many as nine nieces, I am told, with all of whom the dear old man shared the produce of his genius.” Irving's style is characterized by rare grace, rich and quaint umor, and simple pathos. His diction is remarkably smooth and sweet, and he was one of the most charming masters of the lighter forms of English prose. Edward Everett, parodying Dr. Johnson's eulogy of Addison's style, says, and justly, "If the young aspirant after literary distinction wishes to study a style which possesses the characteristic beauties of Addison, its ease, simplicity, and elegance, with greater accuracy, point, and spirit, let him give his days and nights to the volumes of Irving." LOWELL'S TRIBUTE. What! Irving! thrice welcome, warm heart and fine brain! To a true poet-heart add the fun of Dick Steele, With the whole of that partnership's stock and good-will, Let it stand out of doors till a soul it receives From the warm lazy sun loitering down through green leaves: And you'll find a choice nature, not wholly deserving A name either English or Yankee-just Irving. RIP VAN WINKLE. [The famous tale of Rip Van Winkle first appeared in the SketchBook, a series of papers written by Washington Irving while in England, and originally brought out in numbers in New York, 1819-1820. In a prefatory note to this tale, Irving, in his style of humorous mystification, states that the story was found among the posthumous papers of Diedrich Knickerbocker, the pseudonym under which the author published his History of New York, ten years before the appearance of the Sketch-Book.] FIRST READING. WHOEVER has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill Mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over2 the surrounding country. Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains; and they are regarded by all the goodwives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which in the last rays of the setting sun will glow and light up like a crown of glory. At the foot of these fairy mountains 3 the voyager* 1 Kaatskill: written Catskill. now commonly 2 lording it over. figure? (See Def. 4.) 3 fairy mountains: "fairy" in anticipation of the elfin nature of What is the the legend that follows. may have descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists in the early times of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuyvesant1 (may he rest in peace!); and there were some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows, and gable fronts surmounted with weathercocks. In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, to tell the precise 2 truth, was sadly time-worn and weather-beaten), there lived many years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a simple good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege. of Fort Christina.3 He inherited, however, but little of the martial character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple good-natured man; he 1 Peter Stuyvesant was the small settlement of Swedes near fourth and last of the Dutch gov- the present site of Wilmington, ernors of New Netherlands (1647- Del. The Swedes were conquered 1664), in which latter year the by Stuyvesant. In the KnickerbockEnglish took possession of the er's History the Van Winkles figure province and changed its name to among the doughty warriors who New York. He figures in Irving's accompanied Stuyvesant to the History. siege, and who are described as having been "brimful of wrath and 2 precise. See Glossary. 8 Fort Christina. This was a cabbage." was, moreover, a kind neighbor, and an obedient henpecked1 husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal popularity; for those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad who are under the discipline of shrews2 at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable3 in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation, and a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and longsuffering. A termagant wife may therefore, in some respects, be considered a tolerable blessing; and if so, Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed. Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the goodwives of the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles, and never failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and Indians. Whenever 1 henpecked, governed by one's | flailing), that which occasions diswife. tress, affliction. 2 shrews, female scolds. 3 malleable: from Latin malleus, a hammer. Is the word used literally or figuratively? 4 fiery furnace. What is the figure? (See Def. 3.) 5 tribulation (from Latin tribulum, a flail; and so, literally, a 6 curtain lecture, "a lecture or reproof given by a wife to her husband within the bed-curtains, or in bed." -DOUGLAS JERROLD. 7 termagant. See Webster for the interesting derivation of this word. 8 who, as usual, etc. Note the sub-acid flavor of this remark. he went dodging about the village, he was surrounded by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks on him with impunity; and not a dog would bark at him throughout the neighborhood. The great error in Rip's composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling-piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone fences: the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husbands would not do for them. In a word, Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible. In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm it was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole country; every thing about it went 1 aversion. See Glossary. 2 assiduity or Give the distinction. 3 pestilent: from Latin pestis, perseverance. the plague: hence, plaguy, trouble some. |