I believe in birthdays. I have just been celebratin’ my own semi-centennial, and I think that the idea of celebratin’ the centennial anniversary of the birth of Washington Irving reflects great credit on New York, for New York has received great credit from Washington Irving. And there are some reminiscences of the great, good and gentle author’s life here in this city which will be of interest to my readers.
It is generally thought that Washington Irving in early life loved a young girl, lost her, and then remained single for her memory’s sake all the rest of his life, like James Buchanan. But this is a mistake.
He studied law here in New York, fell in love with the daughter of his preceptor, and when she died, a year after he met her, at the age of eighteen, he suffered a great deal. But he fell in love again. His second love affair was with a Miss Emily Foster, a pretty girl, and very clever, with whose family Irving got very intimate, and traveled with ‘em.
Irving and the Foster girl did a good deal of “moonin’ and spoonin’.” Irving took the Foster girl to ice cream saloons and art galleries, and people thought they were going to get married. But they didn’t, because Miss Foster married another man.
It is said that Irving suffered more from the marriage of his second love than the death of his first, and probably this is true–most men would under the same circumstances. One can’t well be jealous of death. There is another idea current about Washington Irving–that he was a lazy sort of a man, not carin’ anythin’ for business. But when his brothers “failed” here in New York, his brothers, who had kindly taken him into the firm, he turned right round and set to work with his pen to try and pay off their debts, just like Walter Scott did when his friend and publisher failed. Just at the very time his brother’s “bursted” he had a chance to get a snug Government appointment abroad. But in order to help his brothers out of their scrape, Irving refused to accept the appointment, and did the best he could to write for his brothers–writin’ away harder for them than he ever would for himself.
Irving came by his love for England naturally. His mother was English and his father was Scotch. As he said once, he was “an American by accident.” He was always very delicate, yet very tough–one of those people never well, yet never sick, and who generally outlast those people who are never sick at all. He was a great hand at balls and parties, and at one time was considered quite fast here in old New York.
One old dowager warned her daughters against goin’ out with Irving as he was sure to “go to the dogs, goin’ as he did to four balls a week,” which was really goin’ it pretty strong for such a comparatively little place as New York was then. And yet next to society and balls and parties, Irving enjoyed strollin’ along by himself, along the streets and wharves of New York, pickin’ up little points and peculiarities. He was very aristocratic in his balls and parties, but very democratic in his walks and strolls.
There was one old chap who used to haunt the docks, a played-out old sailor, called Belter, whom Irving got very fond of, and from whom he got a lot of ideas that he afterwards put into his books. Belter and Irving used to drink grog together at one of the old inns near the Battery, Irving payin’ for the grog and gettin’ the worth of it in stories.
Irving was once seen in company with this Belter by an old bank president, who had invited Irving to one of his wife’s parties, a month or so before. The old bank president was horrified at seein’ Irving in such company, and reproved Irving sometime after this for “his low tastes.”
The fool of a bank president didn’t have sense enough to understand how, to a man like Irving, the company of a man like Belter was worth a dozen parties such as his wife or any other man’s wife could give. Just as Mrs. Dickens one day commented loudly over the fact that Charles Dickens would insist upon preferrin’ to accompany policemen on their rounds to escortin’ her to a ball.
By the by, speakin’ of Dickens, Washington Irving himself, one of Dickens greatest admirers at first, got completely disgusted with him at his very first visit to him. Dickens was at the old Astor House, and Irving called upon him and was shown up to the parlor where Dickens was dinin’.
Irving was a very fastidious man and very particular about his table habits. He had conceived a high idea of Dickens’s refinement from his writin’s, and expected to meet a high-toned gentleman like himself.
But what he did meet was a man munchin’ a lot of food in a very coarse manner, with some of his food on his “loud” clothes, and a greasy napkin in his hand. Jumpin’ up to meet Irving, Dickens shook hands with him with one hand and with the other hand wiped his greasy mouth with the greasy napkin. And then he called out, “Irving, what will you have, a mint julep or a gin cocktail?” as if it was a bar-room, a place which Irving particularly detested, unless some out of the way place with a man like Belter. From that moment Irving was cured of his Boz fever, though he tried to speak and made a botch of it at the Dickens dinner.
Among those who most loudly protested against all the fuss and bosh of the Dickens reception was Mike Walsh, who said that someday New York would regret it.
Mike Walsh was always ready for a joke. He didn’t like “frills” in anybody, and always tried to take the starch out of any airy chaps, generally succeedin’ in so doin’.
Once a man he didn’t like, an ex-hotel proprietor, got into politics and got a nomination for office. And he rose to make his maiden speech. Somehow or other the ex-hotel proprietor wanted to make people forget that he ever kept tavern, so Mike determined to remind people of it.
Mike got as near as he could to the ex-hotel man when the hotel man rose to make his speech, and pretended to be listenin’ to it intently. But at every pause in the speech Mike would call out in his deep, bass voice, loud enough to be heard by all around him, the ex-hotel man included: “John, a pitcher of ice water to No. 25,” or “Richard, answer the bell of the gentleman in 129,” or somethin’ of that kind connected with hotel routine, completely takin’ the starch out of the speaker, keepin’ everybody in a titter and bringin’ the speech to an untimely end.
And then about a week after this Mike (then a member of Congress) sent the ex-hotel man, who was vain enough to swallow anythin’, a special invitation, reporting to come from the President himself, invitin’ the ex-hotel man to dine at the White House. The ex-hotel man swallowed the invitation, regardin’ it simply as a deserved compliment to exalted worth, and arrayed himself up gorgeously in honor of this honor–full dress suit and brand new white gloves, and he also casually mentioned to several of his acquaintances that he was goin’ to dine with the President, but in a careless sort of a way, as if he was accustomed to dine with Presidents.
Mike Walsh also told several of his acquaintances about the invitation, so that when the appointed time for the dinner arrived half a dozen of the ex-hotel man’s friends and half a dozen of Mike Walsh’s friends were gathered in two squads near the White House.
Full of airs and graces the ex-hotel man drove up to the entrance of the White House, and pretendin’ not to see the envious and expectant groups around him, he announced his arrival at the Presidential mansion.
But imagine his blank amazement and chagrin when, in answer to his lordly summons, the attendant answered him that there must be some mistake, and that the President had that very afternoon taken the train to Baltimore.
The ex-hotel man took the cars to New York that very night.
Editor’s notes: Irving’s disappointment upon meeting Dickens at his hotel in 1842 was described in Maunsell Field’s Memories of Many Men, published in 1874. However, it may be that Irving’s opinion of Dickens did not turn for the worse until after Dickens published his American Notes, which contained frequent criticisms of the United States.
Irving’s attachment to Emily Foster had been described in print many times by the 1880s, for instance, Washington Irving by Charles Dudley Warner, published in 1882. Again, though, Irving’s biographers disagree on whether his relationship with Foster had been heading towards marriage.
The old salt “Belter” is not described in any other sources on Irving that have come to light. This may have been a fiction by the column writer. The “Harry Hill’s Gotham” writer rarely passed up a chance to insert a Mike Walsh anecdote. It is no surprise that the Irish-born (Protestant) Walsh would have disliked Dickens, as he was averse to English society in general.
