distrust of all kinds of fanaticism, had no liking for the Puritans or
for their descendants, the New England Yankees, if we may judge from
his sketch of Ichabod Crane in the _Legend of Sleepy Hollow_. His
genius was reminiscent, and his imagination, like Scott's, was the
historic imagination. In crude America his fancy took refuge in the
picturesque aspects of the past, in "survivals" like the Knickerbocker
Dutch and the Acadian peasants, whose isolated communities on the lower
Mississippi he visited and described. He turned naturally to the ripe
civilization of the Old World, He was our first picturesque tourist,
the first "American in Europe." He rediscovered England, whose ancient
churches, quiet landscapes, memory-haunted cities, Christmas
celebrations, and rural festivals had for him an unfailing attraction.
With pictures of these, for the most part, he filled the pages of the
_Sketch Book_ and _Bracebridge Hall_, 1822. Delightful as are these
English sketches, in which the author conducts his reader to Windsor
Castle, or Stratford-on-Avon, or the Boar's Head Tavern, or sits beside
him on the box of the old English stage-coach, or shares with him the
Yule-tide cheer at the ancient English country-house, their interest
has somewhat faded. The pathos of the _Broken Heart_ and the _Pride of
the Village_, the mild satire of the _Art of Book-Making_, the rather
obvious reflections in _Westminster Abbey_ are not exactly to the taste
of this generation. They are the literature of leisure and
retrospection; and already Irving's gentle elaboration, the refined and
slightly artificial beauty of his style, and his persistently genial
and sympathetic attitude have begun to pall upon readers who demand a
more nervous and accentuated kind of writing. It is felt that a little
roughness, a little harshness, even, would give relief to his pictures
of life. There is, for instance, something a little irritating in the
old-fashioned courtliness of his manner toward women; and one reads
with a certain impatience smoothly punctuated passages like the