Page 21 - Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor

at his hospitable board among his charming little family, and here I have
been ever since.... I cannot tell you how truly I have enjoyed the hours I

have passed here. They fly by too quickly, yet each is loaded with story,
incident, or song; and when I consider the world of ideas, images, and

impressions that have been crowded upon my mind since I have been here,
it seems incredible that I should only have been two days at Abbotsford."

And here is Scott’s impression of Irving: "When you see Tom Campbell,"
he writes to a friend, "tell him, with my best love, that I have to thank him

for making me known to Mr. Washington Irving, who is one of the best and
pleasantest acquaintances I have made this many a day."

When the "Sketch Book" was coming out in the United States, and Irving
was thinking of publishing it in England, he received some advice and

assistance from Scott; and finally Scott persuaded the great English
publisher Murray to take it up, even after that publisher had once declined
it. On this occasion Irving wrote to a friend as follows:

"He (Scott) is a man that, if you knew, you would love; a right

honest-hearted, generous-spirited being; without vanity, affectation, or
assumption of any kind. He enters into every passing scene or passing
pleasure with the interest and simple enjoyment of a child."

CHAPTER X

"RIP VAN WINKLE"

Irving’s most famous work is undoubtedly the "Sketch Book"; and of the
thirty-two stories and essays in this volume, all Americans love best "The

Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle."

After the failure of his business, when Irving saw that he must write
something at once to meet his ordinary living expenses, he went up to
London and prepared several sketches, which he sent to his friend, Henry

Brevoort, in New York. Among them was the story of Rip Van Winkle.