hen, preferring the quiet of my country retreat; which
shows that the bustling time of life is over with me, and that I am
settling down into a sober, quiet, good-for-nothing old gentleman."

This was all very well--for a mood. He spent the next winter in town,
moving freely in society, and "not missing a single performance" of
the opera. "One meets all one's acquaintances at the opera, and there
is much visiting from box to box, and pleasant conversation, between
the acts. The opera house is in fact the great feature of polite
society in New York, and I believe is the great attraction that keeps
me in town. Music is to me the great sweetener of existence, and I
never enjoyed it more abundantly than at present." Clearly, the old
social instinct was by no means dead in him, however he might express
himself in less buoyant moods.

Two years after his return from Spain the house of Putnam agreed to
publish the revised edition of his works on very liberal terms--a
twelve and a half per cent. royalty. The result of the enterprise was
a surprise to author and publisher, for during the ten remaining years
of his life the royalties amounted to more than $88,000. The
arrangement brought about an immediate accession of courage and power,
and he returned with fresh zeal to the "Life of Washington." "All I
fear," he said, "is to fail in health, and fail in completing this
work at the same time. If I can only live to finish it, I would be
willing to die the next moment. I think I can make it a most
interesting book. If I had only ten years more of life! I never felt
more able to write. I might not conceive as I did in earlier days,
when I had more romance of feeling, but I could execute with more
rapidity and freedom." The consciousness of approaching age grew
stronger in him, but without weakening his capacity for enjoyment or
his turn for humorous expression. Early in 1850, George Ticknor sent
him a copy of his "History of Spanish Literature." Irving dipped into
it, liked it, and "When I have once read it through," he wrote, "I
shall keep it by me, like a Stilton cheese, to give a dig into
whenever I want a relishing morsel. I began to fear it would never
see the light in my day, or that it might fare with you as with that
good lady who went thirteen years with child, and then brought forth a
little old man, who died in the course of a month of extreme old age.
But you have produced three strapping volumes, full of life and
fres