Chapter 10

He returned to New York in 1806, and was much sought after in society from that time on. It was a very convivial company, that of old New York in the early part of the century, and Irving entered into its pleasures with the rest of his friends. Late suppers and good wine sometimes rendered these young men rather hilarious, and one evening, going home, Harry Ogden, Irving's chum, fell through a grating into a vault beneath. He told Irving next day that the solitude was rather dismal at first, but in a little while, after the party broke up, several other guests came along and fell in one by one, and then they all had a pleasant night of it, "who would have thought," said Irving to Governor Kemble, in alluding, at the age of sixty-six, to these scenes of high jollity, "that we should ever have lived to be two such respectable old gentlemen!"

It was during these years that he made the acquaintance and learned to love so deeply Matilda Hoffman, a beautiful young girl, daughter of one of his older friends. She was a most lovely person, in body and mind, and in his eyes the paragon of womanhood. He was young, romantic, full of sensibility, and his love for this beautiful girl filled his whole life. He was poor and could not marry, but he had many arguments with himself about the propriety of doing so even without an income. "I think," he finally writes, "that these early and improvident marriages are too apt to break down the spirit and energy of a young man, and make him a hard-working, half-starving, repining animal all his days." And again: "Young men in our country think it a great extravagance to set up a horse and carriage without adequate means, but they make no account of setting up a wife and family, which is far more expensive." But while he was looking about on every side for some way to better his fortunes, that he might take to his home this woman he loved so tenderly, her health began to fail, and in a short time he was deprived by death of her companionship. His sorrow was life-long, and it was a sorrow which he held sacredly in his own heart. He never mentioned her name, even to family friends, and they learned to avoid any allusion to her, he was so overcome with emotion when merely hearing her name spoken. This was in his early youth, and throughout a long life he held himself faithful to her memory,--never, it is believed, wavering once in his allegiance. Thackeray refers to this as one of the most pleasing things he knew of Irving.

It was at this time that he was writing the "History of New York." He wrote afterward:--

"When I became more calm and collected I applied myself by way of occupation to the finishing of my work. I brought it to a close as well as I could, and published it; but the time and circumstances in which it was produced rendered me always unable to look upon it with satisfaction."

His countenance long retained the trace of his melancholy, and he was ever after a more subdued and quiet man. After his death a beautiful picture and lock of hair were found among his private papers marked in his hand-writing, "Matilda Hoffman." He also kept by him throughout life her Bible and Prayer-Book. He lay with them under his pillow in the first days of his anguish, and carried them with him always in all lands to the end of his life. In a little private notebook intended only for his own eye were found these words after his death: "She died in the beauty of her youth, and in my memory she will ever be young and beautiful." Truly, not an unhappy fate as the world goes,--to live thus in the memory of such a man. What would years and cares and the commonplace of existence have done for such a love as this, we wonder? We shall never know. But we have all seen loves apparently as pure and as strong, worn away by the attritions of life,--by the daily labor for daily bread, by little incessant worries and faults and foibles upon the part of one or both,--until there was nothing left of the early color of romance; only a faded web of life where once was cloth of gold. How sweet to many a faded and careworn woman would be the thought of being always young and beautiful to the man she loved. Fortunate Matilda Hoffman of the olden time!

In 1817 he went again to Europe, and while there definitely made up his mind to look upon literature as his profession,--an almost unheard of thing in America at that time. He writes to his brother:--

"For a long while past I have lived almost entirely at home, sometimes not leaving the house for two or three days, and yet I have not had an hour pass heavily; so that if I could see my brothers around me prospering, and be relieved from this cloud that hangs over us all, I feel as if I could be contented to give up all the gayeties of life; I certainly think that no hope of gain, however flattering, would tempt me again into the cares and sordid concerns of traffic. . . . In protracting my stay in Europe, I certainly do not contemplate pleasure, for I look forward to a life of loneliness and of parsimonious and almost painful economy."

Some time after this he wrote to a friend:--

"Your picture of domestic enjoyment indeed raises my envy. With all my wandering habits, which are the result of circumstances rather than of disposition, I think I was formed for an honest, domestic, uxorious man; and I cannot hear of my old cronies snugly nestled down with good wives and fine children round them, but I feel for the moment desolate and forlorn. Heavens! what a hap-hazard, schemeless life mine has been, that here I should be at this time of life, youth slipping away, and scribbling month after month, and year after year, far from home, without any means or prospect of entering into matrimony, which I absolutely believe indispensable to the happiness and even comfort of the after-part of existence."

He was thus described at this time:--

"He was thoroughly a gentleman, not merely in external manners and looks, but to the innermost fibres and core of his heart; sweet-tempered, gentle, fastidious, sensitive, and gifted with warmest affections; the most delightful and invariably interesting companion; gay and full of humor, even in spite of occasional fits of melancholy, which he was, however, seldom subject to when with those he liked; a gift of conversation that flowed like a full river in sunshine,--bright, easy, and abundant."

In his fiftieth year he returned to America, far from rich, though he had made money from his books. Although he had thought he could not support a family of his own, he found himself with two brothers and several nieces upon his hands for whom he must provide. He was very fond of them all; and, being the least selfish of men, enjoyed making them all comfortable. But to do so he had to be industrious with his pen, and he never gave himself much rest. He bought a home at Tarrytown, upon the Hudson, which he called Sunnyside, and where he resided till his death. The farm had on it a small Dutch cottage, built about a century before, and inhabited by the Van Tassels. This was enlarged, still preserving the quaint Dutch characteristics; it acquired a tower and a whimsical weathercock, the delight of the owner, and became one of the most snug and picturesque residences on the river. A slip of Melrose ivy was planted, and soon overrun the house; and there were shaded nooks and wooded retreats, and a pretty garden.

It soon became the dearest spot on earth for him; and although it ate up his money almost as fast as he could earn it, he never thought of parting with it. The little cottage soon became well stocked. He writes:--

"I have Ebenezer's five girls, and himself also whenever he can be spared from town, sister Catherine and her daughter, and occasional visits from all the family connection."

Thackeray describes him as having nine nieces on his hands, and makes a woful face over the fact. He dispensed a charming hospitality here, and no friend who ever visited him forgot the pleasure. He was a most genial and cordial host, and loved much to have his friends bring the children, of whom he was passionately fond. His nieces watched over his welfare with most tender solicitude; and the cottage at Sunnyside, although without a mistress, was truly a home.

It was with great reluctance that he left it after his appointment as minister to Spain, and all the pleasure he received from that high mark of the appreciation of his country did not compensate him for the hardship of leaving home. During this third visit to Europe "it is easy to see that life has grown rather sombre to Irving,--the glamour is gone, he is subject to few illusions. The show and pageantry no longer enchant; they only weary." He writes home: "Amidst all the splendors of London and Paris I find my imagination refuses to take fire, and my heart still yearns after dear little Sunnyside." Those were exciting times in Spain, and Irving entered into all the dramatic interest of the situation with a real enthusiasm, and wrote most interesting letters to friends at home, describing the melodrama in which he had sometimes an even perilous interest. Throughout his four years' stay the excitement continued, and the duties of minister were sometimes perplexing enough. From the midst of court life, in 1845, he wrote:--

"I long to be back once more at dear little Sunnyside, while I have yet strength and good spirits to enjoy the simple pleasures of the country, and to rally a happy family group once more around me. I grudge every year of absence that rolls by. To-morrow I shall be sixty-two years old. The evening of life is fast drawing over me; still I hope to get back among my friends while there is a little sunshine left."

In 1846 he did return, and enjoyed thirteen years more of happy life there.

George W. Curtis thus delightfully sketches the man:--

"Irving was as quaint a figure as Diedrich Knickerbocker in the preliminary advertisement of the 'History of New York.' Thirty years ago he might have been seen on an autumnal afternoon, tripping with an elastic step along Broadway, with low-quartered shoes neatly tied, and a Talma cloak,--a short garment that hung from his shoulders like the cape of a coat. There was a chirping, cheery, old-school air in his appearance, which was undeniably Dutch, and most harmonious with the associations of his writings. He seemed, indeed, to have stepped out of his own books; and the cordial grace and humor of his address were delightfully characteristic."

Through all the honors which he received--and he was one of the most honored men of his day--he was always modest, unassuming, and even diffident. He was the most cheerful of men, and seemed to diffuse sunshine wherever he went. He was essentially lovable, and could hardly be said to have made an enemy during his life. Indeed, one of his lacks was that of aggressiveness; it would have given a deeper force to his character and brought out some qualities that were latent in him.

He died on the 28th of November, 1859, at the close of a lovely Indian-summer day, and was buried on a little elevation overlooking Sleepy Hollow. Near by winds the lovely Hudson, up and down which go the white-winged boats bearing tourists to view the river he so loved, and over which hangs the blue haze he has so often described, softening everything in its gauzy folds. The feet of those he loved go in and out at Sunnyside, and his memory is a benediction.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

In a fragment of autobiography which Mr. Bryant left among his papers, he speaks thus of his childhood:--

"So my time passed in study, diversified with labor and recreation. In the long winter evenings and the stormy winter days I read with my brother books from my father's library,--not a large one, but well chosen. I remember well the delight with which we welcomed the translation of the Iliad by Pope when it was brought to the house. I had met with passages from it before, and thought them the finest verses ever written. My brother and myself, in emulation of ancient heroes, made for ourselves wooden shields, swords, and spears, and fashioned old hats in the shape of helmets, with plumes of tow; and in the barn, when nobody observed us, we fought the battles of the Greeks and Trojans over again.

"I was always, from my earliest years, a delighted observer of external nature,--the splendors of a winter daybreak over the wide wastes of snow seen from our windows; the glories of the autumnal woods; the gloomy approaches of the thunderstorm, and its departure amid sunshine and rainbows; the return of spring with its flowers; and the first snowfall of winter. I cannot say, as some do, that I found my boyhood the happiest part of my life. I had more frequent ailments than afterward; my hopes were more feverish and impatient, and my disappointments were more acute; the restraints on my liberty of action, although meant for my good, were irksome, and felt as fetters that galled my spirit and gave it pain. After-years, if their pleasures had not the same zest, were passed in more contentment, and the more freedom of choice I had, the better, on the whole, I enjoyed life."

Among the prayers of his childhood he mentions that he often prayed that he might be endowed with poetic genius, and write verses which should endure. And he began at a very early age to make attempts in this direction, which seem somewhat less crude than the mass of such productions. He was taught Latin by the Rev. Thomas Snell, his uncle, and Greek by the Rev. Moses Hallock, a neighboring minister, who boarded and instructed him for a dollar a week. He continued his studies at Williams College, although he never was graduated, being taken from college from motives of economy.

The town of Cummington, where he was born, is a little hamlet among the hills in Hampshire County in western Massachusetts. The country around is mountainous, and the valleys very beautiful. The poet was always much attached to the region, and when he had become an old man bought the old family home and fitted it up as a summer residence, where he used to gather together the remaining members of the family, and enjoy himself highly in exploring the country round about as he had done in the days of his boyhood. Many stories are told of his pedestrian feats, even after he was seventy-five years old; and he sometimes walked ten or twelve miles when in his eightieth year. He retained his boyish love for plants and flowers, and was as enthusiastic as in youth over a rare specimen or a beautiful bit of landscape. He further evinced his interest in the old home by presenting the town with a fine library of six thousand volumes, and building a suitable house for its accommodation upon a beautiful site which he purchased for that purpose.

Upon leaving school Mr. Bryant pursued the study of law, and entered upon its practice, first in Plainfield, and afterward in Great Barrington, a pleasant village in Berkshire County, on the banks of the Housatonic. While studying at Worthington, a distinguished friend of his father came from Rhode Island upon a visit, bringing with him a beautiful and accomplished daughter, to whom the young poet at once lost his heart. The passion seems to have been reciprocated, if we can judge by the assiduity with which the correspondence was carried on after her return; but some unknown cause seems to have broken off the fascinating romance, and after a year or two we hear of it no more. That the end was painful to Mr. Bryant, we have reason to suspect from his poems and letters; but as to how the lady felt, we have no evidence. The verses show little promise of the work which the young poet soon afterward did, but they are not entirely without charm:--

"The home thy presence made so dear, I leave,--the parting hour is past; Yet thy sweet image haunts me here, In tears as when I saw thee last.

"It meets me where the woods are deep, It comes when twilight tints depart, It bends above me while I sleep, With pensive looks that pierce my heart."

In another little poem we are informed,--

"The gales of June were breathing by, The twilight's last faint rays were gleaming, And midway in the moonless sky The star of Love was brightly beaming.

"When by the stream, the birchen boughs Dark o'er the level marge were playing, The maiden of my secret vows I met, alone, and idly straying.

"And since that hour,--for then my love Consenting heard my passion pleaded,-- Full well she knows the star of Love, And loves the stream with beeches shaded."

The poet had quite a lengthened season of darkness and despair after this love-dream came to an end, and it must be confessed wrote a good deal of very bad poetry, none of which he placed in collections of his poems, but some of which have been published by his biographer. They are rather worse than the usual run of such poems, which may indicate that the feeling was really deeper,--too deep for expression in verse,--or that it was not as deep and lasting as some of the first loves of poets. As he had already written "Thanatopsis" and other fine poems, it is rather surprising that there are so few gleams of the true poetic fire in these amatory verses.

As is usual in such cases, he did not recover from the old love until he had discovered a new one, and he did this in his new residence, not long after his arrival there. The second lady of his choice was Miss Fanny Fairchild, daughter of a well-to-do and respectable farmer on the Green River. She was nineteen years old at the time, a "very pretty blonde, small in person, with light-brown hair, gray eyes, a graceful shape, a dainty foot, transparent and delicate hands, and a wonderfully frank and sweet expression of face." She was as sensible as beautiful, and had great charm of manner, which she retained to the end of her life. He soon engaged himself to Miss Fairchild, and the course of their love ran smoothly throughout a long life. To show with what deep feeling and earnestness they entered upon their new relations, the following prayer, dated 1820, has been printed, which was found among Mr. Bryant's private papers after his death:--

"May God Almighty mercifully take care of our happiness here and hereafter. May we ever continue constant to each other, and mindful of our mutual promises of attachment and truth. In due time, if it be the will of Providence, may we become more nearly connected with each other, and together may we lead a long, happy, and innocent life, without any diminution of affection till we die. May there never be any jealousy, distrust, coldness, or dissatisfaction between us, nor occasion for any,--nothing but kindness, forbearance, mutual confidence, and attention to each other's happiness. And that we may be less unworthy of so great a blessing, may we be assisted to cultivate all the benign and charitable affections and offices, not only toward each other, but toward our neighbors, the human race, and all the creatures of God. And in all things wherein we have done ill, may we properly repent our error, and may God forgive us, and dispose us to do better. When at last we are called to render back the life we have received, may our deaths be peaceful, and may God take us to his bosom. All which may He grant for the sake of the Messiah."

If ever a prayer was granted, it seems to have been so in this instance, for in every detail it was fulfilled in the lives which followed. So rarely beautiful a marriage has seldom been seen, as the one which was entered into in this solemn and lofty manner, by this young and high-minded couple. The days of their pilgrimage were many, but they grew more and more beautiful until the final parting; and when the separation at last came, in the fulness of time, the old poet mourned, with a grief which could not be comforted, for the companion of his youth, the delight of his mature years, and the idol of his old age. Forty-five years they lived together, and after her death he wrote to his brother:--

"We have been married more than forty-five years, and all my plans, even to the least important, were laid with some reference to her judgment or her pleasure. I always knew it would be the greatest calamity of my life to lose her, but not till the blow fell did I know how heavy it would be, and what a solitude the earth would seem without her."

To another brother he said:--

"Her life seemed to me to close prematurely, so useful was she, and so much occupied in doing good; and yet she was in her seventieth year. It is now more than forty-five years since we were married,--a long time, as the world goes, for husband and wife to live together. Bitter as the separation is, I give thanks that she has been spared to me so long, and that for nearly a half-century I have had the benefit of her counsel and her example."

In a brief memoir of their intercourse, prepared for the eyes of his daughters alone, he said:--

"I never wrote a poem that I did not repeat to her, and take her judgment upon it. I found its success with the public to be precisely in proportion to the impression it made upon her. She loved my verses, and judged them kindly, but did not like them all equally well."

One who knew her well thus describes her character:--

"Never did poet have a truer companion, a sincerer spiritual helpmate, than Mr. Bryant in his wife. Refined in taste, and elevated in thought, she was characterized alike by goodness and gentleness. Modest in her ways, she lived wholly for him; his welfare, his happiness, his fame, were the chief objects of her ambition. To smooth his pathway, to cheer his spirit, to harmonize every discordant element of life, were purposes for the accomplishment of which no sacrifice on her part could be too great."

Another who visited them familiarly in their home wrote:--

"In the autumn of 1863, we visited Mr. and Mrs. Bryant at West Point, where they occupied Mr. John Bigelow's charming cottage, 'The Squirrels.' From there we accompanied them to Roslyn, and spent a week under their own roof-tree. How much we enjoyed those days, I need not say. Mrs. Bryant's health was very delicate, and she sat much in her large arm-chair by the open wood-fire which blazed under the old tiles of the chimney-place. Mr. Bryant sat at her feet when he read in the autumn twilight those exquisite lines, 'The Life that Is.' Such was our last meeting with our dear Mrs. Bryant. I never saw her again, but the thought of her dwells like a sweet strain of music amid the varied notes of human life, and will be ours again when 'beyond these voices there is peace.' The union between Mr. and Mrs. Bryant was a poem of the tenderest rhythm. Any of us who remember Mr. Bryant's voice when he said 'Frances' will join in his hope that she kept the same beloved name in heaven. I remember alluding to those exquisite lines, 'The Future Life,' to Mrs. Bryant, and her replying, 'Oh, my dear, I am always sorry for any one who sees me after reading those lines, they must be so disappointed.' Beatrice and Laura have not received such tributes from their poets, for Mrs. Bryant's husband was her poet and her lover at seventy as at seventeen."