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Page 18
The years from 1811 to 1815, when he went abroad for the second time,
were passed by Irving in a sort of humble waiting on Providence. His
letters to Brevoort during this period are full of the _ennui_ of
irresolute youth. He idled away weeks and months in indolent enjoyment
in the country; he indulged his passion for the theatre when opportunity
offered; and he began to be weary of a society which offered little
stimulus to his mind. His was the temperament of the artist, and America
at that time had little to evoke or to satisfy the artistic feeling.
There were few pictures and no galleries; there was no music, except the
amateur torture of strings which led the country dance, or the martial
inflammation of fife and drum, or the sentimental dawdling here and
there over the ancient harpsichord, with the songs of love, and the
broad or pathetic staves and choruses of the convivial table; and there
was no literary atmosphere.
After three months of indolent enjoyment in the winter and spring of
1811, Irving is complaining to Brevoort in June of the enervation of his
social life: "I do want most deplorably to apply my mind to something
that will arouse and animate it; for at present it is very indolent and
relaxed, and I find it very difficult to shake off the lethargy that
enthralls it. This makes me restless and dissatisfied with myself, and I
am convinced I shall not feel comfortable and contented until my mind is
fully employed. Pleasure is but a transient stimulus, and leaves the
mind more enfeebled than before. Give me rugged toils, fierce
disputation, wrangling controversy, harassing research,--give me
anything that calls forth the energies of the mind; but for Heaven's
sake shield me from those calms, those tranquil slumberings, those
enervating triflings, those siren blandishments, that I have for some
time indulged in, which lull the mind into complete inaction, which
benumb its powers, and cost it such painful and humiliating struggles to
regain its activity and independence!"
Irving at this time of life seemed always waiting by the pool for some
angel to come and trouble the waters. To his correspondent, who was in
the wilds of Michilimackinac, he continues to lament his morbid
inability. The business in which his thriving brothers were engaged was
the importation and sale of hardware and cutlery, and that spring his
services were required at the "store." "By all the martyrs of Grub
Street [he exclaims], I'd sooner live in a garret, and starve into the
bargain, than follow so sordid, dusty, and soul-killing a way of life,
though certain it would make me as rich as old Croesus, or John Jacob
Astor himself!" The sparkle of society was no more agreeable to him than
the rattle of cutlery. "I have scarcely [he writes] seen anything of the
----s since your departure; business and an amazing want of inclination
have kept me from their threshold. Jim, that sly poacher, however,
prowls about there, and vitrifies his heart by the furnace of their
charms. I accompanied him there on Sunday evening last, and found the
Lads and Miss Knox with them. S---- was in great spirits, and played the
sparkler with such great success as to silence the whole of us excepting
Jim, who was the _agreeable rattle_ of the evening. God defend me from
such vivacity as hers, in future,--such smart speeches without meaning,
such bubble and squeak nonsense! I'd as lieve stand by a frying-pan for
an hour and listen to the cooking of apple fritters. After two hours'
dead silence and suffering on my part I made out to drag him off, and
did not stop running until I was a mile from the house." Irving gives
his correspondent graphic pictures of the social warfare in which he was
engaged, the "host of rascally little tea-parties" in which he was
entangled; and some of his portraits of the "divinities," the
"blossoms," and the beauties of that day would make the subjects of them
flutter with surprise in the church-yards where they lie. The writer was
sated with the "tedious commonplace of fashionable society," and
languishing to return to his books and his pen.
In March, 1812, in the shadow of the war and the depression of business,
Irving was getting out a new edition of the "Knickerbocker," which
Inskeep was to publish, agreeing to pay $1,200 at six months for an
edition of fifteen hundred. The modern publisher had not then arisen and
acquired a proprietary right in the brains of the country, and the
author made his bargains like an independent being who owned himself.
Irving's letters of this period are full of the gossip of the town and
the matrimonial fate of his acquaintances. The fascinating Mary Fairlie
is at length married to Cooper, the tragedian, with the opposition of
her parents, after a dismal courtship and a cloudy prospect of
happiness. "Goodhue is engaged to Miss Clarkson, the sister to the
pretty one. The engagement suddenly took place as they walked from
church on Christmas Day, and report says the action was shorter than any
of our naval victories, for the lady struck on the first broadside." The
war colored all social life and conversation. "This war [the letter is
to Brevoort, who is in Europe] has completely changed the face of things
here. You would scarcely recognize our old peaceful city. Nothing is
talked of but armies, navies, battles, etc." The same phenomenon was
witnessed then that was observed in the war for the Union: "Men who had
loitered about, the hangers-on and encumbrances of society, have all at
once risen to importance, and been the only useful men of the day." The
exploits of our young navy kept up the spirits of the country. There was
great rejoicing when the captured frigate Macedonian was brought into
New York, and was visited by the curious as she lay wind-bound above
Hell Gate. "A superb dinner was given to the naval heroes, at which all
the great eaters and drinkers of the city were present. It was the
noblest entertainment of the kind I ever witnessed. On New Year's Eve a
grand ball was likewise given, where there was a vast display of great
and little people. The Livingstons were there in all their glory. Little
Rule Britannia made a gallant appearance at the head of a train of
beauties, among whom were the divine H----, who looked very inviting,
and the little Taylor, who looked still more so. Britannia was
gorgeously dressed in a queer kind of hat of stiff purple and silver
stuff, that had marvelously the appearance of copper, and made us
suppose that she had procured the real Mambrino helmet. Her dress was
trimmed with what we simply mistook for scalps, and supposed it was in
honor of the nation; but we blushed at our ignorance on discovering that
it was a gorgeous trimming of marten tips. Would that some eminent
furrier had been there to wonder and admire!"
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