Charles Lanman

“ At this success no man was more astonished than himself; and when an American critic spoke of the story of “Rip Van Winkle” as a futile attempt at humour, he said he was more than half willing to believe his judgment correct. Indifference to censure and applause had never been, and was not then, a trait in his character.
On questioning Mr. Irving, in regard to “Knickerbocker’s History of New York,” he told me that it had cost him more hard work than any other of his productions, though he considered it decidedly the most original. ”

“ On looking at a picturesque group of children by the way-side, he was reminded of Wilkie. He knew the painter well. Returning from Italy, Wilkie had heard of his being in Spain, and went all the way from Madrid to spend a couple of months or more. He spoke of the artist as an honest blunt man and a capital painter; but in a few of his Spanish pictures he had committed the error of introducing Scotch accessories. When in Madrid they walked a great deal together, went into all sorts of places, and the painter was constantly taking sketches. ”

“ Irving’s manuscript thrown aside, he stepped quietly into the room, and did not speak a word until the task was ended, when he said it would have been a pity to have disturbed a man under such circumstances. The first things he ever printed were school compositions, which he was in the habit of sending to the “Weekly Museum,” a little quarto journal published in New York, when he was a boy twelve or fourteen years old. ”

“ In early life he was very fond of walking; but owing to a cutaneous affection which came upon him in Spain, his ankles were somewhat weakened, and he had since that time taken the most of his exercise on horseback. ”

“ He supposed that some people thought him very foolish to be writing any book at his time of life; that he was then seventy years old; but the subject was intensely interesting to him, and he wished to write it for his own gratification. ”