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Page 65
When the "Sketch-Book" appeared, an English critic said it should have
been first published in England, for Irving was an English writer. The
idea has been more than once echoed here. The truth is that while Irving
was intensely American in feeling he was first of all a man of letters,
and in that capacity he was cosmopolitan; he certainly was not insular.
He had a rare accommodation of tone to his theme. Of England, whose
traditions kindled his susceptible fancy, he wrote as Englishmen would
like to write about it. In Spain he was saturated with the romantic
story of the people and the fascination of the clime; and he was so true
an interpreter of both as to earn from the Spaniards the title of "the
poet Irving." I chanced once, in an inn at Frascati, to take up "The
Tales of a Traveller," which I had not seen for many years. I expected
to revive the somewhat faded humor and fancy of the past generation.
But I found not only a sprightly humor and vivacity which are modern,
but a truth to Italian local color that is very rare in any writer
foreign to the soil. As to America, I do not know what can be more
characteristically American than the Knickerbocker, the Hudson River
tales, the sketches of life and adventure in the far West. But
underneath all this diversity there is one constant quality,--the flavor
of the author. Open by chance and read almost anywhere in his score of
books,--it may be the "Tour on the Prairies," the familiar dream of the
Alhambra, or the narratives of the brilliant exploits of New World
explorers; surrender yourself to the flowing current of his transparent
style, and you are conscious of a beguilement which is the crowning
excellence of all lighter literature, for which we have no word but
"charm."
The consensus of opinion about Irving in England and America for thirty
years was very remarkable. He had a universal popularity rarely enjoyed
by any writer. England returned him to America medalled by the king,
honored by the university which is chary of its favors, followed by the
applause of the whole English people. In English households, in
drawing-rooms of the metropolis, in political circles no less than among
the literary coteries, in the best reviews, and in the popular
newspapers the opinion of him was pretty much the same. And even in the
lapse of time and the change of literary fashion authors so unlike as
Byron and Dickens were equally warm in admiration of him. To the English
indorsement America added her own enthusiasm, which was as universal.
His readers were the million, and all his readers were admirers. Even
American statesmen, who feed their minds on food we know not of, read
Irving. It is true that the uncritical opinion of New York was never
exactly re-echoed in the cool recesses of Boston culture; but the
magnates of the "North American Review" gave him their meed of cordial
praise. The country at large put him on a pinnacle. If you attempt to
account for the position he occupied by his character, which won the
love of all men, it must be remembered that the quality which won this,
whatever its value, pervades his books also.
And yet it must be said that the total impression left upon the mind by
the man and his works is not that of the greatest intellectual force. I
have no doubt that this was the impression he made upon his ablest
contemporaries. And this fact, when I consider the effect the man
produced, makes the study of him all the more interesting. As an
intellectual personality he makes no such impression, for instance, as
Carlyle, or a dozen other writers now living who could be named. The
incisive critical faculty was almost entirely wanting in him. He had
neither the power nor the disposition to cut his way transversely across
popular opinion and prejudice that Ruskin has, nor to draw around him
disciples equally well pleased to see him fiercely demolish to-day what
they had delighted to see him set up yesterday as eternal. He evoked
neither violent partisanship nor violent opposition. He was an extremely
sensitive man, and if he had been capable of creating a conflict he
would only have been miserable in it. The play of his mind depended upon
the sunshine of approval. And all this shows a certain want of
intellectual virility.
A recent anonymous writer has said that most of the writing of our day
is characterized by an intellectual strain. I have no doubt that this
will appear to be the case to the next generation. It is a strain to say
something new even at the risk of paradox, or to say something in a new
way at the risk of obscurity. From this Irving was entirely free. There
is no visible straining to attract attention. His mood is calm and
unexaggerated. Even in some of his pathos, which is open to the
suspicion of being "literary," there is no literary exaggeration. He
seems always writing from an internal calm, which is the necessary
condition of his production. If he wins at all by his style, by his
humor, by his portraiture of scenes or of character, it is by a gentle
force, like that of the sun in spring. There are many men now living, or
recently dead, intellectual prodigies, who have stimulated thought,
upset opinions, created mental eras, to whom Irving stands hardly in as
fair a relation as Goldsmith to Johnson. What verdict the next
generation will put upon their achievements I do not know; but it is
safe to say that their position and that of Irving as well will depend
largely upon the affirmation or the reversal of their views of life and
their judgments of character. I think the calm work of Irving will stand
when much of the more startling and perhaps more brilliant intellectual
achievement of this age has passed away.
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