into a dejection which seemed
laughable to himself. "The crowning honor of his life," he admitted,
had come to him, and he could only groan under it.

"'It is hard, very hard,' he half murmured to himself, half to me; yet
he added whimsically enough, being struck with the seeming absurdity
of such a view, 'I must try to bear it. God tempers the wind to the
shorn lamb'" (P. M. Irving).

In April he sailed from New York, and made a leisurely journey by way
of England and France, not reaching Madrid till the end of July.
Europe had lost its old charm. Many places reminded him painfully of
the favorite brother Peter who had shared his first impressions of
them, and whose loss was one of the keenest griefs of his life. "My
visit to Europe has by no means the charm of former visits," he wrote
from Paris; "scenes and objects have no longer the effect of novelty
with me. I am no longer curious to see great sights or great people,
and have been so long accustomed to a life of quiet, that I find the
turmoil of the world becomes irksome to me. Then I have a house of my
own, a little domestic world, created in a manner by my own hand,
which I have left behind, and which is continually haunting my
thoughts, and coming in contrast with the noisy, tumultuous, heartless
world in which I am called to mingle. However, I am somewhat of a
philosopher, and can accommodate myself to changes, so I shall
endeavor to resign myself to the splendor of courts and the
conversation of courtiers, comforting myself with the thought that the
time will come when I shall once more return to sweet little
Sunnyside, and be able to sit on a stone fence, and talk about
politics and rural affairs with Neighbor Forkel and Uncle Brom."

At Madrid he very soon found himself too much occupied for the
literary work he had counted on. He had accepted the place under the
impression that his duties would not greatly interfere with the
writing of the "Life of Washington," on which he was then fairly
launched. But from the beginning he found the situation in Spain
unexpectedly absorbing. It was the usual Spanish situation, to be
sure: a designing pretender, a child monarch, a court honeycombed with
intrigue, and a people ready for anything spectacular. When Irving was
presented to the young queen, she was closely guarded. "On ascending
the grand staircase, we found the portal at the head of it, opening
into the royal suite of apartments, still bearing the marks of