Washington Irving and the Knickerbocker Group



182           Public Lectures

loves the past feels in the missions of San Antonio, Monterey
in California, the old quarters of New Orleans, Charleston,
Boston, and Quebec. These localities are young compared
with Babylon but they whisper of civilizations that have
ceased, or organically altered; one seems to hear the soft
muffled tread of ghosts. Irving was a romantic and cherished
reminders of things once vital, now slumberous. Part of his
charm is that of reminiscence, the savor of things half for-
gotten. This quality is a preservative which retains Irving
among the classics. But like many another classic he is read
less eagerly and by fewer people than formerly. Time and
mutations of taste have reduced his ratio. He, once the
most popular of American authors has been superseded.
With all his urbanity, suavity, drollery, good humor, there
is in his writing the flavor of an elder world. He is Addi-
sonian, Goldsmithian. He is not of the age of Dreiser, Sin-
clair Lewis, and Mencken—lacks their brevity and sparkle.
Even the quieter methods of Willa Cather or Thornton
Wilder are not his technique. He belongs to stage coach
days, not the age of automobiles and airplanes.

Excepting The Alhambra and a few story-essays, such as
Rip Van Winkle, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The
Spectre Bridegroom, Dolph Heyliger,
Irving is less a dy-
namic reality than a memory.

He had not the “overflowing and inexhaustible vitality
that is the mark of the great writer,” which Mr. Hugh Wal-
pole says, and truly, Sir Walter Scott possessed. Perhaps
that is why, in this anniversary year of the two men the
market is flooded with new books, magazine articles about
Sir Walter, while almost nothing new is published about
Irving. He had the humor but not the hilarity of Dickens.
He could recreate the country life and the inn life of old
England, but not with the strong zest of Fielding. He loved



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