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Outlines of English and American Literature
Washington Irving
by Long, William J.
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A very pleasant writer is Irving, a man of romantic and somewhat
sentimental disposition, but sound of motive, careful of workmanship,
invincibly cheerful of spirit. The genial quality of his work may be due to
the fact that from joyous boyhood to serene old age he did very much as he
pleased, that he lived in what seemed to him an excellent world and wrote
with no other purpose than to make it happy. In summarizing his career an
admirer of Irving is reminded of what the Book of Proverbs says of wisdom:
"Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace."
The Man and his Times
The historian sees another side of Irving's work. Should it be asked, "What
did he do that had not been as well or better done before him?" the first
answer is that the importance of any man's work must be measured by the age
in which he did it. A schoolboy now knows more about electricity than ever
Franklin learned; but that does not detract from our wonder at Franklin's
kite. So the work of Irving seems impressive when viewed against the gray
literary dawn of a century ago. At that time America had done a mighty work
for the world politically, but had added little of value to the world's
literature. She read and treasured the best books; but she made no
contribution to their number, and her literary impotence galled her
sensitive spirit. As if to make up for her failure, the writers of the
Knickerbocker, Charleston and other "schools" praised each other's work
extravagantly; but no responsive echo came from overseas, where England's
terse criticism of our literary effort was expressed in the scornful
question, "Who reads an American book?"
Irving answered that question effectively when his Sketch Book,
Bracebridge Hall and Tales of a Traveller found a multitude
of delighted readers on both sides of the Atlantic. His graceful style was
hardly rivaled by any other writer of the period; and England, at a time
when Scott and Byron were playing heroic parts, welcomed him heartily to a
place on the literary stage. Thus he united the English and the American
reader in a common interest and, as it were, charmed away the sneer from
one face, the resentment from the other. He has been called "father of our
American letters" for two reasons: because he was the first to win a
lasting literary reputation at home and abroad, and because of the
formative influence which his graceful style and artistic purpose have ever
since exerted upon our prose writers.
Life
Two personal characteristics appear constantly in Irving's
work: the first, that he was always a dreamer, a romance seeker;
the second, that he was inclined to close his eyes to the heroic
present and open them wide to the glories, real or imaginary, of
the remote past. Though he lived in an American city in a day of
mighty changes and discoveries, he was far less interested in the
modern New York than in the ancient New Amsterdam; and though he
was in Europe at the time of the Napoleonic wars, he apparently saw
nothing of them, being then wholly absorbed in the battles of the
long-vanished Moors. Only once, in his books of western
exploration, did he seriously touch the vigorous life of his own
times; and critics regard these books as the least important of all
his works.
Boyhood
He was born in New York (1783) when the present colossal city was a
provincial town that retained many of its quaint Dutch
characteristics. Over all the straggling town, from the sunny
Battery with its white-winged ships to the Harlem woods where was
good squirrel shooting, Irving rambled at ease on many a day when
the neighbors said he ought to have been at his books. He was the
youngest of the family; his constitution was not rugged, and his
gentle mother was indulgent. She would smile when he told of
reading a smuggled copy of the Arabian Nights in school,
instead of his geography; she was silent when he slipped away from
family prayers to climb out of his bedroom window and go to the
theater, while his sterner father thought of him as sound asleep in
his bed.
Little harm came from these escapades, for Irving was a merry lad
with no meanness in him; but his schooling was sadly neglected. His
brothers had graduated from Columbia; but on the plea of delicate
health he abandoned the idea of college, with a sigh in which there
was perhaps as much satisfaction as regret. At sixteen he entered a
law office, where he gave less time to studying Blackstone than to
reading novels and writing skits for the newspapers.
Finding Himself
This happy indifference to work and learning, this disposition to
linger on the sunny side of the street, went with Irving through
life. Experimentally he joined his brothers, who were in the
hardware trade; but when he seemed to be in danger of consumption
they sent him to Europe, where he enjoyed himself greatly, and
whence he returned perfectly well. Next he was sent on business to
England; and there, when the Irving Brothers failed, their business
having been ruined by the War of 1812, Irving manfully resolved to
be no longer a burden on others and turned to literature for his
support. With characteristic love of doing what he liked he refused
a good editorial position (which Walter Scott obtained for him) and
busied himself with his Sketch Book (1820). This met with a
generous welcome in England and America, and it was followed by the
equally popular Bracebridge Hall and Tales of a
Traveller. By these three works Irving was assured not only of
literary fame but, what was to him of more consequence, of his
ability to earn his living.
Life Abroad
Next we find him in Spain, whither he went with the purpose of
translating Navarrete's Voyages of Columbus, a Spanish book,
in which he saw a chance of profit from his countrymen's interest
in the man who discovered America. Instead of translating another
man's work, however, he wrote his own Life and Times of
Columbus (1828). The financial success of this book (which is
still our most popular biography of the great explorer) enabled
Irving to live comfortably in Spain, where he read diligently and
accumulated the material for his later works on Spanish history.
By this time Irving's growing literary fame had attracted the
notice of American politicians, who rewarded him with an
appointment as secretary of the legation at London. This pleasant
office he held for two years, but was less interested in it than in
the reception which English men of letters generously offered him.
Then he apparently grew homesick, after an absence of seventeen
years, and returned to his native land, where he was received with
the honor due to a man who had silenced the galling question, "Who
reads an American book?"
His Mellow Autumn
The rest of Irving's long life was a continued triumph. Amazed at
first, and then a little stunned by the growth, the hurry, the
onward surge of his country, he settled back into the restful past,
and was heard with the more pleasure by his countrymen because he
seemed to speak to them from a vanished age. Once, inspired by the
tide of life weeping into the West, he journeyed beyond the
Mississippi and found material for his pioneering books; but an
active life was far from his taste, and presently he built his
house "Sunnyside" (appropriate name) at Tarrytown on the Hudson.
There he spent the remainder of his days, with the exception of
four years in which he served the nation as ambassador to Spain.
This honor, urged upon him by Webster and President Tyler, was
accepted with characteristic modesty not as a personal reward but
as a tribute which America had been wont to offer to the profession
of letters.
Chief Works of Irving
A good way to form a general impression of Irving's
works is to arrange them chronologically in five main groups. The first,
consisting of the Salmagundi essays, the Knickerbocker
History and a few other trifles, we may call the Oldstyle group, after
the pseudonym assumed by the author. [Footnote: Ever since Revolutionary
days it had been the fashion for young American writers to use an assumed
name. Irving appeared at different times as "Jonathan Oldstyle," "Diedrich
Knickerbocker" and "Geoffrey Crayon, Gent."] The second or Sketch-Book
group includes the Sketch Book, Bracebridge Hall and Tales
of a Traveller. The third or Alhambra group, devoted to Spanish and
Moorish themes, includes The Conquest of Granada, Spanish Voyages
of Discovery, The Alhambra and certain similar works of a later
period, such as Moorish Chronicles and Legends of the Conquest of
Spain. The fourth or Western group contains A Tour on the
Prairies, Astoria and Adventures of Captain Bonneville.
The fifth or Sunnyside group is made up chiefly of biographies, Oliver
Goldsmith, Mahomet and his Successors and The Life of
Washington. Besides these are some essays and stories assembled under
the titles of Spanish Papers and Wolfert's Roost.
The Salmagundi papers and others of the Oldstyle group would have
been forgotten long ago if anybody else had written them. In other words,
our interest in them is due not to their intrinsic value (for they are all
"small potatoes") but to the fact that their author became a famous
literary man. Most candid readers would probably apply this criticism also
to the Knickerbocker History, had not that grotesque joke won an
undeserved reputation as a work of humor.
Knickerbocker History
The story of the Knickerbocker fabrication illustrates the happy-go-lucky
method of all Irving's earlier work. He had tired of his Salmagundi
fooling and was looking for variety when his eyes lighted on Dr. Mitchill's
Picture of New York, a grandiloquent work written by a prominent
member of the Historical Society. In a light-headed moment Irving and his
brother Peter resolved to burlesque this history and, in the approved
fashion of that day, to begin with the foundation of the world. Then Peter
went to Europe on more important business, and Irving went on with his joke
alone. He professed to have discovered the notes of a learned Dutch
antiquarian who had recently disappeared, leaving a mass of manuscript and
an unpaid board-bill behind him. After advertising in the newspapers for
the missing man, Irving served notice on the public that the profound value
of Knickerbocker's papers justified their publication, and that the
proceeds of the book would be devoted to paying the board-bill. Then
appeared, in time to satisfy the aroused curiosity of the Historical
Society, to whom the book was solemnly dedicated, the History of New
York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by
Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809).
This literary hoax made an instant sensation; it was denounced for its
scandalous irreverence by the members of the Historical Society, especially
by those who had Dutch ancestors, but was received with roars of laughter
by the rest of the population. Those who read it now (from curiosity, for
its merriment has long since departed, leaving it dull as any
thrice-repeated joke) are advised to skip the first two books, which are
very tedious fooling, and to be content with an abridged version of the
stories of Wouter van Twiller, William the Testy and Peter the Headstrong.
These are the names of real Dutch governors of New Amsterdam, and the dates
given are exact dates; but there history ends and burlesque begins. The
combination of fact and nonsense and the strain of gravity in which
absurdities are related have led some critics to place the Knickerbocker
History first in time of the notable works of so-called American humor.
That is doubtless a fair classification; but other critics assert that real
humor is as purely human as a smile or a tear, and has therefore no
national or racial limitations.
Sketch Book
The Sketch Book, chief of the second group of writings, is perhaps
the best single work that Irving produced. We shall read it with better
understanding if we remember that it was the work of a young man who,
having always done as he pleased, proceeds now to write of whatever
pleasant matter is close at hand. Being in England at the time, he
naturally finds most of his material there; and being youthful, romantic
and sentimental, he colors everything with the hue of his own disposition.
He begins by chatting of the journey and of the wide sea that separates him
from home. He records his impressions of the beautiful English country,
tells what he saw or felt during his visit to Stratford on Avon, and what
he dreamed in Westminster Abbey, a place hallowed by centuries of worship
and humanized by the presence of the great dead. He sheds a ready tear over
a rural funeral, and tries to make us cry over the sorrows of a poor widow;
then to relieve our feelings he pokes a bit of fun at John Bull. Something
calls his attention to Isaac Walton, and he writes a Waltonian kind of
sketch about a fisherman. In one chapter he comments on contemporary
literature; then, as if not quite satisfied with what authors are doing, he
lays aside his record of present impressions, goes back in thought to his
home by the Hudson, and produces two stories of such humor, charm and
originality that they make the rest of the book appear almost commonplace,
as the careless sketches of a painter are forgotten in presence of his
inspired masterpiece.
These two stories, the most pleasing that Irving ever wrote, are "Rip van
Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." They should be read if one reads
nothing else of the author's twenty volumes.
Spanish Themes
The works on Spanish themes appeal in different ways to different readers.
One who knows his history will complain (and justly) that Irving is
superficial, that he is concerned with picturesque rather than with
important incidents; but one who likes the romance of history, and who
reflects that romance plays an important part in the life of any people,
will find the legends and chronicles of this Spanish group as interesting
as fiction. We should remember, moreover, that in Irving's day the romance
of old Spain, familiar enough to European readers, was to most Americans
still fresh and wondrous. In emphasizing the romantic or picturesque side
of his subject he not only pleased his readers but broadened their horizon;
he also influenced a whole generation of historians who, in contrast with
the scientific or prosaic historians of to-day, did not hesitate to add the
element of human interest to their narratives.
The Alhambra
The most widely read of all the works of the Spanish group is The
Alhambra (1832). This is, on the surface, a collection of
semihistorical essays and tales clustering around the ancient palace, in
Granada, which was the last stronghold of the Moors in Europe; in reality
it is a record of the impressions and dreams of a man who, finding himself
on historic ground, gives free rein to his imagination. At times, indeed,
he seems to have his eye on his American readers, who were then in a
romantic mood, rather than on the place or people he was describing. The
book delighted its first critics, who called it "the Spanish Sketch Book";
but though pleasant enough as a romantic dream of history, it hardly
compares in originality with its famous predecessor.
Western Stories
Except to those who like a brave tale of exploration, and who happily have
no academic interest in style, Irving's western books are of little
consequence. In fact, they are often omitted from the list of his important
works, though they have more adventurous interest than all the others
combined. A Tour on the Prairies, which records a journey beyond the
Mississippi in the days when buffalo were the explorers' mainstay, is the
best written of the pioneer books; but the Adventures of Captain
Bonneville, a story of wandering up and down the great West with plenty
of adventures among Indians and "free trappers," furnishes the most
excitement. Unfortunately this journal, which vies in interest with
Parkman's Oregon Trail, cannot be credited to Irving, though it
bears his name on the title-page. [Footnote: The Adventures is
chiefly the work of a Frenchman, a daring free-rover, who probably tried in
vain to get his work published. Irving bought the work for a thousand
dollars, revised it slightly, gave it his name and sold it for seven or
eight times what he paid for it. In Astoria, the third book of the
western group, he sold his services to write up the records of the fur
house established by John Jacob Astor, and made a poor job of it.]
Biographies
Of the three biographies Oliver Goldsmith (1849) is the best,
probably because Irving had more sympathy and affinity with the author of
"The Deserted Village" than with Mahomet or Washington. The Life of
Washington (1855-1859) was plainly too large an undertaking for
Irving's limited powers; but here again we must judge the work by the
standards of its own age and admit that it is vastly better than the
popular but fictitious biographies of Washington written by Weems and other
romancers. Even in Irving's day Washington was still regarded as a demigod;
his name was always printed in capitals; and the rash novelist who dared to
bring him into a story (as Cooper did in The Spy) was denounced for
his lack of reverence. In consequence of this false attitude practically
all Washington's biographers (with the exception of the judicious Marshall)
depicted him as a ponderously dignified creature, stilted, unlovely,
unhuman, who must always appear with a halo around his head. Irving was too
much influenced by this absurd fashion and by his lack of scholarship to
make a trustworthy book; but he gave at least a touch of naturalness and
humanity to our first president, and set a new biographical standard by
attempting to write as an honest historian rather than as a mere
hero-worshiper.
An Appreciation of Irving
The three volumes of the Sketch-Book group and
the romantic Alhambra furnish an excellent measure of Irving's
literary talent. At first glance these books appear rather superficial,
dealing with pleasant matters of no consequence; but on second thought
pleasant matters are always of consequence, and Irving invariably displays
two qualities, humor and sentiment, in which humanity is forever
interested. His humor, at first crude and sometimes in doubtful taste (as
in his Knickerbocker History) grew more refined, more winning in his
later works, until a thoughtful critic might welcome it, with its kindness,
its culture, its smile in which is no cynicism and no bitterness, as a true
example of "American" humor,--if indeed such a specialized product ever
existed. His sentiment was for the most part tender, sincere and manly.
Though it now seems somewhat exaggerated and at times dangerously near to
sentimentality, that may not be altogether a fault; for the same criticism
applies to Longfellow, Dickens and, indeed, to most other writers who have
won an immense audience by frankly emphasizing, or even exaggerating, the
honest sentiments that plain men and women have always cherished both in
life and in literature.
Style of Irving
The style of Irving, with its suggestion of Goldsmith and Addison (who were
his first masters), is deserving of more unstinted praise. A "charming"
style we call it; and the word, though indefinite, is expressive of the
satisfaction which Irving's manner affords his readers. One who seeks the
source of his charm may find it in this, that he cherished a high opinion
of humanity, and that the friendliness, the sense of comradeship, which he
felt for his fellow men was reflected in his writing; unconsciously at
first, perhaps, and then deliberately, by practice and cultivation. In
consequence, we do not read Irving critically but sympathetically; for
readers are like children, or animals, in that they are instinctively drawn
to an author who trusts and understands them.
Thackeray, who gave cordial welcome to Irving, and who called him "the
first ambassador whom the New World of letters sent to the Old," was deeply
impressed by the fact not that the young American had an excellent prose
style but that "his gate was forever swinging to visitors." That is an
illuminating criticism; for we can understand the feeling of the men and
women of a century ago who, having read the Sketch Book, were eager
to meet the man who had given them pleasure by writing it. In brief, though
Irving wrote nothing of great import, though he entered not into the stress
of life or scaled its heights or sounded its deeps, we still read him for
the sufficient but uncritical reason that we like him.
In this respect, of winning our personal allegiance, Irving stands in
marked contrast to his greatest American contemporary, Cooper. We read the
one because we are attracted to the man, the other for the tale he has to
tell.
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