There are men, indeed, whose
history, by whomsoever recorded, would suggest no such questioning,--men
who have elbowed their way through life, bent upon some single aim, with
a grand and coarse disregard of all the heart-burnings they may have
caused, and all the idols they may have brushed down. Washington Irving
was by no means such a man; he was kind-hearted to the last degree; and
yet, remembering as we do that sly look of humor which lurked always in
the corner of his eye, we cannot believe but that in his freer moments
he has pricked through many a bag of bombast, and made dashing onslaught
upon noisy literary pretension. Of all this, however, we find nothing in
the volumes before us,--nothing in his own books. Always, in his contact
with the world, he is genial; the face of every friend is beautiful to
him; every acquaintance is at the least comely; in rollicking Tom Moore
he sees (what all of us cannot see) a big heart,--in Espartero a bold,
frank, honest soldier,--in every fair young girl a charmer,--and in
almost every woman a fair young girl.
In all these respects the biography of Mr. Pierre Irving is in fitting
accord with what we had known and believed of his eminent kinsman. And
we are delighted at being confirmed in the belief.
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