in my hand, sometimes reading, sometimes musing, and sometimes dozing, and mixing all up in a pleasant dream, To his sister, at Birmingham, Mrs. Van Wart, who had not seen her native city in forty years, he writes, August 29th, 1847: I often think what a strange world you would find yourself in, if you could revisit your native place, and mingle among your relatives. New York, as you knew it, was a mere corner of the present huge city ; and that corner is all changed, pulled to pieces, burnt down and rebuilt-all but our little native nest in William Street, which still retains some of its old features, though those are daily altering.* I can hardly realize that, within my term of life, this great crowded metropolis, so full of life, bustle, noise, show, and splendor, was a quiet little city of some fifty or sixty thousand inhabitants. It is really now one of the most racketing cities in the world, and reminds me of one of the great European cities (Frankfort, for instance) in the time of an annual fair. Here it is a fair almost all the year round. For my part, I dread the noise and turmoil of it, and visit it but now and then, preferring the quiet of my country retreat; which shows that the bustling time of life is over with me, and that I am settling down into a sober, quiet, good-for-nothing old gentle man. I am scribbling this letter while the family are all at church. I hear the carriage at a distance, and shall soon have all hands at home. O my dear sister, what would I give if you and yours could this day be with us, and join the family gathering round my board. Every day I regret more and more this severance of the different branches of the family which casts us so widely assunder, with an ocean between us. *This dwelling,-No. 128 William Street,-the first home of which Washington, or the sister to whom he was writing, had any recollection, was pulled down in May, 1849, and a large edifice built on its site. Eleven days later (September 9th), he writes to Mrs. Paris: I have just finished my last job, making a new ice pond in a colder and deeper place, in the glen just opposite our entrance gate; and now I would not undertake another job, even so much as to build a wren-coop, for the slightest job seems to swell into a toilsome and expensive operation. Meanwhile, overtures were multiplying from the booksellers for a republication of his works, but he still delayed to make any definite arrangement. Transmitting to me some proposals he had received from different publishers toward the close of September, he writes: "I am so much occupied, mind and pen, just now, on the 'History of Washington' that I have not time to turn these matters over in my mind." He was now, and for several months hereafter, hard at work on this biography, making it a daily task. At the date of the following letter, he is on a visit to the city, to be within reach of the libraries, but intending, as will be seen, to be at home to hold his Christmas gathering: MY DEAR KATE : [To Miss Catherine Irving.] NEW YORK, December 20, 1847. I had expected to return home before this, but am so entangled in engagements, that I shall not be able before Christmas Eve (Friday next). I trust you will have the rooms decorated with greens, as usual. I have been very busy and very dissipated during my sojourn in townat work all the mornings in the libraries, and frolicking in the evenings. I have attended every opera. The house is beautiful, the troupe very fair, and the audience very fashionable. Such beautiful young ladies!— but the town is full of them; almost as beautiful as the young lady I saw in my dream at the cottage. CHAPTER XI. DINNER AT JOHN JACOB ASTOR'S.-CONVERSATION ABOUT GHOSTS.-THE OP- GERMAN HE opening of this year finds Mr. Irving on a prolonged visit to New York. The following letter is addressed to Mrs. Storrow from the residence of his nephew, John T. Irving, where he was fixed for the present: NEW YORK, February 27, 1848. After eleven months' seclusion in the country, during which I made but three or four visits of business to town, going down and returning the same day in the boat, I came down on a visit early in the winter, having recovered sufficiently from my old malady to go again into society. The cordial, and I may say affectionate reception I met with everywhere, and the delight I felt on mingling once more among old friends, had such an enlivening effect upon me, that I soon repeated my visit, and have ended by passing almost the whole of the winter in town. I think it had a good effect upon me in every way. It has rejuvenated me, and given such a healthful tone to my mind and spirits, that I have worked with greater alacrity and success. I have my books and papers with me, and generally confine myself to the house and to my pen all the long morning, and then give up the evening to society and amusement. One great charm of New York, at present, is a beautiful opera-house, and a very good troupe. We have a prima donna, named Truffi, who delights me as much as Grisi did, and in the same line of characters, though I will not say she is equal to her, excepting in occasional scenes. She is an admirable actress and an excellent singer. We have an excellent tenor also a young man who, when he gets more cultivation and training, will be worthy of the Paris stage. The theatre is well arranged, and so fashionable in every part that there is no jealousy about places, as in the old opera-house here. Ladies are seated everywhere, and, with their gay dresses, make what is the parquette in other theatres look like a bed of flowers. It is filled every night. Everybody is well dressed, and it is altogether one of the gayest, prettiest, and most polite-looking theatres I have ever seen. I have not missed a single per formance since I have been in town. One meets all one's acquaintances at the opera, and there is much visiting from box to box, and pleasant conversation, between the acts. The opera-house is, in fact, the great feature in polite society in New York, and I believe is the great attraction that keeps me in town. Music is to me the great sweetener of existence, and I never enjoyed it more abundantly than at present. March 8, Mr. Irving refers to "a fancy ball recently given at the opera-house, of which," he says, "I, sorely against my will, was made one of the managers." It was a distasteful position, but he had not the faculty of resisting well-intended importunity in trifles. A portion of this period of his lengthened sojourn in New York, he was the guest of John Jacob Astor, then eighty-four years of age, whom he had often urged, he |