No More Learning

The only considerable venture in belles-lettres had been
made by Charles Brockden Brown, whose romances published in the
turn of the century were highly praised in their day, but are now
unread.
Irving loved literature for its own sake, and not as a means to the
attainment of some social, moral, or political end; and this trait differ-
entiates him sharply from his predecessors. When he began to write,
the field of letters was unoccupied. His first book had been published
eight years when Bryant's 'Thanatopsis appeared in the North Amer-
ican Review; and it was three years later before Cooper's first novel,
Precaution, was published. His position in American literature is
thus unique, and will always remain so.
The qualities which were most characteristic of his work were sen-
timent and humor; and these acquired a high literary value through
the graceful, varied, and finished form in which they were cast. The
source of the keen literary sense that revealed itself in him in early
life, and that was highly developed even before he attained his
majority, is not easily traced. It was however a powerful impulse,
and persisted in shaping his character and in controlling his destiny,
despite his half-hearted efforts to acquire a taste for the law, and later
for commercial pursuits. To its influence moreover is attributable
his aloofness from the political and other public life of his time,
which seems somewhat singular in a man of his imaginative, emo-
tional temperament, when one remembers the stormy period in which
his youth and early manhood were passed. When he was beguiled


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WASHINGTON IRVING
(
-
against his inclination to take some part in local politics, he spent
the first day, true to his real nature, in hunting for “whim, character,
and absurdity” in the crowd in which he found himself. From this
early time onward, whatever was eccentric or strongly individual in
human nature had a remarkable fascination for his alert, observing
mind. Apparently however the politics of the day did not yield
the material that he sought, nor were the associations of political
life agreeable to one of his fastidious tastes. For after a brief experi-
ence he writes: “Truly this saving one's country is a nauseous piece
of business; and if patriotism is such a dirty virtue — prythee, no
more of it. ” This sentiment had its spring in no lack of loyalty to
his country, but rather in his physical repugnance to the unwashed
political “workers” of his day and to familiar intercourse with them.
Irving's detachment from the public affairs of his time was fur-
ther illustrated in a somewhat amusing manner during his first visit
to Europe. When he reached France, Napoleon's conquest of Italy
and his assumption of the title of Emperor were on every tongue.
Contemporary greatness, however, which subsequent events were to
bring to a much more striking perspective than was within the scope
of his vision at this time, had no attraction for the young American
traveler. His sole anxiety was to see, not Napoleon, but the tomb
of Laura at Avignon; and great was his disappointment to find that
the monument had been destroyed in the Revolution. Never,” he
breaks out, « did the Revolution and its authors and its consequences
receive a more hearty and sincere execration than at that moment.
Throughout the whole of my journey I had found reason to exclaim
against it, for depriving me of some valuable curiosity or celebrated
monument; but this was the severest disappointment it had yet
occasioned. ” This purely literary view of the greatest event of
modern times is significant of Irving's attitude of mind towards the
political and social forces which were changing the boundaries of
kingdoms and revolutionizing society. He had reached his majority;
but the literary associations of the Old World were of infinitely
more moment to him than the overthrow of kings and the warrings
of nations.
A partial, but only a partial, explanation of this literary sense
which young Irving possessed can be found in his ancestry. It did
not, one may be sure, come from the side of his father, who was a
worthy Scotchman of good family, a native of one of the Orkney
Islands. William Irving had passed his life on or near the sea, and
was a petty officer on an armed packet when he met in Falmouth
the girl who was to become his wife and the author's mother. Mrs.
Irving was a woman of much beauty and of a lovely disposition, and
she exerted a great influence upon the character of the son. The


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(
desire to wander far afield which pursued Irving through a large part
of his life may also be traced, it seems to me, to the parent stock,
which must have been saturated with the adventurous spirit of a
seafaring life. This impulse made itself felt when Irving was very
young; for in the account which the author of the (Sketch Book)
gives of himself, he admits that he began his travels when a mere
child, and made many tours of discovery into foreign parts and
unknown regions of his native city, to the frequent alarm of his
parents and the emolument of the town crier. ” As Irving was born
on April 3d, 1783, his parents having been residents of New York for
about twenty years, we may believe that these youthful escapades
took place when the boy was perhaps six or eight years old; say a
year or two after Washington began his first term as President. The
lad possessed from an early age, in addition to this roving tendency,
a romantic, emotional, imaginative temperament, which invested with
a special interest for him every spot in or near his native town that
had become celebrated through fable or by a tragedy in real life.
The New York through which the lad, brimful of gay spirits and
of boundless curiosity, wandered, was a town devoted exclusively to
commerce, of fewer than twenty-five thousand inhabitants.
It was
confined within narrow limits. An excursion from the Irving home
in William Street, about half-way between Fulton and John Streets,
to what is now Chambers Street, must have brought the venturesome
youth into the fields and among country houses. The educational
facilities of the town were meagre, and young Irving had little taste
for study. Rather than go to school, he preferred to loiter around
the wharves and dream of the far distant lands whence the ships with
their odorous cargoes had come; while in the evening he would steal
away to the theatre in company with a companion of about his own
age, James K. Paulding, with whom some years later he was to make
his first literary venture. He liked to read books of voyages and
romances, like "Robinson Crusoe) and (Sindbad,' much better than
the Pilgrim's Progress, which his father, then a deacon in the
Presbyterian church, gave him for his Sunday perusal. Two of his
brothers — he was the youngest of a family of eight boys — had been
sent to Columbia College, but Washington was not a student. Text-
books were repugnant to him; and lacking the faculty of application
and concentration, he never made inuch headway with routine studies,
although he acquired a little knowledge of Latin in addition to the
ordinary branches of learning. He was “a saunterer and a dreamer,"
did not like to study, and had no ambition to go to college.
As the years were slipping by, and as it was plainly necessary for
him to prepare himself for some work in life, young Irving entered
a law office. But the dry routine of reading law proved to be very
(


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WASHINGTON IRVING
distasteful to him, and he soon drifted into general literature, in the
reading of which he atoned in large part for the deficiencies of his
early schooling. His indolence was partly due to temperament, and
partly no doubt to physical causes. For his health was not robust.
A weakness of the lungs showed itself, and gave him a good excuse
to get away from books and into the open air, and to indulge his
liking for travel and exploration. He had already wandered, gun in
hand, along the shores of the Hudson and through the woods of West-
chester County, becoming well acquainted with the natural beauties
of the Sleepy Hollow country, which he was later to people with
legendary figures. He had also made a voyage up the Hudson, and
had journeyed through the valley of the Mohawk. The pulmonary
trouble which made it necessary for him to take a more extended
outing made itself felt while he was dawdling over his law-books in
the office of Josiah Ogden Hoffman; and in the next two years — this
was between 1802 and 1804 — he made several adventurous journeys
to the north, going so far on one occasion as Montreal.
It was during this period of Irving's life, when he was approaching
his majority, that another important aspect of his character - the
social, which was to influence his entire career and to leave its color
indelibly stamped upon his writings — made itself apparent. From an
early age the social instinct was strong in him. As he grew older he
developed “a boundless capacity for good-fellowship,” as one of his
contemporaries testifies. This liking for his fellow-man had for its
foundation a warm-hearted, sympathetic, generous nature, a rich vein
of humor, perfect ease of manner and great readiness as a talker, and
an optimistic philosophy of life. These amiable traits made him
many friends in the towns which he visited outside of New York in
this period of his life, and throw a flood of light upon the warm
friendships which he made in England and elsewhere in later years.
It is easy to believe that these qualities of mind and heart were due
in large part to the influence of his mother, the gentleness and sweet-
ness of whose nature must have had a deep effect upon the impres.
sionable son. And to the same tender influence is probably due the
devotion, almost idolatrous, which Irving showed both in his writings
and in his social relations throughout his life to womankind. By
temperament extremely susceptible to the attractions of the sex, he
was always their ardent admirer and chivalric defender. The untimely
death of the girl whom we may well believe to have been the em-
bodiment of his loftiest ideals, the second daughter of the Mr. Hoff-
man under whom he had read law, imparted a tinge of melancholy
to his emotional temperament, and remained with him as a sad
memory throughout his life. This overwhelming disappointment, and
the necessity which arose some years later that he should assume the


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WASHINGTON IRVING
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responsibility of supporting his brothers, made marriage an impossi-
bility for him.
This tragedy, however, had not overshadowed his life when in 1804
Irving made his first journey to Europe, in search of the health which
he had not been able to find in northern New York and in Canada.
He had just passed his twenty-first birthday; and despite his poor
health, he was all eagerness to see the famous places which his read-
ing had made familiar to his lively imagination. The reality exceeded
his anticipations. His health was restored by the voyage, and he
gave himself up to sight-seeing and to making friends. He loitered
here and there: in Italy, where he met Allston, who nearly persuaded
him to become a painter; in Paris, where he frequented the theatres;
and in London, where he saw John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. He
studied little but observed much, gathering materials perhaps sub-
consciously from the associations historic and legendary connected
with this old and infinitely rich civilization, to be worked later into
delightful stories and sketches. He was forming his taste too on the
best models, and was thus laying a broad foundation for his literary
career, although he had as yet written nothing.
After two enjoyable years abroad, Irving returned in 1806 to
New York, and soon began to feel his way into the world of letters
through the pages of Salmagundi, a periodical which he wrote in
conjunction with the friend of his youth, James K. Paulding. These
papers on society and its “whim-whams,” or fads as we should say,
have only a slight interest to-day as a reflection of the manners of
the time; but to Irving's contemporaries the vivacity and spirit with
which they were written, and the thread of humor which ran through
them, were sources of much entertainment and amusement. With the
Knickerbocker History of New York,' however,— which was pub-
lished in 1809, the year in which Madison succeeded Jefferson to the
Presidency,– Irving acquired wide-spread celebrity. This book was
the first real piece of literature which America had produced, and it
served to introduce its author into a still wider and more influential
circle of friends in the literary and art world when he made his
second visit to England in 1815. His constitutional indolence, his
distrust of his capacity, and the distractions of society, interfered to
prevent him, after his first success, from accepting literature as his
vocation. Finally he entered into the business which his brothers
had been carrying on with indifferent results, although his distaste for
commercial affairs was unconcealed. At last the necessity arose that
he should go to England, in order if possible to place the affairs of
the firm — the Irvings were importers of hardware — on a sounder
basis. The fortunate — no other word in view of the event seems
so appropriate — failure of the firm, a few years after his arrival in


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WASHINGTON IRVING
England, compelled him to cast about in search of some means of
repairing the broken fortunes of the family; and he naturally turned
again to letters.
This decision was the turning-point in Irving's career. He forth-
with began the preparation of the several numbers of the “Sketch
Book'; the popularity of which, when they were published in 1819
and 1820, decided him to make literature his life work. The financial
returns from these ventures were more than he had dreamed of, and
with the offers which poured in upon him from English publishers,
gave him a feeling of independence and security for the future.
From this time on he produced books with rapidity. Bracebridge
Hall' and the “Tales of a Traveller' appeared in 1822 and in 1824
respectively. A residence of several years in Spain resulted in the
production of the Life of Columbus) (1828), the Conquest of Gra-
nada' (1829), and the Alhambra) tales and sketches. On his return
to the United States in 1832, after an absence of seventeen years, he
was welcomed at a public dinner at which his praises were sung in
every key. He had won from England respect for American liter-
ature, and no honors were too great for his fellow-countrymen to
bestow upon him.
In the ten years between 1832 and 1842 Irving bought and devel-
oped the property on the east bank of the Hudson, north of Tarry-
town and overlooking the Tappan Zee, to which he gave the name
of Sunnyside. He traveled some in the far West, and published A
Tour on the Prairies' (1835), (Astoria (1836), and the Adventures of
Captain Bonneville) (1837). For the four years from 1842 to 1846 he
was United States Minister to Spain; a post for which he was espe-
cially well fitted, and to which he was appointed as a sort of national
recognition of his services to the cause of letters. While he was in
Madrid he was planning and arranging the material for the early
volumes of his Life of Washington'; the first volume of which did
not appear, however, until 1855. His Life of Goldsmith' was pub-
lished in 1849, Mahomet and his Successors in the winter of the
same year, Wolfert's Roost' in 1854, and the fifth and final volume
of his 'Washington' only a short time before his death at Sunnyside
on November 28th, 1859.
Irving's literary activity thus extended over exactly half a century.
The books which he published in that period fall naturally into
four groups, each of which reflects his explorations, observations,
and meditations in some special field. The first of these groups is
made up of the experimental Salmagundi papers, the Knickerbocker
“History, the (Sketch Book,' Bracebridge Hall,' and Tales of a
Traveller'; all of which were published while the author was between
twenty-six and forty-one years of age. They were the fruit of his


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WASHINGTON IRVING
7997
interest, first in the Dutch history and legends that gave a quaint
charm to Old New York, and to the customs and manners of the
early settlers in the valley of the Hudson; and second in the roman-
tic and picturesque aspects of foreign life which had stirred his
fancy and imagination during his two sojourns abroad. Although
they were not published in book form until many years later, the
sketches and tales gathered under the title of Wolfert's Roost' be-
long to the same time and to the same group. The second group
consists of the volumes which were the outgrowth of Irving's resi-
dence in Spain, and of his admiration for the daring and adventurous
life of the early Spanish voyagers, and for the splendid story, so
brilliant with Oriental pageantry and with barbaric color, of the
Moorish invasion and occupancy of Spain. The third group includes
the three books in which Irving pictured with a vivid realism, with
an accurate knowledge, and with a narrative style that gave to two
at least of these volumes the fascination of romance, the perils and
hardships which the explorers, fur-traders, hunters, and trappers of
the Northwest endured in the early years of the present century.
Finally, the last group embraces the historical and biographical works
of the author's last years.
Of all these books, the one that is the boldest in conception and
that shows the most virility is the first one that Irving published, -
the Knickerbocker History of New York. ' Born of an audacity that
is the privilege of youth, this History' was the product of a mind
untrammeled by literary traditions, and bent only upon giving the
freest play to its fanciful idea of the grotesquely humorous possibili-
ties of the Dutch character and temperament when confronted with
problems of State. In freshness, vigor, and buoyancy the narrative is
without a parallel in our literature. It is literally saturated with the
spirit of broad comedy, the effect of which is immeasurably height-
ened by the air of historical gravity with which the narrative is pre-
sented. The character studies are full of individuality, and are drawn
with a mock seriousness and with a minuteness that give them all
the qualities of actual historical portraits; while the incidents are
pictured with a vividness that invests them with an atmosphere of
reality, from the influence of which the sympathetic reader escapes
with difficulty. I know of no piece of broad, sustained humor in
English or in American literature which is the equal of the narrative
of the capture of Fort Casimir,-- an episode in the description of
which the Homeric manner is adopted with grandiloquent effect. A
phrase may be found here and there in the book which is out of
harmony with the taste of our day; but ninety years make con-
siderable difference in such matters, and all must admit that these
seventeenth-century touches are not unnatural in a youth whose early
(


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WASHINGTON IRVING
reading had carried him in many directions in search of the novel
and eccentric in life and letters. Taken as a whole the book is
a masterpiece, revealing a limitless fund of humor, a shrewd knowl-
edge of human nature, and a deep love of mankind, and governed
throughout by a fine sense of the literary possibilities and limitations
of historical burlesque.
In any book which might be made up of Irving's legends of the
Hudson, and of his stories on other American themes, the precedence
would be given without protest from any quarter, I think, to the
tender, pathetic, sweetly humorous story of Rip Van Winkle. The
change of style that one perceives in these stories and in the tales
of Spanish, French, and English life, as compared with that in the
Knickerbocker History,' is marked. If there is a loss of youthful
vigor and enthusiasm, there is a decided gain in grace of form, in
simplicity, in delicacy and tenderness of feeling, and in refinement of
humor. These are the qualities which give a permanent value to
writing and make it literature. They suffuse (Rip Van Winkle' and
the Legend of Sleepy Hollow) with an undying charm, and lift these
legends to a higher plane than that occupied by the Knickerbocker
(History. ' In them Irving gave the fullest and freest play to his
artistic nature. The tales from over seas in this first group of
his books reflect the "charms of storied and poetical association »
which his active fancy pictured when he escaped from the common-
place realities of the present,” and lost himself among the shadowy
grandeurs of the past. ” He brought too an appreciative mind to the
contemplation of the quiet beauty of English country life.
It was
always, however, the human element in the scene that was of inter-
est to him; and this, I think, is one of the principal reasons why
so much of his work has retained its vitality through three-quarters
of a century.
It is not surprising — to take up the second group of Irving's
books — that a man of his poetic temperament found Spain "a coun-
try where the most miserable inn is as full of adventure as
enchanted castle. ” It was the historical associations, however, which
especially appealed to him, and to the inspiration of which we are
indebted for some of his most brilliant pages. The glories of old
Spain in the days of the Moslem invader and in the reign of Ferdi-
nand and Isabella, when the adventurous spirit of the Spanish sailors
was at its height, and when great enterprises inflamed men's minds
with the lust for conquest and power and riches, - these were the
themes that kindled his sympathetic imagination. To these influences
was due the Life of Columbus,' - which may seem somewhat anti-
quated in form to a generation accustomed to the modern style of
biography, but which is nevertheless a very solid piece of historical
an


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writing, calm, clear, judicious, and trustworthy,- together with the
collection of legends and historical narratives growing out of the
Moorish conquest. In the Conquest of Granada' and in the Alham-
bra' tales, Irving's style, affected no doubt by the variety and rich-
ness of the color of the scenes which he is depicting, is a little
lacking at times in the fine reticence which distinguishes his best
work; but the fact remains that his picture of this chapter of Spanish
history was of such a character as to discourage any successor from
attempting to deal with the same topic.
Two of the three books descriptive of the wild life of the North-
west, Astoria and the Adventures of Captain Bonneville,' were
based upon documents placed at Irving's disposal by John Jacob
Astor, supplemented by oral narratives, and by the author's recollec-
tions of his own experiences during the journey which he made on
the prairies after his second return from Europe. In addition to the
deep interest attaching to the tragic story of the suffering and dan-
gers encountered by the overland party which Mr. Astor dispatched
to establish a fur-trading post at the mouth of the Columbia River,
the Astoria' is filled with graphic character sketches of the hardy
adventurers who gathered in those days at the frontier settlements,
– men of varied nationalities and of eccentric and picturesque indi-
vidualities, all of whom are as actual in Irving's pages as if they had
been studied from the life. It may be nothing more than a fancy,
but I like to think that this incursion into the trackless regions of
the Northwest, in company with the primitive types of the explorer,
the hunter, and the trapper, reflects a natural reaction of Irving's
mind after so long a sojourn in the highly cultivated society of
Europe, and a yearning on his part to find rest and refreshment by
getting as close as possible in his work to Mother Nature.
Of the three biographies which were the last product of his pen,
the Life of Goldsmith is noteworthy as having more of the charm of
his earlier manner than the others have. He was in peculiar sym-
pathy with the subject of this volume, and told the story of his life
with an insight which no later biographer has brought to the task.
The Mahomet and his Successors) is an honest, straightforward,
conscientious piece of work, but did not add anything to the author's
reputation. He expended an enormous amount of time and labor on
the Life of Washington, but the work was too large and too exact-
ing for a man of his age to undertake. There are passages in it
that for incisiveness of characterization and for finish of form are the
equal of anything that he produced in the days when his intellectual
vigor was unimpaired; but the reader cannot escape the feeling that
the author's grasp of the materials relating to the subject was feeble,
and that his heart was not in his work. It dragged terribly, he tells


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WASHINGTON IRVING
us, in the writing; and it drags too in the reading. Nor does it seem
likely that even if the task had been undertaken twenty years earlier,
the theme would have been altogether a congenial one. Washington,
in the perspective from which Irving viewed him, and one must
remember that the lad was six years old when Washington took the
oath of office as President, and may have witnessed that ceremony
almost from his father's doorstep,— was a very real man who had
solved a very real problem. There was no atmosphere surrounding
him that corresponded to the romantic glamour which transfigured
the personality of Columbus, or to the literary associations which
were linked with Goldsmith's name; and Irving required some such
stimulus to the imagination in order to enable him to do his best
work.
Irving, finally, was the first American man of letters whose writ-
ings contained the vital spark. No one would venture to say that he
possessed a creative imagination of the highest order, such as Haw-
thorne for example was gifted with. The tragedy of life, the more
strenuous problems that arise to torment mankind, had no attraction
for him. But he had nevertheless imagination of a rare sort, and the
creative faculty was his also. Were this not so, his books would
have been forgotten long ago. Neither his play of fancy, nor his
delicious sense of humor, nor the singular felicity of his style, could
have saved his writings from oblivion if he had not possessed, in
addition to these qualities, a profound knowledge of the romance and
comedy of life, and the power, which is vouchsafed to few, to sur-
round his characters and his scenes with some of the mellow glow of
his own sweet and gentle spirit.
Edwin W. Morse,
ار
THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF KNICKERBOCKER LIFE
From A History of New York: By Diedrich Knickerbocker)
He houses of the higher class were generally constructed of
T
and yellow Dutch bricks, and always faced on the street, -
as our ancestors, like their descendants, were very much given to
outward show, and were noted for putting the best leg foremost.
The house was always furnished with abundance of large doors
and small windows on every floor; the date of its erection was
curiously designated by iron figures on the front; and on the top


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WASHINGTON IRVING
8001
of the roof was perched a fierce little weathercock, to let the
family into the important secret which way the wind blew.
These, like the weathercocks on the tops of our steeples, pointed
so many different ways that every man could have a wind to his
mind; the most stanch and loyal citizens, however, always went
according to the weathercock on the top of the governor's house,
which was certainly the most correct, as he had a trusty servant
employed every morning to climb up and set it to the right
quarter.
In those good days of simplicity and sunshine, a passion for
cleanliness was the leading principle in domestic economy, and
the universal test of an able housewife, - a character which formed
the utmost ambition of our unenlightened grandmothers. The
front door was never opened except on marriages, funerals, New
Year's days, the festival of St. Nicholas, or some such great
occasion. It was ornamented with a gorgeous brass knocker
curiously wrought, sometimes in the device of a dog and some-
times of a lion's head, and was daily burnished with such reli-
gious zeal that it was ofttimes worn out by the very precautions
taken for its preservation. The whole house was constantly in a
state of inundation, under the discipline of mops and brooms and
scrubbing-brushes; and the good housewives of those days were
a kind of amphibious animal, delighting exceedingly to be dab-
bling in water: insomuch that a historian of the day gravely tells
us that many of his townswomen grew to have webbed fingers
like unto a duck; and some of them, he had little doubt, could
the matter be examined into, would be found to have the tails of
mermaids — but this I look upon to be a mere sport of fancy, or
what is worse, a willful misrepresentation.
The grand parlor was the sanctum sanctorum, where the pas-
sion for cleaning was indulged without control. In this sacred
apartment no one was permitted to enter excepting the mistress
and her confidential maid, who visited it once a week for the
purpose of giving it a thorough cleaning and putting things to
rights,- always taking the precaution of leaving their shoes at
the door, and entering devoutly in their stocking feet. After
scrubbing the floor, sprinkling it with fine white sand, which was
curiously stroked into angles and curves and rhomboids with a
broom,- after washing the windows, rubbing and polishing the
furniture, and putting a new bunch of evergreens in the fire-
place,- the window shutters were again closed to keep out the
YIV-501


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WASHINGTON IRVING
flies, and the room carefully locked up until the revolution of
time brought round the weekly cleaning-day.
As to the family, they always entered in at the gate, and
most generally lived in the kitchen. To have seen a numerous
household assembled around the fire, one would have imagined
that he was transported back to those happy days of primeval
simplicity which float before our imaginations like golden visions.
The fireplaces were of a truly patriarchal magnitude, where the
whole family, old and young, master and servant, black and
white, - nay, even the very cat and dog,- enjoyed a community
of privilege, and had each a right to a corner. Here the old
burgher would sit in perfect silence, puffing his pipe, looking in
the fire with half-shut eyes, and thinking of nothing, for hours
together; the goede vrouw on the opposite side would employ
herself diligently in spinning yarn or knitting stockings. The
young folks would crowd around the hearth, listening with breath-
less attention to some old crone of a negro, who was the oracle
of the family, and who, perched like a raven in a corner of the
chimney, would croak forth for a long winter afternoon a string
of incredible stories about New England witches, grisly ghosts,
horses without heads, and hairbreadth escapes and bloody en-
counters among the Indians.
In those happy days a well-regulated family always rose with
the dawn, dined at eleven, and went to bed at sundown. Din-
ner was invariably a private meal, and the fat old burghers
showed incontestable symptoms of disapprobation and uneasiness
at being surprised by a visit from a neighbor on such occasions.
But though our worthy ancestors were thus singularly averse to
giving dinners, yet they kept up the social bands of intimacy by
occasional banquetings, called tea parties.
These fashionable parties were generally confined to the
higher classes or noblesse; that is to say, such as kept their own
cows and drove their own wagons. The company commonly
assembled at three o'clock and went away about six, unless it
was in winter-time, when the fashionable hours were
earlier, that the ladies might get home before dark. The tea-
table was crowned with a huge earthen dish, well stored with
slices of fat pork fried brown, cut up into morsels and swimming
in gravy. The company, being seated around the genial board
and each furnished with a fork, evinced their dexterity in launch-
ing at the fattest pieces in this mighty dish; in much the same
a little


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manner as sailors harpoon porpoises at sea, or our Indians spear
salmon in the lakes. Sometimes the table was graced with im-
mense apple pies, or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears;
but it was always sure to boast an enormous dish of balls of
sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat, and called doughnuts or
olykoeks,-a delicious kind of cake, at present scarce known in
this city excepting in genuine Dutch families.
The tea was served out of a majestic delft teapot, ornamented
with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shepherdesses
tending pigs, with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in
the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fantasies. The
beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in replenish-
ing this pot from a huge copper tea-kettle, which would have
made the pigmy macaronies of these degenerate days sweat
merely to look at it. To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar
was laid beside each cup: and the company alternately nibbled
and sipped with great decorum, until an improvement was intro-
duced by a shrewd and economic old lady, which was to suspend
a large lump directly over the tea-table by a string from the
ceiling, so that it could be swung from mouth to mouth; an
ingenious expedient which is still kept up by some families in
Albany, but which prevails without exception in Communipaw,
Bergen, Flatbush, and all our uncontaminated Dutch villages.
At these primitive tea parties the utmost propriety and dig-
nity of deportment prevailed. No flirting nor coquetting, no
.
gambling of old ladies nor hoyden chattering and romping of
young ones, no self-satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen with
their brains in their pockets, nor amusing conceits and monkey
divertisements of smart young gentlemen with no brains at all.
On the contrary, the young ladies seated themselves demurely
in their rush-bottomed chairs, and knit their own woolen stock-
ings; nor ever opened their lips excepting to say Yah Mynheer,
or Yah yah Vrouw, to any question that was asked them: behay-
ing in all things like decent, well-educated damsels. As to the
gentlemen, each of them tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seemed
lost in contemplation of the blue and white tiles with which the
fireplaces were decorated, wherein sundry passages of Scripture
were piously portrayed. Tobit and his dog figured to great ad-
vantage; Haman swung conspicuously on his gibbet; and Jonah
appeared most manfully bouncing out of the whale, like Harle-
quin through a barrel of fire.


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The parties broke up without noise and without confusion.
They were carried home by their own carriages; that is to say,
by the vehicles Nature had provided them, excepting such of the
wealthy as could afford to keep a wagon. The gentlemen gal-
.
lantly attended their fair ones to their respective abodes, and took
leave of them with a hearty smack at the door; which, as it was
an established piece of etiquette, done in perfect simplicity and
honesty of heart, occasioned no scandal at that time, nor should
it at the present. If our great-grandfathers approved of the cus-
tom, it would argue a great want of reverence in their descend-
ants to say a word against it.
In this dulcet period of my history, when the beauteous island
of Manna-hata presented a scene the very counterpart of those
glowing pictures drawn of the golden reign of Saturn, there
was, as I have before observed, a happy ignorance, an honest sim-
plicity, prevalent among its inhabitants, which were I even able
to depict, would be but little understood by the degenerate age
for which I am doomed to write.
Even the female sex, those arch innovators upon the tranquil-
lity, the honesty and gray-beard customs of society, seemed for a
while to conduct themselves with incredible sobriety and come-
liness. Their hair, untortured by the abominations of art, was
scrupulously pomatumed back from their foreheads with a candle,
and covered with a little cap of quilted calico, which fitted exactly
to their heads. Their petticoats of linsey-Woolsey were striped
with a variety of gorgeous dyes—though I must confess these
gallant garments were rather short, scarce reaching below the
knee: but then they made up in the number, which generally
equaled that of the gentlemen's small-clothes; and what is still
more praiseworthy, they were all of their own manufacture-of
which circumstance, as may well be supposed, they were not a
little vain.
These were the honest days in which every woman stayed at
home, read the Bible, and wore pockets — ay, and that too of a
goodly size, fashioned with patchwork into many curious devices,
and ostentatiously worn on the outside. These in fact were con-
venient receptacles, where all good housewives carefully stowed
away such things as they wished to have at hand - by which
means they often came to be incredibly crammed: and I remem-
ber there was a story current when I was a boy, that the lady of


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.
Wouter Van Twiller once had occasion to empty her right pocket
in search of a wooden ladle, and the utensil was discovered lying
among some rubbish in one corner; but we must not give too
much faith to all these stories, the anecdotes of those remote
periods being very subject to exaggeration.
Besides these notable pockets, they likewise wore scissors and
pin-cushions suspended from their girdles by red ribands, or
among the more opulent and showy classes, by brass and even
silver chains,- indubitable tokens of thrifty housewives and indus-
trious spinsters. I cannot say much in vindication of the short-
ness of the petticoats: it doubtless was introduced for the purpose
of giving the stockings a chance to be seen, which were gener-
ally of blue worsted, with magnificent red clocks - or perhaps to
display a well-turned ankle, and a neat though serviceable foot,
set off by a high-heeled leathern shoe, with a large and splendid
silver buckle. Thus we find that the gentle sex in all ages have
shown the same disposition to infringe a little upon the laws of
decorum, in order to betray a lurking beauty or gratify an inno-
cent love of finery.
From the sketch here given, it will be seen that our good
grandmothers differed considerably in their ideas of a fine figure
from their scantily dressed descendants of the present day. A A
fine lady in those times waddled under more clothes, even on a
fair summer's day, than would have clad the whole bevy of a
modern ball-room. Nor were they the less admired by the gen-
tlemen in consequence thereof. On the contrary, the greatness of
a lover's passion seemed to increase in proportion to the magni-
tude of its object; and a voluminous damsel arrayed in a dozen of
petticoats was declared by a Low Dutch sonneteer of the prov-
ince to be radiant as a sunflower, and luxuriant as a full-blown
cabbage. Certain it is, that in those days the heart of a lover
could not contain more than one lady at a time; whereas the
heart of a modern gallant has often room enough to accommodate
half a dozen. The reason of which I conclude to be, that either
the hearts of the gentlemen have grown larger, or the persons of
the ladies smaller; this, however, is a question for physiologists
to determine.
But there was a secret charm in these petticoats, which no
doubt entered into the consideration of the prudent gallants.
The wardrobe of a lady was in those days her only fortune; and
she who had a good stock of petticoats and stockings was as


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absolutely an heiress as is a Kamtschatka damsel with a store
of bearskins, or a Lapland belle with a plenty of reindeer. The
ladies therefore were very anxious to display these powerful
attractions to the greatest advantage; and the best rooms in the
house, instead of being adorned with caricatures of Dame Nature
in water-colors and needlework, were always hung round with
abundance of homespun garments, the manufacture and the prop-
erty of the females,- a piece of laudable ostentation that still
prevails among the heiresses of our Dutch villages.
The gentlemen, in fact, who figured in the circles of the gay
world in these ancient times, corresponded in most particulars
with the beauteous damsels whose smiles they were ambitious
to deserve. True it is, their merits would make but a very
inconsiderable impression upon the heart of a modern fair: they
neither drove their curricles nor sported their tandems, for as yet
those gaudy vehicles were not even dreamt of; neither did they
distinguish themselves by their brilliancy at the table and their
consequent rencontres with watchmen, for our forefathers were
of too pacific a disposition to need those guardians of the night,
every soul throughout the town being sound asleep before nine
o'clock.
Neither did they establish their claims to gentility at
the expense of their tailors, for as yet those offenders against the
pockets of society and the tranquillity of all aspiring young gen-
tlemen were unknown in New Amsterdam: every good housewife
made the clothes of her husband and family, and even the goede
vrouw of Van Twiller himself thought it no disparagement to cut
out her husband's linsey-woolsey galligaskins.
Not but what there were some two or three youngsters who
manifested the first dawnings of what is called fire and spirit;
who held all labor in contempt; skulked about docks and market-
places; loitered in the sunshine; squandered what little money
they could procure at hustle-cap and chuck-farthing; swore, boxed,
fought cocks, and raced their neighbors' horses,- in short, who
promised to be the wonder, the talk, and abomination of the
town, had not their stylish career been unfortunately cut short by
an affair of honor with a whipping-post.
Far other, however, was the truly fashionable gentleman of
those days. His dress, which served for both morning and even-
ing, street and drawing-room, was a linsey-Woolsey coat, made
perhaps by the fair hands of the mistress of his affections, and
gallantly bedecked with abundance of large brass buttons; half


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8007
a score of breeches heightened the proportions of his figure, his
shoes were decorated by enormous copper buckles, a low-crowned,
broad-brimmed hat overshadowed his burly visage, and his hair
dangled down his back in a prodigious queue of eelskin.
Thus equipped, he would manfully sally forth with pipe in
mouth to besiege some fair damsel's obdurate heart: not such a
pipe, good reader, as that which Acis did sweetly tune in praise
of his Galatea, but one of true Delft manufacture, and furnished
with a charge of fragrant tobacco. With this would he resolutely
set himself down before the fortress; and rarely failed in the
process of time to smoke the fair enemy into a surrender, upon
honorable terms.
Such was the happy reign of Wouter Van Twiller, celebrated
in many a long-forgotten song as the real golden age, the rest
being nothing but counterfeit copper-washed coin. In that de-
lightful period a sweet and holy calm reigned over the whole
province. The burgomaster smoked his pipe in peace; the sub-
stantial solace of his domestic cares, after her daily toils were
done, sat soberly at the door with her arms crossed over her
apron of snowy white, without being insulted by ribald street-
walkers or vagabond boys, - those unlucky urchins who do so
infest our streets, displaying under the roses of youth the thorns
and briers of iniquity. Then it was that the lover with ten
breeches, and the damsel with petticoats of half a score, indulged
in all the innocent endearments of virtuous love, without fear
and without reproach; for what had that virtue to fear which was
defended by a shield of good linsey-woolseys, equal at least to
the seven bull-hides of the invincible Ajax ?
Ah! blissful and never-to-be-forgotten age! when everything
was better than it has ever been since, or ever will be again:
when Buttermilk Channel was quite dry at low water; when the
shad in the Hudson were all salmon; and when the moon shone
with a pure and resplendent whiteness, instead of that melan-
choly yellow light which is the consequence of her sickening at
the abominations she every night witnesses in this degenerate
city!
Happy would it have been for New Amsterdam, could it
always have existed in this state of blissful ignorance and lowly
simplicity; but alas! the days of childhood are too sweet to last!
Cities, like men, grow out of them in time, and are doomed alike
to grow into the bustle, the cares, and miseries of the world. Let


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WASHINGTON IRVING
no man congratulate himself when he beholds the child of his
bosom or the city of his birth increasing in magnitude and im-
portance: let the history of his own life teach him the dangers
of the one, and this excellent little history of Manna-hata con-
vince him of the calamities of the other.
THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW
FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER
From The Sketch Book)
A pleasing land of drowsihead it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
For ever Aushing round a summer sky.
– CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.
I
N THE bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the
eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the
river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tap-
paan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and
implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there
lies a small market town or rural port which by some is called
Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known
by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given it, we are
told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent
country, from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger
about the village tavern on market days. Be that as it may, I
do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it for the sake
of being precise and authentic. Not far from this village, per-
haps about three miles, there is a little valley or rather lap of
land among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the
whole world. A small brook glides through it with just murmur
enough to lull one to re se; and the occasional whistle of a
quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that
ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.
I recollect that when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel-
shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades one
side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noontime, when
all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of
my own gun as it broke the Sabbath stillness around, and was


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8009
prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I
should wish for a retreat whither I might steal from the world
and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a
troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little
valley.
From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar char-
acter of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original
Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the
name of Sleepy Hollow, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy
Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. A drowsy,
dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade
the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by
a High German doctor during the early days of the settlement;
others that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his
tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered
by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is that the place still
continues under the sway of some witching power that holds a
spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk
in a continual revery. They are given to all kinds of marvelous
beliefs; are subject to trances and visions, and frequently see
strange sights and hear music and voices in the air. The whole
neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight
superstitions; stars shoot. and meteors glare oftener across the
valley than in any other part of the country; and the night-mare,
with her whole nine fold, seems to make it the favorite scene of
her gambols.
The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted re-
gion, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of
the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head.
It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose
head had been carried away by a cannon-ball in some nameless
battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon
seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of night,
as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to
the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and espe-
cially to the vicinity of a church that is at no great distance.
Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those parts,
who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating
facts concerning this spectre, allege that, the body of the trooper
having been buried in the church-yard, the ghost rides forth to
the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head; and that the


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WASHINGTON IRVING
rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the hollow,
like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and in a
hurry to get back to the church-yard before daybreak.
Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition,
which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that
region of shadows; and the spectre is known at all the country
firesides by the name of The Headless Horseman of Sleepy
Hollow.
It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have men-
tioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley,
but is unconsciously imbibed by everyone who resides there
for a time. However wide awake they may have been before
they entered that sleepy region, they are sure in a little time
to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow
imaginative,- to dream dreams and see apparitions.
I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud; for it is in
such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed
in the great State of New York, that population, manners, and
customs remain fixed, while the great torrent of migration and
improvement, which is making such incessant changes in other
parts of this restless country, sweeps by them unobserved. They
are like those little nooks of still water which border a rapid
stream, where we may see the straw and bubble riding quietly
at anchor, or slowly revolving in their mimic harbor, undisturbed
by the rush of the passing current. Though many years have
elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I
question whether I should not still find the same trees and the
same families vegetating in its sheltered bosom.
In this by-place of nature there abode, in a remote period
of American history, - that is to say, some thirty years since, -
a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, or
as he expressed it, “tarried,” in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose
of instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a native of
Connecticut, a State which supplies the Union with pioneers for
the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its
legions of frontier woodmen and country schoolmasters. The
cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person.
tall but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and
legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that
might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely
hung together. His head was small and flat at top, with huge
He was


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8οΙΙ
ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose; so that it
looked like a weathercock perched upon his spindle neck, to tell
which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile
of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and flutter-
ing about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of
famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from
a cornfield.
His schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, rudely
constructed of logs; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched
with leaves of copy-books, It was most ingeniously secured at
vacant hours by a withe twisted in the handle of the door, and
stakes set against the window shutters; so that though a thief
might get in with perfect ease, he would find some embarrass-
ment in getting out: an idea most probably borrowed by the
architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery of an eel-pot.
The schoolhouse stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation,
just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by,
and a formidable birch-tree growing at one end of it. From
hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices, conning over their
lessons, might be heard of a drowsy summer's day like the hum
of a beehive: interrupted now and then by the authoritative voice
of the master in the tone of menace or command; or peradvent-
ure by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy
loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he
a conscientious man, that ever bore in mind the golden
maxim, "Spare the rod and spoil the child. ” Ichabod Crane's
scholars certainly were not spoiled.
I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of
those cruel potentates of the school who joy in the smart of their
subjects: on the contrary, he administered justice with discrimi-
nation rather than severity; taking the burthen off the backs of
the weak and laying it on those of the strong.
Your mere puny
stripling that winced at the least flourish of the rod was passed
by with indulgence; but the claims of justice were satisfied by
inflicting a double portion on some little, tough, wrong-headed,
broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled and grew
dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he called “doing
his duty by their parents”; and he never inflicted a chastisement
without following it by the assurance, so consolatory to the smart-
ing urchin, that he would remember it and thank him for it the
longest day he had to live. "
was


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When school hours were over, he was even the companion
and playmate of the larger boys; and on holiday afternoons would
convoy some of the smaller ones home, who happened to have
pretty sisters, or good housewives for mothers, noted for the
comforts of the cupboard. Indeed, it behoved him to keep on
good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising from his school
was small, and would have been scarcely sufficient to furnish
him with daily bread,- for he was a huge feeder, and though
lank, had the dilating powers of an anaconda; but to help out his
maintenance he was, according to country custom in those parts,
boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children
he instructed. With these he lived successively a week at a time,
thus going the rounds of the neighborhood, with all his worldly
effects tied up in a cotton handkerchief.
That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his
rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a
grievous burthen and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had vari-
ous ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He
assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of their
farms: helped to make hay; mended the fences; took the horses
to water; drove the cows from the pasture; and cut wood for
the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant dignity
and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his little empire,
the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating. He
found favor in the eyes of the mothers by petting the children,
particularly the youngest; and like the lion bold, which whilome
so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child
on one knee, and rock a cradle with his foot, for whole hours
together.
In addition to his other vocations he was the singing-master
of the neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by
instructing the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no
little vanity to him on Sundays to take his station in front of
the church gallery, with a band of chosen singers; where in his
own mind he completely carried away the palm from the parson.
Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all the rest of the
congregation; and there are peculiar quavers still to be heard in
that church, and which may even be heard half a mile off, quite
to the opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still Sunday morning,
which are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of Ich-
abod Crane. Thus by divers little makeshifts, in that ingenious


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8013
»
way which is commonly denominated by hook and by crook,"
the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough; and was thought,
by all who understood nothing of the labor of head-work, to have
a wonderful easy life of it.
The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in
the female circle of a rural neighborhood: being considered a
kind of idle gentlemanlike personage, of vastly superior taste and
accomplishments to the rough country swains, and indeed inferior
in learning only to the parson. His appearance therefore is apt
to occasion some little stir at the tea-table of a farm-house, and
the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or
peradventure the parade of a silver teapot. Our man of letters,
therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the country
damsels. How he would figure among them in the church-yard
between services on Sundays! - gathering grapes for them from
the wild vines that overrun the surrounding trees; reciting for
their amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or saunter-
ing with a whole bevy of them along the banks of the adjacent
mill-pond: while the more bashful country bumpkins hung sheep-
ishly back, envying his superior elegance and address.
From his half itinerant life also he was a kind of traveling
gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house
to house; so that his appearance was always greeted with satis-
faction. He was moreover esteemed by the women as a man of
great erudition; for he had read several books quite through, and
was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's History of New Eng-
land Witchcraft,' in which by the way he most firmly and potently
believed.
He was in fact an odd mixture of small shrewdness and sim-
ple credulity. His appetite for the marvelous, and his powers
of digesting it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been
increased by his residence in this spell-bound region. No tale
was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was
often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the afternoon,
to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover bordering the little
brook that whimpered by his school-house, and there con over old
Mather's direful tales, until the gathering dusk of evening made
the printed page a mere mist before his eyes.
. Then, as he
wended his way by swamp and stream and awful woodland to
the farm-house where he happened to be quartered, every sound
of nature at that witching hour fluttered his excited imagination:
(


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the moan of the whippoorwill from the hillside; the boding cry
of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting of the
screech-owl; or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds fright-
ened from their roost. The fireflies, too, which sparkled most
vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one
of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if by
chance a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blunder-
ing flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the
ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token.
His only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought or
drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes; and the good
people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an even-
ing, were often filled with awe at hearing his nasal melody, "in
linked sweetness long drawn out,” floating from the distant hill,
or along the dusky road.
Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long
winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning
by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and sputtering along
the hearth, and listen to their marvelous tales of ghosts and gob-
lins, and haunted fields and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges
and haunted houses; and particularly of the headless horseman,
or galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes called
him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witch-
craft, and of the direful omens and portentous sights and sounds
in the air which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut;
and would frighten them woefully with speculations upon comets
and shooting-stars, and with the alarming fact that the world did
absolutely turn round, and that they were half the time topsy-
turvy!
But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling
in the chimney corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow
from the crackling wood fire, and where of course no spectre
dared to show its face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors
of his subsequent walk homewards. What fearful shapes and
shadows beset his path amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a
snowy night! With what wistful look did he eye every trem-
bling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some
distant window! How often was he appalled by some shrub cov-
ered with snow, which like a sheeted spectre beset his very path!
How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his
own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet; and dread to look


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over his shoulder lest he should behold some uncouth being
tramping close behind him! And how often was he thrown into
complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling among the trees,
in the idea that it was the galloping Hessian on one of his
nightly scourings!
All these however were mere terrors of the night, phantoms
of the mind that walk in darkness; and though he had seen
many spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by
Satan in divers shapes in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight
put an end to all these evils: and he would have passed a pleas-
ant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his works, if his
path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity
to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches
put together; and that was — a woman.
Among the musical disciples who assembled one evening in
each week to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina
Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch
farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as
a partridge, ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her
father's peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her beauty
but her vast expectations. She was withal a little of a coquette,
as might be perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of
ancient and modern fashions as most suited to set off her charms.
She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold which her great-
great-grandmother had brought over from Saardam; the tempt-
ing stomacher of the olden time, and withal a provokingly short
petticoat, to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country
round.
Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart toward the sex;
and it is not to be wondered at that so tempting a morsel soon
found favor in his eyes, more especially after he had visited her
in her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect
picture of a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He sel-
dom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the
boundaries of his own farm; but within these, everything was
snug, happy, and well-conditioned. He was satisfied with his
wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty
abundance rather than the style in which he lived. His strong-
hold was situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those
green, sheltered, fertile nooks in which the Dutch farmers are
so fond of nestling. A great elm-tree spread its broad branches


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WASHINGTON IRVING
over it, at the foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest
and sweetest water, in a little well formed of a barrel; and then
stole sparkling away through the grass to a neighboring brook,
that babbled along among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by
the farm-house was a vast barn, that might have served for a
church, every window and crevice of which seemed bursting
forth with the treasures of the farm; the fail was busily resound-
ing within it from morning to night; swallows and martins
skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some
with one eye turned up as if watching the weather, some with
their heads under their wings or buried in their bosoms, and
others swelling and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were
enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek, unwieldy porkers were
grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens, from whence
sallied forth now and then troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff
the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an
adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of
turkeys were gobbling through the farm-yard, and guinea-fowls
fretting about it like ill-tempered housewives, with their peev-
ish, discontented cry. Before the barn door strutted the gallant
cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentle-
man; clapping his burnished wings and crowing in the pride
and gladness of his heart, — sometimes tearing up the earth with
his feet, and then generously calling his ever hungry family of
wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had dis-
covered.
The pedagogue's mouth watered he looked upon this
sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring
mind's eye, he pictured to himself every roasting pig running
about with a pudding in its belly and an apple in its mouth;
the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and
tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were swimming in
their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cozily in dishes like snug
married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce.
In
the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon and
juicy relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed
up, with its gizzard under its wing, and peradventure a neck-
lace of savory sausages; and even bright chanticleer himself lay
sprawling on his back in a side dish, with uplifted claws, as if
craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask
while living
as


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As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled
his great green eyes over the fat meadow lands, the rich fields
of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards
burthened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tene-
ment of Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who
was to inherit these domains, and his imagination expanded with
the idea how they might be readily turned into cash, and the
money invested in immense tracts of wild land and shingle pal-
aces in the wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy already realized his
hopes, and presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole
family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with
household trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath; and
he beheld himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her
heels, setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee -- or the Lord knows
where!
When he entered the house the conquest of his heart was
complete. It was one of those spacious farm-nouses, with high-
ridged but lowly sloping roofs, built in the style handed down
from the first Dutch settlers, the low projecting eaves forming a
piazza along the front capable of being closed up in bad weather.
Under this were hung fails, harness, various utensils of hus-
bandry, and nets for fishing in the neighboring river. Benches
were built along the sides for summer use; and a great spinning-
wheel at one end, and a churn at the other, showed the various
uses to which this important porch might be devoted. From this
piazza the wondering Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the
centre of the mansion and the place of usual residence. Here
rows of resplendent pewter ranged on a long dresser dazzled his
eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag of wool, ready to be spun;
in another a quantity of linsey-woolsey, just from the loom; ears
of Indian corn and strings of dried apples and peaches hung in
gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red pep-
pers: and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor,
where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone
like mirrors; andirons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs,
glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and
conch shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various colored
birds' eggs were suspended above it; a great ostrich egg was
hung from the centre of the room; and a corner cupboard, know-
ingly left open, displayed immense treasures of old silver and
well-mended china.
XIV-502


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From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions
of delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, and his only
study was how to gain the affections of the peerless daughter of
Van Tassel. In this enterprise, however, he had more real diffi-
culties than generally fell to the lot of a knight-errant of yore,
who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons,
and such like easily conquered adversaries, to contend with; and
had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass and
walls of adamant to the castle-keep where the lady of his heart
was confined: all which he achieved as easily as a man would
carve his way to the centre of a Christmas pie, and then the
lady gave him her hand as a matter of course. Ichabod, on the
contrary, had to win his way to the heart of a country coquette
beset with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were forever
presenting new difficulties and impediments: and he had to en-
counter a host of fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the
numerous rustic admirers who beset every portal to her heart;
keeping a watchful and angry eye upon each other, but ready to
fly out in the common cause against any new competitor.
Among these the most formidable was a burly, roaring, roy-
stering blade of the name of Abraham-or according to the
Dutch abbreviation, Brom-Van Brunt, the hero of the country
round, which rung with his feats of strength and hardihood. He
was broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with short curly black
hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant countenance, having a
mingled air of fun and arrogance.
From his Herculean frame
and great powers of limb he had received the nickname of Brom
Bones, by which he was universally known. He was famed for
great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous
on horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost at all races and
cock-fights, and with the ascendency which bodily strength always
acquires in rustic life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting his
hat on one side, and giving his decisions with an air and tone
that admitted of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for
either a fight or a frolic; had more mischief than ill-will in his
composition; and with all his overbearing roughness there was a
strong dash of waggish good-humor at bottom. He had three or
four boon companions of his own stamp, who regarded him as
their model, and at the head of whom he scoured the country,
attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles round. In
cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted with


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a flaunting fox's tail; and when the folks at a country gather-
ing descried this well-known crest at a distance, whisking about
among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a squall.
Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along past the
farm-houses at midnight, with whoop and halloo, like a troop of
Don Cossacks; and the old dames, startled out of their sleep,
would listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by,
and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang! ”
The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admira-
tion, and good-will; and when any madcap prank or rustic brawl
occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads and warranted
Brom Bones was at the bottom of it.
This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the bloom-
ing Katrina for the object of his uncouth gallantries; and though
his amorous toyings were something like the gentle caresses
and endearments of a bear, yet it was whispered that she did not
altogether discourage his hopes. Certain it is, his advances were
signals for rival candidates to retire, who felt no inclination to
cross a lion in his amours; insomuch that when his horse was
seen tied to Van Tassel's paling on a Sunday night,- a sure sign
that his master was courting, or as it is termed, “sparking,”
within, - all other suitors passed by in despair, and carried the
war into other quarters.
Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had
to contend; and considering all things, a stouter man than he
would have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man would
have despaired. He had however a happy mixture of pliability
and perseverance in his nature; he was in form and spirit like a
supple-jack - yielding but tough: though he bent, he never broke;
and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet the
moment it was away — jerk! — he was as erect and carried his
head as high as ever.
To have taken the field openly against his rival would have
been madness; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours,
any more than that stormy lover Achilles. Ichabod therefore
made his advances in a quiet and gently insinuating manner.
Under cover of his character of singing-master he made frequent
visits at the farm-house; not that he had anything to apprehend
from the meddlesome interference of parents, which is so often a
stumbling-block in the path of lovers. Balt Van Tassel was an
easy, indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even than his


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WASHINGTON IRVING
pipe, and like a reasonable man and an excellent father, let her
have her way in everything. His notable little wife, too, had
enough to do to attend to her housekeeping and manage the
poultry; for as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish
things and must be looked after, but girls can take care of them-
selves. Thus while the busy dame bustled about the house or
plied her spinning-wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Balt
would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching the
achievements of a little wooden warrior who, armed with a sword
in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pin-
nacle of the barn. In the mean time, Ichabod would carry on
his suit with the daughter by the side of the spring under the
great elm, or sauntering along in the twilight, that hour so favor-
able to the lover's eloquence.
I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and
won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and ad-
miration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door
of access; while others have a thousand avenues, and may be cap-
tured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill
to gain the former, but a still greater proof of generalship to
maintain possession of the latter, for a man must battle for his
fortress at every door and window. He that wins a thousand
common hearts is therefore entitled to some renown; but he who
keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a
hero. Certain it is, this was not the case with the redoubtable
Brom Bones: and from the moment Ichabod Crane made his
advances, the interests of the former evidently declined; his horse
was no longer seen tied at the palings on Sunday nights, and a
deadly feud gradually arose between him and the preceptor of
Sleepy Hollow.
Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, would
fain have carried matters to open warfare, and settled their pre-
tensions to the lady according to the mode of those most concise
and simple reasoners, the knights-errant of yore,- by single com-
bat; but Ichabod was too conscious of the superior might of his
adversary to enter the lists against him. He had overheard the
boast of Bones, that he would “double the schoolmaster up, and
put him on a shelf ”; and he was too wary to give him an oppor-
tunity. There was something extremely provoking in this obsti-
nately pacific system: it left Brom no alternative but to draw
upon the funds of rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play


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off boorish practical jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became the
object of whimsical persecution to Bones and his gang of rough-
riders. They harried his hitherto peaceful domains; smoked out
his singing-school by stopping up the chimney; broke into the
schoolhouse at night, in spite of his formidable fastenings of
withe and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy: so
that the poor schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the
country held their meetings there. But what was still more an-
noying, Brom took all opportunities of turning him into ridicule
in presence of his mistress, and had a scoundrel dog whom he
taught to whine in the most ludicrous manner, and introduced as
a rival of Ichabod's to instruct her in psalmody.
In this way matters went on for some time, without producing
any material effect on the relative situations of the contending
powers. On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod in pensive mood
sat enthroned on the lofty stool from whence he usually watched
all the concerns of his little literary realm. In his hand he
swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power; the birch of just-
ice reposed on three nails behind the throne, a constant terror to
evil-doers; while on the desk before him might be seen sundry con-
traband articles and prohibited weapons detected upon the persons
of idle urchins, such as half-munched apples, popguns, whirli-
gigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant little paper game-
cocks. Apparently there had been some appalling act of justice
recently inflicted; for his scholars were all busily intent upon their
books, or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon
the master, and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout
the school-room. It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance
of a negro in tow-cloth jacket and trousers, a round-crowned frag-
ment of a hat like the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back
of a ragged, wild, half-broken colt, which he managed with a rope
by way of halter. He came clattering up to the school door with
an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merry-making, or "quilting
frolic,” to be held that evening at Mynheer Van Tassel's; and hav-
ing delivered his message with that air of importance and effort
at fine language which a negro is apt to display on petty embas-
sies of the kind, he dashed over the brook and was seen scam-
pering away up the hollow, full of the importance and hurry of
his mission.
All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet school-room.
The scholars were hurried through their lessons without stopping


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WASHINGTON IRVING
at trifles; those who were nimble skipped over half with impu-
nity, and those who were tardy had a smart application now and
then in the rear, to quicken their speed or help them over a tall
word. Books were flung aside without being put away on the
shelves; inkstands were overturned, benches thrown down, and
the whole school was turned loose an hour before the usual time,
— bursting forth like a legion of young imps, yelping and racket-
ing about the green, in joy at their early emancipation.
The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half-hour at
his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best — and indeed only
- suit of rusty black, and arranging his locks by a bit of broken
looking-glass that hung up in the schoolhouse. That he might
make his appearance before his mistress in the true style of a
cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he was
domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman of the name of Hans Van
Ripper; and thus gallantly mounted, issued forth like a knight-
errant in quest of adventures. But it is meet I should, in the
true spirit of romantic story, give some account of the looks and
equipments of my hero and his steed.
The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plow-horse, that
had outlived almost everything but his viciousness.