Washington
Irving must often have gazed (in search of new inspiration), through the
small square panes of his study windows.

His descendants have changed nothing there, in that dear little modest
nest for a genius! It's close to the front door, as you go in from the
deep porch, at the right-hand side of a fascinating corridor. Looking
down that corridor you see a vista of rooms, delightful as rooms in
dreams. They are furnished, but not crowded, with old and exquisite
things--things which must have been intimate friends of the family for
generations; and, oh, how much more attractive are the rooms than any
royal suites I've seen in palaces!

In the study (I feel sure _he_ called it that, not library) the master
of long ago might have walked a moment ago, out into the garden, so
entirely does the room seem impressed with his personality. There are
his books, his manuscripts, his pens; his desk, and his writing-chair
drawn up to it; his little table; the charming old prints he loved,
given to him and signed by friends whose names are famous; pictures of
the house when it was "Wolfert's Roost," and when it had grown larger.
The green and golden light streaming through the windows, front and
side, seems just the sort of light that Washington Irving would have
loved to write in. He made it greener and more inspiring by bringing
from Melrose Abbey slips of the ivy which now curtains the windows; and
in the green-gold light he wrote his "Life of Washington" and many
other things which we all love.

Coming out of the study when we were ready to go away, I looked through
the open door of a beautiful room across the corridor, straight into an
old-fashioned mirror. Never was a mirror so becoming. I felt as if I
were seeing my own portrait painted by Romney; and behind me for an
instant I seemed to catch a fleeting glimpse of another face, as though
a man stood on the study threshold, smiling to me a kind good-bye. I
adore my own imagination. After Jack, it is my best and dearest chum!

I think even if one didn't know that thrilling things had happened in
Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow (heavenly names!) in old days, one would
somehow _feel_ it. What's the use of one's subconscious self if it
doesn't nudge one's subjective self and whisper that _it_ was born
knowing? Why, I could see Sir Vredryck Flypse and his family streaming
out of the old Dutch church, as gorgeous in their Sunday best as the
church was simple; the ladies' stom