His humor has helped us to while away many an hour that would otherwise have been dull, his pathos has held us firmly and tenderly, and his satire has amused and delighted us; but all these qualities combined are far short of what we call Irving. It is the man himself, so pure, so open, so friendly, so large in sympathy and judgment, that holds and pleases us. In a peculiar way we feel that we know this author. If he sometimes puts on a mask, he cannot hide entirely his own genial face. But what his character is we cannot fully express. He had a soundness of judgment, a wholesome view of life, a catholicity of spirit, which we admire and respect; and yet these only partly express his character. It is his large and many-sided self that impresses itself upon us in every line, that reveals itself in a thousand ways and yet is never quite fathomable, that makes the work of Washington Irving, not only pleasing, but great. Charles Dudley Warner said: "And this leads me to speak of Irving's moral quality, which I cannot bring myself to exclude from a literary estimate, even in the face of the current gospel of art for art's sake. There is something that made Scott and Irving personally loved by the millions of their readers, who had only the dimmest ideas of their personality. This was some quality perceived in what they wrote. Each one can define it for himself; there it is, and I do not see why it is not as integral a part of the authors-an element in the estimate of their future position - as what we term their intellect, their knowledge, their skill, or their art. However you rate it, you cannot account for Irving's influence in the world without it. "In his tender tribute to Irving, the great-hearted Thackeray, who saw as clearly as anybody the place of mere literary art in the sum total of life, quoted the dying words of Scott to Lockhart, 'Be a good man, my dear.' We know well enough that the great author of The Newcomes, and the great author of The Heart of Midlothian, recognized the abiding value in literature of integrity, sincerity, purity, charity, faith. These are beneficences; and Irving's literature, walk round it and measure it by whatever critical instruments you will, is a beneficent literature. The author loved good women and little children and a pure life; he had faith in his fellow-men, a kindly sympathy with the lowest, without any subserviency to the highest; he retained a belief in the possibility of chivalrous actions, and did not care to envelop them in a cynical suspicion; he was an author still capable of an enthusiasm. His books are wholesome, full of sweetness and charm, of humor without any sting, of amusement without any stain; and their more solid qualities are marred by neither pedantry nor pretension." COMPOSITION SUBJECTS 1. Oliver Goldsmith 2. Paddy Byrne "A capital tutor for a poet." 3. The Boyhood of Goldsmith and the Boyhood of Irving. 4. Goldsmith's Education. (Compare with that of Irving and of other literary men.) 5. Goldsmith's Travels in Europe. (Compare with Irving's and with Longfellow's.) 6. Goldsmith's Introduction to London. (Compare with Johnson's, Chapter XII, and with that of other literary men.) 7. A Physician's Equipment. 8. Goldsmith the Physician. 9. Goldsmith and Johnson. (Compare them as writers, as conversationalists, as companions, as men of genius, as successful men.) 10. Goldsmith's Associates. (What two distinct classes did he have in London? When he could have the higher, why did he often choose the lower?) 11. Johnson's Interview with the King. 12. Irving's Estimate of Boswell. 13. Macaulay's Estimate of Boswell. 14. Goldsmith the Historian. 15. Goldsmith the Dramatist. 16. Goldsmith the Poet. 17. Autobiographical Touches in The Vicar of Wakefield. 18. Descriptions in The Deserted Village. 19. Goldsmith's Humor and Irving's Humor. 20. Griffiths' Defence. (Imagine Griffiths defending himself against the charges that Irving and others bring against him.) 21. Why is Irving called "The American Goldsmith"? 24. Goldsmith the Friend of Children. 25. Was Goldsmith Vain? 26. Goldsmith's Improvidence. 27. 66 The child is father of the man" applied to Goldsmith. 28. The Literary Club. 29. Effect of Novels and Romances on the Youthful Mind. (See Chapter X.) 30. Contradictions in Goldsmith's Character. CHRONOLOGY OF GOLDSMITH'S LIFE Published The Voyages of the Companions of Columbus Published The Alhambra Returned home. Purchased Sunnyside Published The Crayon Miscellany Published Astoria Published The Adventures of Captain Bonneville 1837 Was Minister to Spain 1842-1846 Published Life of Goldsmith 1849 Published Mahomet and his Successors 1849-1850 Entered Trinity College, Dublin, June 11 Went to Edinburgh to study medicine Published Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe Published The Traveller Published The Vicar of Wakefield Completed The Good-natured Man 1728 1744 1749 Was made Professor of History in Royal Academy 1769 Published The Deserted Village. Completed She Stoops to Conquer Died April 4 1774 BOOKS FOR REFERENCE For the study of Irving's life the student must go, of course, to the authorized biography, Life and Letters of Washington Irving, by Pierre M. Irving, in three volumes, published by Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons. He will find a briefer, and perhaps, therefore, more serviceable, biography in the American Men of Letters Series, by Charles Dudley Warner. Thackeray has written briefly of him in his Round-about Papers, and Curtis in his Literary and Social Essays. Those who would go farther into the life of Goldsmith will consult Dobson's Life of Goldsmith, in the Great Writers Series; William Black's Goldsmith, in the English Men of Letters Series; Forster's Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith ; and Prior's Life of Oliver Goldsmith. Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson is full of information concerning Goldsmith and his contemporaries. |