II
MAN ABOUT TOWN
At that time New York was hardly more than a big village, such as Boston continued to be for a half-century later. Everybody (who was anybody) knew everybody else in the friendly and informal way which nowadays belongs to a "set." Conviviality—this dignified name of the thing best suggests the way in which it was looked at then—was as much a part of fashionable life in New York as in Edinburgh or London. Into this society Irving entered with zest, flirting, dancing, tippling with other young swaggerers according to the mode. He went back nominally to his legal studies, but was really very little concerned with law or gospel. Of this kind of life, "Salmagundi," the first number of which, appeared in January, 1807, was the legitimate outcome. It was made up of short satirical sketches of the "Spectator" type. Irving and J. K. Paulding were the principal contributors, but they had some assistance from William Irving and a few others. In the course of a year twenty numbers were published at irregular intervals, when they suddenly ceased to appear. The authors, who wrote under fictitious names, affected from the start complete indifference to fame or profit. Their purpose, they said with whimsical assurance, was simply "to instruct the young, reform the old, correct the town, and castigate the age." The audacity of the thing caught the town; it was a decided success, and very profitable—for the publisher. There is a mildly sophomoric flavor about the "Salmagundi" papers, as there is about Irving's letters of the same period. But they are full of amusing things, and worth reading, too, for the odd side-lights they throw upon the foibles of that old New York.
As he grew older, Irving came to feel the shallowness of fashionable society, but in the Salmagundi days he appears to have asked for nothing better. He had good looks, good humor, and good manners, showed a proper susceptibility, and knew how to turn a compliment or write a graceful letter. No wonder he found himself welcome wherever he went. After a visit to Philadelphia one of the ladies to whom he had made himself agreeable wrote, "Half the people exist but in the idea that you will one day return."
Early in the following year he had a little experience of the practical working of ward politics, which he described in a letter to a certain charming Mary Fairlie: "Truly, this saving one's country is a nauseous piece of business, and if patriotism is such a dirty virtue,—prythee, no more of it.... Such haranguing and puffing and strutting among the little great men of the day. Such shoals of unfledged heroes from the lower wards, who had broke away from their mammas, and run to electioneer with a slice of bread and butter in their hands." Irving's patriotism was not found wanting when the time came, but he had a life-long contempt for the petty trickery of party politics. That year he made another of his leisurely jaunts, nominally on business, this time to Virginia. His letters record the usual round of social gallantries, and some graver matter. Burr's trial was on in Richmond. Irving made his acquaintance, and was retained in some ornamental sense among his counsel. One or two letters from Richmond show a sentimental sympathy for his client of which the less said the better. A characteristic weakness of Irving's was always an unreasoning fondness for the under dog. In the autumn of 1807 his father died, one of the most sincere among the "unco guid," a man whom few people loved and everybody respected.
Not long after the discontinuance of the Salmagundi papers a new idea suggested itself to Irving and his brother Peter, which in its original form does not look especially promising. It was to develop into a really remarkable work, and to place Irving's name in a secure place among living humorists. The "Knickerbocker History of New York" really laid the foundation of his fame. The first plan was for a mere burlesque of an absurd book just published, a Dr. Samuel Mitchill's "Picture of New York." Mitchill began with the aborigines: the Irvings began with the creation of the world. Fortunately Peter was soon called away to Europe, and Irving was left to his own devices, which presently took a different and more original turn. He threw out most of the pompous erudition which belonged to the work as a burlesque, and condensed what remained. Everything after the five introductory chapters is his own.
At this time he had begun to do commission business for certain New York houses, with a genuine impulse toward steadiness and industry which it is easy to account for. He was deep in love with the second daughter of Mr. Hoffman, in whose office he had originally idled. He had been for years very intimate with the family, and had ended by making a remarkable discovery about one of them. As he was evidently not in a position to marry, he was now setting to work with real energy to improve his means.
Matilda Hoffman was a girl of seventeen, pretty, amiable, and clever. She died of quick consumption in April, 1809. It is certain that they loved each other very much, and that Irving never forgot her. The claim put forth by his nephew and biographer that he gave up marriage for her sake, and was romantically scrupulous in his faithfulness to her memory, seems hardly borne out by the facts. He was crushed for the moment, but not heartbroken. The truth is Irving's nature was sentimental rather than passionate. His love for Miss Hoffman appears to have been the deepest feeling of his life, but it did not absorb his whole nature. The first effect of her loss was to fill him with a sort of horror—the rebellion of a young and sensitive health against the tyranny of death. It was enough to show that the mourner was by no means in desperate case, for extreme grief is not afraid. In after life he never mentioned her name, and wrote of her only once. At the same time pretty faces and the charm of womanly companionship continued to attract him; indeed, a few years later he openly expressed his expectation of some time marrying. That he did not was clearly due to temper and circumstance rather than to romantic fidelity or abnegation. In the end his susceptibility became purely impersonal; his satisfaction in the exercise of a gentle old-school gallantry did much to take the sting from his life-long bachelorhood. Plainly, Irving was the sort of man who finds a grace in every feminine presence.
It is encouraging to find him in a few months at work again upon the Knickerbocker history. Its appearance was cleverly heralded by a series of preliminary advertisements, announcing the disappearance of one Diedrich Knickerbocker, and the finding of a manuscript history by his hand. The book was published in December, 1809, and made a remarkable impression, in England as well as in America. Henry Brevoort, a close friend of Irving's, in 1813 sent a copy of the second edition to Walter Scott, who wrote at once: "I beg you to accept my best thanks for the uncommon degree of entertainment which I have received from the most excellently jocose History of New York.... I have never read anything so closely resembling the style of Dean Swift as the annals of Diedrich Knickerbocker. I have been employed these few evenings in reading them aloud to Mrs. Scott and two ladies who are our guests, and our sides have been absolutely sore with laughing. I think, too, there are passages which indicate that the author possesses powers of a different kind, and has some touches which remind me much of Sterne."