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Page 19
With a little business and a good deal of loitering, waiting upon the
whim of his pen, Irving passed the weary months of the war. As late as
August, 1814, he is still giving Brevoort, who has returned, and is at
Rockaway Beach, the light gossip of the town. It was reported that
Brevoort and Dennis had kept a journal of their foreign travel, "which
is so exquisitely humorous that Mrs. Cooper, on only looking at the
first word, fell into a fit of laughing that lasted half an hour."
Irving is glad that he cannot find Brevoort's flute, which the latter
requested should be sent to him: "I do not think it would be an innocent
amusement for you, as no one has a right to entertain himself at the
expense of others." In such dallying and badinage the months went on,
affairs every day becoming more serious. Appended to a letter of
September 9, 1814, is a list of twenty well-known mercantile houses that
had failed within the preceding three weeks. Irving himself, shortly
after this, enlisted in the war, and his letters thereafter breathe
patriotic indignation at the insulting proposals of the British and
their rumored attack on New York, and all his similes, even those having
love for their subject, are martial and bellicose. Item: "The gallant
Sam has fairly changed front, and, instead of laying siege to Douglas
castle, has charged sword in hand, and carried little Cooper's
entrenchments."
As a Federalist and an admirer of England, Irving had deplored the war,
but his sympathies were not doubtful after it began, and the burning of
the national Capitol by General Ross aroused him to an active
participation in the struggle. He was descending the Hudson in a
steamboat when the tidings first reached him. It was night, and the
passengers had gone into the cabin, when a man came on board with the
news, and in the darkness related the particulars: the burning of the
President's house and government offices, and the destruction of the
Capitol, with the library and public archives. In the momentary silence
that followed, somebody raised his voice, and in a tone of complacent
derision "wondered what _Jimmy_ Madison would say now." "Sir," cried
Mr. Irving, in a burst of indignation that overcame his habitual
shyness, "do you seize upon such a disaster only for a sneer? Let me
tell you, sir, it is not now a question about _Jimmy_ Madison or _Jimmy_
Armstrong. The pride and honor of the nation are wounded; the country is
insulted and disgraced by this barbarous success, and every loyal
citizen would feel the ignominy and be earnest to avenge it." There was
an outburst of applause, and the sneerer was silenced. "I could not see
the fellow," said Mr. Irving, in relating the anecdote, "but I let fly
at him in the dark."
The next day he offered his services to Governor Tompkins, and was made
the governor's aid and military secretary, with the right to be
addressed as Col. Washington Irving. He served only four months in this
capacity, when Governor Tompkins was called to the session of the
legislature at Albany. Irving intended to go to Washington and apply for
a commission in the regular army, but he was detained at Philadelphia by
the affairs of his magazine, until news came in February, 1815, of the
close of the war. In May of that year he embarked for England to visit
his brother, intending only a short sojourn. He remained abroad
seventeen years.
CHAPTER VI.
LIFE IN EUROPE: LITERARY ACTIVITY.
When Irving sailed from New York, it was with lively anticipations of
witnessing the stirring events to follow the return of Bonaparte from
Elba. When he reached Liverpool the curtain had fallen in Bonaparte's
theatre. The first spectacle that met the traveler's eye was the mail
coaches, darting through the streets, decked with laurel and bringing
the news of Waterloo. As usual, Irving's sympathies were with the
unfortunate. "I think," he says, writing of the exile of St. Helena,
"the cabinet has acted with littleness toward him. In spite of all his
misdeeds he is a noble fellow [_pace_ Madame de R�musat], and I am
confident will eclipse, in the eyes of posterity, all the crowned
wiseacres that have crushed him by their overwhelming confederacy. If
anything could place the Prince Regent in a more ridiculous light, it is
Bonaparte suing for his magnanimous protection. Every compliment paid
to this bloated sensualist, this inflation of sack and sugar, turns to
the keenest sarcasm."
After staying a week with his brother Peter, who was recovering from an
indisposition, Irving went to Birmingham, the residence of his
brother-in-law, Henry Van Wart, who had married his youngest sister,
Sarah; and from thence to Sydenham, to visit Campbell. The poet was not
at home. To Mrs. Campbell Irving expressed his regret that her husband
did not attempt something on a grand scale.
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