The Entire Project Gutenberg Works of Charles Dudley Warner

C >> Charles Dudley Warner >> The Entire Project Gutenberg Works of Charles Dudley Warner


"After passing through various chambers of the palace, now silent and
sombre, but which I had traversed in former days, on grand court
occasions in the time of Ferdinand VII, when they were glittering with
all the splendor of a court, we paused in a great saloon, with
high-vaulted ceiling incrusted with florid devices in porcelain, and hung
with silken tapestry, but all in dim twilight, like the rest of the
palace. At one end of the saloon the door opened to an almost
interminable range of other chambers, through which, at a distance, we
had a glimpse of some indistinct figures in black. They glided into the
saloon slowly, and with noiseless steps. It was the little Queen, with
her governess, Madame Mina, widow of the general of that name, and her
guardian, the excellent Arguelles, all in deep mourning for the Duke of
Orleans. The little Queen advanced some steps within the saloon and then
paused. Madame Mina took her station a little distance behind her. The
Count Almodovar then introduced me to the Queen in my official capacity,
and she received me with a grave and quiet welcome, expressed in a very
low voice. She is nearly twelve years of age, and is sufficiently well
grown for her years. She had a somewhat fair complexion, quite pale,
with bluish or light gray eyes; a grave demeanor, but a graceful
deportment. I could not but regard her with deep interest, knowing what
important concerns depended upon the life of this fragile little being,
and to what a stormy and precarious career she might be destined. Her
solitary position, also, separated from all her kindred except her little
sister, a mere effigy of royalty in the hands of statesmen, and
surrounded by the formalities and ceremonials of state, which spread
sterility around the occupant of a throne."

I have quoted this passage, not more on account of its intrinsic
interest, than as a specimen of the author's consummate art of conveying
an impression by what I may call the tone of his style; and this appears
in all his correspondence relating to this picturesque and eventful
period. During the four years of his residence the country was in a
constant state of excitement and often of panic. Armies were marching
over the kingdom. Madrid was in a state of siege, expecting an assault
at one time; confusion reigned amid the changing adherents about the
person of the child-queen. The duties of a minister were perplexing
enough, when the Spanish government was changing its character and its
personnel with the rapidity of shifting scenes in a pantomime. "This
consumption of ministers," wrote Irving to Mr. Webster, "is appalling.
To carry on a negotiation with such transient functionaries is like
bargaining at the window of a railroad-car: before you can get a reply to
a proposition the other party is out of sight."

Apart from politics, Irving's residence was full of half-melancholy
recollections and associations. In a letter to his old comrade, Prince
Polgorouki, then Russian Minister at Naples, he recalls the days of their
delightful intercourse at the D'Oubrils':

"Time dispels charms and illusions. You remember how much I was
struck with a beautiful young woman (I will not mention names) who
appeared in a tableau as Murillo's Virgin of the Assumption? She
was young, recently married, fresh and unhackneyed in society, and
my imagination decked her out with everything that was pure, lovely,
innocent, and angelic in womanhood. She was pointed out to me in
the theatre shortly after my arrival in Madrid. I turned with
eagerness to the original of the picture that had ever remained hung
up in sanctity in my mind. I found her still handsome, though
somewhat matronly in appearance, seated, with her daughters, in the
box of a fashionable nobleman, younger than herself, rich in purse
but poor in intellect, and who was openly and notoriously her
cavalier servante. The charm was broken, the picture fell from the
wall. She may have the customs of a depraved country and licentious
state of society to excuse her; but I can never think of her again
in the halo of feminine purity and loveliness that surrounded the
Virgin of Murillo."

During Irving's ministry he was twice absent, briefly in Paris and
London, and was called to the latter place for consultation in regard to
the Oregon boundary dispute, in the settlement of which he rendered
valuable service. Space is not given me for further quotations from
Irving's brilliant descriptions of court, characters, and society in that
revolutionary time, nor of his half-melancholy pilgrimage to the southern
scenes of his former reveries. But I will take a page from a letter to
his sister, Mrs. Paris, describing his voyage from Barcelona to
Marseilles, which exhibits the lively susceptibility of the author and
diplomat who was then in his sixty-first year:

"While I am writing at a table in the cabin, I am sensible of the
power of a pair of splendid Spanish eyes which are occasionally
flashing upon me, and which almost seem to throw a light upon the
paper. Since I cannot break the spell, I will describe the owner of
them. She is a young married lady, about four or five and twenty,
middle sized, finely modeled, a Grecian outline of face, a
complexion sallow yet healthful, raven black hair, eyes dark, large,
and beaming, softened by long eyelashes, lips full and rosy red, yet
finely chiseled, and teeth of dazzling whiteness. She is dressed in
black, as if in mourning; on one hand is a black glove; the other
hand, ungloved, is small, exquisitely formed, with taper fingers and
blue veins. She has just put it up to adjust her clustering black
locks. I never saw female hand more exquisite. Really, if I were a
young man, I should not be able to draw the portrait of this
beautiful creature so calmly.

"I was interrupted in my letter writing, by an observation of the
lady whom I was describing. She had caught my eye occasionally, as
it glanced from my letter toward her. 'Really, Senor,' said she, at
length, with a smile, I one would think you were a painter taking my
likeness.' I could not resist the impulse. 'Indeed,' said I, 'I am
taking it; I am writing to a friend the other side of the world,
discussing things that are passing before me, and I could not help
noting down one of the best specimens of the country that I had met
with: A little bantering took place between the young lady, her
husband, and myself, which ended in my reading off, as well as I
could into Spanish, the description I had just written down.
It occasioned a world of merriment, and was taken in excellent part.
The lady's cheek, for once, mantled with the rose. She laughed,
shook her head, and said I was a very fanciful portrait painter;
and the husband declared that, if I would stop at St. Filian, all
the ladies in the place would crowd to have their portraits taken,
--my pictures were so flattering. I have just parted with them. The
steamship stopped in the open sea, just in front of the little bay
of St. Filian; boats came off from shore for the party. I helped
the beautiful original of the portrait into the boat, and promised
her and her husband if ever I should come to St. Filian I would pay
them a visit. The last I noticed of her was a Spanish farewell wave
of her beautiful white hand, and the gleam of her dazzling teeth as
she smiled adieu. So there 's a very tolerable touch of romance for
a gentleman of my years."

When Irving announced his recall from the court of Madrid, the young
Queen said to him in reply: "You may take with you into private life the
intimate conviction that your frank and loyal conduct has contributed to
draw closer the amicable relations which exist between North America and
the Spanish nation, and that your distinguished personal merits have
gained in my heart the appreciation which you merit by more than one
title." The author was anxious to return. From the midst of court life
in April, 1845, he had written: "I long to be once more back at dear
little Sunnyside, while I have yet strength and good spirits to enjoy the
simple pleasures of the country, and to rally a happy family group once
more about me. I grudge every year of absence that rolls by. To-morrow
is my birthday. I shall then be sixty-two years old. The evening of
life is fast drawing over me; still I hope to get back among my friends
while there is a little sunshine left."

It was the 19th of September, 1846, says his biographer, "when the
impatient longing of his heart was gratified, and he found himself
restored to his home for the thirteen years of happy life still remaining
to him."




IX

THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS

The "Knickerbocker's History of New York" and the "Sketch-Book" never
would have won for Irving the gold medal of the Royal Society of
Literature, or the degree of D. C. L. from Oxford.

However much the world would have liked frankly to honor the writer for
that which it most enjoyed and was under most obligations for, it would
have been a violent shock to the constitution of things to have given
such honor to the mere humorist and the writer of short sketches.
The conventional literary proprieties must be observed. Only some
laborious, solid, and improving work of the pen could sanction such
distinction,--a book of research or an historical composition. It need
not necessarily be dull, but it must be grave in tone and serious in
intention, in order to give the author high recognition.

Irving himself shared this opinion. He hoped, in the composition of his
"Columbus" and his "Washington," to produce works which should justify
the good opinion his countrymen had formed of him, should reasonably
satisfy the expectations excited by his lighter books, and should lay for
him the basis of enduring reputation. All that he had done before was
the play of careless genius, the exercise of frolicsome fancy, which
might amuse and perhaps win an affectionate regard for the author, but
could not justify a high respect or secure a permanent place in
literature. For this, some work of scholarship and industry was needed.

And yet everybody would probably have admitted that there was but one man
then living who could have created and peopled the vast and humorous
world of the Knickerbockers; that all the learning of Oxford and
Cambridge together would not enable a man to draw the whimsical portrait
of Ichabod Crane, or to outline the fascinating legend of Rip Van Winkle;
while Europe was full of scholars of more learning than Irving, and
writers of equal skill in narrative, who might have told the story of
Columbus as well as he told it and perhaps better. The under-graduates
of Oxford who hooted their admiration of the shy author when he appeared
in the theater to receive his complimentary degree perhaps understood
this, and expressed it in their shouts of "Diedrich Knickerbocker,"
"Ichabod Crane," "Rip Van Winkle."

Irving's "gift" was humor; and allied to this was sentiment. These
qualities modified and restrained each other; and it was by these that he
touched the heart. He acquired other powers which he himself may have
valued more highly, and which brought him more substantial honors; but
the historical compositions, which he and his contemporaries regarded as
a solid basis of fame, could be spared without serious loss, while the
works of humor, the first fruits of his genius, are possessions in
English literature the loss of which would be irreparable. The world may
never openly allow to humor a position "above the salt," but it clings to
its fresh and original productions, generation after generation, finding
room for them in its accumulating literary baggage, while more
"important" tomes of scholarship and industry strew the line of its
march.

I feel that this study of Irving as a man of letters would be incomplete,
especially for the young readers of this generation, if it did not
contain some more extended citations from those works upon which we have
formed our estimate of his quality. We will take first a few passages
from the--"History of New York".

It has been said that Irving lacked imagination. That, while he had
humor and feeling and fancy, he was wanting in the higher quality, which
is the last test of genius. We have come to attach to the word
"imagination" a larger meaning than the mere reproduction in the mind of
certain absent objects of sense that have been perceived; there must be a
suggestion of something beyond these, and an ennobling suggestion, if not
a combination, that amounts to a new creation. Now, it seems to me that
the transmutation of the crude and heretofore unpoetical materials which
he found in the New World into what is as absolute a creation as exists
in literature, was a distinct work of the imagination. Its humorous
quality does not interfere with its largeness of outline, nor with its
essential poetic coloring. For, whimsical and comical as is the
Knickerbocker creation, it is enlarged to the proportion of a realm, and
over that new country of the imagination is always the rosy light of
sentiment.

This largeness of modified conception cannot be made apparent in such
brief extracts as we can make, but they will show its quality and the
author's humor. The Low-Dutch settlers of the Nieuw Nederlandts are
supposed to have sailed from Amsterdam in a ship called the Goede Vrouw,
built by the carpenters of that city, who always model their ships on the
fair forms of their countrywomen. This vessel, whose beauteous model was
declared to be the greatest belle in Amsterdam, had one hundred feet in
the beam, one hundred feet in the keel, and one hundred feet from the
bottom of the stern-post to the taffrail. Those illustrious adventurers
who sailed in her landed on the Jersey flats, preferring a marshy ground,
where they could drive piles and construct dykes. They made a settlement
at the Indian village of Communipaw, the egg from which was hatched the
mighty city of New York. In the author's time this place had lost its
importance:

"Communipaw is at present but a small village, pleasantly situated,
among rural scenery, on that beauteous part of the Jersey shore
which was known in ancient legends by the name of Pavonia,
--[Pavonia, in the ancient maps, is given to a tract of country
extending from about Hoboken to Amboy]--and commands a grand
prospect of the superb bay of New York. It is within but half an
hour's sail of the latter place, provided you have a fair wind, and
may be distinctly seen from the city. Nay, it is a well known fact,
which I can testify from my own experience, that on a clear still
summer evening, you may hear, from the Battery of New York, the
obstreperous peals of broad-mouthed laughter of the Dutch negroes at
Communipaw, who, like most other negroes, are famous for their
risible powers. This is peculiarly the case on Sunday evenings,
when, it is remarked by an ingenious and observant philosopher, who
has made great discoveries in the neighborhood of this city, that
they always laugh loudest, which he attributes to the circumstance
of their having their holiday clothes on.

"These negroes, in fact, like the monks of the dark ages, engross
all the knowledge of the place, and being infinitely more
adventurous and more knowing than their masters, carry on all the
foreign trade; making frequent voyages to town in canoes loaded with
oysters, buttermilk, and cabbages. They are great astrologers,
predicting the different changes of weather almost as accurately as
an almanac; they are moreover exquisite performers on three-stringed
fiddles; in whistling they almost boast the far-famed powers of
Orpheus's lyre, for not a horse or an ox in the place, when at the
plough or before the wagon, will budge a foot until he hears the
well-known whistle of his black driver and companion. And from
their amazing skill at casting up accounts upon their fingers, they
are regarded with as much veneration as were the disciples of
Pythagoras of yore, when initiated into the sacred quaternary of
numbers.

"As to the honest burghers of Communipaw, like wise men and sound
philosophers, they never look beyond their pipes, nor trouble their
heads about any affairs out of their immediate neighborhood; so that
they live in profound and enviable ignorance of all the troubles,
anxieties, and revolutions of this distracted planet. I am even
told that many among them do verily believe that Holland, of which
they have heard so much from tradition, is situated somewhere on
Long Island,--that Spiking-devil and the Narrows are the two ends of
the world,--that the country is still under the dominion of their
High Mightinesses,--and that the city of New York still goes by the
name of Nieuw Amsterdam. They meet every Saturday afternoon at the
only tavern in the place, which bears as a sign a square-headed
likeness of the Prince of Orange, where they smoke a silent pipe,
by way of promoting social conviviality, and invariably drink a mug
of cider to the success of Admiral Van Tromp, who they imagine is
still sweeping the British channel with a broom at his mast-head.

"Communipaw, in short, is one of the numerous little villages in the
vicinity of this most beautiful of cities, which are so many
strongholds and fastnesses, whither the primitive manners of our
Dutch forefathers have retreated, and where they are cherished with
devout and scrupulous strictness. The dress of the original
settlers is handed down inviolate, from father to son: the identical
broad-brimmed hat, broad-skirted coat, and broad-bottomed breeches,
continue from generation to generation; and several gigantic
knee-buckles of massy silver are still in wear, that made gallant
display in the days of the patriarchs of Communipaw. The language
likewise continues unadulterated by barbarous innovations; and so
critically correct is the village schoolmaster in his dialect, that
his reading of a Low-Dutch psalm has much the same effect on the
nerves as the filing of a handsaw."

The early prosperity of this settlement is dwelt on with satisfaction by
the author:

"The neighboring Indians in a short time became accustomed to the
uncouth sound of the Dutch language, and an intercourse gradually
took place between them and the new-comers. The Indians were much
given to long talks, and the Dutch to long silence;--in this
particular, therefore, they accommodated each other completely.
The chiefs would make long speeches about the big bull, the Wabash,
and the Great Spirit, to which the others would listen very
attentively, smoke their pipes, and grunt 'yah, mynher', whereat the
poor savages were wondrously delighted. They instructed the new
settlers in the best art of curing and smoking tobacco, while the
latter, in return, made them drunk with true Hollands--and then
taught them the art of making bargains.

"A brisk trade for furs was soon opened; the Dutch traders were
scrupulously honest in their dealings and purchased by weight,
establishing it as an invariable table of avoirdupois, that the hand
of a Dutchman weighed one pound, and his foot two pounds. It is
true, the simple Indians were often puzzled by the great
disproportion between bulk and weight, for let them place a bundle
of furs, never so large, in one scale, and a Dutchman put his hand
or foot in the other, the bundle was sure to kick the beam;--never
was a package of furs known to weigh more than two pounds in the
market of Communipaw!

"This is a singular fact,--but I have it direct from my
great-great-grandfather, who had risen to considerable importance
in the colony, being promoted to the office of weigh-master, on
account of the uncommon heaviness of his foot.

"The Dutch possessions in this part of the globe began now to assume
a very thriving appearance, and were comprehended under the general
title of Nieuw Nederlandts, on account, as the Sage Vander Donck
observes, of their great resemblance to the Dutch Netherlands,
--which indeed was truly remarkable, excepting that the former were
rugged and mountainous, and the latter level and marshy. About this
time the tranquillity of the Dutch colonists was doomed to suffer a
temporary interruption. In 1614, Captain Sir Samuel Argal, sailing
under a commission from Dale, governor of Virginia, visited the
Dutch settlements on Hudson River, and demanded their submission to
the English crown and Virginian dominion. To this arrogant demand,
as they were in no condition to resist it, they submitted for the
time, like discreet and reasonable men.

"It does not appear that the valiant Argal molested the settlement
of Communipaw; on the contrary, I am told that when his vessel first
hove in sight, the worthy burghers were seized with such a panic,
that they fell to smoking their pipes with astonishing vehemence;
insomuch that they quickly raised a cloud, which, combining with the
surrounding woods and marshes, completely enveloped and concealed
their beloved village, and overhung the fair regions of Pavoniaso
that the terrible Captain Argal passed on totally unsuspicious that
a sturdy little Dutch settlement lay snugly couched in the mud,
under cover of all this pestilent vapor. In commemoration of this
fortunate escape, the worthy inhabitants have continue, to smoke,
almost without intermission, unto this very day; which is said to be
the cause of the remarkable fog which often hangs over Communipaw of
a clear afternoon."

The golden age of New York was under the reign of Walter Van Twiller, the
first governor of the province, and the best it ever had. In his sketch
of this excellent magistrate Irving has embodied the abundance and
tranquillity of those halcyon days:

"The renowned Wouter (or Walter Van Twiller) was descended from a
long line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away
their lives, and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in
Rotterdam; and who had comported themselves with such singular
wisdom and propriety that they were never either heard or talked of
--which, next to being universally applauded, should be the object
of ambition of all magistrates and rulers. There are two opposite
ways by which some men make a figure in the world: one, by talking
faster than they think, and the other, by holding their tongues and
not thinking at all. By the first, many a smatterer acquires the
reputation of a man of quick parts; by the other, many a dunderpate,
like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be considered the
very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual remark, which I
would not, for the universe, have it thought I apply to Governor Van
Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within himself, like an
oyster, and rarely spoke, except in monosyllables; but then it was
allowed he seldom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his
gravity that he was never known to laugh or even to smile through
the whole course of along and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were
uttered in his presence, that set light-minded hearers in a roar, it
was observed to throw him into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he
would deign to inquire into the matter, and when, after much
explanation, the joke was made as plain as a pikestaff, he would
continue to smoke his pipe in silence, and at length, knocking out
the ashes, would exclaim, 'Well! I see nothing in all that to laugh
about.'

"With all his reflective habits, he never made up his mind on a
subject. His adherents accounted for this by the astonishing
magnitude of his ideas. He conceived every subject on so grand a
scale that he had not room in his head to turn it over and examine
both sides of it. Certain it is, that, if any matter were
propounded to him on which ordinary mortals would rashly determine
at first glance, he would put on a vague, mysterious look, shake his
capacious head, smoke some time in profound silence, and at length
observe, that 'he had his doubts about the matter;' which gained him
the reputation of a man slow of belief and not easily imposed upon.
What is more, it has gained him a lasting name; for to this habit of
the mind has been attributed his surname of Twiller; which is said
to be a corruption of the original Twijfler, or, in plain English,
Doubter.