Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/20

31, 1859.] expression of his own eyes. From the tone of his conversation it was apparent that his admiration for a true woman was unbounded. He said that he never tired of looking at them. It had always been his custom in travelling over the world to take particular notice of the women whom he met (especially if they were beautiful), and to amuse himself by composing stories, purely imaginary of course, in which they conspicuously figured.

When questioned as to his manner of writing, Mr. Irving gave me the following particulars: He usually wrote with great rapidity. Some of the most popular passages in his books were written with the greatest ease, and the more uninteresting ones were those which had cost him the most trouble. At one time he had to labour very hard to bring up one part of an essay to the level of another. He never allowed a thing to go to press, however, without writing it or overlooking it a second time; he was always careful about that. Several of the papers in the Sketch Book were written before breakfast; one he remembered especially—“The Wife.” At one time, in England, Thomas Moore called upon him when deeply engaged in writing a story, and as the poet saw page after page of Mr. Irving’s manuscript thrown aside, he stepped quietly into the room, and did not speak a word until the task was ended, when he said it would have been a pity to have disturbed a man under such circumstances. The first things he ever printed were school compositions, which he was in the habit of sending to the “Weekly Museum,” a little quarto journal published in New York, when he was a boy twelve or fourteen years old. Many papers that he sent to the printer were rejected, but those assaults upon his pride did not make him unhappy. At no period of his life had he ever attempted to make a grand sentence; his chief object had been to utter his thoughts in the fewest possible words, as simple and plain as language would allow. The only poetry he had ever attempted was a piece entitled, “Lines to the Passaic.” These verses were written in an album for the amusement of a party of ladies and gentlemen, which he had joined, to the Falls. He said they ought never to have been printed, for in his opinion they were very poor, very poor stuff. In 1802, when nineteen years of age, he published in a paper called “The Chronicle,” edited by his brother, a series of letters with the signature of Jonathan Old Style—but these productions he never recognised. In consequence of ill health, he went to Europe in 1804, and after his return to New York, in 1807, he took the chief part in “Salmagundi.” “Knickerbocker’s New York” was published in 1809, and in 1813 he edited the “Analectic Magazine,” at which time he became an aide-de-camp and was called Colonel Irving. The years in which his succeeding books made their appearance, as near as he could remember, were as follow: “The Sketch Book,” in 1818; “Bracebridge Hall,” in 1822; “Tales of a Traveller,” in 1824; “Columbus,” in 1828; “Conquest of Granada,” in 1829; “Alhambra,” in 1832; “Crayon Miscellany,” in 1835; “Astoria,” in 1836; “Bonneville’s Adventures,” in 1837; “Oliver Goldsmith,” in 1849; and “Mahomet,” in 1850. The University of Oxford made him a D.C.L. in 1831, when he was Secretary of Legation in London, and the date of his appointment as Minister to Spain was 1842, the same having been conferred without his solicitation. The fifty guinea gold medal conferred upon him by George IV. was for historical composition, and the person who received the other medal of the same year (1831) was Henry Hallam.

He touched upon literary men generally, and upon certain living English writers. He said of

On looking at a picturesque group of children by the way-side, he was reminded of Wilkie. He knew the painter well. Returning from Italy, Wilkie had heard of his being in Spain, and went all the way from Madrid to spend a couple of months or more. He spoke of the artist as an honest blunt man and a capital painter; but in a few of his Spanish pictures he had committed the error of introducing Scotch accessories. When in Madrid they walked a great deal together, went into all sorts of places, and the painter was constantly taking sketches. “On one occasion,” said Mr. Irving, “when my attention had been attracted by a gaudily dressed group of soldiers and women, I turned to him and said, ‘There, Wilkie, there’s something very fine!’ He looked attentively for a moment, and shaking his head, hastily replied, ‘Too costumey, too costumey.’ The fact was, he delighted more in the rich brown of old rags than he did in the bright colours of new lace and new cloth.”

Speaking to Mr. Irving of a headache with which I was suffering, he remarked, that was a thing he had never experienced. Indeed, he thought that no man had ever lived so long a life as he had, with fewer aches and pains. He mentioned the singular fact that for a period of twenty years, from 1822 to 1842, he had not been conscious of the least bodily suffering. A good dinner was a thing that he had always enjoyed, but he liked it plain and well cooked. In early life he was very fond of walking; but owing to a cutaneous affection which came upon him in Spain, his ankles were somewhat weakened, and he had since that time taken the most of his exercise on horseback. This last remark was made in reply to the surprise which Mr. Custis expressed at seeing him skip up a flight of stairs three steps at a time, and for which he apologised, by saying that he frequently forgot himself. While alluding to his habits, he remarked that a quiet, sedentary life agreed with him, and that he often sat at his writing-table, when at work, from four to six hours without ever rising from his chair. He also avowed himself a great lover of sleep. When at home, he always took a nap after dinner, but somehow of late years he could not sleep well at night; he frequently spent more than half the night wakeful, and at such times he was in the habit of reading a great deal. He said that he really envied the man who could sleep soundly.

I had a short talk with Mr. Irving about the copyright treaty which was drawn up by Messrs. Webster and Crampton, and then in the hands of Mr. Everett. He did not believe it would be ratified by the senate, and spoke in rather severe