Part 42 (1/2)
That is doubtless a fair cla.s.sification; but other critics a.s.sert that real humor is as purely human as a smile or a tear, and has therefore no national or racial limitations.
[Sidenote: SKETCH BOOK]
The _Sketch Book_, chief of the second group of writings, is perhaps the best single work that Irving produced. We shall read it with better understanding if we remember that it was the work of a young man who, having always done as he pleased, proceeds now to write of whatever pleasant matter is close at hand. Being in England at the time, he naturally finds most of his material there; and being youthful, romantic and sentimental, he colors everything with the hue of his own disposition.
He begins by chatting of the journey and of the wide sea that separates him from home. He records his impressions of the beautiful English country, tells what he saw or felt during his visit to Stratford on Avon, and what he dreamed in Westminster Abbey, a place hallowed by centuries of wors.h.i.+p and humanized by the presence of the great dead. He sheds a ready tear over a rural funeral, and tries to make us cry over the sorrows of a poor widow; then to relieve our feelings he pokes a bit of fun at John Bull. Something calls his attention to Isaac Walton, and he writes a Waltonian kind of sketch about a fisherman. In one chapter he comments on contemporary literature; then, as if not quite satisfied with what authors are doing, he lays aside his record of present impressions, goes back in thought to his home by the Hudson, and produces two stories of such humor, charm and originality that they make the rest of the book appear almost commonplace, as the careless sketches of a painter are forgotten in presence of his inspired masterpiece.
These two stories, the most pleasing that Irving ever wrote, are ”Rip van Winkle” and ”The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” They should be read if one reads nothing else of the author's twenty volumes.
[Ill.u.s.tration: RIP VAN WINKLE]
[Sidenote: SPANISH THEMES]
The works on Spanish themes appeal in different ways to different readers.
One who knows his history will complain (and justly) that Irving is superficial, that he is concerned with picturesque rather than with important incidents; but one who likes the romance of history, and who reflects that romance plays an important part in the life of any people, will find the legends and chronicles of this Spanish group as interesting as fiction. We should remember, moreover, that in Irving's day the romance of old Spain, familiar enough to European readers, was to most Americans still fresh and wondrous. In emphasizing the romantic or picturesque side of his subject he not only pleased his readers but broadened their horizon; he also influenced a whole generation of historians who, in contrast with the scientific or prosaic historians of to-day, did not hesitate to add the element of human interest to their narratives.
[Sidenote: THE ALHAMBRA]
The most widely read of all the works of the Spanish group is _The Alhambra_ (1832). This is, on the surface, a collection of semihistorical essays and tales cl.u.s.tering around the ancient palace, in Granada, which was the last stronghold of the Moors in Europe; in reality it is a record of the impressions and dreams of a man who, finding himself on historic ground, gives free rein to his imagination. At times, indeed, he seems to have his eye on his American readers, who were then in a romantic mood, rather than on the place or people he was describing. The book delighted its first critics, who called it ”the Spanish Sketch Book”; but though pleasant enough as a romantic dream of history, it hardly compares in originality with its famous predecessor.
[Sidenote: WESTERN STORIES]
Except to those who like a brave tale of exploration, and who happily have no academic interest in style, Irving's western books are of little consequence. In fact, they are often omitted from the list of his important works, though they have more adventurous interest than all the others combined. _A Tour on the Prairies_, which records a journey beyond the Mississippi in the days when buffalo were the explorers' mainstay, is the best written of the pioneer books; but the _Adventures of Captain Bonneville_, a story of wandering up and down the great West with plenty of adventures among Indians and ”free trappers,” furnishes the most excitement. Unfortunately this journal, which vies in interest with Parkman's _Oregon Trail_, cannot be credited to Irving, though it bears his name on the t.i.tle-page. [Footnote: The _Adventures_ is chiefly the work of a Frenchman, a daring free-rover, who probably tried in vain to get his work published. Irving bought the work for a thousand dollars, revised it slightly, gave it his name and sold it for seven or eight times what he paid for it. In _Astoria_, the third book of the western group, he sold his services to write up the records of the fur house established by John Jacob Astor, and made a poor job of it.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD DUTCH CHURCH, SLEEPY HOLLOW Mentioned by Irving in ”The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”]
[Sidenote: BIOGRAPHIES]
Of the three biographies _Oliver Goldsmith_ (1849) is the best, probably because Irving had more sympathy and affinity with the author of ”The Deserted Village” than with Mahomet or Was.h.i.+ngton. The _Life of Was.h.i.+ngton_ (1855-1859) was plainly too large an undertaking for Irving's limited powers; but here again we must judge the work by the standards of its own age and admit that it is vastly better than the popular but fict.i.tious biographies of Was.h.i.+ngton written by Weems and other romancers. Even in Irving's day Was.h.i.+ngton was still regarded as a demiG.o.d; his name was always printed in capitals; and the rash novelist who dared to bring him into a story (as Cooper did in _The Spy_) was denounced for his lack of reverence. In consequence of this false att.i.tude practically all Was.h.i.+ngton's biographers (with the exception of the judicious Marshall) depicted him as a ponderously dignified creature, stilted, unlovely, unhuman, who must always appear with a halo around his head. Irving was too much influenced by this absurd fas.h.i.+on and by his lack of scholars.h.i.+p to make a trustworthy book; but he gave at least a touch of naturalness and humanity to our first president, and set a new biographical standard by attempting to write as an honest historian rather than as a mere hero-wors.h.i.+per.
AN APPRECIATION OF IRVING. The three volumes of the Sketch-Book group and the romantic _Alhambra_ furnish an excellent measure of Irving's literary talent. At first glance these books appear rather superficial, dealing with pleasant matters of no consequence; but on second thought pleasant matters are always of consequence, and Irving invariably displays two qualities, humor and sentiment, in which humanity is forever interested. His humor, at first crude and sometimes in doubtful taste (as in his _Knickerbocker History_) grew more refined, more winning in his later works, until a thoughtful critic might welcome it, with its kindness, its culture, its smile in which is no cynicism and no bitterness, as a true example of ”American” humor,--if indeed such a specialized product ever existed. His sentiment was for the most part tender, sincere and manly.
Though it now seems somewhat exaggerated and at times dangerously near to sentimentality, that may not be altogether a fault; for the same criticism applies to Longfellow, d.i.c.kens and, indeed, to most other writers who have won an immense audience by frankly emphasizing, or even exaggerating, the honest sentiments that plain men and women have always cherished both in life and in literature.
[Sidenote: STYLE OF IRVING]
The style of Irving, with its suggestion of Goldsmith and Addison (who were his first masters), is deserving of more unstinted praise. A ”charming”
style we call it; and the word, though indefinite, is expressive of the satisfaction which Irving's manner affords his readers. One who seeks the source of his charm may find it in this, that he cherished a high opinion of humanity, and that the friendliness, the sense of comrades.h.i.+p, which he felt for his fellow men was reflected in his writing; unconsciously at first, perhaps, and then deliberately, by practice and cultivation. In consequence, we do not read Irving critically but sympathetically; for readers are like children, or animals, in that they are instinctively drawn to an author who trusts and understands them.
Thackeray, who gave cordial welcome to Irving, and who called him ”the first amba.s.sador whom the New World of letters sent to the Old,” was deeply impressed by the fact not that the young American had an excellent prose style but that ”his gate was forever swinging to visitors.” That is an illuminating criticism; for we can understand the feeling of the men and women of a century ago who, having read the _Sketch Book_, were eager to meet the man who had given them pleasure by writing it. In brief, though Irving wrote nothing of great import, though he entered not into the stress of life or scaled its heights or sounded its deeps, we still read him for the sufficient but uncritical reason that we like him.
In this respect, of winning our personal allegiance, Irving stands in marked contrast to his greatest American contemporary, Cooper. We read the one because we are attracted to the man, the other for the tale he has to tell.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878)
Bryant has been called ”the father of American song,” and the year 1821, when his first volume appeared, is recorded as the natal year of American poetry. Many earlier singers had won local reputations, but he was the first who was honored in all the states and who attained by his poetry alone a dominating place in American letters.
That was long ago; and times have changed, and poets with them. In any collection of recent American verse one may find poems more imaginative or more finely wrought than any that Bryant produced; but these later singers stand in a company and contribute to an already large collection, while Bryant stood alone and made a brave beginning of poetry that we may honestly call native and national. Before he won recognition by his independent work the best that our American singers thought they could do was to copy some English original; but after 1821 they dared to be themselves in poetry, as they had ever been in politics. They had the successful Bryant for a model, and the young Longfellow was one of his pupils. Moreover, he stands the hard test of time, and seems to have no successor. He is still our Puritan poet,--a little severe, perhaps, but American to the core,--who reflects better than any other the rugged spirit of that puritanism which had so profoundly influenced our country during the early, formative days of the republic.
[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT]
LIFE. In the boyhood of Bryant we shall find the inspiration for all his enduring work. He was of Pilgrim stock, and was born (1794) in the little village of c.u.mmington, in western Ma.s.sachusetts.