CHAPTER XIV.

APPLICATION FOR AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT.

BORING LETTERS.-LETTER TO JESSE MERWIN, THE ORIGINAL OF ICHABOD CRANE. HIS LAST PORTRAIT. -LETTER TO MRS. STORROW.-THE "REVERIES OF A BACHELOR."— THE 66 SCARLET LETTER. -LETTER TO H. M. GRINNELL, BOHN'S INFRINGEMENT OF COPYRIGHT.-LETTER TO BENTLEY.-LETTER OF JOHN MURRAY.LETTER TO JOHN BARNEY.-LETTER TO H. T. TUCKERMAN, ALLUDING TO ROGERS, AND TO ARTICLE IN "HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS. "-LETTER TO WILLIAM C. BRYANT ON THE SUBJECT OF THE DIFFERENT PORTRAITS OF COLUMBUS.

HE following letter was written to a young lady, who proposed to come to him and ask his counsel about the publication of some poems of a brother who had graduated with distinction, and been cut off in the bloom of his youth:

DEAR MADAM:

SUNNYSIDE, February 18, 1851.

While I sincerely sympathize with you in the affliction caused by your great bereavement, and have no doubt your brother was worthy of the praise bestowed on his memory, I must most respectfully excuse myself from the very delicate and responsible task of giving an opinion of his poems. I have no confidence in the coolness and correctness of my own judgment in matters of the kind, and have repeatedly found the exercise of it, in compliance with solicitations like the present, so productive of

dissatisfaction to others, and poignant regret to myself that I have long since been driven to the necessity of declining it altogether.

Trusting you will receive this apology in the frank and friendly spirit in which it is made, I remain, with great respect, your obedient servant. WASHINGTON IRVING.

Here is a reply to a modest application from an unknown admirer to "pen (him) just one original thought" :

I would be happy to furnish you with the " original thought" you require; but it is a coinage of the brain not always at my command, and certainly not at present. So I hope you will be content with my sincere thanks in return for the kind and complimentary expressions of your letter.

No man could be more bored than Mr. Irving, by, as he once expressed it, "all sorts of letters from all sorts of persons. I remember his once showing me a letter asking him to subscribe to some particular book. "Now," he said, turning to me, "this must be answered. Every letter to be answered is a trifle; but your life in this way is exhausted in trifles. You are entangled in a network of cobwebs. Each letter is a cobweb across your nose. The bores of this world are endless."

The following letter is addressed to Jesse Merwin, a schoolmaster whom he had met long years before at Judge Van Ness's, at Kinderhook. Merwin had called on him at New York, but, not finding him, had afterward written to him, and, among various allusions to the olden

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time, had mentioned the death of Dominie Van Nest, a clergyman whom they had both known at that period. To Mr. Irving's surprise, the letter appeared in print a few days after. Jesse Merwin's letter is indorsed in Mr. Irving's own handwriting: "From Jesse Merwin, the original of Ichabod Crane."

SUNNYSIDE, February 12, 18:1.

You must excuse me, my good friend Merwin, for suffering your letter to remain so long unanswered. You can have no idea how many letters I have to answer, besides fagging with my pen at my own literary tasks, so that it is impossible for me to avoid being behind hand in my correspondence. Your letter was indeed most welcome-calling up, as it did, the recollection of pleasant scenes and pleasant days passed together in times long since at Judge Van Ness's, in Kinderhook. Your mention of the death of good old Dominie Van Nest recalls the apostolic zeal with which he took our little sinful community in hand, when he put up for a day or two at the Judge's; and the wholesome castigation he gave us all, one Sunday, beginning with the two country belles who came fluttering into the school-house during the sermon, decked out in their city finery, and ending with the Judge himself, in the stronghold of his own mansion. How soundly he gave it to us! How he peeled off every rag of self-righteousness with which we tried to cover ourselves, and laid the rod on the bare backs of our consciences! The good, plain-spoken, honest old man! How I honored him for his simple, straightforward earnestness, his homely sincerity! He certainly handled us without mittens; but I trust we are all the better for it. How different he was from the brisk, dapper, self-sufficient little apostle who cantered up to the Judge's door a day or two after; who was so full of himself that he had no thought to bestow on our religious delinquencies; who did nothing but boast of his public trials of skill in argument with rival preachers of other denominations, and how he had driven them off the field, and crowed over them! You must remember the bustling, self-confident little man, with a tin trumpet

in the handle of his riding whip, with which I presume he blew the trumpet in Zion!

Do you remember our fishing expedition, in company with Congressman Van Alen, to the little lake a few miles from Kinderhook; and John Moore, the vagabond admiral of the lake, who sat crouched in a heap in the middle of his canoe in the centre of the lake, with fishing-rods stretching out in every direction like the long legs of a spider? And do you remember our piratical prank, when we made up for our bad luck in fishing, by plundering his canoe of its fish when we found it adrift? And do you remember how John Moore came splashing along the marsh on the opposite border of the lake, roaring at us; and how we finished our frolic by driving off and leaving the Congressman to John Moore's mercy, tickling ourselves with the idea of his being scalped at least ? Ah, wella-day, friend Merwin, those were the days of our youth and folly. I trust we have grown wiser and better since then; we certainly have grown older. I don't think we could rob John Moore's fishing canoe now. By the way, that same John Moore, and the anecdotes you told of him, gave me the idea of a vagabond character, Dirck Schuyler, in my "Knickerbocker History of New York," which I was then writing.

You tell me the old school-house is torn down, and a new one built in its place. I am sorry for it. I should have liked to see the old school-house once more, where, after my morning's literary task was over, I used to come and wait for you occasionally until school was dismissed, and you used to promise to keep back the punishment of some little, tough, broad-bottomed Dutch boy until I should come, for my amusement-but never kept your promise. I don't think I should look with a friendly eye on the new school-house, however nice it might be.

Since I saw you in New York, I have had severe attacks of bilious intermittent fever, which shook me terribly; but they cleared out my system, and I have ever since been in my usual excellent health, able to mount my horse and gallop about the country almost as briskly as when I was a youngster. Wishing you the enjoyment of the same inestimable blessing, and begging you to remember me to your daughter,

who penned your letter, and to your son, whom, out of old kindness and companionship, you have named after me.

I remain ever, my old friend, yours very truly and cordially,

WASHINGTON IRVING.

About this time Mr. Irving was induced to sit to Martin, an English artist, for the last portrait ever taken of him. Though somewhat idealized, and too youthful for his age at that time, it had much of his character and expression about it, and received the following notice from the pen of the poet, N. P. Willis, in the "Home Journal":

We spoke, the other day, of Geoffrey Crayon's having once more consented to sit for his picture. Mr. Martin has just finished it, and we fancy there has seldom been a more felicitous piece of work. It is not only like Irving, but like his books; and, though he looks as his books read (which is true of few authors), and looks like the name of his cottage,-Sunnyside,—and looks like what the world thinks of him, yet a painter might have missed this look, and still have made what many would consider a likeness. He sits leaning his head on his hand, with the genial, unconcious, courtly composure of expression that he habitually wears; and still there is visible the couchant humor and philosophic inevitableness of perception, which form the strong under-current of his genius. The happy temper and the strong intellect of Irving, the joyously indolent man, and the arousably brilliant author, are both there. As a picture, it is a fine specimen of art. The flesh is most skillfully crayoned, the pose excellent, the drawing apparently effortless and yet nicely true, and the air altogether Irving-y and gentleman-like. If well engraved, we have him-delightful and famous Geoffrey-as he lives, as he is thought to live, as he writes, as he talks, and as he ought to be remembered.