urnace of their
charms. I accompanied him there on Sunday evening last, and found the
Lads and Miss Knox with them. S---- was in great spirits, and played the
sparkler with such great success as to silence the whole of us excepting
Jim, who was the _agreeable rattle_ of the evening. God defend me from
such vivacity as hers, in future,--such smart speeches without meaning,
such bubble and squeak nonsense! I'd as lieve stand by a frying-pan for
an hour and listen to the cooking of apple fritters. After two hours'
dead silence and suffering on my part I made out to drag him off, and
did not stop running until I was a mile from the house." Irving gives
his correspondent graphic pictures of the social warfare in which he was
engaged, the "host of rascally little tea-parties" in which he was
entangled; and some of his portraits of the "divinities," the
"blossoms," and the beauties of that day would make the subjects of them
flutter with surprise in the church-yards where they lie. The writer was
sated with the "tedious commonplace of fashionable society," and
languishing to return to his books and his pen.

In March, 1812, in the shadow of the war and the depression of business,
Irving was getting out a new edition of the "Knickerbocker," which
Inskeep was to publish, agreeing to pay $1,200 at six months for an
edition of fifteen hundred. The modern publisher had not then arisen and
acquired a proprietary right in the brains of the country, and the
author made his bargains like an independent being who owned himself.

Irving's letters of this period are full of the gossip of the town and
the matrimonial fate of his acquaintances. The fascinating Mary Fairlie
is at length married to Cooper, the tragedian, with the opposition of
her parents, after a dismal courtship and a cloudy prospect of
happiness. "Goodhue is engaged to Miss Clarkson, the sister to the
pretty one. The engagement suddenly took place as they walked from
church on Christmas Day, and report says the action was shorter than any
of our naval victories, for the lady struck on the first broadside." The
war colored all social life and conversation. "This war [the letter is
to Brevoort, who is in Europe] has completely changed the face of things
here. You would scarcely recognize our old peaceful city. Nothing is
talked of but armies, navies, battles, etc." The same phenomenon was
witnessed then that was observed in the war for the Union: "Men who had
loitered about