United States or Bahrain ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The last years of Irving's life, although full of activity and enjoyment, abated only by the malady which had so long tormented him, offer little new in the development of his character, and need not much longer detain us.
The horrible description of Mrs. Irving's personal appearance, and the other stories of the same connection, are recognised by Mrs. Oliphant as in substance Mrs. Carlyle's; whilst the malicious account of Mrs. Basil Montague's head-dress is attributed by Carlyle himself to his wife.
I saw it all, and that I should have to throw nonsense overboard if I wished to be different. You will find that I have plenty left, however, before the summer's over. Now, let me read to you Irving's legend of poor old Rip. What if you have read it often?
The attention of the stranger is also attracted by another consecrated building on the hill slope of Belvidere, one of Irving's a "shingle palaces," painted in imitation of stone, a great wooden sham, "whelked and horned" with pine spires and turrets, a sort of whittled representation of the many-beaded beast of the Apocalypse.
The former are more characteristic and the more enduring of Irving's writings, but as a literary artist his genius lent itself just as readily to Oriental and mediæval romance as to the Knickerbocker legend; and there is no doubt that the delicate perception he had of chivalric achievements gave a refined tone to his mock heroics, which greatly heightened their effect.
He taught himself Latin, French, and Italian, besides working at botany, chemistry, and the dispensing of medicines. It was during these seven years of uncertainty and experiment that William read Washington Irving's Sketches of Geoffrey Crayon, which produced a strong impression on his mind.
He diffused sweetness and light in an era marked by bitterness and obscuration. It was a triumph of character as well as of literary skill. But the skill was very noticeable also. Irving's prose is not that of the Defoe-Swift-Franklin-Paine type of plain talk to the crowd. It is rather an inheritance from that other eighteenth century tradition, the conversation of the select circle.
Anna will cry, and mother and Asenath and Eudora; but Adah, oh Lily, darling. She's coming to me now. Don't you hear that rustle in the grass?" and the doctor listened intently to a sound which also caught Irving's ear, a sound of a horse's neigh in the distance, followed by the tramp of feet. "Hush-sh," he whispered. "It may be the enemy," but his words were not regarded, or understood.
When one may journey with such a companion, through a whole volume of enchantment and legend and moonlight, it is not strange that "The Alhambra" has been one of the most widely read books ever produced by an American writer. Some people have thought that Irving's long residence abroad indicated that he did not care so much as he should for his native land.
The country, as far as I could judge, seemed in a high state of culture, and the farms, to use an expression of the celebrated Washington Irving's, when describing, I think, a farm-yard view in England, appeared "redolent of pigs, poultry, and sundry other good things appertaining to rural life."
Word Of The Day