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Page 62
"'Here's cut and come again!' cried the student, exultingly, as he
proceeded to cram his pockets.
"'Fairly and softly,' exclaimed the soldier. 'Let us get the coffer
out entire, and then divide.'
"They accordingly went to work with might and main; but it was a
difficult task; the chest was enormously heavy, and had been
imbedded there for centuries. While they were thus employed the
good dominie drew on one side and made a vigorous onslaught on the
basket, by way of exorcising the demon of hunger which was raging
in his entrails. In a little while a fat capon was devoured, and
washed down by a deep potation of Val de pe�as; and, by way of
grace after meat, he gave a kind-hearted kiss to the pet-lamb who
waited on him. It was quietly done in a corner, but the tell-tale
walls babbled it forth as if in triumph. Never was chaste salute
more awful in its effects. At the sound the soldier gave a great
cry of despair; the coffer, which was half raised, fell back in its
place and was locked once more. Priest, student, and damsel found
themselves outside of the tower, the wall of which closed with a
thundering jar. Alas! the good padre had broken his fast too soon!
"When recovered from his surprise, the student would have re�ntered
the tower, but learnt to his dismay that the damsel, in her fright,
had let fall the seal of Solomon; it remained within the vault.
"In a word, the cathedral bell tolled midnight; the spell was
renewed; the soldier was doomed to mount guard for another hundred
years, and there he and the treasure remain to this day--and all
because the kind-hearted padre kissed his handmaid. 'Ah, father!
father!' said the student, shaking his head ruefully, as they
returned down the ravine, 'I fear there was less of the saint than
the sinner in that kiss!'
* * * * *
"Thus ends the legend as far as it has been authenticated. There is
a tradition, however, that the student had brought off treasure
enough in his pocket to set him up in the world; that he prospered
in his affairs, that the worthy padre gave him the pet-lamb in
marriage, by way of amends for the blunder in the vault; that the
immaculate damsel proved a pattern for wives as she had been for
handmaids, and bore her husband a numerous progeny; that the first
was a wonder; it was born seven months after her marriage, and
though a seven-months' boy, was the sturdiest of the flock. The
rest were all born in the ordinary course of time.
"The story of the enchanted soldier remains one of the popular
traditions of Granada, though told in a variety of ways; the common
people affirm that he still mounts guard on mid-summer eve, beside
the gigantic stone pomegranate on the bridge of the Darro; but
remains invisible excepting to such lucky mortal as may possess the
seal of Solomon."
These passages from the most characteristic of Irving's books, do not by
any means exhaust his variety, but they afford a fair measure of his
purely literary skill, upon which his reputation must rest. To my
apprehension this "charm" in literature is as necessary to the
amelioration and enjoyment of human life as the more solid achievements
of scholarship. That Irving should find it in the prosaic and
materialistic conditions of the New World as well as in the
tradition-laden atmosphere of the Old, is evidence that he possessed
genius of a refined and subtle quality if not of the most robust order.
CHAPTER X.
LAST YEARS: THE CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE.
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 hung 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.
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