ntroduced
himself to Irving, partook of his wine and luncheon, and in
two days described Mr. Irving, his house, his nieces, his
meal, and his manner of dozing afterwards, in a New York
paper. On another occasion, Irving said, laughing, "Two
persons came to me, and one held me in conversation whilst
the other miscreant took my portrait!"

And how came it that this house was so small, when Mr. Irving's books
were sold by hundreds of thousands, nay, millions, when his profits were
known to be large, and the habits of life of the good old bachelor were
notoriously modest and simple? He had loved once in his life. The lady
he loved died; and he, whom all the world loved, never sought to replace
her. I can't say how much the thought of that fidelity has touched me.
Does not the very cheerfulness of his after life add to the pathos of
that untold story? To grieve always was not in his nature; or, when he
had his sorrow, to bring all the world in to condole with him and bemoan
it. Deep and quiet he lays the love of his heart, and buries it; and
grass and flowers grow over the scarred ground in due time.

Irving had such a small house and such narrow rooms, because there was a
great number of people to occupy them. He could only afford to keep one
old horse (which, lazy and aged as it was, managed once or twice to
run away with that careless old horseman). He could only afford to give
plain sherry to that amiable British paragraph-monger from New York, who
saw the patriarch asleep over his modest, blameless cup, and fetched the
public into his private chamber to look at him. Irving could only live
very modestly, because the wifeless, childless man had a number of
children to whom he was as a father. He had as many as nine nieces, I am
told--I saw two of these ladies at his house--with all of whom the dear
old man had shared the produce of his labor and genius.

"Be a good man, my dear." One can't but think of these last words of the
veteran Chief of Letters, who had tasted and tested the value of worldly
success, admiration, prosperity. Was Irving not good, and, of his
works, was not his life the best part? In his family, gentle, generous,
good-humored, affectionate, self-denying: in society, a delightful
example of complete gentlemanhood; quite unspoiled by prosperity; never
obsequious to the great (or, worse still, to the base and mean, as
some public men are forced to be in his and other count