of the turmoil of political life in
Washington, and his sensitiveness to personal attacks which beset the
occupants of high offices. But also he had come to a political
divergence with Mr. Van Buren. He liked the man,--he liked almost
everybody,--and esteemed him as a friend, but he apprehended trouble from
the new direction of the party in power. Irving was almost devoid of
party prejudice, and he never seemed to have strongly marked political
opinions. Perhaps his nearest confession to a creed is contained in a
letter he wrote to a member of the House of Representatives, Gouverneur
Kemble, a little time before the offer of a position in the cabinet, in
which he said that he did not relish some points of Van Buren's policy,
nor believe in the honesty of some of his elbow counselors. I quote a
passage from it:

"As far as I know my own mind, I am thoroughly a republican, and
attached, from complete conviction, to the institutions of my
country; but I am a republican without gall, and have no bitterness
in my creed. I have no relish for Puritans, either in religion or
politics, who are for pushing principles to an extreme, and for
overturning everything that stands in the way of their own zealous
career . . . . Ours is a government of compromise. We have
several great and distinct interests bound up together, which, if
not separately consulted and severally accommodated, may harass and
impair each other . . . . I always distrust the soundness of
political councils that are accompanied by acrimonious and
disparaging attacks upon any great class of our fellow-citizens.
Such are those urged to the disadvantage of the great trading and
financial classes of our country."

During the ten years preceding his mission to Spain, Irving kept fagging
away at the pen, doing a good deal of miscellaneous and ephemeral work.
Among his other engagements was that of regular contributor to the
"Knickerbocker Magazine," for a salary of two thousand dollars. He wrote
the editor that he had observed that man, as he advances in life, is
subject to a plethora of the mind, occasioned by an accumulation of
wisdom upon the brain, and that he becomes fond of telling long stories
and doling out advice, to the annoyance of his friends. To avoid
becoming the bore of the domestic circle, he proposed to ease off this
surcharge of the intellect by inflicting his tediousness on the pu