After eighteen months of hard work, Washington was tired and had little interest in the passing scenery or writing in his journal. However, both he and Peter were intrigued by the steamboats they saw churning along the Seine near Le Havre. The boats belonged to a businessman named Edward Church, who mentioned that he was hoping to establish a regular service between Le Havre and Rouen, and asked the Irvings if they might be interested in investing. Impressed, they told Church they would think about it.
Arriving in Paris, the brothers were greeted by American minister Albert Gallatin, who hailed Washington as America's most celebrated author. Irving settled comfortably into lodgings on rue Mont Thabor, spending his afternoons in conversation—either in English or his competent French—at Galignani's, the city's most fashionable bookshop and reading room. He became better acquainted with John Jacob Astor, and met Thomas Wentworth Storrow, an American businessman with a talent for finance and a love of literature, who had lived in Paris with his family since 1815. It should have been a quiet and comfortable existence, but Peter was restless; Church's offer to speculate in steamboats had intrigued him.
After driving the family business into the ground in 1817, and watching his translation of Giovanni Sbogarro, A Venetian Tale fail when it was published in 1819, Peter had no prospects and, to the annoyance of William and Ebenezer, remained vulnerable to dubious schemes promising easy money. Washington was sympathetic; he had suffered with Peter through the humiliation of bankruptcy, and understood the strong urge to pursue the path of least resistance or, better yet, let others take care of him. Perhaps Washington felt slightly guilty that his own literary dreams had been realized, while Peter's had withered. “Peter has now been living on hopes, and very feeble ones, for two or three years,” Washington told Brevoort.47 Whatever the cause, if owning part of a steamboat business would put Peter back on his feet, then Washington—who had been the benefactor of brotherly generosity many times over—was willing to finance it.
“I only want money enough to enable me to keep on my own way and follow my own taste and inclination,”48 Irving told Brevoort in 1819. Since then, he had profited greatly from The Sketch Book. He made between $500 and $600 on each of the seven installments of the American edition alone. With the money he was earning from the British edition, Irving's income amounted to about $5,000, nearly $80,000 today.
It was likely no coincidence that $5,000 was precisely the amount Peter asked Washington to invest in the steamboat endeavor. Peter promised he would raise a matching $5,000. He was convinced the project would be a success, and as always, his brother's word was all Washington needed. Without hesitation, Washington wrote over all his profits from The Sketch Book to Peter.
“Peter and myself have taken part in an enterprise for navigating the Seine by steam,” Irving wrote to Brevoort on September 22. His hope, he explained, was that Peter would run the steamboat business as his full-time occupation, while Washington devoted himself entirely to literature. He also informed Brevoort that he was writing to William to request another $5,000 on Peter's behalf, and urged Brevoort to use his influence with William “to prevent my brothers from disappointing us in this business… it behooves them to back [Peter] like true brothers.”49
Washington approached William delicately, assuring his oldest brother that Peter's scheme was “a most promising mode of turning a small amount of money… to large account.” If it was a matter of cash flow, he said, William could sell all of Washington's remaining literary copyrights—an astounding proposition. Whatever William decided, Washington wrote, “I trust you will all exert yourselves to launch him [Peter] fairly in this enterprise, which he seems to look upon as his last cast. I have therefore done the best I could to serve him; and if the steamboat business fails and all that I advance is lost, my only regret will be on his count.”50
William's written reply has been lost, but it is not difficult to imagine his response to such a spurious project. “They have decided not to give it their support,” Brevoort wrote flatly. He also hinted that Washington would do well not to ask him to serve as an intermediary with William again. “I have felt some rude intimations on this subject which I would rather dispense with in the future.”51
Washington was hurt, but he tried to be understanding. “They have acted as they thought for my interest,” he sighed. “I am confi-dent they do it out of zeal for my interest, but a man may be killed even by kindness.”52 Despite William's refusal to loan Peter the money, Washington was still required to cover the amount he had obligated to Church. All he had to show for his work as Geoffrey Crayon was a partial share in Church's steamboat business, which he handed over to his brother. Peter was officially in the steamboat business, albeit just barely; Washington, however, was broke.
As if on cue, John Murray contacted him and begged him to accept 100 guineas as a bonus for the profits he was generating. Irving was outselling even Lord Byron, who told Murray that “Crayon is good!” and claimed to know entire passages of The Sketch Book by heart.
Murray was willing to eat crow for his earlier refusal to publish the writer who was now his most successful author. His experiences with the eccentric Byron had taught him how to soothe bruised egos, and Murray knew he had in Irving one he would have to continually massage. If he had underestimated Irving's value before, he now admitted he had made a mistake. “I am convinced I did not half know you,” Murray wrote generously, “and esteeming you highly as I did, certainly my esteem is doubled by my better knowledge of you.”53
The letter had the desired effect. “I have just received your letter of the 26th, which has almost overpowered me with the encomiums it contains,” Irving replied. He could scarcely believe his own success, he told his publisher: “I am astonished at the success of my writings in England, and can hardly persuade myself that it is not all a dream. Had any one told me a few years since in America, that any thing I could write would interest such men as… Byron, I should have as readily believed a fairy tale.”54 He told Murray he would gladly take the 100 guineas the publisher had offered. It wasn't $5,000, but for the moment, it was enough.
Meanwhile, Leslie was at work on a new portrait of Irving, and the image-conscious author was adamant that Leslie not paint him in clothing “that might in a few years appear stupid.” No Venetian cloaks, or “capes & corners & angles,” Irving directed; rather, “let the costume be simple & picturesque, but such a one as a gentleman might be supposed to wear occasionally at the present day.”55
Irving was burnishing his public image as a cultivated gentle-man—and was doing such a masterful job of it that many British readers continued to express disbelief that Crayon was American. Literary conspiracy theorists among the British argued that Crayon was actually none other than “The Author of Waverly,” Sir Walter Scott! One well-read English fan—Lady Lyttleton, the daughter of Earl Spencer—was convinced that Crayon's voice was so “new and peculiar” that there was no way The Sketch Book could have come from Scott's pen, and she appealed to American minister Richard Rush to confirm that Crayon was really the American writer Washington Irving. Amused, Rush relayed Lady Lyttleton's request to Irving for an answer—and could barely wait to see how he would respond.56
Irving was charmed and flattered by the question. “You may assure her that it was written entirely by myself,” he told Rush. “The doubts which her ladyship has heard on the subject seem to have arisen from the old notion that it is impossible for an American to write decent English.”57 Delighted with his reply, Lady Lyttleton invited Irving to spend Christmas with her family at their country seat near Wimbledon. Irving declined her offer, opting to stay in Paris for the winter to write.
He didn't accomplish much. In December he met the Irish poet Thomas Moore, who was in Paris trying to sort out a botched government business affair that had left him nearly as broke as Irving. “A charming, joyous fellow,” Irving called Moore, “full of frank, generous, manly feeling.” Moore thought Irving “a good looking and intelligent
-mannered man.” The two were immediately inseparable, touring the rooms where Marie Antoinette had been confined in her final days, or discussing Byron in Moore's home on the Champs Elysées.58
The British edition of The Sketch Book sold out, the new edition of A History of New York—with Leslie's much-delayed illustrations—was selling briskly, and Irving was the darling of British readers and critics alike. “Geoffrey Crayon is the most fashionable fellow of the day,” Leslie told him from London. “I am very much inclined to think if you were here just now, ‘company would be the spoil of you.’”59 Friends were urging Irving to write more pieces for The Sketch Book, or follow it up with a new work as soon as possible. But the pressure was too much; inspiration wouldn't come. And he was in debt, still on the hook for his steamboat speculation.
Irving's mood darkened. When Brevoort made the mistake of engaging in a bit of good-natured ribbing over whether he intended to remain in Europe or renounce his country altogether, Irving's response was scalding: “I am endeavoring to serve my country—Whatever I have written has been written with the feelings and published as the writing of an American—Is that renouncing my Country? How else am I to serve my country—by coming home and begging an office of it… If I can do any good in this world it is with my pen.” Brevoort was used to such mood swings. “I did not intend to give you pain by interrogating you on the subject,” Brevoort replied evenly, “and so, for the future, let it rest.”60
It was Moore who inspired Irving to write again. In the spring of 1821, while chatting about Irving's Christmas essays from The Sketch Book, Moore suggested Irving use Squire Bracebridge, his family, and his manor as the setting for “a slight thread of a story on which to string his remarks and sketches of human manner and feelings.” Ten days later Irving showed Moore 130 pages of a handwritten manuscript. “Amazing rapidity,” an impressed Moore wrote in his diary.61 It was a start.
Weeks later, as rain soaked Paris, Irving complained to Brevoort of “chills & damps which destroy all the sunshine of my mind.”62 It wasn't the rain that was dampening his mood and imagination, it was poverty. Peter's steamboat project continued to siphon away Washington's money. He needed to generate some income quickly. For Irving, the only way to do that was to keep writing.
“I have a Mass of writings by me,” Irving told Brevoort in April, “which, so soon as I can bring them into form and prepare them for publication, will I trust produce me something very handsome in cash down in England.” Once again, financial pressure was reanimating Irving's pen—and this time, he was willing to bank on his reputation. “Any book I should now offer for sale good or bad, would be sure to find a ready purchaser at a high price among the Booksellers,” he told Brevoort—but until he finished his new manuscript, he begged Brevoort for a loan of $2,000 to pay off his final obligations to Church. “I trust my next work will fairly relieve me from all further embarrassment of the kind,” he assured his friend.63
Brevoort, naturally, obliged. “I am happy to understand that by this arrangement your mind will be disengaged from pecuniary matters and exclusively devoted to literature,” he told Irving. “The explanation you have given of your future ability to discharge these advances is perfectly satisfactory; I can, without inconvenience, wait until your means will enable you to do so at your leisure.”64
And wait he did. With financial pressures off, Irving's interest in his manuscript—which he called Bracebridge Hall—waned. While he insisted that the strain of writing was so vexing that he could no longer enjoy society or leisure, in truth, he was finding plenty to do. He and Campbell continued to frequent Paris's most fashionable reading rooms and parlors. To Irving's delight, the rascally John Howard Payne—now back in his good graces—abandoned London for Paris.
It had been nearly a year since publication of the second volume of the British Sketch Book, and Murray was anxious to learn what his best-selling author had in mind for an encore. “Draw upon me for a hundred pounds, of which I beg thy acceptance,” Murray wrote in June, knowing that the offer of money would lure a response out of Irving, “and pray tell me how you are and what you are about.”65
As expected, Irving rose to the bait. “In compliance with your request I have drawn on you for an hundred pounds,” he wrote Murray in early July. He admitted to having been “distracted” by engagements in Paris, but promised to have something for his publisher shortly. “I have scribbled at intervals,” he said, “and have a mass of writings by me, rather desultory, as must be the case when one is so much interrupted.” By mid-June Irving was comfortable enough with his progress on Bracebridge to read aloud parts to Moore. “It is amusing,” Moore confided in his journal that evening, “but will, I fear, much disappoint the expectations his Sketches have raised.”66
While reports of Napoleon's death at St. Helena set French parlors chattering in July, Irving decided he was bored with the Continent and returned to London. He arrived just in time to stand on the steps outside Westminster Abbey with Newton and Leslie, craning their necks to see the coronation procession of George IV file past them. Sir Walter Scott, who had witnessed the ceremony with Murray from within Westminster Abbey, was quick to tease Irving for not using his name to his advantage. “Hut man!” Scott twitted, “You should have told them who you were and you would have got in anywhere!”67
Murray was relieved to have his new cash cow back in London, and continued to nag Irving for new work. Irving moved in with Newton on Marlboro Street, where he hoped to concentrate on fine-tuning Bracebridge Hall. Instead he spent most of his time moaning about “monotonous and commonplaced” London. His only real amusement arrived in August in the form of an honorary degree from Columbia University in New York, which Irving, in an understatement, called “unexpected.” All he really wanted to do was retreat to the warmth of Castle Van Tromp in Birmingham.68
Adding to his misery, word came from Peter that the steamboat business was failing. If Peter was looking for sympathy, he didn't find it in Washington, who had relied on Brevoort's generosity to be able to put the whole rotten affair behind him. “I am sorry they are not more productive,” Washington wrote, “I do not calculate on any proceeds from that quarter, so that you need not feel solicitous with me.” Meanwhile, he told Peter, “I have a variety of writings in hand, some I think superior to what I have already published; my only anxiety is to get them into shape and order.” That proved more challenging than he had hoped. Reading over his manuscript with Leslie, the painter thought parts of the work so promising—especially an extended piece called “Buckthorne”—that he suggested Irving expand the sketch into a novel.69
The pressures were mounting. His nerves fraying, Irving left London with Leslie in early September, bound for Birmingham. Along the way, they made stops in Oxford, Warwick, Kenilworth, and Stratford-on-Avon, where Irving—who usually struggled with the muse—was surprised to find literary inspiration. After a rainy night at a country inn, Leslie spoke to him about “the stout gentleman” they had seen the night before. “Irving remarked that ‘The Stout Gentleman’ would not be a bad title for a tale,” Leslie later recalled, “as soon as the coach stopped, he began writing… and went on at every opportunity.”70 The story was bundled into Irving's still incomplete manuscript, as were the random notes he jotted in his journal as he and Leslie walked through the medieval manor Haddon Hall in Derbyshire.
Arriving at Castle Van Tromp, Irving finally collapsed. He spent the next four months in Birmingham on the cusp of a nervous breakdown. “I have been so much out of health as to prevent my doing anything of consequence with my pen,” he told Ebenezer in late September. By October his legs were so inflamed he could barely walk, and his right hand was covered with boils that made it impossible for him to write. He begged friends in London not to let the increasingly agitated Murray know where he was.
Things were about to get worse. On November 1 Irving received a letter from Ebenezer informing him that William Jr. was dying of tuberculosis.
Willia
m's health had been in decline for some time. As far back as September 1819, Brevoort had mentioned that William seemed to be “literally bent downward, with at least a dozen gratuitous years”; in June 1821 he had thought William “infirm, and his spirits sadly depressed & broken.” While he never said so, Brevoort likely believed that William's decline had been hastened by his constant worrying about Washington and Peter. Certainly, the last three years had strained Washington and William's relationship, with Washington first refusing the government post William had worked so hard to secure, and then squabbling with William over money for the steamboat venture. “[William] retains his old habit of burthening himself with a world of unnecessary cares and vexations,” Brevoort told Washington in 1819, and Brevoort spent the last two years delicately trying to reconcile the two brothers. “Your Brother William appears to be apprehensive that neither you nor the Doctor [Peter Irving] are sufficiently aware of the zeal which he has shewn in the promotion of your interests,” Brevoort wrote. “I think some acknowledgement of your sense of his goodwill & kind disposition would give him great satisfaction.”71
It was too late. As William lay dying an ocean away, Washington could only regret what had been said and unsaid. “Brother Williams situation, I perceive, is hopeless,” he told Ebenezer. “I had been persuading myself that there was a reaction in his system… but the tenor of all the letters from New York puts an end to all hopes of the kind. I cannot reconcile myself to the thought.”72
Still he could not bring himself to write William. “Give my most affectionate remembrances to Brother William,” he told Ebenezer. “I would write to him, but cannot trust my feelings, whenever the thought of him comes over my mind, I feel my heart and eyes overflow.”73
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