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 Washington
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 glass and the
opposite hills throw their shadows across it, that the low vigorous
pull of oars is heard but no boat is seen.

[Illustration: NORTHERN POINT OF PALISADES]

* * *

Here was no castle in the air, but a realized day-dream.
Irving was there, as genial, humorous and imaginative