Washington Irving
Page 30
Now that Irving was in London, Murray could no longer ignore him or refuse to answer his letters. Here Irving could conduct any business with the publisher personally, rather than through Aspinwall. Despite their recent tiff over Granada, Murray—who knew a thing or two about diplomacy—graciously invited Irving to dinner, along with Newton, Leslie, Moore, Rogers, and Lockhart. On October 5, 1829, Irving presented himself on the doorstep of 50 Albemarle Street and was greeted by Murray like an old friend.
The dinner party that evening was quieter than other parties Irving had attended in Murray's drawing room, but that was understandable; they were all older now. Murray was fifty-one years old, with a son, John Murray III, old enough to join the family business. But it was the forty-six-year-old Irving who had changed the most since their first meeting in 1817. He was now one of Murray's senior statesmen, and he looked it.
He was heavier—he had been struggling with his weight since Madrid—and his new frock coat compensated for his broadening girth. His hair was streaked with gray and strategically brushed to cover a thin spot on the top of his head. His eyes, while still as piercing as ever, now peered at Murray from under slightly droopy eyelids that had a tendency to close slowly when dinner conversation hit a lull—a habit that caused Moore and Murray much hilarity. Irving's portrait hung alongside those of Thomas Moore and Walter Scott in Murray's drawing room.6 Despite their differences, they had accomplished much together.
If Murray was known across the continent as the “Emperor of the West [End],”7 then Irving was his Pope of Prose. Irving's influence was perceived to be so strong and far-reaching that he was plagued by constant appeals from aspiring and established writers for his assistance. Mary Shelley's seventy-one-year-old father, William Godwin, approached him for help in getting his novel Cloudesley published in the United States, while Thomas Moore sought his guidance in finding an American publisher for his Life of Byron, which Murray was scheduled to release in January 1830.
The irony was that Irving couldn't persuade his own publisher to issue a third edition of Columbus. “I am continually applied to by writers to help their works into the press,” Irving told Brevoort. “There is no person less able to do so than I. My only acquaintance among the publishers is Murray; who is the most difficult being on earth to please—.”8
Nevertheless, Irving sent Godwin's and Moore's manuscripts to Ebenezer for his brother to peddle in New York. While he found no takers for Godwin's project—American publishers fretted that the market was “crowded to suffocation” with novels—he had better luck with Moore's book on Byron. “Not merely one of the most fascinating pieces of biography extant,” Irving gushed, “but one of the most splendid documents on the History of the human mind and the human heart.” Capitalizing on the lesson he and Brevoort had learned from the sale of Columbus, Ebenezer managed to engage two publishers in a bidding war, finally accepting an offer of $1,500 from Harper's.9
In late 1829 Irving had an astonishing $37,400—almost $800,000 today—stashed away in New York banks, where Ebenezer and John Treat kept a watchful eye on his accounts, and doled out money in small amounts. John Treat was firm as he reminded Washington why such strict oversight was necessary: “Your investment in Bolivar mines and in steamboats in France, had given me uneasiness on your account, and I was satisfied that if the funds which had been accumulated for you in this country were suffered to remain here that they would be in the hands of those who would keep them secured for you, and enable you to reap a permanent benefit from them.” When it appeared Washington was too careless with his money—such as when he asked his brothers for $2,000 to spend on wedding gifts—Ebenezer was quick to wag a disapproving finger. “You should first determine what is necessary for the support of yourself and Peter,” he told Washington, “and put that money securely by, before you undertake to give way to your generous feelings.” Washington wilted under such fraternal pressure, asking that his brothers set aside a certain amount of his profits to invest in stocks to provide a regular income for Peter. For the first time, Irving's money was as secure as his literary reputation.10
Irving's literary reputation was valuable to McLane, and he kept the writer at his side as they plunged deeper into diplomatic waters. It was a shrewd decision; ministers, government officials, and nobility all opened their doors to McLane and his American celebrity sidekick. “I have received repeated expressions of kindness and good will from various officers of the government,” said a pleasantly surprised Irving, “who have taken occasion to express their satisfaction at my having been appointed to the legation.”11
The two had their work cut out for them. The English government was still smarting over its treatment at the hands of John Quincy Adams, and there were hard feelings to overcome. “It was necessary first to remove certain jealousies and prejudices,” Irving reported, “to inspire a confidence in the character and intentions of our present administration and in the frank and conciliatory nature of our present mission.” It was delicate work, but Irving felt their perseverance would result in a breakthrough. “Ministers have been induced to enter freshly and fully into discussions of topics which for some time past they had treated as no longer matters of negotiation,” he noted.12
Actually, the British had returned to the negotiating table largely in response to a proposal McLane and Irving had crafted together; namely, that the American government use the Parliamentary Act of 1825—which called for a mutual easing of restrictions on trade—as its starting point for discussions. Jackson concurred, and McLane and Irving conceded to their English counterparts that the United States had made a mistake in not accepting Parliament's 1825 offer. They were willing to do so now. As an act of good faith, McLane told the British he would ask Congress for legislation removing American restrictions on British ships coming from the West Indies. “This proposition,” Irving reported, “so worthy of the administration of a Great people, evidently surprized the cabinet; and forced from them an acknowledgement of its frankness and magnanimity.”13
Irving believed that the British government would accept the offer he and McLane had laid on the table, but it took some time. On the American side, Jackson, Vice President John Calhoun, and Van Buren needed to persuade Congress to introduce the legislation McLane had promised. As for the British, “they avow that there are circumstances, which they cannot explain, operating to render it inexpedient at this moment to comply with our propositions,” Irving reported, “though they acknowledge that they must ultimately do so, and that the difficulties and embarrassments of an arrangement are every day encreasing.”14
The British foot-dragging was due to two factors. First, British traders in Canada—who could trade with the West Indies, and easily move goods across the U.S.-Canada border—pressured their government to maintain the status quo. Second, negotiations had stalled with the encroaching winter; more and more members of Parliament, the court, and the ministry had retreated to their estates in the country. While Geoffrey Crayon, Gentleman, had sighed admiringly over such a quaint British custom, Washington Irving, Diplomat, was irritated: “The very season of the year has been unpropitious to the prompt dispatch of diplomatic business, for it is the great season of field sports, when every English gentleman who has an estate in the country or has access to that of a friend, makes a point of absenting himself as much as possible from town…. The frequent absences of Cabinet Ministers on excursions of the kind have repeatedly delayed interviews and interrupted & protracted the whole course of negotiation.”15
Irving and McLane would have to wait for spring. That was fine with Irving; at last, he had some time for himself, and sprinted to Birmingham to visit the Van Warts for a few days. Returning to London in early December, he socialized with Newton and Leslie, as well as with another young artist, a protégé of Allston's, who had presented Irving with a letter of introduction from Brevoort. “I beg to make you acquainted with the bearer, Mr. S[amuel] F. B. Morse,” it read. “A gentleman for whom I entertain very
cordial feelings of regards,—He is, as you probably know, one of our best painters.”16 Or, at least he was at the moment; Morse's first working prototype of the telegraph was still several years away.
There was also, at last, time to write. Rather than return to the manuscripts he had stashed away in his trunks, Irving mulled over several new ideas. Briefly, he considered writing a history of the United States, but shelved that in favor of another project he thought would be more popular—and more profitable. “I mean a Life of [George] Washington,” he told Peter. “I shall take my own time to execute it, and will spare no pains. It must be my great and crowning labor.”17 Gone were the misgivings he had expressed to Constable in 1825 when the publisher had suggested he tackle a life of the first president. With Columbus, he had proven to himself that he could research and write a major, important biography.
Starting such a project, however, was a challenge—and Irving was loath for literature to be such hard work. “My idea is not to drudge at literary labor, but to use it as an agreeable employment,” he told Peter. “We have now sufficient funds to ensure us a decent support, should we choose to retire upon them. We may therefore indulge in the passing pleasure of life, and mingle amusement with our labors.”18 It was the old pattern: when Irving had money, his motivation to write disappeared.
There was the day-to-day maintenance of the legation to oversee, as well as countless social obligations. Thomas Moore had moved back to the city, and was always ready to lead Irving by the arm from one drawing room to another. Irving dined with Samuel Rogers, the two chatting easily as literary equals, then swept into Obadiah Rich's antiquarian bookstore in Red Lion Square to look for yet another obscure volume of Spanish literature. In the midst of it all, he changed residences, moving to 8 Argyll Street, which was halfway between McLane and Murray. Irving's social calendar was as frantic as it had ever been. “I am so hurried by fifty thousand petty concerns which overwhelm a man in this great wilderness,” he said.19
A request from the Royal Literary Fund to sit as a member of its board was politely rejected, but Irving was less successful in refusing laurels from two other admiring organizations. On April 3, 1830, his forty-seventh birthday, he learned that the Royal Society of Literature, citing his work on Columbus and Granada, had chosen to award him one of its Gold Medals for “Literary works of eminent merit, or of important Literary Discoveries.” Two months later he received notice of another honor, this time from the Reverend Arthur Matthews at Oxford University, who informed him that the university would be conferring on him an honorary Doctor of Civil Law, and wouldn't take no for an answer. “Overruling the ultra-modesty of your scruples,” Matthews wrote, “I have not hesitated to commit you with the academical authorities of Oxford.” The ceremony was postponed until the following year—at which point Irving told Peter he hoped the university would forget about it—but in 1831 he received an honorary Doctor of Civil Law from Oxford, to the delight of its graduating students, who hooted “Diedrich Knickerbocker!” and “Geoffrey Crayon!” as the degree was conferred. Irving was touched by the spectacle, but could only shake his head at the irony of having such a distinguished legal degree conferred on one of New York's most uninterested attorneys. Later in life, he asked that the degree be removed from his official biography, saying it was “a learned dignity urged upon me very much ‘against the stomach of my sense,’ and to which I have never laid claim.”20
In May 1830 a lengthy anonymous review of Granada appeared in the Quarterly Review, which forcefully defended the use of Irving's Fray Antonio Agapida pseudonym as a literary device that successfully allowed him to color real-life events with a tinge of romance.21 The review had been written by Irving at Murray's request, an olive branch the publisher extended as a mea culpa for altering the title page of Granada. It was a cathartic bit of writing, but it was not the last Irving would hear of Granada and the Agapida affair.
Spring saw the ministry back at work. McLane's proposition was still pending, and President Jackson aggressively pressed Congress to pass the necessary legislation. On May 29 Congress did just that, approving a bill to remove restrictions on British ships, provided the British did the same for American ships. With the strength of the congressional action behind them, McLane and Irving believed they might finally seal the deal.
It was far from done. In April, as Jackson asked Van Buren to prepare a tough response in the event the English didn't accept the American offer, McLane and Irving pulled aside Lord Aberdeen, the British foreign secretary, and argued that the pending deal represented more than just agreement on the West Indies issue. Opening up fair trade between their two governments, they explained, would mark a new beginning in U.S.–U.K. relations, which had been rocky since America's independence. Aberdeen needed time to work it out with his government. He promised McLane that he would do his best.
It was exhausting work. For the last several months, Irving—who realized his own hopes of returning home had been stymied by his stint with the legation—had been trying to convince other friends to join him in London. His persuasive efforts were focused largely on Gouverneur Kemble, who, like Irving, was still a bachelor, with “neither wife nor child to anchor you to home.” At last there was a letter from his friend in New York informing him that he would be moving to Europe for “two[,] three or four years, unless I find things there very different from what I am prepared to expect.” With great anticipation, Irving read on: “I am tired with the sameness of this nutshell circle of existence, & unless I break from it now, I shall be doomed to walk in it to the end of my days. I cannot tell how long after our arrival, it may be in my power to have the gratification of taking you and your brother by the hand.” The name signed at the bottom of this agreeable and most unexpected letter was not Gouverneur Kemble. It was Henry Brevoort!22
“I look forward with the greatest delight to the prospect of our once more meeting,” Irving wrote Brevoort excitedly. He was too busy with diplomatic work to greet Brevoort and his family when they landed at Le Havre on June 8, he explained, but would make every effort to connect with him as quickly as possible. To the frustration of both Irving and Brevoort, it was some time before they saw each other in Paris.
At the end of May an interesting invitation arrived from Mary Shelley for Irving to spend an evening with her and her father. Thomas Moore had tried without success to bring the two together for months, “but he [Irving] always put it off,” Moore told Mrs. Shelley, “with some excuse or other.”23 This time Irving accepted.
What the two discussed that evening remains a mystery. Perhaps Irving finally told Mrs. Shelley he was not romantically disposed toward her. Or perhaps she, seeing him grown somewhat stout and balding, decided she was no longer interested in him. Or maybe they simply had a nice dinner. Whatever the topic of discussion, it was the last time they saw each other.
McLane and Irving had yet to hear from Aberdeen, but things suddenly tilted their way on June 26, when King George IV—who was not predisposed to resolve the West Indies issue—died at age sixty-seven. William Henry, the Duke of Clarence and third son of George II, ascended to the throne as King William IV. Unlike the extravagant, unpredictable George, William was levelheaded and unassuming, known—at least at the beginning of his reign—for easily moving among the people. Irving liked him immediately. “He is determined that it shall be merry old England once more,” Irving said, and he and McLane were quick to ingratiate themselves with the new monarch, chumming up to the king so amiably at a royal dinner “that some of the corps diplomatique showed symptoms of jealousy.” A deal, however, was still up in the air.24
Irving had other negotiations to worry about. He wrote to Murray in early July to ask him to make a formal offer for the unfinished Companions of Columbus. “I could furnish copy to the printers immediately,” he lied, “but every day that I withhold it makes the work better.”25 Murray's answer apparently left much to be desired. “The terms you mention,” Irving sniped at his publisher, “are much b
elow what I had expected.” However, he continued, “should you be disposed to give five hundred guineas for my volume of voyages, we may settle the matter at once.”26 Murray accepted Irving's counteroffer the same afternoon.
Satisfied, Irving left for a three-week stay in Paris, where he was reunited with Henry Brevoort. It is impossible to know their feelings upon seeing each other for the first time in fifteen years; each left the details of their reunion unrecorded in letters or journals, or any such recollections are missing. The thirty-something young men of 1815 were now both in their late forties, and Brevoort bragged rakishly that he had aged better than Irving—“I do believe I might pass myself off abroad, for a fresh bachelor of 35.”27
Irving was back in London at the end of August, completing Companions for Murray, and huddling with McLane on Chandos Street. Negotiations were moving rapidly. There was a last-minute tussle over details, but McLane recognized that limited trade was better than no trade at all.28 They reached a deal.
“I have the satisfaction to inform you that I have succeeded in my negotiations for the colonial trade!” McLane wrote to Senator Levi Woodbury. “This government consents to restore to us the direct trade with her colonies upon the terms of my proposition.”29 McLane was a skilled negotiator, but he enjoyed a number of lucky breaks. The new king, William IV, was more willing to negotiate an agreement. McLane also had a more receptive foreign secretary in Lord Aberdeen, as opposed to George Canning, who had given President Adams such headaches. But McLane and Irving could rightly be proud of their roles in negotiating a critical issue that had impeded relations between the two countries for six decades.