New York was then the capital of the country, a city of about twenty-five thousand inhabitants, small enough so that it was an easy matter for the city boy to get into the country. New York itself retained many traces of its Dutch origin, and upon its streets could be seen men from all parts of the world. Here the boy grew up happy, seeing many sides of American life, both in the city and in the country. He was fun-loving and social, and could hardly be called a student. He greatly preferred "Robinson Crusoe" and "Sinbad" to the construing of Latin. Best of all, he liked to go exploring down to the water front to see the tall ships setting sail for the other side of the world, or, as he grew older, up the Hudson and into the Catskills, or to that very Sleepy Hollow which lives for us now because of him. Irving liked people, and had many warm friends.
These three tastes--for people, for books, and for travel--his life was destined to gratify. His health being delicate, he was sent abroad at twenty-one, and the captain of the ship he sailed in, noting his fragile appearance, said, "There's one who'll go overboard before we get across," but he happily proved a mistaken prophet. Irving not only survived the voyage, but spent two years traveling in Italy, France, Sicily, and the Netherlands. The romantic spirit strong within him eagerly absorbed mediæval history and tradition. "My native country was full of youthful promise; Europe was rich in the accumulated treasures of age."
Upon his return home, Irving was admitted to the bar, but he never seriously turned his attention to law. In 1809 he published "A History of New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker." It was a humorous history of New Amsterdam, a delicious mingling of sense and nonsense, over which Walter Scott said his "sides were absolutely sore with laughing." While writing this history a great sorrow touched his life--the death of a young girl to whom he was deeply attached.
Ten years later, upon his second visit to Europe, Irving published "The Sketch Book." It rapidly won favor both in England and America. Byron said of it: "I know it by heart; at least there is not a passage that I cannot refer to immediately." This second visit to Europe was to be a short business trip, but as it chanced, it lasted seventeen years. The first five years were spent in England. Later he went to Spain, and as a result of this visit, we have a series of books dealing with Spanish history and tradition--"The Alhambra," "The Conquest of Granada" and "The Life of Columbus." During all these years and in all these places, he met and won the regard of hosts of interesting people. Everyone praised his books, and everyone liked the likable American, with his distinguished face and gentle manners.
In 1832 Irving was gladly welcomed back to America, for many had feared that his long absence might mean permanent residence abroad. The next ten years were spent in his beautiful home, Sunnyside, at Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson. Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, could find no person more gratifying to the Spanish people, than the author of the "Life of Columbus" and, in 1842, persuaded Irving to represent us at the Spanish court. After four years, he returned to America and passed his time almost exclusively in writing. The work which he finished just before his death, in November, 1859, was the "Life of Washington." He was buried on a hill overlooking the river and a portion of the Sleepy Hollow Valley.
Because of the ease and smoothness of his style, and his delicate sense of form, Irving delighted his own and succeeding generations of both his countrymen and his British cousins. All his work is pervaded by the strong and winning personal quality that brought him the love and admiration of all. Charles Dudley Warner says of him: "The author loved good women and little children and a pure life; he had faith in his fellow-men, a kindly sympathy with the lowest, without any subservience to the highest. His books are wholesome, full of sweetness and charm, of humor without any sting, of amusement without any stain; and their more solid qualities are marred by neither pedantry nor pretension."
A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER
FROM "THE SKETCH BOOK," BY WASHINGTON IRVING