inflammation of fife and drum, or the sentimental dawdling here and there
over the ancient harpsichord, with the songs of love, and the broad or
pathetic staves and choruses of the convivial table; and there was no
literary atmosphere.

After three months of indolent enjoyment in the winter and spring of
1811, Irving is complaining to Brevoort in June of the enervation of his
social life: "I do want most deplorably to apply my mind to something
that will arouse and animate it; for at present it is very indolent and
relaxed, and I find it very difficult to shake off the lethargy that
enthralls it. This makes me restless and dissatisfied with myself, and
I am convinced I shall not feel comfortable and contented until my mind
is fully employed. Pleasure is but a transient stimulus, and leaves the
mind more enfeebled than before. Give me rugged toils, fierce
disputation, wrangling controversy, harassing research,--give me anything
that calls forth the energies of the mind; but for Heaven's sake shield
me from those calms, those tranquil slumberings, those enervating
triflings, those siren blandishments, that I have for some time indulged
in, which lull the mind into complete inaction, which benumb its powers,
and cost it such painful and humiliating struggles to regain its activity
and independence!"

Irving at this time of life seemed always waiting by the pool for some
angel to come and trouble the waters. To his correspondent, who was in
the wilds of Michilimackinac, he continues to lament his morbid
inability. The business in which his thriving brothers were engaged was
the importation and sale of hardware and cutlery, and that spring his
services were required at the "store." "By all the martyrs of Grub
Street [he exclaims], I 'd sooner live in a garret, and starve into the
bargain, than follow so sordid, dusty, and soul-killing a way of life,