d his low spirits did not
permit him to avail himself of such social advantages as were offered.
It seems that our enterprising countrymen flocked abroad, on the
conclusion of peace. "This place [writes Irving] swarms with Americans.
You never saw a more motley race of beings. Some seem as if just from
the woods, and yet stalk about the streets and public places with all
the easy nonchalance that they would about their own villages. Nothing
can surpass the dauntless independence of all form, ceremony, fashion,
or reputation of a downright, unsophisticated American. Since the war,
too, particularly, our lads seem to think they are 'the salt of the
earth' and the legitimate lords of creation. It would delight you to
see some of them playing Indian when surrounded by the wonders and
improvements of the Old World. It is impossible to match these fellows
by anything this side the water. Let an Englishman talk of the battle of
Waterloo, and they will immediately bring up New Orleans and Plattsburg.

"A thoroughbred, thoroughly appointed soldier is nothing to a Kentucky
rifleman," etc., etc. In contrast to this sort of American was Charles
King, who was then abroad: "Charles is exactly what an American should
be abroad: frank, manly, and unaffected in his habits and manners,
liberal and independent in his opinions, generous and unprejudiced in
his sentiments towards other nations, but most loyally attached to his
own." There was a provincial narrowness at that date and long after
in America, which deprecated the open-minded patriotism of King and of
Irving as it did the clear-sighted loyalty of Fenimore Cooper.

The most anxious time of Irving's life was the winter of 1815-16. The
business worry increased. He was too jaded with the din of pounds,
shillings, and pence to permit his pen to invent facts or to adorn
realities. Nevertheless, he occasionally escapes from the treadmill. In
December he is in London, and entranced with the acting of Miss O'Neil.
He thinks that Brevoort, if he saw her, would infallibly fall in love
with this "divine perfection of a woman." He writes: "She is, to my
eyes, the most soul-subduing actress I ever saw; I do not mean from her
personal charms, which are great, but from the truth, force, and pathos
of her acting. I have never been so completely melted, moved, and
overcome at a theatre as by her performances.... Kean, the prodigy,
is to me insufferable. He is vulgar, full of trick, and a complete