owned, to please the
many than the critical few, who demand more incisive treatment and a
deeper consideration of the problems of life. And it is very fortunate
that a writer who can reach the great public and entertain it can also
elevate and refine its tastes, set before it high ideas, instruct it
agreeably, and all this in a style that belongs to the best literature.
It is a safe model for young readers; and for young readers there is very
little in the overwhelming flood of to-day that is comparable to Irving's
books, and especially, it seems to me, because they were not written for
children.
Irving's position in American literature, or in that of the English
tongue, will be determined only by the slow settling of opinion, which no
critic can foretell, and the operation of which no criticism seems able
to explain. I venture to believe, however, that the verdict will not be
in accord with much of the present prevalent criticism. The service that
he rendered to American letters no critic disputes; nor is there any
question of our national indebtedness to him for investing a crude and
new land with the enduring charms of romance and tradition. In this
respect, our obligation to him is that of Scotland to Scott and Burns;
and it is an obligation due only, in all history, to here and there a
fortunate creator to whose genius opportunity is kind. The Knickerbocker
Legend and the romance with which Irving has invested the Hudson are a
priceless legacy; and this would remain an imperishable possession in
popular tradition if the literature creating it were destroyed. This
sort of creation is unique in modern times. New York is the
Knickerbocker city; its whole social life remains colored by his fiction;
and the romantic background it owes to him in some measure supplies to it
what great age has given to European cities. This creation is sufficient
to secure for him an immortality, a length of earthly remembrance that
all the rest of his writings together might not give.
Irving was always the literary man; he had the habits, the
idiosyncrasies, of his small genus. I mean that he regarded life not
from the philanthropic, the economic, the political, the philosophic, the
metaphysic, the scientific, or the theologic, but purely from the
literary point of view. He belongs to that small class of which Johnson
and Goldsmith are perhaps as good types as any, and to which America has
added very few. The literary point of view is taken by few in any
generation; it may seem to the world of very little consequence in the
pressure of all the complex interests of life, and it may even seem
trivial amid the tremendous energies applied to immediate affairs; but it
is the point of view that endures; if its creations do not mold human
life, like the Roman law, they remain to charm and civilize, like the
poems of Horace. You must not ask more of them than that. This attitude
toward life is defensible on the highest grounds. A man with Irving's
gifts has the right to take the position of an observer and describer,
and not to be called on for a more active participation in affairs than
he chooses to take. He is doing the world the highest service of which
he is capable, and the most enduring it can receive from any man. It is
not a question whether the work of the literary man is higher than that
of the reformer or the statesman; it is a distinct work, and is justified
by the result, even when the work is that of the humorist only.
We recognize this in the case of the poet. Although Goethe has been
reproached for his lack of sympathy with the liberalizing movement of his
day (as if his novels were quieting social influences), it is felt by
this generation that the author of "Faust" needs no apology that he did
not spend his energies in the effervescing politics of the German states.
I mean, that while we may like or dislike the man for his sympathy or
want of sympathy, we concede to the author the right of his attitude;
if Goethe had not assumed freedom from moral responsibility, I suppose
that criticism of his aloofness would long ago have ceased. Irving did
not lack sympathy with humanity in the concrete; it colored whatever he
wrote. But he regarded the politics of his own country, the revolutions
in France, the long struggle in Spain, without heat; and he held aloof
from projects of agitation and reform, and maintained the attitude of an
observer, regarding the life about him from the point of view of the
literary artist, as he was justified in doing.
Irving had the defects of his peculiar genius, and these have no doubt
helped to fix upon him the complimentary disparagement of "genial."
He was not aggressive; in his nature he was wholly unpartisan, and full
of lenient charity; and I suspect that his kindly regard of the world,
although returned with kindly liking, cost him something of that respect
for sturdiness and force which men feel for writers who flout them as
fools in the main. Like Scott, he belonged to the idealists, and not to
the realists, whom our generation affects. Both writers stimulate the
longing for something better. Their creed was short: "Love God and honor
the King." It is a very good one for a literary man, and might do for a
Christian. The supernatural was still a reality in the age in which they
wrote. Irving's faith in God and his love of humanity were very simple;
I do not suppose he was much disturbed by the deep problems that have set
us all adrift. In every age, whatever is astir, literature, theology,
all intellectual activity, takes one and the same drift, and approximates
in color. The bent of Irving's spirit was fixed in his youth, and he
escaped the desperate realism of this generation, which has no outcome,
and is likely to produce little that is noble.
I do not know how to account, on principles of culture which we
recognize, for our author's style. His education was exceedingly
defective, nor was his want of discipline supplied by subsequent
desultory application. He seems to have been born with a rare sense of
literary proportion and form; into this, as into a mold, were run his
apparently lazy and really acute observations of life. That he
thoroughly mastered such literature as he fancied there is abundant
evidence; that his style was influenced by the purest English models is
also apparent. But there remains a large margin for wonder how, with his
want of training, he could have elaborated a style which is distinctively
his own, and is as copious, felicitous in the choice of words, flowing,
spontaneous, flexible, engaging, clear, and as little wearisome when read
continuously in quantity as any in the English tongue. This is saying a
great deal, though it is not claiming for him the compactness, nor the
robust vigor, nor the depth of thought, of many other masters in it.
It is sometimes praised for its simplicity. It is certainly lucid, but
its simplicity is not that of Benjamin Franklin's style; it is often
ornate, not seldom somewhat diffuse, and always exceedingly melodious.
It is noticeable for its metaphorical felicity. But it was not in the
sympathetic nature of the author, to which I just referred, to come
sharply to the point. It is much to have merited the eulogy of Campbell
that he had "added clarity to the English tongue." This elegance and
finish of style (which seems to have been as natural to the man as his
amiable manner) is sometimes made his reproach, as if it were his sole
merit, and as if he had concealed under this charming form a want of
substance. In literature form is vital. But his case does not rest upon
that. As an illustration his "Life of Washington" may be put in
evidence. Probably this work lost something in incisiveness and
brilliancy by being postponed till the writer's old age. But whatever
this loss, it is impossible for any biography to be less pretentious in
style, or less ambitious in proclamation. The only pretension of matter
is in the early chapters, in which a more than doubtful genealogy is
elaborated, and in which it is thought necessary to Washington's dignity
to give a fictitious importance to his family and his childhood, and to
accept the southern estimate of the hut in which he was born as a
"mansion." In much of this false estimate Irving was doubtless misled by
the fables of Weems. But while he has given us a dignified portrait of
Washington, it is as far as possible removed from that of the smileless
prig which has begun to weary even the popular fancy. The man he paints
is flesh and blood, presented, I believe, with substantial faithfulness
to his character; with a recognition of the defects of his education and
the deliberation of his mental operations; with at least a hint of that
want of breadth of culture and knowledge of the past, the possession of
which characterized many of his great associates; and with no concealment
that he had a dower of passions and a temper which only vigorous
self-watchfulness kept under. But he portrays, with an admiration not
too highly colored, the magnificent patience, the courage to bear
misconstruction, the unfailing patriotism, the practical sagacity, the
level balance of judgment combined with the wisest toleration, the
dignity of mind, and the lofty moral nature which made him the great man
of his epoch. Irving's grasp of this character; his lucid marshaling of
the scattered, often wearisome and uninteresting details of our dragging,
unpicturesque Revolutionary War; his just judgment of men; his even,
almost judicial, moderation of tone; and his admirable proportion of
space to events, render the discussion of style in reference to this work
superfluous. Another writer might have made a more brilliant
performance: descriptions sparkling with antitheses, characters projected
into startling attitudes by the use of epithets; a work more exciting and
more piquant, that would have started a thousand controversies, and
engaged the attention by daring conjectures and attempts to make a
dramatic spectacle; a book interesting and notable, but false in
philosophy, and untrue in fact.
When the "Sketch-Book" appeared, an English critic said it should have
been first published in England, for Irving was an English writer.
The idea has been more than once echoed here. The truth is, that while
Irving was intensely American in feeling, he was, first of all, a man of
letters, and in that capacity he was cosmopolitan; he certainly was not
insular. He had a rare accommodation of tone to his theme. Of England,
whose traditions kindled his susceptible fancy, he wrote as Englishmen
would like to write about it. In Spain he was saturated with the
romantic story of the people and the fascination of the clime; and he was
so true an interpreter of both as to earn from the Spaniards the title of
"the poet Irving." I chanced once, in an inn at Frascati, to take up
"The Tales of a Traveller," which I had not seen for many years.
I expected to revive the somewhat faded humor and fancy of the past
generation. But I found not only a sprightly humor and vivacity which
are modern, but a truth to Italian local color that is very rare in any
writer foreign to the soil. As to America, I do not know what can be
more characteristically American than the Knickerbocker, the Hudson River
tales, the sketches of life and adventure in the far West. But
underneath all this diversity there is one constant quality,--the flavor
of the author. Open by chance and read almost anywhere in his score of
books,--it may be the "Tour on the Prairies," the familiar dream of the
Alhambra, or the narratives of the brilliant exploits of New World
explorers; surrender yourself to the flowing current of his transparent
style, and you are conscious of a beguilement which is the crowning
excellence of all lighter literature, for which we have no word but
"charm."
The consensus of opinion about Irving in England and America for thirty
years was very remarkable. He had a universal popularity rarely enjoyed
by any writer. England returned him to America medaled by the king,
honored by the university which is chary of its favors, followed by the
applause of the whole English people. In English households, in
drawing-rooms of the metropolis, in political circles no less than among
the literary coteries, in the best reviews, and in the popular newspapers
the opinion of him was pretty much the same. And even in the lapse of
time and the change of literary fashion authors so unlike as Byron and
Dickens were equally warm in admiration of him. To the English
indorsement America added her own enthusiasm, which was as universal.
His readers were the million, and all his readers were admirers. Even
American statesmen, who feed their minds on food we know not of, read
Irving. It is true that the uncritical opinion of New York was never
exactly reechoed in the cool recesses of Boston culture; but the magnates
of the "North American Review" gave him their meed of cordial praise. The
country at large put him on a pinnacle. If you attempt to account for
the position he occupied by his character, which won the love of all men,
it must be remembered that the quality which won this, whatever its
value, pervades his books also.
And yet it must be said that the total impression left upon the mind by
the man and his works is not that of the greatest intellectual force.
I have no doubt that this was the impression he made upon his ablest
contemporaries. And this fact, when I consider the effect the man
produced, makes the study of him all the more interesting. As an
intellectual personality he makes no such impression, for instance, as
Carlyle, or a dozen other writers now living who could be named. The
incisive critical faculty was almost entirely wanting in him. He had
neither the power nor the disposition to cut his way transversely across
popular opinion and prejudice that Ruskin has, nor to draw around him
disciples equally well pleased to see him fiercely demolish to-day what
they had delighted to see him set up yesterday as eternal. He evoked
neither violent partisanship nor violent opposition. He was an extremely
sensitive man, and if he had been capable of creating a conflict, he
would only have been miserable in it. The play of his mind depended upon
the sunshine of approval. And all this shows a certain want of
intellectual virility.
A recent anonymous writer has said that most of the writing of our day is
characterized by an intellectual strain. I have no doubt that this will
appear to be the case to the next generation. It is a strain to say
something new even at the risk of paradox, or to say something in a new
way at the risk of obscurity. From this Irving was entirely free. There
is no visible straining to attract attention. His mood is calm and
unexaggerated. Even in some of his pathos, which is open to the
suspicion of being "literary," there is no literary exaggeration. He
seems always writing from an internal calm, which is the necessary
condition of his production. If he wins at all by his style, by his
humor, by his portraiture of scenes or of character, it is by a gentle
force, like that of the sun in spring. There are many men now living,
or recently dead, intellectual prodigies, who have stimulated thought,
or upset opinions, created mental eras, to whom Irving stands hardly in
as fair a relation as Goldsmith to Johnson. What verdict the next
generation will put upon their achievements I do not know; but it is safe
to say that their position and that of Irving as well will depend largely
upon the affirmation or the reversal of their views of life and their
judgments of character. I think the calm work of Irving will stand when
much of the more startling and perhaps more brilliant intellectual
achievement of this age has passed away.
And this leads me to speak of Irving's moral quality, which I cannot
bring myself to exclude from a literary estimate, even in the face of the
current gospel of art for art's sake. There is something that made Scott
and Irving personally loved by the millions of their readers, who had
only the dimmest ideas of their personality. This was some quality
perceived in what they wrote. Each one can define it for himself; there
it is, and I do not see why it is not as integral a part of the authors
--an element in the estimate of their future position--as what we term
their intellect, their knowledge, their skill, or their art. However you
rate it, you cannot account for Irving's influence in the world without
it. In his tender tribute to Irving, the great-hearted Thackeray, who
saw as clearly as anybody the place of mere literary art in the sum total
of life, quoted the dying words of Scott to Lockhart,--"Be a good man, my
dear." We know well enough that the great author of "The Newcomes" and
the great author of "The Heart of Midlothian" recognized the abiding
value in literature of integrity, sincerity, purity, charity, faith.
These are beneficences; and Irving's literature, walk round it and
measure it by whatever critical instruments you will, is a beneficent
literature. The author loved good women and little children and a pure
life; he had faith in his fellow-men, a kindly sympathy with the lowest,
without any subservience to the highest; he retained a belief in the
possibility of chivalrous actions, and did not care to envelop them in a
cynical suspicion; he was an author still capable of an enthusiasm. His
books are wholesome, full of sweetness and charm, of humor without any
sting, of amusement without any stain; and their more solid qualities are
marred by neither pedantry nor pretension.
Washington Irving died on the 28th of November, 1859, at the close of a
lovely day of that Indian summer which is nowhere more full of a
melancholy charm than on the banks of the lower Hudson, and which was in
perfect accord with the ripe and peaceful close of his life. He was
buried on a little elevation overlooking Sleepy Hollow and the river he
loved, amidst the scenes which his magic pen has made classic and his
sepulcher hallows.