to his progenitor, and still held by the family. I should scruple to give the letter entire, on account of its delicate encomium upon the youthful party to whom it is addressed, were it not that, as a whole, it presents so true an image of the writer's own heart, his tender sympathy with the young, and the ennobling influence which he sought to inspire in his communion with them.

MY DEAR IRVING:

[To Irving Grinnell.]

SUNNYSIDE, October 28, 1858.

I will not apologize to you for leaving your letter of July 11th so long unanswered. You know my situation-how much my poor brain and pen are fagged and overtasked by regular literary labor, and by the irregular and inevitable demands of the post-office, and will make indulgent allowances for the tardiness of my reply.

Your letter was most acceptable and interesting, giving such fresh, animated accounts of your travels, and expressing so naturally the feelings inspired by the objects around you. Speaking of Bothwell Castle, you "When I am beholding any such magnificent or interesting spot, I say: do not seem to be able to appreciate it enough. I take it in, but do not realize it; and this is really a painful sensation, so different from what you would expect. I stand looking, with all my eyes and senses open, and feel as though I were deficient in some one faculty which prevented me from really appreciating and enjoying all that I see."

My dear Irving, this is all honestly expressed, and describes a feeling which all hunters of the picturesque and historical are apt to experience in presence of the objects of their quest. They, in fact, do realize the scene before them, and the naked truth balks the imagination. Those raptures and ecstasies which writers of travels are so full of at the sight of wonders in art and nature, are generally the after-coinage of the brain, when they sit down in their studies to detail what they have seen, and to

invent what they think they ought to have felt. I recollect how much I was vexed with myself, in my young days, when in Italy, in reading the work of a French tourist, and finding how calmly I had contemplated scenes and objects which had inspired him with the most exalted transports. It was a real consolation to learn, afterward, that he had never been in Italy, and that his whole book, with all its raptures, was a fabrication. I think true delight in these matters is apt to be quiet and contemplative.

I was very much interested by your account of your visit to Drum, the old "Stamm haus," as the Germans express it, of the Irving family. I should have liked to have been of your party on that occasion, having a strong curiosity about that old family nest, ever since the Scotch antiquaries have traced my origin to an egg hatched out of it in days of yore. In going to town, yesterday, I had beside me in the railroad car, and he gave me an account of letters just received from some of your party, by which I found you were all safe in Paris, and in daily communion with the -S, s, etc. What a joyous meeting it must have been! What a relish of home it must have given you all! I have no doubt, keeps you well informed of everything going on in the little world in which you and he mingled together. He is a worthy, manly fellow, and I am glad you have an intimate friend of his stamp. I value him the more highly from the manner in which he conducted himself during his absence in Europe, and the frank, simple, unspoiled manners he has brought home with him. And such, I trust, will be the case with you, my dear Irving. I have always valued in you what I considered to be an honorable nature; a conscientiousness in regard to duties; an open truthfulness; an absence of all low propensities and sensual indulgences; a reverence for sacred things; a respect for others; a freedom from selfishness, and a prompt disposition to oblige; and, with all these, a gayety of spirit, flowing, I believe, from an uncorrupted heart, that gladdens everything around you.

I am not saying all this, my dear Irving, to flatter you, but to let you know what precious qualities Heaven has bestowed upon you, which you are called upon to maintain in their original purity. You are mingling

with the world at large at an extremely youthful age. Fortunately, you go surrounded by the sanctity of home, in the company of your parents and sisters-a moral halo, to protect you from the corruptions of the world. I am confident, however, that your own native good sense and good taste will protect you against the follies, and vices, and affectations in which "Young America" is too apt to indulge in Europe, and that, while you give free scope to your natural buoyancy of spirit, you will maintain that frank, manly, modest simplicity of conduct that should characterize the American gentleman.

I wish I could write you a more interesting letter; but this, such as it is, is scrawled with some difficulty, for I am just recovered from a fit of illness, and am little fitted for the exercise of the pen.

God bless you, my dear Irving, and bring you home to us with a mind stored with profitable and delightful recollections, manners improved and refined by travel, and a heart unspotted by the world.

Your affectionate uncle,

WASHINGTON IRVING.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CONTINUING INDISPOSITION.-SIR WALTER SCOTT.-BULL-FIGHTS.-DREAD OF THE NIGHT.-SPASMODIC AFFECTION.-LETTER FROM PRESCOTT.-VOL. V.

OF "LIFE OF WASHINGTON " GOING TO PRESS.-WILKIE.-HOLMES.PRESCOTT'S DEATH.-RESTLESS NIGHTS.-ANXIETY TO SLEEP.-HIS LAST BIRTHDAY.

CTOBER 31ST, 1858.-At Sunnyside. Mr. Irving still troubled with his harassing cough. To an inquiry of one of his nieces how he had rested the night before, he replies: "So, so; I am apt to be rather fatigued, my dear, by my night's rest." After breakfast, he was turning over, in the library, the leaves of Dunglison's "Medical Dictionary," which had been sent him by the publisher the day before, "A very good book to have; but what an array of maladies for this poor machine of ours to be subject to! One almost wonders, as he thinks of them, that any should ever grow old."

He afterward got speaking of Sir Walter Scott. "O! he was a master spirit-as glorious in his conversation as in his writings. Jeffrey was delightful, and had eloquent runs in conversation; but there was a consciousness of talent with it. Scott had nothing of that. He spoke from the fullness of his mind, pouring out an incessant

flow of anecdote, story, etc., with dashes of humor, and then never monopolizing, but always ready to listen to and appreciate what came from others. I never felt such a consciousness of happiness as when under his roof. I awoke in the morning, and said to myself, 'Now I know I'm to be happy; I know I have an unfailing treat before me.' We would go out in the morning. Scott, with his brown pantaloons, greenish frock-coat, white hat, and cane, would go stumping along. Would hear him ahead, in his gruff tones, mumbling something to himself, like the grumbling of an organ, and find it would be a snatch of minstrelsy. The Antiquary' was the favorite of his daughter Sophia. It is full of his quiet humor. What a beautifully compounded character is Monkbarns! It is one of the very finest in our literature. That single character is enough to immortalize any man. Ochiltree also capital. How many precious treats have I had out of that Antiquary!' How you see Scott's delightful humor, whether grave or gay, playing through all his works, and revealing the man!"

November 11th.-Handed me some chapters of Volume V. in which he had introduced some new matter. Hard work, he said, to fit it in. Conversation turned to bullfights. "I did not know what a blood-thirsty man I was, till I saw them at Madrid, on my first visit. The first was very spirited, the second dull, the third spirited again, and afterward I hardly ever missed. "But the poor horses!" some one interposed. "O! well, they were