He had been studying Spanish for a year or two, and had an increased desire to see Spain. As a mere aid in traveling, he asked for the nominal post of attaché to the American legation at Madrid. Alexander H. Everett, then minister to Spain, at once granted the request, and in replying suggested a possible literary task—the translation of a new Spanish work, Navarrete's "Voyages of Columbus," which was shortly to make its appearance. Murray, who was then in some difficulties, did not think favorably of the project.
Irving went to Madrid, and by good fortune got lodgings with the American consul Rich, who had made an extensive private collection of documents dealing with early American history. Presently Navarrete's work was published, and found to be "rather a mass of rich materials for history than a history itself." This was in February, 1826. Irving at once began to take notes and sift materials for an original history of Columbus. For six months he worked incessantly. "Sometimes," says his biographer, "he would write all day and until twelve at night; in one instance his note-book shows him to have written from five in the morning until eight at night, stopping only for meals."
IV
MAN OF LETTERS—SECOND PERIOD
There is something interesting, and in a sense pathetic, in this sudden steady diligence from the man of desultory habits, who had never written but by whim, whose finger had always been lifted to catch the lightest literary airs. Here, at last, was the firm trade wind, and the satisfaction of steady and methodical progress. The qualified success of the "Tales of a Traveler" had led him to feel that his vein was running out. The prospect of producing a solid work gave him keen pleasure. One cannot be always building castles in the air; why not try a pyramid, if only a little one? Since the world is perfectly delighted with our pretty things, very well, let us show that we can do a sublime thing. As for history—"Whatever may be the use of this sort of composition in itself and abstractedly," says Walter Bagehot, "it is certainly of great use relatively and to literary men. Consider the position of a man of that species. He sits beside a library fire, with nice white paper, a good pen, a capital style—every means of saying everything, but nothing to say. Of course he is an able man; of course he has an active intellect, besides wonderful culture: but still, one cannot always have original ideas. Every day cannot be an era; a train of new speculation very often will not be found: and how dull it is to make it your business to write, to stay by yourself in a room to write, and then to have nothing to say! It is dreary work mending seven pens, and waiting for a theory to 'turn up.' What a gain if something would happen! then one could describe it. Something has happened, and that something is history."
There is no doubt that Irving's early delicate sallies in literature represent his best. In a single department of belles-lettres he had shown mastery. During the remainder of his life he continued to work at intervals in that field with similar felicity; and, for the rest, to write amiably and respectably upon many topics foreign to his natural bent. But his greatest work was done in odd moments and at a heat; all the method in the world could not increase his real stature by a cubit.
A word may perhaps be said here of Irving as an historian and biographer. Of course he could not write dully; his histories are just as readable as Goldsmith's, and rather more veracious. But he plainly had not the scholar's training and methods which we now demand of the historian; nor had he the larger view of men and events in their perspective. Generalization was beyond him. Fortunately to generalize is only a part of the business of the historian. To catch some dim historic figure, and give it life and color,—this power he had. And it was evidently this which gave him the praise of such men as Prescott and Bancroft and Motley. Washington had begun to loom vaguely and impersonally in the mind, a mere great man, when Irving with a touch turned him from cold bronze into flesh and blood again.
During the years of Irving's stay abroad other American writers had come into notice. Bryant's poetry had become well known. Cooper had produced "The Spy," "The Pilot," "The Pioneers," and "The Last of the Mohicans." In 1827 appeared the first volume of poems by Edgar Allan Poe. In this year, too, Irving's diary records a meeting with Longfellow, who was then twenty-one, and came abroad to prepare himself for his professorship at Bowdoin. Longfellow's recollection of the incident is worth quoting: "I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Irving in Spain, and found the author, whom I had loved, repeated in the man. The same playful humor; the same touches of sentiment; the same poetic atmosphere; and, what I admired still more, the entire absence of all literary jealousy, of all that mean avarice of fame, which counts what is given to another as so much taken from one's self—