In Spain, as elsewhere, Mr. Irving makes a circle of friends about him
whom it is hard to leave; but it must be. Accusing comrades at home say
he has deserted his country; he turns his face Westward at last, and,
full of honors, sails for New York once more, in the year 1832, at the
ripe age of forty-nine. There never was a warmer welcome given to a
returning citizen. A feast is made for him, at which all the magnates of
the city of Manhattan assist; and the author's sensibility is so touched
that he can make only stammering acknowledgments,--at which the cheers
and the plaudits are heartier than ever.
After this comes the opening of that idyllic life at Sunnyside,--the
building of the gables, the gilding of the weather-cocks, the planting
of the ivies. "Astoria" and "Bonneville" and the "Tour on the Prairies"
keep his hand active and his brain in play. Near and dear relatives
relieve his bachelor home of all loneliness. Nine years or more have
passed after his return, when he is surprised--and not a little
shocked--by his appointment, at the instance of Mr. Webster, as Minister
to Madrid.
He cannot resist the memories of the Alhambra, of Seville, of the
Guadalquivir. Many pleasant associations are revived in England, in
France, and not a few in the now revolutionary Spain.
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