IRVING LISTENING TO THE OLD TALES OF THE MOORS.
The chapters of the Alhambra are also full of delightful legends, the fairy tales which time had woven around the beautiful ruin, and which the custodians of the place related gravely to Irving as genuine history. It calls up a pleasant picture to think of Irving sitting in the stately hall or on his balcony, listening to one of these old tales from the lips of his tattered but devoted domestic while the twilight was gathering, and the nightingale singing in the groves and gardens beneath. He himself said that it was the realization of a daydream which he had cherished since the time when, in earliest boyhood on the banks of the Hudson, he had pored over the story of the Granada.
In his work, The Conquest of Granada, Irving relates the story of the retaking of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella. So sympathetically and graphically does Irving describe the fortunes of this war that he must ever remain the historian of the Moors of Spain, whose spirit seemed to inspire the beautiful words in which he celebrated their conquests, their achievements and their defeats.
In the Chronicle of Wolfert's Roost Irving follows in imagination old Diedrich Knickerbocker into the famous region of Sleepy Hollow, where much of the material for the celebrated Knickerbocker History was said to have been collected. This chronicle, it was claimed, was written upon the identical old Dutch writing-desk that Diedrich used, the elbow chair was the same that he sat in, the clock was the very one he consulted so often during his long hours of composition. In these pages old Diedrich walks as a real person, and Irving follows him with faithful step through the region that he loved so fondly all his life.
Everything here is dwelt upon with lingering touch. The brooks and streams, the meadows and cornfields, the orchards and the gardens, and the groves of beech and chestnut have their tribute from the pen of one who found their charms ever fresh, who sought in them rest and happiness, and who came back to them lovingly to spend the last days of his life in their familiar companionship.
Irving died in 1859, and was buried at Sunnyside; in sight of the Hudson whose legends he had immortalized, and whose beauty never ceased to charm him from the moment it first captivated his heart in his boyhood days.
This Department is conducted in the interest of Amateur Photographers, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor Camera Club Department.