law clerk in the office of Josiah Ogden Hoffman, and began that enduring
intimacy with the refined and charming Hoffman family which was so deeply
to influence all his life. His health had always been delicate, and his
friends were now alarmed by symptoms of pulmonary weakness. This
physical disability no doubt had much to do with his disinclination to
severe study. For the next two or three years much time was consumed in
excursions up the Hudson and the Mohawk, and in adventurous journeys as
far as the wilds of Ogdensburg and to Montreal, to the great improvement
of his physical condition, and in the enjoyment of the gay society of
Albany, Schenectady, Ballston, and Saratoga Springs. These explorations
and visits gave him material for future use, and exercised his pen in
agreeable correspondence; but his tendency at this time, and for several
years afterwards, was to the idle life of a man of society. Whether the
literary impulse which was born in him would have ever insisted upon any
but an occasional and fitful expression, except for the necessities of
his subsequent condition, is doubtful.

Irving's first literary publication was a series of letters, signed
Jonathan Oldstyle, contributed in 1802 to the "Morning Chronicle,"
a newspaper then recently established by his brother Peter.
The attention that these audacious satires of the theater, the actors,
and their audience attracted is evidence of the literary poverty of the
period. The letters are open imitations of the "Spectator" and the
"Tatler," and, although sharp upon local follies, are of no consequence
at present except as foreshadowing the sensibility and quiet humor of the
future author, and his chivalrous devotion to woman. What is worthy of
note is that a boy of nineteen should turn aside from his caustic satire
to protest against the cruel and unmanly habit of jesting at ancient
maidens. It was enough for him that they are women, and possess the
strongest claim upon our admiration, tenderness, and protection.