Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1857-09-17
Sunny side.

1
Irving came out while we were exchanging
saluiations with the grope under the porch
his true and easy step, plant motion admirable
spontaneousness of good spirits and quiet sim
plicily of address, giving him the presence of
a man of half his age. This impression was
somewhat corroborated, no doubt, by The sum-
mer airness of his dress, and certain juven
escence that there will always be about hight
salsuG shee5.and low crowned straw hat
somewhat, too, perhaps, by the unchanged
erectness and compactness of his well proper
TONED fgure--but did not realize, (then nor
afterwards during the day,) that there was any
thing in his mein or appearance hut the health
klness Of middle age-any thing but the un
compelled promptness and elasticity of vigor
undated. 1t was one of those mornings when
the inside of the house is the wrong side Of
the door > and to ask US to walk in would
scarce have been welcome. Mr.. Irving
leaned against one of the pillars of the piazza,
cha atting lb US to the tune of soft air, foliage
and sunshin Till the conversation turning up
on the architecture of the house, he took me
into his library to see the drawing of it as first
built
Our conversation, for the half hour that we
sat in that little library, turned, first, upon the
habits Of literary labor Mr.. Irving, in reply
TO my inquiry, whether like Rip Van W lie,
he had arrived at that happy age when man
can be idle with impunity,) said No that
he had some times worked even fourteen hours
day, but that he usually sits iu his study, oc-
cupied, from breakfast till dinner. (both Of US
agreeing that in literary vegetation the do
is on in the morning and that he should be
sorry to have much more leisure. He thought,
indeed, that he should die in harness. lie
never had headache-that is his workshop
never gave him any troub'e-but among the
changes which time has wrought, one, he says,
is very decided-the desire Of travel is dead
within him. The days are passed when he
could sleep or eat anywhere with equal pleas
ure and he goes to town as seldom as posi-
BILE
Motley's 'Du,cl Republic lay open on the
table, and Irving sa id he had been employing
little vacation from his own labors in the read
ing Of it. 1t had interested him exceedingly
{ How surprising he exclaimed, quite ener
{geticallY. that SO young man should jump
at once. fu,f grown, 10 'samc, sith asbis- lhoeks
SO well studied and complete!' This turned
conversation upon the experiences OF author
ship, and he said that he was always afraid 10
open the first copy that reached him OF new
book of his own lie set and trembled and re-
membered all the week points where ne had
been embarrassed and perplexed. and where he
felt he might have done bet;er-hatine to think
of the book, indeed until The reviewers had
praised it. Indifference to prass or censure,
he thought was not reasonable Or natural. AT
least it was impossible to him. He remem-
be red how he had suffered from the opinion of
a Phiadel phia critic, who. in reviewing the
Sketch Book at its first appearance, said that
Rip Van w inkle was silly attempt st hu-
NOR, quite unworthy of the authors genius.
My mention of Rogers, the poet, and some
other friends of Mr.. Irvings who had asked me
about him in Eng land, opened vein OF his
London recollec,ons He was never more as
tonshed, he said than at the success OF The
Sketch Book His wiring of those stories was
so like an inspration-so entirely without
any fee ing of confidence which could be pro-
phetc of their popularity Walking with his
brother, one dull foggy Sunday, over Westmin-
sler Bridge he got to telling The old Dutch sto-
ries which he had heard a, Tanytown, in his
youth, when the thought sndden y struck him
- have it III 90 home and make memo
randa of these for book = And, leaving his
brother 10 go 10 church. he went back 10 his
lodgings and jolted down all the data and the
next day-the dulest and darkest of London
fogs--he sat in his room and wrote out Sleepy
Hollow by the light of a candle
l allude to the story had heard told at
Lady Blessing on's-of Irving going to sleep
al dinner patty and their taking him to an
other house, where he walked up amid large
evening party-but he shook his head incredu-
ousy 1t was DIsraeli's story, he said and
was told of party at lady jerseys, to which
he certainly went, after dinner party--but not
with the dramatic nap at The table, nor the
waking up in her Ladyship's drawiag- room,
as described. In fact he remembered the party
as such jam that he did not get that
evening beyond the first landing of the stair
case
Among the pictures on the walls of his Ii
brary were the Two admirable engravngs-one
representing johnson at table with his friends
the other giving portraits of Scotis intlmates,
as be read his novel to them in the library at
Abbotsford. What company these are said
Irving how interesting TO have them = AS
walked around, | found in corner, small
pen and ink sketch an exceedingly clever carl
cature of Paganini. 1t was done, he said by
Stuart Newton, as he sat with him one day
done in one of that artists dreamy, uncon-
scious moods-and Irving had taken ii from
under his hand, to preserve it. There was an
other, of the English wit. Lord Somers, a
famous man about town when Irving was
first in London; and another still, of dramatic
whse name does not occur TO me at this moment
both impromptu pencilings on waste scraps
of paper, but framed to hang up as memorials
of pleasant days. And, in dark corner, hung
Leslie's portrait of Irving himself, always al
wor ID by the engravings from ii.
With the horticulture and arborculture OF
l. Wolfert's dell,' Mr.. Glinnell had been sin