Part 9 (2/2)

=”Sunnyside.”= Irving aptly describes it in one of his stories as ”made up of gable-ends, and full of angles and corners as an old c.o.c.ked hat. It is said, in fact, to have been modeled after the hat of Peter the Headstrong, as the Escurial of Spain was fas.h.i.+oned after the gridiron of the blessed St. Lawrence.” Wolfert's Roost, as it was once styled (Roost signifying Rest), took its name from Wolfert Acker, a former owner. It consisted originally of ten acres when purchased by Irving in 1835, but eight acres were afterwards added. With great humor Irving put above the porch entrance ”George Harvey, Boum'r,”

Boumeister being an old Dutch word for architect. A storm-worn weather-c.o.c.k, ”which once battled with the wind on the top of the Stadt House of New Amsterdam in the time of Peter Stuyvesant, erects his crest on the gable, and a gilded horse in full gallop, once the weather-c.o.c.k of the great Van der Heyden palace of Albany, glitters in the suns.h.i.+ne, veering with every breeze, on the peaked turret over the portal.”

Irving chose his residence in the valley, not amid the mountains; by the fields and meadows of the broad Tappan Zee, rather than the Highlands; in a congenial region suited to his temperament.

_Dr. Bethune._

About fifty years ago a cutting of Walter Scott's favorite ivy at Melrose Abbey was transported across the Atlantic, and trained over the porch of ”Sunnyside,” by the hand of Mrs. Renwick, daughter of Rev. Andrew Jeffrey of Lochmaben, known in girlhood as the ”Bonnie Jessie” of Annandale, or the ”Blue-eyed La.s.sie” of Robert Burns:--a graceful tribute, from the shrine of Waverley to the nest of Knickerbocker:

A token of friends.h.i.+p immortal With Was.h.i.+ngton Irving returns:-- Scott's ivy entwined o'er his portal By the Blue-eyed La.s.sie of Burns.

Scott's cordial greeting at Abbotsford, and his persistence in getting Murray to reconsider the publication of the ”Sketch Book,” which he had previously declined, were never forgotten by Irving. It was during a critical period of his literary career, and the kindness of the Great Magician, in directing early attention to his genius, is still cherished by every reader of the ”Sketch Book” from Manhattan to San Francisco. The hearty grasp of the Minstrel at the gateway of Abbotsford was in reality a warm handshake to a wider brotherhood beyond the sea.

In purple tints woven together The Hudson shakes hands with the Tweed, Commingling with Abbotsford's heather The clover of Sunnyside's mead.

_Wallace Bruce._

=Was.h.i.+ngton Irving.=--While he was building ”Sunnyside,” a letter came from Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, appointing him minister to Spain. It was unexpected and unsolicited, and Webster remarked that day to a friend: ”Was.h.i.+ngton Irving to-day will be the most surprised man in America.” Irving had already shown diplomatic ability in London in promoting the settlement of the ”North Western Boundary,” and his appointment was received with universal favor. Then as now Sunnyside was already a Mecca for travelers, and, among many well-known to fame, was a young man, afterwards Napoleon the Third. Referring to his visit, Irving wrote in 1853: ”Napoleon and Eugenie, Emperor and Empress! The one I have had as a guest at my cottage, the other I have held as a pet child upon my knee in Granada. The last I saw of Eugenie Montijo, she was one of the reigning belles of Madrid; now, she is upon the throne, launched from a returnless sh.o.r.e, upon a dangerous sea, infamous for its tremendous s.h.i.+pwrecks. Am I to live to see the catastrophe of her career, and the end of this suddenly conjured up empire, which seems to be of such stuff as dreams are made of?

I confess my personal acquaintance with the individuals in this historical romance gives me uncommon interest in it; but I consider it stamped with danger and instability, and as liable to extravagant vicissitudes as one of Dumas' novels.” A wonderful prophecy completely fulfilled in the short s.p.a.ce of seventeen years.

How many such men as Was.h.i.+ngton Irving are there in America. G.o.d don't send many such spirits into this world.

_Lord Byron._

The aggregate sale of Irving's works when he received his portfolio to Spain was already more than half a million copies, with an equal popularity achieved in Britain. No writer was ever more truly loved on both sides of the Atlantic, and his name is cherished to-day in England as fondly as it is in our own country. It has been the good fortune of the writer to spend many a delightful day in the very centre of Merrie England, in the quiet town of Stratford-on-Avon, and feel the gentle companions.h.i.+p of Irving. Of all writers who have brought to Stratford their heart homage Irving stands the acknowledged chief. The sitting-room in the ”Red Horse Hotel,” where he was disturbed in his midnight reverie, is still called Irving's room, and the walls are hung with portraits taken at different periods of his life. Mine host said that visitors from every land were as much interested in this room as in Shakespeare's birth-place. The remark may have been intensified to flatter an American visitor, but there are few names dearer to the Anglo-Saxon race than that on the plain headstone in the burial-yard of Sleepy Hollow. Sunnyside is scarcely visible to the Day Line tourist. A little gleam of color here and there amid the trees, close to the river bank, near a small boat-house, merely indicates its location; and the traveler by train has only a hurried glimpse, as it is within one hundred feet of the New York Central Railroad. Tappan Zee, at this point, is a little more than two miles wide and over the beautiful expanse Irving has thrown a wondrous charm. There is, in fact, ”magic in the web” of all his works. A few modern critics, lacking appreciation alike for humor and genius, may regard his essays as a thing of the past, but as long as the Mahicanituk, the ever-flowing Hudson, pours its waters to the sea, as long as Rip Van Winkle sleeps in the blue Catskills, or the ”Headless Horseman” rides at midnight along the Old Post Road _en route_ for Teller's Point, so long will the writings of Was.h.i.+ngton Irving be remembered and cherished. We somehow feel the reality of every legend he has given us. The spring bubbling up near his cottage was brought over, as he gravely tells us, in a churn from Holland by one of the old time settlers, and we are half inclined to believe it; and no one ever thinks of doubting that the ”Flying Dutchman,” Mynheer Van Dam, has been rowing for two hundred years and never made a port.

It is in fact still said by the old inhabitants, that often in the soft twilight of summer evenings, when the sea is like gla.s.s and the opposite hills throw their shadows across it, that the low vigorous pull of oars is heard but no boat is seen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NORTHERN POINT OF PALISADES]

Here was no castle in the air, but a realized day-dream.

Irving was there, as genial, humorous and imaginative as if he had never wandered from the primal haunts of his childhood and his fame.

_Henry T. Tuckerman._

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