Smyrna times., 1859-12-15
HALF AN HOUR AT SUNNYSIDE.
A Visit to Washington Irving.

: A Visit to Washington Irving.
: s.. The New York Independent, of Nov. 24tt
contains the following account OF a visit t
Washington Irving, which will, we think, b
interesting to our readers, as anything relating
: to Irving must be. A few days after the vsi
) was penned, the genial old man suddenly de
ceased-rendering the narrative the more in
terosting, being, as it doubtless was, the las
visit from any cotemporary author:
had an half an hour one day last week a
} Sunnyside-the residence of Washington Ir
wing. Such a halfhour ought to have been one
of the pleasantest in ones life; and SO it was
The pleasure began before reaching the door
step. or taking the old mans hand-ln the thou
sand associations of the place-for a visit tc
Sunnyside is equal to pilgrimage to Abbots.
ford.
The quaint, grotesquc old dwelling, with its
oId.tashoned gables, stood as solemn and sleepy
among the trees as if il had been built to per.
sonate Old RIP Van Wnkle al his nap. The
grounds were covered with brown and yellow
leaves, with here aud there a red squirrel run
nng aud rustling among them, as If pretending
to be The true red breast that laid the leaves
over the babes in the wood
The mansion of Sunnysde has been standing
tor 23 years; but when first its sharp.angled
root wedged It's way up among the branches of
the old woods, the region was far more a soil.
tude than now; for at that time our busy au-
thor had secluded himself from almost every-
body but one near neighbor; while he has
since unwittingly gathered around him little
community of New York merchants whose ee.
CANT country seats, opening into each other by
mutual intertwining roads, from what looks
like one vast and free estate, called on the
tlme-t tables Of the railroad by the honorary name
OF lrvington.
But what should one talk about who had
only half an hour with Washington Irving!
venlured the question,
"Now that you have laid aside your pen,
which of your books do you look back upon with
most peasure?"
lie immediately replied, 4" Il scarcely look
with tull satisfaction upon any, for they do not
seem what they might have been. | often wish
that could have twenty years more to take
them down from the shelf, one by one, and
write them over"
He spoke of his daily habits of writing, be-
fore he had made the resolution to write no
more; His usual hours for literary work were
from morning till noon. But, although he had
generally found his mind more vigorous in the
early part of the day, he had always been sub.
ject to moods and caprices, and could never
tell, when he took up the pen, how many hours
would pass before he would lay it down.
." But," said he, these capricious periods of
the heat and glow of composition have been the
! happiest hours OF my life | have never found,
in anything outside Of the four walls of my
study, any enjoyment equal to sitting at my
wrltlng-desk, with clean page, a new theme,
Il "a
| His literary employments, he remarked, had
always been more like entertainments than
/ tasks.
"Some writer's" said he. "appear TO have
! been independent of moods. Sir Walter Scott,
for instance, had great power of writing, and
could work almost at any time; SO could Crabbe
but with this difference: Scott always, and
! Crabbe seldom, wrote well. 81 remember"
said he, taking breakfast one morning with
Rogers, Moore, and Crabbe; the conversation
turned on Lord Byron's poetic moods: Crabbe
said that, however it might be with Lord By
ron, as for himself he could write as we'll one
time as another. But" said Irving, with a
twinkle of humor at recalling the incident,
"Crabbe has written great deal that nobody
can read"
lie mentioned that while living in Paris he
went long period without being able to write.
81 sat down repeatedly" said he, "with pen
and ink, but could invent nothing worth put.
ting on the paper. AT length, told my friend
Tom Moore, who dropped in one morning, that
now, after long waiting, / had the mood, and
would hold it, and work it out as long as il
would last, until had wrung my brain dry. So
| began to write shortly after breakfast, and
continued, without noticing how the time was
passing, until Moore came in again at in the
afternoon-when had completely covered the
table with freshly-wrtten sheets kept the
mood, almost without interruption, for six
weeks"
asked which of his books were the result O
this frenzy he replied, " Bracebridge HALL"
"None of your works. | remarked, are
more charming than the Biography of Gold
smith,
"Yet that was written" said he, "even NOR,
} rapidly than the other" He then added
When | have been engaged on a continu
GUS work, have often been obliged TO rise il
the middle OF the night, light my lamp, an,
, write an hour or two TO relieve my mind an,
; now that write no more, | am sometimes com
PEELED to get up in the same way 10 read.''
, Sometimes; also, as the last Idlewld letter
, mentions, he gets up to shave!
"When | was in Spain," he remarked
searching theold chronicles, and engaged o
: the Life OF Columbus, | often wrote fourteen G
fifteen hours out Of the twenty-four."
4 He said that whenever. he had forced hi
mind unwiiingly TO work, the product wa
i worthless, and he invariably threw it away an
:. began again Z" for" as he observed, an el
C say or chapter that has been only hammere
q out is seldom good for anything. An author
right time to work is when his mind is agow
. when his Imagination is kndled; these are b
e precious moments; let him wait until the
o. come, but when they have come, let him maE
the most of them"
!. / referred to his last and greatest work, II
Il Life of Washington, and asked if he'felt on fiji
!. ishing it, any such sensation as Gibbon 10 sa
,e1 to have experienced over the Decline and Fal
Z He replied that the whole work had engrossC
- his mind to such a degree that, before he WI
a aware, he had written himself into feeblene
> of health that he feared in the midst Of his !
Dor that ie would break him down before
lRI q hat uh la &,