ays been a favorite with them;
"but I am not inclined," he writes, "to account for it in so illiberal a
manner; it results from that merciful, that heavenly disposition,
implanted in the female bosom, which ever inclines in favor of the
accused and the unfortunate. You will smile at the high strain in which
I have indulged; believe me, it is because I feel it; and I love your
sex ten times better than ever."[1]

[Footnote 1: An amusing story in connection with this Richmond
visit illustrates the romantic phase of Irving's character.
Cooper, who was playing at the theatre, needed small-clothes
for one of his parts; Irving lent him a pair,--knee-breeches
being still worn,--and the actor carried them off to Baltimore.
From that city he wrote that he had found in the pocket an
emblem of love, a mysterious locket of hair in the shape of a
heart. The history of it is curious: when Irving sojourned at
Genoa he was much taken with the beauty of a young Italian
lady, the wife of a Frenchman. He had never spoken with her,
but one evening before his departing he picked up from the
floor her handkerchief which she had dropped, and with more
gallantry than honesty carried it off to Sicily. His pocket was
picked of the precious relic while he was attending a religious
function in Catania, and he wrote to his friend Storm, the
consul at Genoa, deploring his loss. The consul communicated
the sad misfortune to the lovely Bianca, for that was the
lady's name, who thereupon sent him a lock of her hair, with
the request that he would come to see her on his return. He
never saw her again, but the lock of hair was inclosed in a
locket and worn about his neck, in memory of a radiant vision
that had crossed his path and vanished.]

Personally, Irving must have awakened a reciprocal admiration. A drawing
by Vanderlyn, made in Paris in 1805, and a portrait by Jarvis in 1809,
present him to us in the fresh bloom of manly beauty. The face has an
air of distinction and gentle breeding; the refined lines, the poetic
chin, the sensitive mouth, the shapely nose, the large dreamy eyes, the
intellectual forehead, and the clustering brown locks are our ideal of
the author of the "Sketch-Book" and the pilgrim in Spain. His
biographer, Mr. Pierre M. Irving, has given no description of his
appearance; but a relative, who saw much of our author in