Washington Irving and the Knickerbocker Group

Irving and the Knickerbocker Group 191
with John Jacob Astor he wrote of the Northwest region
as far as Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia. He talked
with Captain Bonneville, soldier by vocation, explorer by
avocation, read Bonneville’s diaries and described the middle
country west of the Rockies in a book pleasurable to lovers
of the West and even yet a sublimated guide book for those
who travel the Union Pacific Railway. History, legends
interested him, most of all personalities. Even his dip-
lomatic messages from Spain, while faithfully chronicling
events, contained vignettes of people, not unlike in kind to
the official correspondence of Walter Hines Page, more
politically minded than Irving, but with Irving’s literary
instinct and the belief that his chief could better understand
situations if he should understand the people in the situa-
tions.

Irving was a cosmopolitan, perhaps the first American
cosmopolitan after Franklin, but a better American for
knowing Europe. He was loyal to America before and
after his first visit to England, not, as already said, deeply
interested in the processes of politics ; he curtly declined to
run for Congress though beyond doubt he would have been
elected had he made the race.

He was, however, steadfast in his love and defense of
American honor, in his faith in the American future. He
wrote that he was born in a republic and that his faith in
republican government strengthened with his years. When
he heard that the British had burned the city of Washing-
ton he promptly offered his services to the governor of
New York, was appointed staff officer and became Colonel
Irving. He was on his way to Washington to join the
national army when the war ceased abruptly.

He was zealous that intelligent English people should
recognize the merits of American literature, proud of every

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