rojection of Kingsland Point.

[Illustration: Washington Irving

Washington Irving (1783-1859) was intended for a legal profession,
but although called to the bar preferred to amuse himself with
literary ventures. The first of these, with the exception of the
satirical miscellany, "Salmagundi," was the delightful
"Knickerbocker History of New York," wherein the pedantry of local
antiquaries is laughed at, and the solid Dutch burgher established
as a definite comedy type. When the commercial house established
by his father and run by his brother began to go under in 1815,
Irving went to England to look into the affairs of the Liverpool
house, and as it was soon necessary to declare bankruptcy, his
misfortune forced him to write for his living. Returning to
America in 1832 after 17 years' absence, he found his name a
household word. The only interruption to his literary career was
the four years (1842-1846) he spent as ambassador to Spain. For
the rest, he passed some little time travelling, but in the main
kept retreat at "Sunnyside," where he died, Nov. 28, 1859.]

This is the "Sleepy Hollow" of Irving's legend, where Ichabod
Crane, the long, thin school-master, whose conspicuous bones
clattered at any mention of ghosts, encountered the Headless
Horseman pounding by night through the little Dutch village. It
was after a quilting bee at Farmer Van Tassel's, where his
daughter Katrina and what would come with her in the shape of fat
farm-lands and well-stocked barns, aroused Ichabod's affections
to the boiling point. He had a rival, however, "Brom Bones," a
young black-headed sprig, who watched Ichabod's advances
uneasily. After the party Ichabod mounted his old horse,
Gunpowder, as bony as he, but no sooner was he well under way
than he heard hoof beats on the road behind him and saw,
glimmering in the dark, a white headless figure on horseback,
carrying in its arms a round object like a head.... Never before
or since was there such a chase in Sleepy Hollow. Perhaps the
hapless school-teacher might have escaped, had not the Huntsman,
just as they reached the Sleepy Hollow bridge, hurled his head
square at his victim. The next morning no Ichabod, only a pumpkin
lying on the road by the bridge, where the hoofmarks ceased. He
had completely disappeared. Some weeks later Brom