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Page 27
The "Sketch-Book" was making a great fame for him in England. Jeffrey,
in the "Edinburgh Review," paid it a most flattering tribute, and even
the savage "Quarterly" praised it. A rumor attributed it to Scott, who
was always masquerading; at least, it was said, he might have revised
it, and should have the credit of its exquisite style. This led to a
sprightly correspondence between Lady Littleton, the daughter of Earl
Spencer, one of the most accomplished and lovely women of England, and
Benjamin Rush, Minister to the Court of St. James, in the course of
which Mr. Rush suggested the propriety of giving out under his official
seal that Irving was the author of "Waverley." "Geoffrey Crayon is the
most fashionable fellow of the day," wrote the painter Leslie. Lord
Byron, in a letter to Murray, underscored his admiration of the author,
and subsequently said to an American: "His Crayon,--I know it by heart;
at least, there is not a passage that I cannot refer to immediately."
And afterwards he wrote to Moore, "His writings are my delight." There
seemed to be, as some one wrote, "a kind of conspiracy to hoist him over
the heads of his contemporaries." Perhaps the most satisfactory evidence
of his popularity was his publisher's enthusiasm. The publisher is an
infallible contemporary barometer.
It is worthy of note that an American should have captivated public
attention at the moment when Scott and Byron were the idols of the
English-reading world.
In the following year Irving was again in England, visiting his sister
in Birmingham, and tasting moderately the delights of London. He was,
indeed, something of an invalid. An eruptive malady,--the revenge of
nature, perhaps, for defeat in her earlier attack on his
lungs,--appearing in his ankles, incapacitated him for walking,
tormented him at intervals, so that literary composition was impossible,
sent him on pilgrimages to curative springs, and on journeys undertaken
for distraction and amusement, in which all work except that of seeing
and absorbing material had to be postponed. He was subject to this
recurring invalidism all his life, and we must regard a good part of the
work he did as a pure triumph of determination over physical
discouragement. This year the fruits of his interrupted labor appeared
in "Bracebridge Hall," a volume that was well received, but did not add
much to his reputation, though it contained "Dolph Heyliger," one of his
most characteristic Dutch stories, and the "Stout Gentleman," one of
his daintiest and most artistic bits of restrained humor.[1]
[Footnote 1: I was once [says his biographer] reading aloud in
his presence a very flattering review of his works, which had
been sent him by the critic in 1848, and smiled as I came to
this sentence: "His most comical pieces have always a serious
end in view." "You laugh," said he, with that air of whimsical
significance so natural to him, "but it is true. I have kept
that to myself hitherto, but that man has found me out. He has
detected the moral of the _Stout Gentleman_."]
Irving sought relief from his malady by an extended tour in Germany. He
sojourned some time in Dresden, whither his reputation had preceded him,
and where he was cordially and familiarly received, not only by the
foreign residents, but at the prim and antiquated little court of King
Frederick Augustus and Queen Amalia. Of Irving at this time Mrs. Emily
Fuller (_n�e_ Foster), whose relations with him have been referred to,
wrote in 1860:--
"He was thoroughly a gentleman, not merely in external manners and
look, but to the inner-most fibres and core of his heart:
sweet-tempered, gentle, fastidious, sensitive, and gifted with the
warmest affections; the most delightful and invariably interesting
companion; gay and full of humor, even in spite of occasional fits
of melancholy, which he was, however, seldom subject to when with
those he liked; a gift of conversation that flowed like a full
river in sunshine,--bright, easy, and abundant."
Those were pleasant days at Dresden, filled up with the society of
bright and warm-hearted people, varied by royal boar hunts, stiff
ceremonies at the little court, tableaux, and private theatricals, yet
tinged with a certain melancholy, partly constitutional, that appears in
most of his letters. His mind was too unsettled for much composition. He
had little self-confidence, and was easily put out by a breath of
adverse criticism. At intervals he would come to the Fosters to read a
manuscript of his own.
"On these occasions strict orders were given that no visitor should
be admitted till the last word had been read, and the whole praised
or criticised, as the case may be. Of criticism, however, we were
very spare, as a slight word would put him out of conceit of a
whole work. One of the best things he has published was thrown
aside, unfinished, for years, because the friend to whom he read
it, happening, unfortunately, not to be well, and sleepy, did not
seem to take the interest in it he expected. Too easily
discouraged, it was not till the latter part of his career that he
ever appreciated himself as an author. One condemning whisper
sounded louder in his ear than the plaudits of thousands."
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