s was not completed
till September, 1820. The first installment was carried mainly by two
papers, "The Wife" and "Rip Van Winkle;" the one full of tender pathos
that touched all hearts, because it was recognized as a genuine
expression of the author's nature; and the other a happy effort of
imaginative humor,--one of those strokes of genius that recreate the
world and clothe it with the unfading hues of romance; the theme was an
old-world echo, transformed by genius into a primal story that will
endure as long as the Hudson flows through its mountains to the sea. A
great artist can paint a great picture on a small canvas.

The "Sketch-Book" created a sensation in America, and the echo of it was
not long in reaching England. The general chorus of approval and the
rapid sale surprised Irving, and sent his spirits up, but success had
the effect on him that it always has on a fine nature. He writes to
Leslie: "Now you suppose I am all on the alert, and full of spirit and
excitement. No such thing. I am just as good for nothing as ever I was;
and, indeed, have been flurried and put out of my way by these puffings.
I feel something as I suppose you did when your picture met with
success,--anxious to do something better, and at a loss what to do."

It was with much misgiving that Irving made this venture. "I feel great
diffidence," he writes Brevoort, March 3, 1819, "about this reappearance
in literature. I am conscious of my imperfections, and my mind has been
for a long time past so pressed upon and agitated by various cares and
anxieties, that I fear it has lost much of its cheerfulness and some of
its activity. I have attempted no lofty theme, nor sought to look wise
and learned, which appears to be very much the fashion among our
American writers at present. I have preferred addressing myself to the
feelings and fancy of the reader more than to his judgment. My writings
may appear, therefore, light and trifling in our country of philosophers
and politicians. But if they possess merit in the class of literature to
which they belong, it is all to which I aspire in the work. I seek only
to blow a flute accompaniment in the national concert, and leave others
to play the fiddle and French-horn." This diffidence was not assumed.
All through his career, a breath of criticism ever so slight acted
temporarily like a hoar-frost upon his productive power. He always saw
reasons to take sides with his critic. Speaking of "vanity" in a