Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor Part 1

Four Famous American Writers: Was.h.i.+ngton Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor.

by Sherwin Cody.

THE STORY OF WAs.h.i.+NGTON IRVING

[Ill.u.s.tration: _WAs.h.i.+NGTON IRVING._]

WAs.h.i.+NGTON IRVING

CHAPTER I

HIS CHILDHOOD

The Revolutionary War was over. The British soldiers were preparing to embark on their s.h.i.+ps and sail back over the ocean, and General Was.h.i.+ngton would soon enter New York city at the head of the American army. While all true patriots were rejoicing at this happy turn of affairs, a little boy was born who was destined to be the first great American author.

William Irving, the father of this little boy, had been a merchant in New York city. He had been very prosperous until the war broke out.

After the battle of Long Island, the British then occupying the city, he had taken his family to New Jersey. But later, although he was a loyal American, he went back to the city to attend to his business.

There he helped the American cause by doing everything he could for the American prisoners whom the British held. His wife, especially, had a happy way of persuading Sir Henry Clinton, and when the British general saw her coming, he prepared himself to grant any request about the prisoners which she might make. Often she sent them food from her own table, and cared for them when they were sick.

When their last son, the eleventh child, was born, on April 3, 1783, the parents showed their loyalty by naming him Was.h.i.+ngton, after the beloved Father of his Country.

Six years after this, George Was.h.i.+ngton was elected president, and went to New York to live. The Scotch maid who took care of little Was.h.i.+ngton Irving made up her mind to introduce the boy to his great namesake. So one day she followed the general into a shop, and, pointing to the lad, said, "Please, your honor, here's a bairn was named after you." Was.h.i.+ngton turned around, smiled, and placing his hand on the boy's head, gave him his blessing. Little did General Was.h.i.+ngton suspect that in later years this boy, grown to manhood and become famous, would write his biography.

In those days New York was only a small town at the south end of Manhattan Island. It extended barely as far north as the place where now stand the City Hall and the Postoffice. Broadway was then a country road. The Irvings lived at 131 William Street, afterward moving across to 128. This is now one of the oldest parts of New York.

The streets in that section are narrow, and the buildings, though put up long after Irving's birth, seem very old.

Here the little boy grew up with his brothers and sisters. At four he went to school. His first teacher was a lady; but he was soon transferred to a school kept by an old Revolutionary soldier who became so fond of the boy that he gave him the pet name of "General."

This teacher liked him because, though often in mischief, he never tried to protect himself by telling a falsehood, but always confessed the truth.

Was.h.i.+ngton was not very fond of study, but he was a great reader. At eleven his favorite stories were "Robinson Crusoe" and "Sindbad the Sailor." Besides these, he read many books of travel, and soon found himself wis.h.i.+ng that he might go to sea. As he grew up he was able to gratify his taste for travel, and some of his finest books and stories relate to his experiences in foreign lands. In the introduction to the "Sketch Book" he says, "How wistfully would I wander about the pier-heads in fine weather, and watch the parting s.h.i.+ps bound to distant climes--with what longing eyes would I gaze after their lessening sails, and waft myself in imagination to the ends of the earth!"

CHAPTER II

IRVING'S FIRST VOYAGE UP THE HUDSON RIVER

Irving's first literary composition seems to have been a play written when he was thirteen. It was performed at the house of a friend, in the presence of a famous actress of that day; but in after years Irving had forgotten even the t.i.tle.

His schooling was finished when he was sixteen. His elder brothers had attended college, and he never knew exactly why he did not. But he was not fond of hard study or hard work. He lived in a sort of dreamy leisure, which seemed particularly suited to his light, airy genius, so full of humor, suns.h.i.+ne, and loving-kindness.

After leaving school, he began to study law in the office of a certain Henry Masterton. This was in the year 1800. He was admitted to the bar six years later; but he spent a great deal more of the intervening time in traveling and scribbling than in the study of law. His first published writing was a series of letters signed "Jonathan Oldstyle,"

printed in his brother's daily paper, "The Morning Chronicle," when the writer was nineteen years old.

Irving's first journey was made the very year after he left school. It was a voyage in a sailing boat up the Hudson river to Albany; and a land journey from there to Johnstown, New York, to visit two married sisters. In the early days this was on the border of civilization, where the white traders went to buy furs from the Indians. Steamboats and railroads had not been invented, and a journey that can now be made in a few hours, then required several days. Years afterward, Irving described his first voyage up the Hudson.

"My first voyage up the Hudson," said he, "was made in early boyhood, in the good old times before steamboats and railroads had annihilated time and s.p.a.ce, and driven all poetry and romance out of travel.... We enjoyed the beauties of the river in those days.[+]

[Footnote +: Irving was the first to describe the wonderful beauties of the Hudson river.]

"I was to make the voyage under the protection of a relative of mature age--one experienced in the river. His first care was to look out for a favorite sloop and captain, in which there was great choice....

"A sloop was at length chosen; but she had yet to complete her freight and secure a sufficient number of pa.s.sengers. Days were consumed in drumming up a cargo. This was a tormenting delay to me, who was about to make my first voyage, and who, boy-like, had packed my trunk on the first mention of the expedition. How often that trunk had to be unpacked and repacked before we sailed!

"At length the sloop actually got under way. As she worked slowly out of the dock into the stream, there was a great exchange of last words between friends on board and friends on sh.o.r.e, and much waving of handkerchiefs when the sloop was out of hearing.

"... What a time of intense delight was that first sail through the Highlands! I sat on the deck as we slowly tided along at the foot of those stern mountains, and gazed with wonder and admiration at cliffs impending far above me, crowned with forests, with eagles sailing and screaming around them; or listened to the unseen stream das.h.i.+ng down precipices; or beheld rock, and tree, and cloud, and sky reflected in the gla.s.sy stream of the river....

"But of all the scenery of the Hudson, the Kaatskill Mountains had the most witching effect on my boyish imagination. Never shall I forget the effect upon me of the first view of them predominating over a wide extent of country, part wild, woody, and rugged; part softened away into all the graces of cultivation. As we slowly floated along, I lay on the deck and watched them through a long summer's day, undergoing a thousand mutations under the magical effects of atmosphere; sometimes seeming to approach, at other times to recede; now almost melting into hazy distance, now burnished by the hazy sun, until, in the evening, they printed themselves against the glowing sky in the deep purple of an Italian landscape."

CHAPTER III

A TRIP TO MONTREAL

Soon after returning from this trip, Irving became a clerk in the law office of a Mr. Hoffman. There was a warm friends.h.i.+p between him and Mr. Hoffman's family. Mrs. Hoffman was his lifelong friend and, as he afterwards said, like a sister to him; and he finally fell in love with Matilda, one of Mr. Hoffman's daughters, and was engaged to be married to her. Her sad death at the age of seventeen was perhaps the greatest unhappiness of his life. He never married, but held her memory sacred as long as he lived.

In 1803 he was invited by Mr. Hoffman to go with him to Montreal and Quebec. Irving kept a journal during this expedition, and it shows what a rough time travelers had in those days.

Part of the way they sailed in a scow on Black River. They were partially sheltered from the rain by sheets stretched over hoops. At night they went ash.o.r.e and slept in a log cabin.

One morning after a rainy night they awoke to find the sky clear and the sun s.h.i.+ning brightly. Setting out again in their boat, they were soon surprised by meeting three canoes in pursuit of a deer.

"The deer made for our sh.o.r.e," says Irving in his journal. "We pushed ash.o.r.e immediately, and as it pa.s.sed, Mr. Ogden fired and wounded it.

It had been wounded before. I threw off my coat and prepared to swim after it. As it came near, a man rushed through the bushes, sprang into the water, and made a grasp at the animal. He missed his aim, and I jumped after, fell on his back, and sunk him under water. At the same time I caught the deer by one ear, and Mr. Ogden seized it by a leg. The submerged gentleman, who had risen above the water, got hold of another. We drew it ash.o.r.e, when the man immediately dispatched it with a knife. We claimed a haunch for our share, permitting him to keep all the rest."

Irving had one or two experiences with the Indians which were not altogether pleasant at the time, but which afterward appeared very amusing.

On one occasion he went with another young man to a small island in a river, where he hoped to be able to hire a boat to take the party to a place some distance farther down the stream. They found there a wigwam in which were a number of Indians, both men and women; but the Indian they were looking for was away selling furs.

He soon came in, with his squaw, who was rather a pretty woman. Both he and she had been drinking. While the other young man was trying to explain their business, the Indian woman sat down beside Irving, and in her half drunken way began to pay him great attention.

The husband, a tall, strapping Hercules of an Indian, sat scowling at them with his blanket drawn up to his chin, and his face between his hands, while his elbows rested on his knees.

But soon the Indian could no longer endure the flirtation his wife was carrying on with Irving. He rushed upon him, calling him a "cursed Yankee," and gave him a blow which stretched him on the floor.

While Irving was picking himself up and getting out of the way, his friend went to the Indian and tried to quiet him. By this time the feelings of the drunken redman had quite changed. He fell on the young man's neck, exchanged names with him after the Indian fas.h.i.+on, and declared that they would be sworn friends and brothers as long as they lived.

Irving hastened to get into his boat, and he and his companion made off as quickly as possible, having no wish for any further intercourse with drunken Indians.