After the settlement of this affair, Irving took lodgings in Paris. Here he met Tom Moore, and in his house more than anywhere else he became intimate. Moore's diary makes frequent mention of him; one of the most interesting entries records that Irving at this time wrote in ten days one hundred and thirty pages of the "Sketch Book" size. This was undoubtedly material for "Bracebridge Hall," the suggestion of which had come from Moore. In the meantime the "Sketch Book" had continued to gain ground in England. Byron admired it greatly, and its popularity with the general public may be judged from the fact that it was commonly attributed to Scott. Irving described himself in a letter to Murray as leading "a 'miscellaneous' kind of life at Paris.... Anacreon Moore is living here, and has made me a gayer fellow than I could have wished; but I found it impossible to resist the charm of his society."
In July (1821) he returned to London, in poor physical condition. He had now been tormented at intervals for several years by an eruptive complaint which kept him from exercise, and brought on other troubles. After his return he was bedridden for four or five months, most of which he passed at his sister's house in Birmingham. He grew very fond of his little nephews and nieces—particularly an urchin named George, of whom his letters record such items as: "George has made his appearance in a new pair of Grimaldi breeches, with pockets full as deep as the former. To balance his ball and marbles, he has the opposite pocket filled with a peg-top and a quantity of dry peas, so that he can only lie comfortably on his back or belly." He was by no means idle at this time. In January of the following year he sent the manuscript of "Bracebridge Hall" to his brother Ebenezer with the remark, "My health is still unrestored. This work has kept me from getting well, and my indisposition on the other hand has retarded the work. I have now been about five weeks in London, and have only once been out of doors, about a month since, and that made me worse." That single escape from the sick-room, his biographer says, was made for the sake of persuading Murray to publish Cooper's "Spy," which had already appeared in America. Irving's own experience was duplicated: Murray refused to take "The Spy," but was glad to publish Cooper's later work. He now gave Irving a thousand guineas for the English rights in "Bracebridge Hall." It was less than he might have given, but Irving could never be persuaded to haggle over prices. He seems to have agreed with Peter, who wrote cheerfully, "A thousand guineas has a golden sound." It was the amount which had been sunk in poor Peter's steamboat, which was still making its unprofitable trips up and down the Seine; and two hundred guineas of this thousand soon passed into his pocket, where no doubt he found their melody even pleasanter.
"Bracebridge Hall" was well received; and confirmed its author's reputation, especially in England. He had only to be passive to find himself overwhelmed with social engagements. A more liberal diet and plenty of exercise had improved his condition, and for a month or so after getting rid of "Bracebridge Hall," he gave himself up to the engagements of a London season. But his ankles soon began to trouble him again, and in July, 1822, he set out for Aix-la-Chapelle, where he hoped to get permanent relief from his distressing complaint. He found nothing to keep him long at Aix. The baths and waters were well enough, but he was too dependent upon cheerful companionship to endure life among a company of invalids. He began a leisurely round of the Continental watering-places, staying a few weeks here and a few days there, and gradually improving in condition. Toward the close of the year he brought up at Dresden.
The only touch of mystery which belongs to the story of Irving is connected with this six months' stay at Dresden. He made many friends there, and grew especially intimate with an English family named Foster, a mother and two daughters. It is said—and denied—that he would have liked to marry the youngest daughter, Emily. His biographer insists that there was nothing in the affair but friendship. To Mrs. Foster he wrote the only account he ever gave of his early love and loss; and his nephew quotes the closing passage as proof that he had no thought of marrying Emily Foster, however fond of her he may have been: "You wonder why I am not married. I have shown you why I was not long since. When I had sufficiently recovered from that loss, I became involved in ruin. It was not for a man broken down in the world, to drag down any woman to his paltry circumstances. I was too proud to tolerate the idea of ever mending my circumstances by matrimony. My time has now gone by; and I have growing claims upon my thoughts and upon my means, slender and precarious as they are. I feel as if I had already a family to think and provide for."
But this might be the modest speech of a middle-aged lover. Years later the written reminiscences of the two daughters unmistakably impute the attentions of the brilliant American to something more than friendliness. It is certain that he had a very warm feeling for somebody or something in Dresden, which led to a temporary return of his youthful delight in society. For his time was by no means given up to the Fosters. He was received into the life of the little German court, and evidently derived such pleasure as is proper to a Republican from dancing with princesses, and acting in private theatricals with Highnesses and Excellencies. On the whole it seems to have been a peaceful, idle, rather trivial time of sojourn among congenial people. He danced, he strolled, he wrote verses to little Miss Emily; in short, he enjoyed himself as a youngish man may, whether the muse is waiting for him, or some less high-flown customer. "I wish I could give you a good account of my literary labors," he wrote his sister after several months in Dresden, "but I have nothing to report. I am merely seeing, and hearing, and my mind seems in too crowded and confused a state to produce anything. I am getting very familiar with the German language; and there is a lady here who is so kind as to give me lessons every day in Italian [Mrs. Foster], which language I have nearly forgotten, but which I am fast regaining. Another lady is superintending my French [Miss Emily Foster], so that if I am not acquiring ideas, I am at least acquiring a variety of modes of expressing them when they do come." Very likely the confusion of his mind was not lessened by the frequency of those French lessons. There really seems to be no reason for doubting the testimony of the elder sister's journal; "He has written. He has confessed to my mother, as to a dear and true friend, his love for E——, and his conviction of its utter hopelessness. He feels himself unable to combat it. He thinks he must try, by absence, to bring more peace to his mind.... He has almost resolved to make a tour in Silesia, which will keep him absent for a few weeks." The tour in Silesia was certainly made; and during the brief absence Irving wrote sundry sentimental letters to Mrs. Foster. There are occasions when he seems to imagine a pretty daughter looking over the admirable mother's shoulder, and being much affected by the famous author's tenderness for Dresden. Presently he comes back to be their escort, for they are going home to England; and at Rotterdam the good-bys are said. They met afterward in England, but the old intimacy was gone.
More than thirty years after, Irving had a letter from a Mrs. Emily Fuller, whose name he did not know. Pleasantly and discreetly it recalled those happy Emily Foster days in Dresden. "She addresses him because she hopes that her eldest boy Henry may have the happiness and advantage of meeting him." Poor Irving! Her eldest boy Henry.... Well, the sting was all gone by that time, fortunately. His reply is all that it ought to be, and nothing more.
Those first days in Paris were not cheerful ones for Irving. His pleasant dream was over, and he had forgotten what to do with waking moments. His memorandum-book records that he felt oppressed by "a strange horror on his mind—a dread of future evil—of failure in future literary attempts—a dismal foreboding that he could not drive off by any effort of reason." "When I once get going again with my pen," he wrote to Peter, "I mean to keep on steadily, until I can scrape together enough to produce a regular income, however moderate. We shall then be independent of the world and its chances." But he could not manage to get going. For some time he could write nothing at all. Fortunately, after an unprofitable month or two, he fell in with John Howard Payne, now remembered only for his "Home, Sweet Home," but then esteemed as an actor and dramatist. Irving had met him several years before, and now became associated with him in some dramatic translating and adapting. The results were nearly worthless from a literary point of view, but served to keep him busy, and to put him once more in the writing vein.
For some time Murray had been pressing him hard for copy, and in the spring of 1824 the "Tales of a Traveler" were completed and sent to press. After the task of proof-reading came a reaction of high spirits which expressed itself in the most amusing letter Irving ever wrote:—
"Brighton, August 14, 1824.
"My boat is on the shore,
And my bark is on the sea.