es. On the whole it seems to
have been a peaceful, idle, rather trivial time of sojourn among
congenial people. He danced, he strolled, he wrote verses to little
Miss Emily; in short, he enjoyed himself as a youngish man may,
whether the muse is waiting for him, or some less high-flown customer.
"I wish I could give you a good account of my literary labors," he
wrote his sister after several months in Dresden, "but I have nothing
to report. I am merely seeing, and hearing, and my mind seems in too
crowded and confused a state to produce anything. I am getting very
familiar with the German language; and there is a lady here who is so
kind as to give me lessons every day in Italian [Mrs. Foster], which
language I have nearly forgotten, but which I am fast regaining.
Another lady is superintending my French [Miss Emily Foster], so that
if I am not acquiring ideas, I am at least acquiring a variety of
modes of expressing them when they do come." Very likely the confusion
of his mind was not lessened by the frequency of those French lessons.
There really seems to be no reason for doubting the testimony of the
elder sister's journal; "He has written. He has confessed to my
mother, as to a dear and true friend, his love for E----, and his
conviction of its utter hopelessness. He feels himself unable to
combat it. He thinks he must try, by absence, to bring more peace to
his mind.... He has almost resolved to make a tour in Silesia, which
will keep him absent for a few weeks." The tour in Silesia was
certainly made; and during the brief absence Irving wrote sundry
sentimental letters to Mrs. Foster. There are occasions when he seems
to imagine a pretty daughter looking over the admirable mother's
shoulder, and being much affected by the famous author's tenderness
for Dresden. Presently he comes back to be their escort, for they are
going home to England; and at Rotterdam the good-bys are said. They
met afterward in England, but the old intimacy was gone.

More than thirty years after, Irving had a letter from a Mrs. Emily
Fuller, whose name he did not know. Pleasantly and discreetly it
recalled those happy Emily Foster days in Dresden. "She addresses him
because she hopes that her eldest boy Henry may have the happiness and
advantage of meeting him." Poor Irving! Her eldest boy Henry.... Well,
the sting was all gone by that time, fortunately. His reply is all
that it ought to be, and nothing more.

Those first days in Paris w