night of it.

These young gentlemen liked to be thought "sad dogs." That they were
less abandoned than they pretended to be the sequel of their lives shows
among Irving's associates at this time who attained honorable
consideration were John and Gouverneur Kemble, Henry Brevoort, Henry
Ogden, James K. Paulding, and Peter Irving. The saving influence for all
of them was the refined households they frequented and the association of
women who were high-spirited without prudery, and who united purity and
simplicity with wit, vivacity, and charm of manner. There is some
pleasant correspondence between Irving and Miss Mary Fairlie, a belle of
the time, who married the tragedian, Thomas A. Cooper; the "fascinating
Fairlie," as Irving calls her, and the Sophie Sparkle of the
"Salmagundi." Irving's susceptibility to the charms and graces of women
--a susceptibility which continued always fresh--was tempered and
ennobled by the most chivalrous admiration for the sex as a whole.
He placed them on an almost romantic pinnacle, and his actions always
conformed to his romantic ideal, although in his writings he sometimes
adopts the conventional satire which was more common fifty years ago than
now. In a letter to Miss Fairlie, written from Richmond, where he was
attending the trial of Aaron Burr, he expresses his exalted opinion of
the sex. It was said in accounting for the open sympathy of the ladies
with the prisoner that Burr had always been a favorite with them; "but I
am not inclined," he writes, "to account for it in so illiberal a manner;
it results from that merciful, that heavenly disposition, implanted in
the female bosom, which ever inclines in favor of the accused and the
unfortunate. You will smile at the high strain in which I have indulged;
believe me, it is because I feel it; and I love your sex ten times better
than ever."--[An amusing story in connection with this Richmond visit
illustrates the romantic phase of Irving's character. Cooper, who was