^\J'\J' 'wwy^r- ..a^doywBjy'ui- 'vp'iati^ VvvU^- ftgi^^^Sffi^S ^;^^^^^^ww^^^^^^> .^wW^' :^.w,^,&i^'.^,I^M^.W /J >' w lt:.':V V W ^' '\J ., .'V iiiliii^^^^es^s^; ^W'«i^/', I '<.'". :-'!■ ■ywww.^ :j! A ,.^,,- ■^lii^i. SIX SELECTIONS IRVING'S SKETCH-BOOK. SIX SELECTIONS FROM lEVING'S SKETCH-BOO CONSISTING OP SKETCHES FROM THE LIST MADE BY THE SUPERVISORS FOR THE BOSTON HIGH SCHOOLS. A NOTICE OF IRVING'S LIFE AND TIMES, NOTES, QUESTIONS, ETC. ^ot Jiome and <^chool fee. HOMER B. SPRAGUE, Ph.D., HEAD MASTER OF THE GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL, BOSTON, MASS., AND FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY. ASSISTED BY M. E. SCATES, FOE MANY YEAKS INSTEUCTOE IN ENGLISH IN THE GIKM' HIGH SCHOOL, BOSTON. BOSTON: G-INN AND HEATH, PUBLISHERS, 1878. t^ Copyright, 1878. By homer B. SPRAGUE. ELECTEOTTPED AND FEINTED AT THE UiMVEKSITT PEESS, CAMBEIDGE. PREFACE The compilers of this book, desiring to give practical help to teachers and pupils in beginning the study of English Literature, feel warranted by long experience in the school- room in offering certain suggestions. The writer studied should become a friend, a companion ; " for indeed there is something of companionship between the author and the reader." The main facts of his life should be given ; but the students should collect additional ones, and by means of them and of familiar talks by their teacher, there should be presented simply, but vividly, the man and the author. The general. intent and the particular meaning of the writer in the extracts studied should be made very clear : pupils should be encouraged to make criticisms, and to ask questions; they should be made to reproduce passages in fresh words, and to write out the story or tell it orally as briefly as pos- sible. Words ought to be defined, sentences analyzed, obscure expressions simplified, and numerous questions asked to lead pupils to use the knowledge they already possess, and to search for other items that will make interesting the pieces selected for study. Reading aloud will, of course, form a part of many exer- cises, and it is a most valuable test of a scholar's comprehen- iv PREFACE. sion of any selection. The recitation of the finest passages will afford a pleasant variety in the work. Too much is often expected of young students, and often too little may seem to be accomplished; but the habits formed will be of practical value in most other studies in school or college. To get the general meaning, to under- stand in detail, and to be able to present clearly to another mind what we have mastered, are always important as a discipline, and constitute a sure test of success. To the liberal and enterprising publishing house (G. P. Putnam's Sons) whose name has been most honorably con- nected with the publication of Irving's works during the past thirty years, warm thanks are due for the courtesy with which they have accorded the privilege of issuing in the present form these six delightful Sketches. Boston, September 1, 1878. CHEONOLOGY. 1783. April 3, Washington Irving was bom in the city of New York. 1800. Began to study law. 1802. Contributions to The Morning Chronicle, signed Jonathan Old- style. 1804. Went to Eurojje. 1806. Returned to New York ; was admitted to the bar. 1807. Salmagundi, a humorous magazine ; joint production of Wash- ington Irving, James K. Paulding, and William Irving. 1809. Matilda Hoffman, his betrothed, died. Her early death gave a tinge of seriousness to his whole life. 1809. History of New York, by Diedrich Knickcrhockcr. Sir Walter Scott was greatly delighted with this work. 1810. Admitted as a partner with two of his brothers in the commer- cial business which they carried on in New York and Liverpool. 1813-14. Edited Analectic Magazine, published in Philadelphia. 1815. Second visit to Europe. 1817. Thomas Campbell, the poet, gave Irving a letter of introduc- tion to Scott at Abbotsford, who said of Irving, " He is one of the best and pleasantest acquaintances I have made this man}^ a day. " 1818. Failure in business. Bankruptcy. 1819-20. The Sketch-Book was published in numbers in New York ; collected and published in two volumes in London by John Murray, owing to the favorable representations of Walter'Scott. 1822. Bracchridge Hall. The characters in the Christmas Sketches reappear in this book. Thomas Moore, the poet, suggested the idea to Irving. 1824. Tales of a Traveller; sold for 1500 guineas to Murray, without his having seen the manuscript. 1828. TM Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. While writing this book in Madrid, he met Mr. Longfellow, who had just been ap- pointed professor of modern languages in Bowdoin College, and was studying in Europe to prepare himself for the work. viii CHRONOLOGY. 1829. Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada. 1830. The Royal Society of Literature bestowed upon him one of the two fifty-guinea gold medals, awarded annually. 1831. The University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of LL. D. 1831. Voyages of the Companions of Columbus. 1832. Eeturned to New York after seventeen years' absence. Public dinner in New York to "our illustrious guest, thrice welcome to his native land." 1832. TJie Alhambra. Irving lived in the old Moorish palace between two and three months "in a kind of Oriental dream," he says. Many of his letters written at the time are dated, "Alhambra, Granada." 1834. Travelled in the "West, in company with commissioners ap- pointed by the United States Government to treat with the Indians. 1835. A Tour on the Prairies. Abhotsford and Neiostead Abbey {Crayon Miscellany). 1835. Legends of the Conquest of Spain {Crayon Miscellany), . Included in Spanish Papers, edited by Pierre M. Irving, after the author's death. 1835. Purchased a tract of land on the Hudson, on which was a small Dutch cottage, the Van Tassel house of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, afterwards known as "Wolfert's Roost, and rechristened Sunnyside. The railroad station near it is now called IrVington, some twenty-five miles from New York. 1836. Astoria : an account of John Jacob Astor's settlement on the Columbia River, scenes beyond the Rocky Mountains, the-fur trade, etc. 1837. The Adventures of Captain Bonneville. ■ 1842 - 46. Minister to Spain. Notified of his appointment by Daniel "Webster. 1849. Oliver Goldsmith: A Biography. 1850. Mahomet and his Successors. 1855. Wolfert's Boost. 1855 - 59. The Life of George JVashingfton (five volimies). 1859. November 28, Irving died at Sunnyside. IRVING ONE OF THE CHIEF FOUNDERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. On the 19th of April, 1783, just eight years after the battle of Lex- ington, the commanding general of the American forces sent the joyful news of peace to his long-suffering army. On the third day of the same month, in the city of New York, the youngest of the eleven children of William and Sarah Irving was born. To the child was given the Chris- tian name of Washington. Before the time of Irving's first literary efforts the scholarly men of America, that is of the American colonies, were too busy with hard labor in subduing nature, resisting the rigorous acts of the English Parliament, and laying the foundations and rearing the walls of the new temple of liberty, to devote themselves in any special degree to literary culture. Born with the new Republic, and through the whole of his life an ardent lover of his country, it seems no stretch of the imagination to conceive that Irving was inspired from the beginning with the high resolve to add something to its glory, as well as to make for himself a name of renown. The following brief outline will show that Irving, whom Thackeray styles "the first ambassador sent by the New World of Letters to the Old," preceded the authors whose works make it possible to use with certainty and pride the words, "American Literature" : William CuUen Bryant's Thanatopsis was published in the North American Review in 1816 ; but in 1831 he was unknown in England, and solicited Irving to use his influence to have a volume of his poems published in London. Eichard Henry Dana was four years younger than Irving. He was the editor of the North American Review; his most celebrated poem. The Buccaneer, was published in 1827. James Fenimore Cooper was six years younger than Irving, and his first novels appeared in 1821. Long- fellow and Hawthorne were in college when Irving was famous. Whit- tier's best poems have been written since Irving's death. Ralph Waldo Emerson was born the year after Irving began to write for Tlie Morning Chronicle ; Nathaniel Hawthorne, a year later ; Oliver Wendell Holmes, the year of the publication of Irving's History of New York ; and James Russell Lowell, the year The Sketeh-Book was published. SOME QUESTIONS AND TOPICS SUITABLE FOR A FINAL EXAMINATION PAPER. When and where was Irving born ? Fix the date by an important historical event. Give some account of his life in Europe. What marked honors did he receive in England ? When was his fame as an author well-established, both at home and abroad ? What distinguished British authors were his friends ? Name his chief works. Who suggested the idea of Bracebridge Hall ? What books of his are truly American in subject? Did Irving ever do any work besides book-making ? What distinguished American statesmen in his time ? Give the chief events in American history during the period of Irving's life ; in English and French history. Under what fictitious names did he write ? What was the name of his home ? where was it ? Is there any appropriateness in the name, Geoffrey Crayon, as author of The Sketch-Book? Explain. What idea of Irving as a man would be derived from reading his works ? What does the phrase " contemporary writers " mean ? Into what classes may we divide the sketches ? Descriptive ? humorous ? pathetic ? narrative ? didactic ? other ? Where is the scene of each sketch laid ? iName the chief characters in the sketches, connecting with each some appropriate qualifying word or phrase. Which is your favorite sketch ? Why ? Write briefly an outline of the story of The Widow and Her Son. Sketch the character and personal appearance of Ichabod Crane. Quote from the sketches, and state what there is that is striking in the passages quoted. Name very humorous and very pathetic passages in the sketches. Select a passage of fine description. " He loved his daughter better even than his pipe." Quoted from what ? Is it humorous or matter of fact ? Why ? Define the following words : cloisters, vionastic, key-stones, effigies, obliterated, edifice, jjarsimony. What is a sentence ? Of what parts does every sentence consist ? Analyze the last sentence in TJie JVidotv and Her Son. SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHEES. The following suggestions by the Board of School Supervisors ia Boston will be found exceedingly helpful to many teachers : — During the short time given to English Literature in the High Schools, few authors can be studied, and only selections from their works can be critically read. The main purpose, then, of this brief course of study should be to form and cultivate a taste for good literature, to encourage careful and systematic reading, and to illustrate the princi- ples which should guide in selecting authors and works to be read after leaving school. It should be the purpose of the teacher, while keeping the exercises in literature from becoming either mere tasks or pastimes, to make the lessons so interesting that they will be eagerly and vigor- ously studied, and will inspire a desire for a larger acquaintance with the best authors. This purpose, it is believed, can be accomplished, partly by leading the pupils to perceive the real intent of the author, his thoughts and feelings, the strength of his argument, the beauty and nobleness of his sentiment, and his clear, distinct, forcible, and happy expression ; partly by giving a vivid account of his life and times and their influence on each other, and by exciting an interest in the lives of his most eminent literary contemporaries. Thus, by association and com- parison, the study of a single author may be an introduction and an incentive to the study of the literature of his period. While neither the thought nor expression should be slighted at any time during the study of the selections, more attention should, perhaps, be given to the thought the first year, and to the expression the second year. During the third year, the selections should be used not merely for exercises in the meaning, derivation, and use of words, or for enlarg- ing the understanding or improving the taste ; they should also be studied as specimens of literature, and should illustrate the iiitellect, the taste, and the genius of their authors. "' *,=, At the outset, the whole of a poem, sketch, essay, or novel should be read by the pupils, either at home or at school. Having formed a gen- eral conception of the production, they should study carefully and read intelligently with their teacher those parts of it that are most inter- esting and instructive, and that represent the genius and style of the author. xii SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS. To the foregoing may be added the followiiig, by the same judi- cious authorities : — After the teacher has called attention to a few points in the life, times, and character of an author, the class should take some narrative or clc- scriptive piece and read it aloud, special attention being given to reading it in such a manner as to express clearly the thought, with such modi- iications of the voice as the sentiment requires. This should be accom- panied by such a running commentary by the teacher as will enable the pupils to understand the story, if it is a narrative, or to form a mental picture of the scene described. The commentary should not, however, be such as to interfere with the interest of the story or description ; but simply what is necessary to a general understanding of the piece. It will often require an explanation of many words that are but vaguely understood by the pupils, and attention to such constructions as require elucidation. This having been done, it will be an excellent practice for the pupils to tell, orally, what they have read in their own language. This may be made a class exercise by having one pupil begin and others follow, each taking it up where his predecessor left off. Let each pupil then write an abstract of it. The reading of the piece and the oral abstract which has been given will have secured such a knowledge of it that the pupils will be likely to express themselves with a clearness which can come only from a full and exact understanding of the author. Having carefully read the narrative or description, some parts of it may be taken and subjected to such an analysis as will show the rela- tions of the clauses, phrases, and words to each other. It may be well, too, if the pupils are sufficiently advanced, to show somethmg of the relations of logic — the grammar of thought — to grammar, which has to do with words, phrases, and clauses. This will involve a knowledge of the parts of speech, the inflections, and the principles of syntax, — and should therefore be preceded by some review of what the pupils may be supposed to have learned pre- viously. After this the attention may be directed Tnore especially to subordinate matters, — to allusions, suggestions, manners, customs, historical refer- ences, and the like. If the selection is poetry, call attention to the metrical structure, which will involve the necessity, perhaps, of some study of prosody. The most common rhetorical figures may be learned, — as simile, metaphor, synecdoche, and metonymy, and the selection examined with reference to their use. Then, the words may be examined with reference to their orign. SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS. xiii derivation, and formation. This, of course, will necessitate the use of an etymological dictionary, and a knowledge of the common prefixes and suffixes. The pupils will then be able to understand what is meant by piority of style, and to apply their knowledge in examining this and other selec- tions. The habit, too, which the pupils have formed of seeing the exact meaning of words, and the force of particular constructions, will aid them in writing clearly. Then may follow an exercise involving all that has been done ; viz., an exercise in criticism, or an estimate of the merits and faults of the selection. If it is a narrative or a description, does it give us a distinct and con- sistent conception of the story told, or the object described, as a whole ? Or is there something wanting, or but vaguely hinted at, which is neces- sary to a perfect understanding of the author ? A careful examination in these regards will determine its quality with regard to cumphtencss. Is there more than is necessary to give such a conception, — some- thing not so intimately connected with the subject as to render the con- ception more vivid and well defined, but rather to confuse ? On the answer to this will depend its unify. Then may follow an examination of the style. Are the words such as are sanctioned by " good use " ? Are the words well chosen to express the exact ideas of the author ? Is the constructiom of the sentences in accordance with the idiom and syntax of the language ? This, of course, will involve some knowledge of barbarism, impropriety, and solecism. How much of the preceding should be done in the several classes will depend on the pupils' power of appreciation, and the time devoted to the study. Probably the Junior class will be glad to take another selection after having obtained such a knowledge of it as to be able to wTite a good abstract, to analyze some of the most difficult sentences, and give the grammatical inflexions and relation of some of the principal words, — with some, but not a wearisome, attention to allusions, historical sugges- tions, etc. The Middle class will be able, in addition to this, to subject the selec- tion to such an examination as will involve some knowledge of rhetoric. The Senior class may give some attention to each of the parts enumer- ated, with special attention to criticism. But such study will not give pupils facility and accuracy in composi- tion without much iwactice in writing. "We learn to skate by skating, and to write by writing. There is no other way. — Boston School Document No. 29, 1877. CONTENTS. — • — Page Chronology op Incidents and Publications . . . vii Irving one of the Chief Founders of American Lit- erature ix Questions for a Final Examination Paper . . x Suggestions to Teachers . . xi The Voyage 1 Questions and Suggestions 9 Westminster Abbey 11 Questions and Suggestions 27 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 28 Questions and Suggestions 69 The Widow and her Son 71 Questions and Suggestions 80 Eip Van Winkle 81 Questions and Suggestions 103 Christmas Eve 104 Questions and Suggestions . . . . . .118 THE SKETCH-BOOK. THE VOYAGE. " Ships, ships, I will descrie you Amidst the main, I M'ill come and try you, What you are protecting, And projectiug, What 's your eud and aim. One goes abroad for merchandise and trading. Another stays to keep his country from invading, A third is coming home with rich and wealthy lading. Halloo ! my fancie, whither wilt thou go ? " Old Poem. To an American visiting Europe, the long voyage he has to make is an excellent preparative. The temporary absence of worldly scenes and employments produces a state of mind peculiarly fitted to receive new and vivid impressions. The vast space of waters that separates the hemispheres is like a 5 blank page in existence. There is no gradual transition by which, as in Europe, the features and population of one country blend almost imperceptibly with those of another. From the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is vacancy until you step on the opposite shore, and are lo launched at once into the bustle and novelties of another world. In travelling by land there is a continuity of scene, and a connected succession of persons and incidents that carry on Line 1. Voyage (Pr. voyager, to travel ; voyage, a journey ; Lat. via, a way), formerly a passage, joTirney, or travel hy sea or by laud ; hence Irving says a wide sea voyage. It is now limited to travel by sea. 2. Preparative, that wliich prepares ; a prej)aration. 5. Hemispheres. What meridian is the boundai-y line between the east- ern and western hemisplieres ? See the atlases. 2 THE SKETCH-BOOK. the story of life, and lessen the effect of absence and separa- « tion. We drag, it is true, "a lengthening chain" at each remove of our pilgrimage ; but the chain is unbroken : we can trace it back link by link ; and we feel that the last still grapples us to home. But a wide sea voyage severs us at once. It makes us conscious of being cast loose from the 20 secure anchorage of settled life, and sent adrift upon a doubt- ful world. It interposes a gulf, not merely imaginary, but real, between us and our homes, — a gulf subject to tempest and fear and uncertainty, rendering distance palpable and re- turn precarious. 25 Such, at least, was the case with myself. As I saw the last blue line of my native land fade away like a cloud in the horizon, it seemed as if I had closed one volume of the world and its contents, and had time for meditation before I opened another. That land, too, now vanishing from my 30 view, which contained all most dear to me in life, — what vicissitudes might occur in it, what changes might take place in me, before I should visit it again ! Who can tell, when he sets forth to wander, whither he may be driven by the uncertain currents of existence, or when he may return, ss or whether it may ever be his lot to revisit the scenes of his childhood? I said that at sea all is vacancy ; I should correct the ex- pression. To one given to day-dreaming, and fond of losing 16. A lengthening chain, "And drags at each remove a lengtlienhig chain." Goldsmith's Traveller, line 10. This expression is explained in the following passage from Goldsmith's Citizen of tlie World : " The farther I travel, I feel the pain of separation with stronger force ; those ties that bind me to my native comitry and you, are still unbroken. By every move I only drag a greater length of chain." 28. Horizon (Gr. opos, hoi-os, a boundary), the circular line which bounds the view of the sky and earth, or of the sky and water, caused by the appar- ent meeting of the two. 32. Vicissitudes (Lat. vicis, a turn, a change ; vicissitudo, a succeeding in turns), revolutions, mutations. 34. Driven by the uncertain currents. Do currents drive one 1 Is ' drive ' the best word ? THE VOYAGE, 3 himself in reveries, a sea voyage is full of subjects for medi- « tation ; but then they are the wonders of the deep and of the air, and ratlier tend to abstract the mind from worldly themes. I delighted to loll over the quarter-railing, or climb to the main-top, of a calm day, and muse for hours together on the tranquil bosom of a summer's sea ; to gaze upon the « piles of golden clouds just peering above the horizon, fancy them some fairy realms, and people them with a creation of my own ; to watch the gentle undulating billows, rolling their silver volumes as if to die away on those happy shores. There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and awe w with which I looked down, from my giddy height, on the monsters of the deep at their uncouth gambols, — r shoals of porpoises tumbling about the bow of the ship ; the grampus slowly heaving his huge form above the surface ; or the rav- enous shark, darting, like a spectre, through the blue waters. ^ My imagination would conjure up all that I had heard or read of the watery world beneath me, — of the finny herds that roam its fathomless valleys, of the shapeless monsters that lurk among the very foundations of the earth, and of those wild phantasms that swell the talcs of fishermen and 6o sailors. 40. Beveries. " Wlien ideas float iu our minds without any reflection or regard of the understanding, it is that which the French call resveric (reverie) ; our language has scarce a name for it." Locke, (Fr. river, to dream.) 43. Quarter-railing. The railing reachjng from the taff"rail to the gang- way, and serving as a fence to the quarter-deck (the quarter-deck being that portion of the uppermost deck between the mainmast and mizzenmast, or be- tween the mainmast and the stern). 44. Main-top. The top of the mainmast of a ship. 52. Gambols. "The radical image is that of a sudden and rapid move- ment to and fro, jvimping, springing," for sport. Wedgwood. Shoals. The radical meaning seems to be a clump or mass. Wedgwood. (Dutch school, a shoal of fishes. ) 53. Porpoises (Lat. porcus, hog ; piscis, fish), hog-fishes. Grampus (Lat. grandis, large, and 2}iscis, fish ; or perhaps, crassus, fat, big, and piscis, fish). The grampus is sometimes 25 feet in length. 56. Conjure (kiin'jur), to summon by enchantment. Conjure' means to swear togetlier, to conspire by oath. 60. Phantasms (Gr. phantasma, appearance), apparitions. 4 THE SKETCH-BOOK. %. Sometimes a distant sail, gliding along the edge of the ocean, would be another theme of idle speculation. How interesting this fragment of a world, hastening to rejoin the great mass of existence ! What a glorious monument of human invention, es which has in a manner triumphed over wind and wave ; has brought the ends of the world into communion; has estab- lished an interchange of blessings, pouring into the sterile re- gions of the north all the luxuries of the south ; has diffused the light of knowledge and the charities of cultivated life ; and 70 has thus bound together those scattered portions of the human race, between which nature seemed to have tlirown an insur- mountable barrier. We one day descried some shapeless object drifting at a dis- tance. At sea, everything that breaks the monotony of the 75 surrounding expanse attracts attention. It proved to be the mast of a ship that must have been completely wrecked ; for there were the remains of handkerchiefs, by which some of the crew had fastened themselves to this spar, to prevent their being washed off by the waves. There was no trace by so which the name of the ship could be ascertained. The wreck had evidently drifted about for many months ; clusters of shell- fish had fastened about it, and long sea-weeds flaunted at its sides. But where, thought I, is the crew ? Their struggle has long been over, — they have gone down amidst the roar of 85 the tempest, — their bones lie whitening among the caverns of the deep. Silence, oblivion, like the waves, have closed over them, and no one can tell the story of their end. What 74. Descried ("To make an outcry on discovering something for which one is on the watch ; then simply to discover." Wedgwood), discerned at a distance. Notice tlie old spelling of this word and of fancy, in the stanza at the beginning of the sketch. 75. Monotony (Gr. /xivoy, single ; rdvo^, note, tone), sameness, want of variety. 76. Expanse (Lat. ex, out ; pansum, opened, spread), a surface widely outspread. 79. Spar. In naiitical phrase, a long beam, a mast, yard, boom. S3. Flaunted. To flaunt is properly to wave to and fro in the wind, to move about in a showy manner so as to be seen like a banner in the wind. THE VOYAGE. 5 sighs have been wafted after that ship ! what prayers offered up at the deserted fireside of home ! How often has the mis- ao tress, the wife, the mother, pored over the daily news, to catch some casual intelligence of this rover of the deep ! How has expectation darkened into anxiety, — anxiety into dread, — and dread into despair ! Alas ! not one memento may ever return for love to cherish. All that may ever be known is 95 that she sailed from her port, "and was never heard of more ! " The sight of this wreck, as usual, gave rise to many dismal anecdotes. This was particularly the case in the evening, when the weather, which had hitherto been fair, began to look wild and threatening, and gave indications of one of those sudden 100 storms which will sometimes break in upon the serenity of a summer voyage. As we sat round the dull light of a lamp in the cabin, that made the gloom more ghastly, every one had his tale of shipwreck and disaster. I was particularly struck with a short one related by the captain. io« "As I was once sailing," said he, "in a fine stout ship across the banks of JSTewfoundland, one of those heavy fogs which prevail in those parts rendered it impossible for us to see far ahead even in the daytime ; but at night the weather was so thick that we could not distinguish any object at twice the uo length of the ship. I kept lights at the mast-head, and a constant watch forward to look out for fishing-smacks, which are accustomed to lie at anchor on the banks. The wind was blowing a smacking breeze, and we were going at a great rate through the water. Suddenly the watch gave the alarm lis of ' A sail ahead ! ' — it was scarcely uttered before we were 91. Pored. To pore is to look close and long, to read or examine with steady or continued attention. 107. Banks of Newfoundland. These banks form one of the most exten- sive submarine elevations on the globe. They are between 600 and 700 miles in length, with a depth of water varying from 10 to 160 fathoms. Tlie famous Grand Bank swarms with cod and almost every other variety of fish. 112. Fishing-smacks, small vessels, usually sloop-rigged, used in the fisheries. 114. Smacking, making a sharp, lively sound. 6 THE SKETCH-BOOK. upon her. She was a small schooner, at anchor, with her broadside towards us. The crew were all asleep, and had neg- lected to hoist a light. We struck her just amidships. The force, the size, and weight of our vessel bore her down below 120 the waves ; we passed over her and were hurried on our course. As the crashing wreck was sinking beneath us, I had a glimpse of two or three half-naked wretches rushing from her cabin ; they just started from their beds to be swallowed shrieking by the waves. I heard their drowning cry mingling with the 125 wind. The blast that bore it to our ears swept us out of aU farther hearing. I shall never forget that cry ! It was some time before we could put the ship about, she was under such headway. We returned, as nearly as we could guess, to the place where the smack had anchored. We cruised about uo for several hours in the dense fog. We fired signal-guns, and listened if we might hear the halloo of any survivors ; but all was silent, — we never saw or heard anything of them more." I confess these stories, for a time, put an end to all my fine fancies. The storm increased with the night. The sea was 135 lashed into tremendous confusion. There was a fearful, sullen sound of rushing waves and broken surges. Deep called unto deep. At times the black volume of clouds overhead seemed rent asunder by flashes of lightning, which quivered along the foaming billows, and made the succeeding darkness doubly 140 terrible. The thunders bellowed over the wild waste of waters, and were echoed and prolonged by the mountain waves. As I saw the ship staggering and plunging among these roaring caverns, it seemed miraculous that she regained her bal- ance, or preserved her buoyancy. Her yards would dip into i« the water : her bow was almost buried beneath the waves. Sometimes an impendiag surge appeared ready to overwhelm 119. Amidships. (Nautical.) In the middle of a ship ; half-way between the stem and the stern. 128. Put the ship about. Change her course by tacking. 147. Impending (from Lat. in, on, upon, over, and pendere, to hang), hanging over, threatening. THE VOYAGE. 7 her, and nothing but a dexterous movement of the helm preserved her from the shock. When I retired to my cabin, the awful scene still followed iso me. The whistling of the wind through the rigging sounded like funereal wailings. The creaking of the masts, the straining and groaning of bulkheads, as the ship labored in the welter- ing sea, were frightful. As I heard the waves rushing along the sides of the ship, and roaring in my very ear, it seemed ih as if Death were raging round this floating prison, seeking for his prey; the mere starting of a nail, the yawning of a seam, might give him entrance. A fine day, however, with a tranquil sea and favoring breeze, soon put all these dismal reflections to flight. It is leo impossible to resist the gladdening influence of fine weather and fair wind at sea. When the ship is decked out in all her canvass, every sail swelled and careering gayly over the curling waves, how lofty, how gallant, she appears, — how she seems to lord it over the deep ! les I might fill a volume with the reveries of a sea voyage, for with me it is almost a continual reverie, — but it is time to get to shore. It was a fine sunny morning when the thrilling cry of " Land ! " was given from the mast-head, N'one but those iro who have experienced it can form an idea of the delicious throng of sensations which rush into an American's bosom when he first comes in sight of Europe. There is a volume of associations with the very name. It is the land of promise, teeming with everything of which his childhood has heard or vn on which his studious years have pondered. From that time until the moment of arrival, it was aU 153. Balkheads, board partitions making water-tight compartments in a ship. 156. Death were raging, etc. Personification (from personify, Lat. per- sona, a person, and facere, to make). It consists in representing inanimate objects or abstract notions as endued with life and action like a person, or possessing the qualities of living beings. 165. Lord it over. To act as a lord, to rule despotically. 8 THE SKETCH-BOOK. feverish excitement. The ships of war, that prowled like guardian giants along the coast; the headlands of Ireland, stretching out into the channel; the Welsh mountains, tow- iso ering into the clouds, — all were objects of intense interest. As we sailed up the Mersey, I reconnoitred the shores with a telescope. My eye dwelt with delight on neat cottages, with their trim shrubberies and green grass-plots. I saw the mouldering ruin of an abbey overrun with ivy, and the taper iss spire of a village church rising from the brow of a neighbor- ing hill, — all were characteristic of England. The tide and wind were so favorable that the ship was enabled to come at once to the pier. It was thronged with people; some idle lookers-on, others eager expectants of i90 friends or relatives. I could distinguish the merchant to whom the ship was consigned. I knew him by his calcu- lating brow and restless air. His hands were thrust into his pockets ; he was whistling thoughtfully, and walking to and fro, a small space having been accorded him by the crowd in 195 deference to his temporary importance. There were repeated cheerings and salutations interchanged between the shore and the ship, as friends happened to recognize each other. I par- ticularly noticed one young woman of humble dress, but inter- esting demeanor. She was leaning forward from among the 200 crowd ; her eye hurried over the ship as it neared the shore, to catch some wished-for countenance. She seemed disap- pointed and agitated, when I heard a faint voice call her name. It was from a poor sailor who had been ill all the voyage, and had excited the sympathy of every one on board. When 205 the weather was fine, his messmates had spread a mattress for him. on deck in the shade, but of late his illness had 182. Mersey (mir'zee), a river in England. It expands into a large estuary or arm of the Irish Sea, forming Liverpool harbor. Beconnoitred (Lat. recognoscSre, to take notice of again ; Fr. recomiaitre, to recognize), examined carefully. 185. Abbey (Fr. dbbaye; from Syi'iac abba, father), a monastery or similar building for persons of either sex, governed by an abbot or abbess. THE VOYAGE. 9 so increased that he had taken to his hammock, and only- breathed a wish that he might see his wife before he died. He had been helped on deck as we came up the river, and 210 was now leaning against the shrouds, with a countenance so wasted, so pale, so ghastly, that it was no wonder even the eye of affection did not recognize him. But at the sound of his voice her eye darted on his features ; it read, at once, a whole volume of sorrow ; she clasped her hands, uttered a faint 215 shriek, and stood wringing them in silent agony. All now was hurry and bustle, — the meetings of acquaint- ances, the greetings of friends, the consultations of men of business, I alone was solitary and idle. I had no friend to meet, no cheering to receive. I stepped upon the land of 220 my forefathers, but felt that I was a stranger in the land. SUGGESTIONS OF TOPICS OF INQUIRY. What is the gulf that a voyage interposes between us and our homes? What words describe it? " Whither he may be driven " (line 34). Why is lohither better than ivhere ? Which of them means to what place ? Which of them means at or in what place ? "I said that at sea all is vacancy" (line 38). Quote any previous passage containing this idea. What were some of the amusements of the voyage ? Day-dreaming ? Look- ing down " on the monsters of the deep at their uncouth gambols " ? Watch- ing a distant sail ? Contemplating the object seen at a distance, the mast of a wrecked sliip ? Story-telling ? Any other ? "Expectation, anxiety, dread, despair" (lines 93, 94). Which expresses the strongest feeling ? How are the words arranged ? Define a climax. What ' ' has brought the ends of the earth into communion " ? How ? Narrate in your own words the captain's story. Point out the most pathetic expressions in it. What does Irving say of the ship duriqg the storm ? Explain " how she seems to lord it over the deep ! " Contrast that with the description of her course during the storm. What were objects of interest as the ship approached the shore ? At what point did they land ? Describe the crowd on the pier. Who was the most important person there ? What pathetic incident is told ? 10 THE SKETCH-BOOK. " I stepped upon the land of my forefathers." Who ? Why land of my forefathers ? Express the idea of the last sentence in other words. Select nautical words or phrases in this sketch. Was the voyage made in a steamer or in a sailing vessel ? Give reasons for the answer. What is the general character of this sketch ? Description ? Commit to memory the paragraph beginning, "We one day descried some shapeless object," etc. Select and commit to memory any other passage in the piece. Give your reason for your selection. What is the simple subject in the first sentence in this sketch ? The entire subject ? GUIDE FOR ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES. How many clauses ? Kinds ? (Dependent and independent, stating the number of each.) State the kind of each dependent clause, and tell what each modifies. (Dependent clauses are equivalent to some part of speech ; hence we have Noun clauses, Adjective clauses, and Adverbial clauses. ) Simple subject ? Modifiers of the subject ? Entire subject ? Simple predicate ? Modifiers of the predicate ? Entire predicate? Analyze clauses not already analyzed. WESTMINSTER ABBEY. " When I behold, with deep astonishment, To famous Westminster how tliere resorte. Living in brasse or stoney monument. The princes and the worthies of all sorte ; Doe not I see reformde nobilitie, Without contempt, or pride, or ostentation, And looke vipon offenselesse majesty. Naked of pomp or earthly domination ? And how a play-game of a painted stone Contents the quiet now and silent sprites, Wliome all the world which late tliey stood upon Could not content nor quench their appetites. Life is a frost of cold felicitie, And death the thaw of all our vanitie." Christolero's Epigrams, by T. B, 1598. On one of those sober and rather melancholy days, in the latter part of autumn, when the shadows of morning and even- ing almost mingle together, and throw a gloom over the decline of the year, I passed several hours in rambling about West- minster Abbey. There was something congenial to the season in the mournful magnificence of the old pile ; and as I passed its threshold, it seemed like stepping back into the regions of antiquity, and losing myself among the shades of former ages. 5. Minster ( A.-S. minstre or mynster ; Low Lat. monasterium). In Ger- many and in England this title is given to several large cathedrals or cathedral churches ; as, York Minster, the Minster'of Strasburg, etc. It is also found in the names of places which owe their origin to a monastery ; as, Westmin- ster, the minster or monastery of the West. Westminster is a city and borough, and forms the west portion of London. Westminster Abbey is in the form of a Latin cross ; it is 511 feet long by 203 wide across the transepts. For the word abbey see p. 8, line 188. 12 THE SKETCH-BOOK. I entered from the inner court of Westminster School, lo through a long, low, vaulted passage, that had an almost sub- terranean look, being dimly lighted in one part by circular perforations in the massive walls. Through this dark avenue I had a distant view of the cloisters, with the figure of an old verger, in his black gown, moving along their shadowy is vaults, and seeming like a spectre from one of the neighboring tombs. The approach to the abbey through these gloomy monastic remains prepares the mind for its solemn contem- plation. The cloisters still retain something of the quiet and seclusion of former days. The gray walls are discolored by 20 damps, and crumbling with age j a coat of hoary moss has gathered over the inscriptions of the mural monuments, and obscured the death's-heads and other funereal emblems. The sharp touches of the chisel are gone from the rich tracery of the arches ; the roses which adorned the keystones have lost 25 their leafy beauty; everything bears marks of the gradual dilapidations of time, which yet has something touching and pleasing in its very decay. The sun was pouring down a yellow autumnal ray into the square of the cloisters, beaming upon a scanty plot of grass so 10. Westminster School was founded by Queen Elizabeth. It retains the old dormitory of tlie abbey, and the old refectory of the abbot is now used as the Hall of the whole establisliment. There is a " foundation " for forty boys, who are called ' ' Queen's Scholars." Many distinguished men have been pupils there ; among them, Ben Jonson. 11. Subterranean (from Lat. sub, under, and terra, the earth), under the surface of the earth, imdergroimd. 14. Cloisters (Fr. clottre ; A.-S. claustr ; Lat. claustrum, an enclosed place, from Lat. daudere, to shut or shut in), covered passages extending around the inner walls of monasteries ; the monks had their lectures in them. Similar rooms elsewhere are sometimes called cloisters. 15. Verger (Fr. verge, a rod, from Lat. virga, a rod), an officer who carries a wand before a judge as an emblem of authority ; also an attendant upon a church dignitary, as upon a bishop; also a pew-opener, or attendant in a church. 18. Monastic, pertaining to a monastery (a house of religious seclusion for monks or sometimes for nuns) or to its iimiates. 22. Mural, pertaining to a wall. (Lat. mar us, wall.) WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 13 in the centre, and lighting up an angle of the vaulted passage with a kind of dusky si")lendor. From between the arcades the eye glanced up to a bit of blue sky or a passing cloud, and beheld the sun-gilt pinnacles of the abbey towering into the azure heaven. 35 As I paced the cloisters, sometimes contemplating this min- gled picture of glory and decay, and sometimes endeavoring to decipher the inscriptions on the tombstones which formed the pavement beneath my feet, my eye was attracted to three figures, rudely carved in relief, but nearly worn away by 40 the footsteps of many generations. They were the effigies of three of the early abbots : the epitaphs were entirely effaced ; the names alone remained, having no doubt been renewed in later times (Vitalis . Abbas . 1082, and Gislebertus . Crispi- nus . Abbas . 1114, and Lauren tins . Abbas .1176). I re- 45 mained some little while, musing over these casual relics of antiquity, thus left like wrecks upon this distant shore of time, telling no tale but that such beings had been and had perished ; teaching no moral but the futility of that pride ■which hopes still to exact homage in its ashes, and to live in so an inscription. A little longer, and even these faint records will be obliterated, and the monument will cease to be a memorial. Whilst I was yet looking down upon these grave- stones, I was roused by the sound of the abbey clock, rever- berating from buttress to buttress, and echoing among the 55 41. Eflagies (Lat. effigies, an image ; Lat. e or ex, out, forth, a.n(\ fing^re to fashion). An effigy is commonly the head, bust, or full-lengtli portrait in sculpture, etc. 44. Vitalis . Abbas . 1082, etc. In Vitalis's time the first history of the aliljey was written by one of his monks. Gislebert was the autlior of various scholastic treatises. Lawi-ence procured from the Pope the canonization of the Confessor. 46. Casual (Lat. casm, a fall ; fr. cad^re, to fall, to happen), acciden- tal. 55. Buttress (Fr. louter, to thrust, or aboutir, to border on, to abut), a structure of masonry or brickwork, built to resist the horizontal thrust or pressure of another structure, as of a wall. Buttresses are much used in Gothic architecture. 14 THE SKETCH-BOOK. cloisters. It is almost startling to hear this "warning of de- parted time sounding among the tombs, and telling the lapse of the hour, which, like a billow, has roUed us onward towards the grave. I pursued my walk to an arched door opening to the interior of the abbey. On entering here, the magnitude eo of the building breaks fully upon the mind, contrasted with the vaults of the cloisters. The eyes gaze with wonder at clustered columns of gigantic dimensions, with arches spring- ing from them to such an amazing height; and man wandering about their bases, shrunk into insignificance in comparison ^ with his own handiwork. The spaciousness and gloom of this vast edifice produce a profound and mysterious awe. We step cautiously and softly about, as if fearful of disturbing the hal- lowed silence of the tomb ; while every footfall whispers along the walls, and chatters among the sepulchres, making us more 7o sensible of the quiet we have interrupted. It seemg as if the awful nature of the place presses down upon the soul, and hushes the beholder into noiseless rever- ence. We feel that we are surrounded by the congregated bones of the great men of past times, who have filled history ^s with their deeds, and the earth with their renown. And yet it almost provokes a smile at the vanity of human ambition, to see how they are crowded together and jostled in the dust ; what parsimony is observed in doling out a scanty nook, a gloomy corner, a little portion of earth, to those so whom, when alive, kingdoms could not satisfy ; and how many shapes and forms and artifices are devised to catch the casual notice of the passenger, and save from forgetfulness, for a few 62. Vaults (Ital. volta, a turn ; Lat. volvSre, to roll). In architecture, an arched ceiling or roof. 77. Provoke (Latin pro, forth, and vocare, to call), to call out, to cause, to occasion. 78. Jostled (Fr. jouster, to knock). To jostle is properly to thrust or push with the elbows. 79. Parsimony (Lat. parcSre, to spare ; parsimonia, or parcimonia, spar- ingness, frugality). The word usually denotes an excess of frugality, nig- gardliness, stinginess. WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 15 short years, a name which once aspired to occupy ages of the world's thought and admiration. 86 I passed some time in Poets' Corner, which occupies an end of one of the transepts or cross aisles of the abbey. The monuments are generally simple, for the lives of literary men aflFord no striking themes for the sculptor. Shakespeare and Addison have statues erected to their memories ; but the greater 90 part have busts, medallions, and sometimes mere inscriptions. Notwithstanding the simplicity of these memorials, I have always observed that the visitors to the abbey remained longest about them. A kinder and fonder feeling takes place of that cold curiosity or vague admiration with which they gaze on 95 the splendid monuments of the great and the heroic. They linger about these as about the tombs of friends and com- panions ; for indeed there is something of companionship be- tween the author and the reader. Other men are known to posterity only through the medium of history, which is contin- 100 ually growing faint and obscure ; but the intercourse between the author and his fellow-men is ever new, active, and imme- diate. He has lived for them more than for himself ; he has sacrificed surrounding enjoyments, and shut himself up from the delights of social life, that he might the more intimately 105 commune with distant minds and distant ages. Well may the world cherish his renown ; for it has been purchased, not by deeds of violence and blood, but by the diligent dispensation of pleasure. Well may posterity be grateful to his memory ; for he has left it an inheritance, not of empty names and no sounding actions, but whole treasures of wisdom, bright gems of thought, and golden veins of language. 86. Poets' Corner. This is said to have derived its name from the fact that the poet Chaucer was the first literary man buried there. Some authors not buried in the abbey have monuments in it. 89. Shakespeare. Bom 1564 ; died 1616. 90. Joseph Addison. 1672-1719. His reputation rests principally upon his numerous Essays, written for the Tatler, Spectator, and Giuirdian. 91. Medallions, circular tablets on which figures are embossed. They re- semble medals. (Fr. medaille; Ital. medaglia ; a coin of half a certain value, from Latin medietas, half, from medius, in the middle of.) 16 THE SKETCH-BOOK. From Poets' Corner I continued my stroll towards that part of the abbey which contains the sepulchres of the kings. I wandered among what once were chapels, but which are now us occupied by the tombs and monuments of the great. At every turn I met with some illustrious name, or the cognizance of some powerful house renowned in history. As the eye darts into these dusky chambers of death, it catches glimpses of quaint effigies ; some kneeling in niches, as if in devotion ; 139 others stretched upon the tombs, with hands piously pressed together : warriors in armor, as if reposing after battle ; prel- ates with crosiers and mitres ; and nobles in robes and coro- nets, lying as it were in state. In glancing over this scene, so strangely populous, yet where every form is so still and silent, 125 it seems almost as if we were treading a mansion of that fabled city where every being had been sucTdenly transmuted into stone. I paused to contemplate a tomb on which lay the effigy of a knight in complete armor. A large buckler was on one 130 arm ; the hands were pressed together in supplication upon the breast ; the face was almost covered by the morion ; the legs were crossed, in token of the warrior's having been en- gaged in the holy war. It was the tomb of a crusader, — of 123. Crosier, a gilded staff surmounted by a cross. (Fr. croce, crosse, a bishop's staff; Ital. croccia, from Mediaeval Lat. crucea, a cross-shaped crutch, from Lat. crux, cross.) Mitre, an ornament for the head worn by the pope and cardinals, also by Protestant archbishops and bishops on sol- emn occasions ; a kind of Episcopal crown, resembling a cap pointed and cleft at the top. (Gr. mitra, a fillet round the head, a chaplet, turban.) Coronet (Lat. cmvna, crown; diminutive corcnietta, little crown), an inferior crown worn by noblemen. 126. That fabled city. In the Arabian Nights' Enterlaimnent, Sixty- fifth Night, we find the following : " On the last day of that year, at four o'clock in the morning, all the inhabitants were changed in an instant into stone, every one in the condition and posture he happened to be in." 130. Buckler, a shield. (From Fr. boucle, a buckle or protuberance, such as on the boss of a shield.) 132. Morion, a kind of helmet. (Perhaps from Fr. Mure, a Moor ; Lat. Maurus, Moor ; Dutch Mooriaan is a Moor.) 134. Crusader (from Lat. crux, crucis, a cross), one employed in a WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 17 one of those military enthusiasts, who so strangely mingled 135 religion and romance, and whose exploits form the connecting Imk between fact and fiction, between the history and the fairy-tale. There is something extremely picturesque in the tombs of these adventurers, decorated as they are with rude armorial bearings and Gothic sculpture. They comport with uo the antiquated chapels in which they are generally found ; and in considering them, the imagination is apt to kindle with the legendary associations, the romantic fiction, the chivalrous pomp and pageantry, which poetry has spread over the wars for the sepulchre of Christ. They are the relics of times 145 utterly gone by, of beings passed from recollection, of customs and manners with which ours have no afiinity. They are like objects from'some strange and distant land, of which we have no certain knowledge, and about which all our conceptions are vague and visionary. There is something extremely solemn j^g and aAvful in those effigies on Gothic tombs, extended as if in the sleep of death or in the supplication of the dying hour. They have an effect infinitely more impressive on my feelings than the fanciful attitudes, the overwrought conceits, and alle- gorical groups which abound on modern monuments. I have 155 been struck, also, with the superiority of many of the old sepulchral inscriptions. There was a noble way, in former times, of saying things simply, and yet saying them proudly ; and I do not know an epitaph that breathes a loftier conscious- cnisade or military expedition, undertaken by the Christians, to recover the Holy Land, the scene of our Saviour's life and sufferings, from the power of the infidels or Mohammedans. The first was in 1096, the last in 1270. A cross of red stuff attached to the right shoulder was the badge of the com- batants. Sometimes the color of the cross served to designate the nationality of the soldier ; as, the white cross on a red gi-ound indicated France ; a red cross on a white gi-oimd, England. The principal crusades were six in num- ber. They were enormously destructive of human life, yet not without compensation. 140. Gothic, pertaining to the Goths. In architecture, a term at first applied with contempt to the European architecture of the Middle Ages ; its chief characteristic being the predominance of the pointed arch. Armorial bearings, devices on shields. 18 THE SKETCH-BOOK. ness of family worth and honorable lineage than one which leo affirms of a noble house, that " all the brothers were brave, and all the sisters virtuous." In the opposite transept to Poets' Corner stands a monu- ment which is among the most renowned achievements of modern art, but which to me appears horrible rather than les sublime. It is the tomb of Mrs. Nightingale, by Eoubillac. The bottom of the monument is represented as throwing open its marble doors, and a sheeted skeleton is starting forth. The shroud is falhng from his fleshless frame as he launches his dart at his victim. She is sinking into her affrighted i7o husband's arms, who strives, with vain and frantic effort, to avert the blow. The whole is executed with terrible truth and spirit ; we almost fancy we hear the gibbering yell of triumph bursting from the distended jaws of the spectre. But why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary irs terrors, and to spread horrors round the tomb of those we love] The grave should be surrounded by everything that might inspire tenderness and veneration for the dead, or that might win the living to virtue. It is the place, not of dis- gust and dismay, but of sorrow and meditation. iso While wandering about these gloomy vaults and silent aisles, studying the records of the dead, the sound of busy existence from without occasionally reaches the ear, — the rumbling of the passing equipage, the murmur of the multi- tude, or perhaps the light laugh of pleasure. The contrast is iss 166. Tomb of Mrs. Nightingale. The author's description is very vivid and accurate. Tliis monument was erected in 1758 to commemorate the premature death of Lady Elizabeth Shirley, w^ife of Joseph Gascoigne Night- ingale. A tradition of the abbey says that a robber, coming into the abbey by moonlight, was so frightened by the figure of Death, " a sheeted skele- ton," that he fled in terror, and left his crowbar on the pavement. Boubil- lac, L. F. He was an eminent French sculptor, born in Lyons. He visited England, where he made monuments and statiies. He died in 1762. 173. Gibbering (akin to gabble SiXiA jabber). It represents, by a sort of imitation, the sound of rapid talking without reference to meaning. Pro- nounced gibbering, with g hard ; not jibbcring. 184. Equipage (Fr. Squiper, to attire, provide with appropriate furniture. WEMINSTER ABBEY. 19 striking with the deathhke repose around : and it has a strange eflect upon the feehngs, thus to hear the surges of active hfe hurrying along, and beating against the very walls of the sepulchre. I continued in this way to move from tomb to tomb, and loo from chapel to chapel. The day was gradually wearing away ; the distant tread of loiterers about the abbey grew less and less frequent ; the sweet-tongued beU was summoning to evening prayers ; and I saw at a distance the choristers, in their white surplices, crossing the aisle and entering the choir. I stood 195 before the entrance to Henry the Seventh's chapel. A flight of steps lead up to it, through a deep and gloomy, but magnificent arch. Great gates of brass, richly and delicately wrought, turn heavily upon their hinges, as if proudly reluctant to admit the feet of common mortals into this most georgeous of sepul- 200 chres. On entering, the eye is astonished by the pomp of archi- tecture, and the elaborate beauty of sculptured detail. The very walls are wroiight into universal ornament, incrusted with tracery, and scooped into niches, crowded with the statues of 205 saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning labor of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and density, sus- pended aloft, as if by magic, and the fretted roof achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb. equip ; akin to A.-S. sceapan, scyppan, to forrti ; Ger. schaffen, to shape, provide, furnish), retinue, attendance, as the carriage, horses, and liveries of a person of rank or fortune. 195. Surplices (Fr. mrplis, Old Fr. surpelis, from super-pellicmm, an over-garment), linen gowns worn over the other garments of an ecclesiastic. 196. Henry the Seventh's chapel. The chapel is entered by twelve steps ; the gates are of oak, with profuse brass and gilt ornamentation. It consists of a nave, two aisles, and five smaller chapels at the east end, and is, in fact, a continuation of the choir of the abbey itself. This chapel is in striking contrast with the king's closeness and prudence in life. 205. Tracery, the ornamental stone-work in the upper part of Gothic ■windows ; also similar decorations in Gothic architecture on panellings, ceilings, etc. Niches, recesses in walls for statues, vases, and other upright ornaments. 208. Fretted roof (Old Fr. freter, to cross, interlace), a roof ornamented 20 THE SKETCH-BOOK. Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls of the 210 Knights of the Bath, richly carved of oak, though with the grotesque decorations of Gothic architecture. On the pin- nacles of the stalls are affixed the helmets and crests of the knights, with their scarfs and swords ; and above them are suspended their banners, emblazoned with armorial bearings, 215 and contrasting the splendor of gold and purple and crimson with the cold gray fretwork of the roof. In the midst of this grand mausoleum stands the sepulchre of its founder, — his effigy, with that of his queen, extended on a sumptuous tomb, and the whole surrounded by a superbly wrought brazen 220 railing. There is a sad dreariness in this magnificence ; this strange mixture of tombs and trophies ; these emblems of living and aspiring ambition, close beside mementos which show the dust and oblivion in which all must, sooner or later, terminate. 225 Nothing impresses the mind with a deeper feeling of loneliness than to tread the silent and deserted scene of former throng and pageant. On looking round on the vacant stalls of the knights and their esquires, and on the rows of dusty but gorgeous banners that were once borne before them, my imagi-- 230 nation conjured up the scene when this hall was bright with the valor and beauty of the land, glittering with the splendor of jewelled rank and military array, alive with the tread of many feet and the hum of an admiring multitude. All had passed away ; the silence of death had settled again upon the 235 by bands, bars, or fillets, crossing each other in different patterns. In Mil- ton's Paradise Lost we have, " The roof was fretted gold." 211. Knights of tlie Bath. In tlie early coronations it was the practice of the sovereigns before the ceremony to create a number of knights ; and as one of the most striking features of their admission was a bath on the vigils of their knighthood, in token of the cleanliness and purity of their future lives, they were called Knights of the Bath. This name first appears in the time of Henry IV. Since 1839 no banners have been added to those already hung in the chapel. 215. Emblazoned, painted or portrayed in proper colors or figures. 218. Mausoleum (pronounced Mau-soW -mn ; from Mausolus, King of Caria, whose widow, b. c. 353, erected a splendid monument at Halicarnassus to the memory of her husband), a magnificent tomb or sepulcliral monument. WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 21 place, interrupted only by the casual chirping of birds, which had found tlieir way into the chapel, and built their nests among its friezes and pendants, — sure signs of solitariness and desertion. When I read the names inscribed on the banners, they were 240 those of men scattered far and wide about the world ; some tossing upon distant seas, some under arms in distant lands, some mingling in the busy intrigues of courts and cabinets ; all seeking to deserve one more distinction in this mansion of shadowy honors, — the melancholy reward of a monument. 2« Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present a touch- ing instance of the equality of the grave, which brings down the oppressor to a level with the oppressed, and mingles the dust of the bitterest enemies together. In one is the sepulchre of the haughty Elizabeth ; in the other is that of her victim, 250 the lovely and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour in the day but some ejaculation of pity is uttered over the fate of the latter, mingled with indignation at her oppressor. The walls of Elizabeth's sepulchre continually echo with the sighs of sym- pathy heaved at the grave of her rival. 255 A peculiar melancholy reigns over the aisle where Mary lies buried. The light struggles dimly through windows darkened by dust. The greater part of the place is in deep shadow, and the walls are stained and tinted by time and weather. A marble figure of Mary is stretched upon the tomb, round which 2G0 is an iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national emblem, — the thistle. I was weary with wandering, and sat down to rest myself by the monument, revolving in my mind the check- ered and disastrous story of poor Mary. 238. Friezes. Thefj-ieze in architecture is that part of the entablature below the cornice but above the architrave or chief beam resting on the top of tlie column. 250. Elizabeth, Queen of England, reigned from 1558 to 1603. 260. Mary, Queen of Scots, born 1542, executed 1587. She was the daughter of James V. of Scotland. For her biography consult the histories and the cyclopo3dias. 262. The thistle is the emblem of Scotland. . Weary with wandering. What is alliteration ? 22 THE SKETCH-BOOK. The sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the abbey. I 255 could only hear, now and then, the distant voice of the priest repeating the evening service, and the faint responses of the choir ; these paused for a time, and all was hushed. The still- ness, the desertion and obscurity that were gradually prevailing around, gave a deeper and more solemn interest to the place : 270 " For in the silent grave no conversation, No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers, No careful father's counsel, — nothing's heard, For nothing is, but all oblivion, Dust, and an endless darloiess." 2:5 Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring organ burst upon the ear, falling with doubled and redoubled intensity, and roll- ing, as it were, huge billows of sound. How well do their volume and grandeur accord with this mighty building ! With what pomp do they swell through its vast vaults, and breathe 280 their awful harmony through these caves of death, and make the silent sepulchre vocal ! And now they rise in triumphant acclamation, heaving higher and higher their accordant notes, and piling sound on sound. And now they pause, and the soft voices of the choir break out into sweet gushes of melody ; 28s they soar aloft, and warble along the roof, and seem to play about these lofty vaults like the pure airs of heaven. Again the pealing organ heaves its thrilling thunders, compressing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. What long- drawn cadences ! What solemn sweeping concords ! It grows 290 more and more dense and powerful, — it fills the vast pile, and seems to jar the very walls ; the ear is stunned, the senses are overwhelmed. And now it is winding up in full jubilee, — 267. Responses of the choir. In the English church the congregation answer the minister, as in the litany or the psalms, by reading alternate petitions or verses. When the service is performed in the most ceremonious and impressive manner, as in Westminster Abbey, the responses are chanted by the choir, composed of men and boys. 276. The deep-laboring organ. This is a remarkable piece of descrip- tion ; the words are so skilfully selected and combined that the passage almost reproduces in sound the music itself. WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 23 it is rising from the earth to heaven, — the very soul seems rapt away and floated upwards on this swelling tide of harmony ! 205 I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie which a strain of music is apt sometimes to inspire ; the shadows of evening were gradually thickening round me ; the monuments began to cast deeper and deeper gloom ; and the distant clock again gave token of the slowly waning day. 300 I rose and prepared to leave the abbey. As I descended the flight of steps which lead into the body of the building, my eye was caught by the shrine of Edward the Confessor, and I ascended the small staircase that conducts to it, to take from thence a general survey of this wilderness of tombs. The sos shrine is elevated upon a kind of platform, and close around it are the sepulchres of various kings and queens. From this eminence the eye looks down between pillars and funereal tro- phies to the chapels and chambers below, crowded with tombs ; where warriors, prelates, courtiers, and statesmen lie moulder- 310 ing in their "beds of darkness." Close by me stood the great chair of coronation, rudely carved of oak, in the barbarous taste of a remote and Gothic age. The scene seemed almost as if contrived, with theatrical artifice, to produce an effect upon the beholder. Here was a type of the beginning and the end of sis human pomp and power ; here it was literally but a step from the throne to the sepulchre. Would not one think that these incongruous mementos had been gathered together as a lesson 303. Edward the Confessor (King of England from 1041 to 1065), founder of the abbey. 312. Chair of Coronation. The oak coronation-chair was made by order of Edward I., and in it was enclosed the stone of Scone, brought by him from Scotland. A legend identified this stone as the pillow on which Jacob slept at Bethel {Gen. xxviii. 11). After many wanderings it was deposited in the Abbey of Scone, and the kings of Scotland sat on it durmg the ceremony of being crowned. Edward I. intended to present this stone, as a trophy of his conquest of Scotland, to Edward the Confessor's Shrine. In this oak chair all the English sovereigns since Edward the First's time have sat to be crowned. Cromwell was formally made Lord Protector in Westminster Hall, and for tliis ceremony the coronation-chair was used. This is said to have been the only time it was ever carried out of the abbey. 24 THE SKETCH-BOOK. to living greatness 1 — to show it, even in the moment of its proudest exaltation, the neglect and dishonor to which it must 320 soon arrive; how soon that crown which encircles its brow must pass away, and it must lie down in the dust and dis- graces of the tomb, and be trampled upon by the feet of the meanest of the multitude. For, strange to tell, even the grave is here no longer a sanctuary. There is a shocking levity in 325 some natures, which leads them to sport with awful and hal- lowed things ; and there are base minds, which delight to revenge on the illustrious dead the abject homage and grovel- ling servility which they pay to the living. The coffin of Edward the Confessor has been broken open, and his remains 330 despoiled of their funereal ornaments ; the sceptre has been stolen from the hand of the imperious Elizabeth, and the effigy of Henry the Fifth lies headless. Not a royal monument but bears some proof how false and fugitive is the homage of man- kind. Some are plundered, some mutilated ; some covered ^^ with ribaldry and insult, — all more or less outraged and dis- honored ! The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through the painted windows in the high vaults above me ; the lower parts of the abbey were already wrapped in the obscurity of 340 twUight. The chapel and aisles grew darker and darker. The effigies of the kings faded into shadows ; the marble figures of the monuments assumed strange shapes in the un- certain light ; the evening breeze crept through the aisles like the cold breath of the grave ; and even the distant footfall of 345 a verger, traversing the Poets' Corner, had something strange and dreary in its sound. I slowly retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out at the portal of the cloisters, the door, closing with a jarring noise behind me, filled the whole building with echoes. 8«o I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the objects I had been contemplating, but found they were already 333. Henry the Fifth, King of England from 1413 to 1422. WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 25 fallen into indistinctness and confusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies, had all become confounded in my recollection, though I had scarcely taken my foot from off the threshold. What, 355 thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchres but a treasury of humiliation, a huge pile of reiterated homilies on the empti- ness of renown and the certainty of oblivion ! It is, indeed, the empire of Death, — his great shadowy palace, where he sits in state, mocking at the relics of human glory, and spreading 360 dust and forgetfulness on the monuments of princes. How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name ! Time is ever silently turning over his pages ; we are too much engrossed by the story of the present to think of the characters and anecdotes that gave interest to the past ; and each age is a volume thrown ses aside to be speedily forgotten. The idol of to-day pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection ; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of to-morrow. " Our fathers," says Sir Thomas Browne, " find their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors." 370 History fades into fable ; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy ; the inscription moulders from the tablet ; the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, — what are they but heaps of sand, and their epitaphs but characters written in the dust 1 What is the security of a tomb, or the perpetuity 375 of an embalmment] The remains of Alexander the Great have 359. The empire of Death. What is personification ? 369. Sir Thomas Browne, M. D., was a merchant's son, horn in London in 1605 ; was knighted by Charles II. in 1671 ; died in 1682. The Religio Medici (The Religion of a Physician) was his first and most remarkable work. Dr. Johnson says of him, "There is scarce any kind of knowledge, profane or sacred, abstruse or elegant, which he does not appear to have cultivated with success." 374. Epitaph (Gr. iirl, upon ; rd^os, tomb), an inscription on a monument in honor or memory of the dead. 376. Alexander the Great. He was the son of Philip of Macedon ; con- quered Greece, and finally made himself master of the known world : he died B. 0. 324. A stone coffin in the British Museum, found at Alexandria, was fancied by Dr. Clark, the traveller, to be the identical sarcophagus that once contained the body of Alexander. 26 THE SKETCH-BOOK. been scattered to the winds, and his empty sarcophagus is now the mere curiosity of a museum. " The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth ; Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams." sao What, then, is to insure this pile which now towers above me from sharing the fate of mightier mausoleums 1 The time must come when its gilded vaults, which now spring so loftily, shall lie in rubbish beneath the feet ; when, instead of the sound of melody and praise, the wind shall whistle through the brulcen sas arches, and the owl hoot from the shattered tower, — when the garish sunbeam shall break into these gloomy mansions of death, and the ivy twine round the fallen column, and the foxglove hang its blossoms about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the dead. Thus man passes away; his name perishes from record 390 and recollection; his history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin ! 877. Sarcophagus (Gr. (rapKo^dyos, from cdp^, sarx, flesh, and ^a.ye'tv, phagein, to eat ; from a notion that the stone consumed in a few weeks the flesh of bodies deposited in it), a stone coflin or tomb. 378. Mammies. A dead body embalmed and dried after the Egyptian manner. One of the simplest processes was drying by the iise of salt or natron, and wrapping in coarse cloth. The bodies of the rich underwent the most complicated operations ; perfumes were put into the body, it was covered with natron and steeped in it for seventy days ; after this it was washed, steeped in balsam, and wrapped up in linen bandages, sometimes to the num- ber of twenty thicknesses. Various ornaments were placed above the bandages, particularly about the head. Mummies were formerly much used in medicine on account of the balsam they contain. Hence " avarice now consumeth " the mummies which the conquerors of Egypt or " time hath spared." The bodies of great kings may enrich the maker of patent medicine ! 379. Cambyses, King of Persia, conquered Egypt 525 B. c. 380. Mizraim. The first mortal king of Mizraim, " the double land," is said to have been Menes. He inherited Upper Egypt, and made himself mas- ter of Lower Egypt. Menes may be considered the founder of the empire. The word Mizraim here seems to mean the oldest kings or nobles of Egypt. See Genesis, x. 6. Pharaoh. The title of Pharaoh was like that of Czar or Sultan, and given to a series of different dynasties in Egypt. 387. Oarish, glaring, staring. WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 27 SUGGESTIONS OF TOPICS OF INQUIRY. Where is Westminster Abbey ? How is the word minster used ? Who was the founder of the abbey ? Edward the Confessor ? What tradition influenced in selecting the site ? When did the abbey lose its conventual character ? Why ? At what season of the year did Irving visit the abbey ? Is there any fact or description in the sketch that- shows the age of the building ? What were the author's thoughts as he passed from the cloisters into the abbey ? Where do visitors linger longest ? Why ? What epitaijh does Irving notice ? What criticism does he make on it ? What does he think of Mrs. Nightingale's monument ? " Beating against the very walls of the sepulchre." What is the sepul- chre ? Why so called ? Describe the walls and roof of Henry the Seventh's chapel. Where is Henry the Seventh's tomb ? Define mausoleum. " Sure signs of solitariness and desertion." What are the signs ? Why are they signs of solitariness and desertion ? Does Irving favor Mary or Elizabeth in what he says ? Give a reason for your answer. Commit to memory the description of the music of the organ. Who was Edward the Confessor ? " It was literally but a step from the throne to the sepulchre." Explain. What lesson do these " incongruous mementos " teach ? What time of the day was it when Irving left the abbey ? " It is indeed the empire of Death." What is the empire of Death ? " Columns, arches, pyramids, — what are they but heaps of sand, and their epitaphs but characters ivritten in the dust V Explain with special reference to the italicized words. Make short, pointed quotations from this sketch. Give the substance of the last paragraph in fresh words. What is the general character of this sketch ? Description ? Reason for your answer ? THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. POUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE DIEDRICH KNICKER- BOCKER. " A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye ; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, Forever flushing round a summer sky." Castle of Indolence. In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail, and im- plored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there 5 lies a smaU market-town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to 10 linger about the village tavern on market-days. Be that as it Castle of Indolence. A celebrated poem, published in 1748, by James Thomson, who wrote also The Seasons. Bom in 1700 ; died 1748. 3. Tappan Zee. This is ten miles long and four wifle. (Zee — sea. ) 5. St. Nicholas. The original St. Nicholas was bishop of Myra in Lycia. On a voyage to Palestine, it is said, a sailor was drowned, and St. Nicholas restored him to life. A dangerous storm occurred, and the sailors besought him to save them ; he prayed, and the storm ceased. He is identified with the Dutch Santa Glaus, and is the patron saint of children, sailors, travellers, and merchants, also of the Russian nation. St. Nicholas is very often in- voked and alluded to in Irving's humorous History of New York (see Book II. Chapters 2 and 5 ; Book VI. Chapters 4, 8, and 9). 8. Tarrytown is twenty-seven miles from New York. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 29 may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it for the sake of being precise and authentic. Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is one of the is quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a Avood- pecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity. 20 I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel- shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noontime, when all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke the Sabbath stiUness around and was pro- 25 longed and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley. From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar char- 30 acter of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of Sleepy Hollow, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and 35 to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of the settlement ; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is the « 26. Reverberated (Lat. re, back, again ; verherare, to lash, strike ; from verher, a lash), driven back, returned. If ever I should wish for a re- treat, etc. This desire was gratified literally, when Irving was owner of Sunnyside. 39. Powwows. A powwow was a meeting held with incantations before a hunt, a council, a warlike expedition, etc., at which there were feasting, dancing, and great noise and confusion. 40. Hendrick Hudson, The distinguished navigator after whom Hud- 30 THE SKETCH-BOOK. place still continues tinder the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs, are subject to trances and visions, and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions ; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole nine fold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols. The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-baU, in some nameless battle during the Eevolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country-folk hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent son's Bay, Hudson's Straits, and the Hudson River were named. He dis- covered the river in his second great voyage, while seeking to find a north- west passage to Cliina and India. 49. The nightmare, with her whole nine fold, etc. Nightmare is derived from Icelandic mara, a nightmare ; akin to Polish mara, vision, dream ; per- haps Lat. lemures, troublesome nocturnal ghosts. The nightmare was sup- posed to seize men in their sleep, and take away their speech and power to move. " Saint Withold footed thrice the wold ; He met the nightmare and her nine fold, Bid her alight, And her troth plight, Andj'Aroint thee, witch, aroint thee." King Lear, Act III. Sc. 4. 50. Gambols, sportful leapings. See note on this word in The Voyage, p. 3. 51. Dominant (Lat. dominari, to rule ; from dominus, master), prevailing, ruling. 54. Hessian. In 1776 the British government hired of petty German princes about 16,000 troops. They were called Hessians, because most of them belonged to Hesse-Cassel, a province of Western Germany. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 31 roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great eo distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the body of the trooper having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head ; es and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak. Such* is the general purport of this legendary superstition, 70 which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows ; and the spectre is known at all the country firesides by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have men- 75 tioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by every one who resides there for a time. However wide awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow so imaginative, to dream dreams and see apparitions. I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud ; for it is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there em- bosomed in the great State of New York, that population, manners, and customs remain fixed ; while the great torrent as of migration and improvement, which is making such incessant 62, Collating (Lat. conferre, coHaium, to bring together), laying together and comparing, by examining the points in which two or more things of a similar kind agree or disagree. The word is applied particularly to passages in manuscripts and books. 70. Purport (Old Fr. pourporter, declare, make known ; Lat. pro, forth, 3.nd. portare, to carry), design, tendency, meaning, import. 77, 78. Every one .... they. Is this an error in the number of the pro- noun? 82. Laud (Lat. laus, laudis, praise), praise, commendation. 86. Migration (Lat. migrare, to quit or leave a place), change of residence, removal. 32 THE SKETCH-BOOK. changes in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still water which border a rapid stream, where we may see the straw and bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in their 90 mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing current. Though many years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should not still find the same trees and the same families vegetating in its sheltered bosom. 95 In this by-place of nature there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane ; who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, "tarried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a 100 native of Connecticut, a State which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodmen and country schoolmasters. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms 105 and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weathercock perched upon his spindle neck to tell no which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the pro- file of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the 94. Vegetating, living like vegetables or plants. The word is peculiarly appropriate to human life in Sleepy Hollow. 96. Bemote period .... some thirty years since. Notice the seeming contradiction. To Irving's quiet humor thii-ty years is a long period in our fast American life. 98. Wight (akin to whit, a small part), a creature, person, being. The ■word is nearly obsolete, except in slight contempt or irony. 104. Cogno'men (Lat. con, with; nomen, name), the last of the three names ■which belonged to all Romans of good family ; surname. 109. Snipe nose. The snipe is a small bird with a very long bill. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 33 genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield. lu His school-house was a low building of one large room, rudely constructed of logs ; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched with leaves of old copy-books. It was most ingeniously secured at vacant hours by a withe twisted in the handle of the door, and stakes set against the window-shutters ; so that, though 120 a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would find some em- barrassment in getting out, — an idea most probably borrowed I by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery of an eel-pot. The school-house stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running 123 close by, and a formidable birch-tree growing at one end of it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard in a drowsy summer's day, like the hum of a beehive ; interrupted now and then by the authori- tative voice of the master, in the tone of menace or command ; is" or, peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch as he urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim, *' Spare the rod and spoil the child." Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly were not spoiled. 135 I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those cruel potentates of the school who joy in the smart of their subjects ; on the contrary, he administered justice with discrimi- nation rather than severity, taking the burthen ofi" the backs of the weak, and laying it on those of the strong. Your mere 140 puny stripling, that winced at the least flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence ; but the claims of justice were satis- 119. Withe, a band consisting of a twig or twigs twisted, used for tying or binding. 124. Eel-pot, a basket-like trap for catching eels. 126. Formidable (Lat. formido, dread), exciting great fear, calculated to inspire dread. Lines 130 to 135 show the appropriateness of this epithet : "Spare the rod," etc. Hicdibras, by Samuel Butler, 1612-1680. "He that spareth his rod hateth his son." Proverbs xiii. 24. 141. Winced (akin to wink), made a sudden shrinking movement. 34 THE SKETCH-BOOK. fied by inflicting a double portion on some little tough, -wrong- headed, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he ms called " doing his duty by their parents " ; and he never in- flicted a chastisement without following it by the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin, that " he would remember it and thank him for it the longest day he had to live." When school-hours were over, he was even the companion 150 and playmate of the larger boys ; and on holiday afternoons would convoy some of the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed, it behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising from his iss school was small, and would have been scarcely sufficient to ' furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder, and, though lank, had the dilating powers of an anaconda ; but to help out his maintenance, he was, according to country custom in those parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers leo whose children he instructed. With these he lived succes- sively a week at a time ; thus going the rounds of the neigh- borhood, with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton hand- kerchief. That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his iss rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms, helped to make hay, mended the fences, took the horses 170 to water, drove the cows from pasture, and cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant dignity and 144, Urchin (Lat. ericius, hedgehog ; the urchin figures extensively in •witchcraft and demonology, and the word sometimes stands for a mischievous spirit), roguish boy, 154. Comforts of the cupboard. The description of the tea-table at Van Tassel's on a subsequent page fully explains this expression. 158. Dilating powers, etc. The anaconda is noted for swallowing large animals. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 35 absolute sway with which he lorded it in his little empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers by petting the children, 175 particularly the youngest ; and Hke the Uon bold, which whilom so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on one knee, and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours together. In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master iso of the neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by instructing the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him, on Sundays, to take his station in front of the church gallery, with a band of chosen singers ; where, in his own ^ind, he completely carried away the palm from the iss parson. 'Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all the rest of the congregation ; and there are peculiar quavers still to be heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a mile off, quite to the opposite side of the mill-pond, on a stiU Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately descended from the 190 nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers little makeshifts, in 174. Ingratiating (Lat. in, in, and gratia, favor), commending one's self to the favor of another ; insinuating. 176. Whilom (A.-S. hwilum, sometime, at times), formerly, of old. The lion bold, etc. In the Neio England Primer there is a qneer illuminated alphabet ; each letter is the initial of the principal word in a rude couplet. A lion whose paw rests protectingly on a lamb, by the aid of the following lines points out the letter L : — " The Lion bold The Lamb doth hold." 177. Magnanimously (Lat. magnus, great ; ani7niis, sonl ; -?y, like), like a great soal. 180. Vopatio)is (Lat. vocare, to call), calling, trade, business, occupation. 182. Psalmody, psalm-singing. 185. Carried away the palm. Wreaths or branches of palm were worn in token of victory ; hence the word signifies victorj', triumph. The expres- sion here means that Ichabod surpassed the parson in importance and ex- cellence. 187. Quavers, shakings or tremblings of the voice in singing. Their nasal character is forcibly described by the phrase " descended from the nose of Ichabod Crane " ! 36 THE SKETCH-BOOK. that ingenious way which is commonly denominated " by hook and by crook," the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was thought, by aU who understood nothing of the labor of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it, jg^ The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female circle of a rural neighborhood, being considered a kind of idle, gentlemanlike personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed, in- ferior in learning only to the parson. His appearance, therefore, 200 is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver teapot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the ais churchyard, between services on Sundays ! gathering grapes for them from the wild vines that overran the surrounding trees ; reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones ; or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the adjacent mill-pond ; while the more bashful country bump- 210 kins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance and address. From his half-itinerant life, also, he was a kind of travelling gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to 192. By hook and by crook, by any means direct or indirect. It is sometimes said that this proverb owes its origin to a place called the Crook in Waterford Harbor, Ireland, over against the tower of the Hook. It is safe to land on one side when the wind drives from the other. 200. See Goldsmith's Deserted Village, where the parson and the school- master are the principal characters. 202. Supernumerary (Lat. super, over ; nurnSrus, number), extra, in ad- dition to the usual or needful number. 209. Sauntering, wandering about idly. Dr. Johnson derives the word from Sainte Terre (Fr.), the Holy Land, because in crusading times idle fel- lows, who loitered about asking charity, and who had no definite plans or work in view, or were unwilling to disclose them, would say they were going d la Sainte Terre. "The radical meaning \oi saunter'] would seem to be to trail or drag along." Wedgwood. Akin to Ger. schlentcm and schlendem, to wander idly about, to loiter. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 37 house, so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfac- 213 tion. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's History of New England Witchcraft, in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed. 220 He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvellous, and his powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by his residence in this spellbound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. 225 It was often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover bordering the little brook that whimpered by his school-house, and there con over old Mather's direful tales, until the gathering dusk of the evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. 230 Then, as he wended his way by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching ham, fluttered his r?<-^e'osLri excited imagination, — the moan of the whippoorwill* from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of 235 storm, the dreary hooting of the screech-owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon bright- 218. Cotton Mather, son of Increase Mather and grandson of John Cot- ton. He was born in Boston in 1663, was graduated at Harvard College in 1678, was ordained minister in Boston in 1684, and died in 1728. He has been blamed for his persecution of the supposed witches ; but he sincerely- believed he was serving God in " witch-hunting." He was a profound and industrious scholar. A contemporary declared that there were "hardly any books in existence with which Cotton Mather was not acquainted." His own publications number three hundred and eighty-two. 235. Boding (A.-S. hod, command ; hoda, messenger ; hodian, to make an announcement : akin to hid), portending evil, menacing. * The whippoorwill is a bird which is only heard at night. It receives its name ixovn its note, which is thought to resemble those words. 38 THE SKETCH-BOOK. ness would stream across his path ; and if by chance a huge 240 "blockhead of a beetle came winging his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token. His only re- source on such occasions, either to drown thought or drive away 245 evil spirits, was to sing psalm-tunes ; and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe at hearing his nasal melody, " in linked sweetness long drawn out," floating from the distant hill or along the dusky road. Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long 250 winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row o-f apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless 255 horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they some- times called him. He would delight them equaUy by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and porten- tous sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut ; and would frighten them wofully with 260 speculations upon comets and shooting stars ; and with the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn round, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy ! But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling in the chimney-corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow 26s from the crackling wood-fire, and where, of course, no spectre dared to show its face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk homewards. "What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night ! With what wistful look did he eye every 270 trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some distant window ! How often was he appalled by some 247. Linked sweetness. See in Milton's D Allegro the line " Of linked sweetness long drawn out." 263. Topsy-turvy (shortened from "top side t' other way"), upside down. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 39 shrub covered with snow, which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path ! How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his 275 feet, and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him ! and how often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling among the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of his nightly scourings ! aso All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness ; and though he had seen many spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely perambulations, yet day- light put an end to all these evils ; and he would have passed 285 a pleasant life of it, in despite of the devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more per- plexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was — a woman. Among the musical disciples who assembled one evening in 290 each week to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen ; plump as a partridge, ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her father's peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her 205 beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal a httle of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold which her great-great-grandmother had brought over from Saar- 300 dam ; the tempting stomacher of the olden time, and withal a 274. Curdling awe. Terror is poetically supposed to cliill and curdle the blood. 284. Perambulations {per, through ; ambulare, to walk), walkings about, stroUings. 300. Saardam, a town in Holland. 301. Stomacher, the front body-piece of a lady's dress, being an orna- ment orsupport. Withal, along with the rest, likewise. 40 THE SKETCH-BOOK. provokingly short petticoat, to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country round. Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the sex ; and it is not to be wondered at that so tempting a morsel soon 305 found favor in his eyes, — more especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm ; but within those everything 310 was snug, happy, and well-conditioned. He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it ; and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance, rather than the style in which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks in which the Dutch 315 farmers are so fond of nestling. A great elm-tree spread its broad branches over it, at the foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well formed of a barrel, and then stole sparkling away through the grass, to a neighboring brook, that bubbled along among alders and 320 dwarf willows. Hard by the farmhouse was a vast barn, that might have served for a church, every window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm ; the flail was busily resounding within it from morning to night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the eaves; and sa rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their heads under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others, swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and s* abundance of their pens, whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squad- ron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoy- ing whole fleets of ducks ; regiments of turkeys were gobbling 312. Piqued, prided or valued. 333. Convoying (Fr. convoyer, from Lat. con, with ; via, a way, route), accompanying for the purpose of protecting, as a war-ship convoys merchant- vessels. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 41 through the farmyard, and guinea-fowls fretting about it, 33J like ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. Before the barn-door strutted the gallant cock, that pat- tern of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished wings, and crowing in the pride and glad- ness of his heart, — sometimes tearing up the earth with his 340 feet, and then generously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had dis- covered. The pedagogue's mouth watered as he looked upon his sump- , tuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring 3« y mind's eye he pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth ; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust ; the geese were swimming in their own gravy, and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like 350 snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon and juicy relishing ham ; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, and, per- adventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and even bright 355 chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back in a side-dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chival- rous spirit disdained to ask while living. As the enraptured Ichabod fancied aU this, and as he rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadow-lands, the rich fields sco of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat and Indian corn, and the orchards burthened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tene- ment of Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit these domains, and his imagination expanded with the idea, how they might be readily turned into cash, and the 365 346. Mind's eye. "In my mind's eye, Horatio." Hamlet, Act. I. Sc. 2. So, in line 347, the expression " pudding in his belly " is from Shakespeare. Notice the description of the Van Tassel farm. Throughout the sketch the main idea we gain of the place is expressed by the words " hearty abun- dance," which are used to show the farmer's own idea of his homestead. 42 THE SKETCH-BOOK. money invested in immense tracts of wild laud, and shingle palaces in the wilderness. ]^ay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, witli pots and kettles dangling sro beneath ; and he beheld himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, or the Lord knows where. When he entered the house the conquest of his heart was complete. It was one of those spacious farmhouses, with high- 375 ridged, but lowly-sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from the first Dutch settlers ; the low projecting eaves forming a piazza along the front, capable of being closed up in bad weather. Under this were hung flails, harness, various utensils : of husbandry, and nets for fishing in the neighboring river, sw Benches were built along the sides for summer use ; and a great spinning-wheel at one end, and a churn at the other, showed the various uses to which this important porch might be de- voted. From this piazza the wandering Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the centre of the mansion and the place of sss usual residence. Here, rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag of wool ready to be spun ; in another a quantity of linsey- woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings 372. Setting out for Kentucky, etc. When this sketch was wiitten, be- fore the days of railroads, these States were thought to he at a very great dis- tance from New York. Ichabod plans to make the journey in an emigrant wagon. He is a striking contrast to the people of Sleepy Hollow, and would never stay long in one place. It is not hard to decide which has the greater charm for him, Katrina or the property to which she is the heiress. 382. Spinning-wheel. The old-fashioned spinning-wheel, which once graced every farmhouse, and supplied the thread for the homespun garments, was a large wheel worked by a treadle. It gave swift motion to a spindle on whicli the thread or yarn was wound. 387. Dresser, a table or bench on which meat and other viands are dressed or prepared for use ; and on which things are arranged or placed, as here the vessels or dishes made of pewter. 388. Linsey-woolsey, coarse cloth made of linen and wool. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 43 of dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the 390 wall, mingled with the gaud of red peppers ; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors ; andirons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops ; mock oranges and conch-shells dec- 395 orated the mantel-piece ; strings of various-colored bird's-eggs were suspended above it ; a great ostrich egg was hung from the centre of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense treasures of old silver and weU-mended china. 400 From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was how to gain the affections of the peerless daughter . of Van Tassel. In this enterprise, however, he had more real A'difficulties than generally feU to the lot of a knight-errant of *» vT^yore, who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters, fiery \ydragons, and such like easily conquered adversaries, to contend ^ with ; and had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass, and walls of adamant, to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart was confined, — all which he achieved as 410 easily as a man would carve his way to the centre of a Christ- 390. Festoons (Fr. feston ; Ital. festone, a great wreath, garland, or chaplet of lioiighs, leaves, or flowers on church doors at feasts ; from Lat. festa, pi. oi festum, festus dies, a holiday), wreaths hanging in dependent curves. 393. Andirons, brand or fire irons, upon which wood is laid in a fireplace. 395. Covert of asparagus tops. In summer the fireplace is often filled with asparagus tops. Mock oranges. Probably the author means orange gourds. They are shaped like oranges, yellow, white, or variegated in color, and are used for ornament. 405. Knight-errant (plural, knights-errant. From A.-S. cnight, boy, ser- vant ; Ger. knecht ; Eng. knight, a fighting man, a soldier who fought on horseback in armor ; errant, wandering, from Lat. errare, to wander), a wandering knight. He travelled in search of adventures, for the purpose of exhibiting military skill, prowess, and generosity. 409. Castle keep, the donjon of ancient castles, the stronghold to which the besieged inmates retired in cases of danger, and there made their last de- fence ; also \ised as a prison for captives. 44 THE SKETCH-BOOK. mas pie ; and then the lady gave him her hand as a matter of course. Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way to the heart of a country coquette, beset with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were forever presenting new difficulties and 415 impediments ; and he had to encounter a host of fearful adver- saries of real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic admirers who beset every portal to her heart, keeping a watchful and angry eye upon each other, but ready to fly out in the common cause against any new competitor. *» Among these the most formidable was a burly, roaring, rois- tering blade, of the name of Abraham, or, according to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom Van Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rang with his feats of strength and hardihood. He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with short, curly 425 black hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant countenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. From his herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had received the nickname of Brom Bones, by which he was universally known. He was famed for great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as 430 dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost at all races and cock-fights ; and, with the ascendency which bodily strength acquires in rustic life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side, and giving his decisions with an air and tone admitting of no gainsay or appeal. He was always 435 ready for either a tight or a frolic, but had more mischief than 414. Labyrinth (Lat. labyrinthus), a building or place full of intricate ways or winding passages, out of which it is difficult to find one's way. 427. Herculean, having the size and strength of Hercules, powerful. Her- cules is perhaps the greatest hero in Greek mythology. He was famous for his great strength and the incredible feats he performed, generally called "the twelve labors of Hercules." 431. Tartar, an inhabitant of Tartary, a country formerly occupying nearly all the great central belt of Asia from the Caspian Sea eastward. The Tartars were noted for their skill in horsemanship. 433. Tlmpire (Old Fr. nompair, uneven, odd; from Lat. non, par, not equal, not even : an umjiire being chosen by two, four, or other even number, to give his casting vote and so make a majority one way or the other), a third party to whom a dispute or disagreement is referred for settlement. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 45 ill-will in his composition ; and, Avith all his overbearing rough- ness, there was a strong dash of waggish good-humor at bottom. He had three or four boon companions, who regarded him as their model, and at the head of whom he scoured the country, «o attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles round. In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting fox's tail ; and when the folks at a country gathering descried this well-known crest at a distance, whisking about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for 445 a squall. Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along past the farmhouses at midnight, with whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don Cossacks ; and the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, " Aye, there goes Brom Bones 450 and his gang ! " The neighbors looked upon him with a mix- ture of awe, admiration, and good-will ; and when any madcap prank or rustic brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted Brom Bones was at the bottom of it. This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the bloom- 455 ing Katrina for the object of his uncouth gallantries ; and though his amorous toyings were something like the gentle caresses and eiidearments of a bear, yet it was whispered that she did not altogether discourage his hopes. Certain it is his advances were signals for rival candidates to retire, who felt no 46o inclination to cross a lion in his amours ; insomuch that, when his horse was seen tied to Van Tassel's paling on a Sunday night, a sure sign that his master was courting, or, as it is termed, " sparking," within, all other suitors passed by in de- spair, and carried the war into other quarters. 466 439. Boon (Fr. bon ; Lat. bonus, good), gay, merry, jovial. 443. Flaunting. See note on flaunted, p. 4. 448. Don Cossacks, Cossacks of the river Don. The Cossacks are very skilful horsemen, almost always on horseback, and happy when scoiiring the open lields. 455. Bantipole {to rant is to rave, swagger, make a great noise or up- roar. The pole is said to mean in this word the plank used in the game of see-saw), harum-scarum. 46 THE SKETCH-BOOK. tWSuoll fas the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to contend, and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man would have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature : he was in form and 470 spirit like a supiple-jack, — yielding, but tough ; though he bent, he never broke ; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away — jerk ! he was as erect, and carried his head as high as ever. To have taken the field openly against his rival would have 475 been madness ; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours, any more than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made his advances in a quiet and gently insinuating manner. Under cover of his character of singing-master, he made frequent visits at the farmhouse ; not that he had any- *8o thing to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents, which is so often a stumbling-block in the path of lovers. Bait Van Tassel was an easy, indulgent soul ; he loved his daughter better even than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an excellent father, let her have her way in everything. His 486 notable little wife, too, had enough to do to attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry ; for, as she sagely ob- served, ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves. Thus, while the busy dame bustled about the house, or plied her spinning-wheel 490 at one end of the piazza, honest Bait would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching the achievements of a little wooden warrior, who, armed with a sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pinnacle of the barn. In the mean time Ichabod would carry on his suit with the 495 471. Supple-jack, the common name of a vine wliich grows in Virginia and farther south. Walking-sticks, called supple-jack canes, are made of it. Supple is from Fr. souph, limber, apparently from Lat. supplicare, to bend the knee ; possibly from Gaelic subailt, mpail, flexible, supple. 477. Achilles, the bravest of the Greek warriors at the siege of Troy, and distinguished for his heroic actions. See Homer's Iliad, Book I. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 47 daughter by the side of the spring under the great elp||> or* sauntering along in the twilight, that hour so favorable to the lover's eloquence. I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration, soo Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access ; while others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter ; for a man must battle for his fortress 505 at every door and window. He who wins a thousand common hearts is therefore entitled to some renown ; but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero. Certain it is this was not the case with the redoubtable Brom Bones ; and from the moment Ichabod Crane made his advances, no the interests of the former evidently declined : his horse was no longer seen tied at the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud gradually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy HoUow. Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, J15 would fain have carried matters to open warfare, and have settled their pretensions to the lady according to the mode of those most concise and simple reasoners, the knights-errant of yore, — by single combat ; but Ichabod was too conscious of the superior might of his adversary to enter the lists against him ; he had s2o overheard a boast of Bones that he would " double the school- master up, and lay him on a shelf of his own school-house " ; and he was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was something extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific sys- tem ; it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds 525 of rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play off boorish practical jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became the object of 501. Vulnerable (Lat. vulnus, a wound), capable of being wounded. 509. Redoubtable (Fr. redouter, to dread), formidable. The word is often used, as here, with slight contempt or in burlesque. 513. Preceptor (Lat. prcecipio, to instruct), a teacher, instructor. 48 ' THE SKETCH-BOOK. 1 Whinljcal persecution to Bones and Hs gang of rough-riders. They harried his hitherto peaceful domains, smoked out his singing-school by stopping up the chimney, broke into the sso school-house at night, in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe and window-stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy, so that the poor schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the country held their meetings there. But what was still more annoying, Brom took all opportunities of turning him into ridi-/53»- cule in presence of his mistress, and had a scoundrel dog whanx-^ he taught to whine in the most ludicrous manner, and intro- duced as a rival of Ichabod's to instruct her in psalmody. In this way matters went on for some time, without producing any material effect on the relative situation of the contending 540 powers. On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool whence he usually watched all the concerns of his little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power ; the birch of justice reposed on three nails beliind the throne, a constant terror 545 to evil-doers ; while on the desk before him might be seen sun- dry contraband articles and prohibited weapons, detected upon the persons of idle urchins, such as half-munched apples, pop- guns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant little paper game-cocks. Apparently there had been some appalling 550 act of justice recently inflicted, for his scholars were all busily intent upon their books, or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the master, and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout the school-room. It was suddenly inter- rupted by the appearance of a negro, in tow-cloth jacket and 555 trousers, a round-crowned fragment of a hat, like the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, half-broken 529. Harried (Fr. harrier, to molest, vex ; harer, to set on a dog to attack; some deduce it from A.-S. hergian, to pillage), harassed, vexed. 536. Dog whom. Is this a correct use of the relative pronoun ? 547. Contraband (Ital. contrahbando, goods prohibited by law ; from Lat. contra, against, and Low Lat. bannum, an edict), forbidden. 557. Mercury, the messenger of the gods, usually employed on Jupiter's errands. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 49 colt, which he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came clattering up to the school door, with an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merry-making, or " quilting frolic," to be held that sm evening at Mynheer Van Tassel's ; and having delivered his message with that air of importance and effort at fine language which a negro is apt to display on petty embassies of the kind, he dashed over the brook, and was seen scampering away up the Hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his mission. scs All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet school-room. The scholars were hurried through their lessons without stopping at trifles ; those who were nimble skipped over half with im- punity, and those who were tardy had a smart apjDlication now and then in the rear, to quicken their speed or help them over 570 a tall word. Books were flung aside without being put away on the shelves ; inkstands were overturned, benches thrown down, and the whole school was turned loose an hour before the usual time, bursting forth like a legion of young imps, yelping and racketing about the green in joy at their early emancipa- 575 tion. The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half-hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best, and, indeed, only suit of rusty black, and arranging his locks by a bit of broken looking-glass that hung up in the school-house. That he might sso make his appearance before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he 560. Quilting frolic or quilting-bee. A quilt was commonly made of small pieces of calico sewed together witli some order and regularity. It was lined, and perhaps had a thin layer of cotton between the two surfaces, and was then stretched smooth on a frame. It was next to be quilted. Tliis im- portant operation was performed by a company of women invited for the pur- pose. Tea followed, and dancing, with games : other amusements closed the entertainment. "Now were instituted 'quilting-bees,' and 'husking-bees,' and other rural assemblages, where, under the inspiring influence of the fiddle, toil was enlivened by gayety and followed up by the dance." History of New York, Book VII. Chap. 2. 563. Embassies, ofiicial missions, diplomatic sendings. 5S2. Cavalier (Fr. chevalier, a horseman, ivom. cheval, a horse ; Lat. cabal- lus, a nag, packhorse), a horse-soldier, armed horseman, knight. 50 THE SKETCH-BOOK. was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchmein of the name of Hans Van Eipper, and, thus gallantly mounted, issued forth like a knight-errant in quest of adventures. But it is meet I should, sss in the true spirit of romantic story, give some account of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The animal he hestrode was a broken-down plough-horse, that had outlived almost everything but his viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck, and a head like a hammer ; his rusty sao mane and tail were tangled and knotted with burrs ; one eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring and spectral ; but the other had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still he must have had fire and mettle in his day, if we may judge from the name he bore of Gunpowder. He had, in fact, been a favorite steed of S9s his master's, the choleric Van Eipper, who was a furious rider, and had infused, very probably, some of his own spirit into the animal ; for, old and broken down as he looked, there was more of the lurking devO. in him than in any young fiUy in the country. eoo Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pom- mel of the saddle; his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers'; he carried his whip perpendicularly in his hand, like a sceptre, and, as his horse jogged on, the motion of his arms was not cos unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip of forehead might be called ; and the skirts of his black coat fluttered out almost to the horse's tail. Such was the appearance of Ichabod and his steed, as they shambled out of the gate of Hans Van Ripper, eio and it was altogether such an apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad daylight. It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day ; the sky was 583. Choleric (Gr. xok-f), bile), easily angered, irascible, prone to fits of anger. Domiciliated, settled in a domicil or house of abode. 599. Filly (a diminutive iromfoal), a mare under three years old. 613, etc. The paragraphs of description, beginning "It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day," present an autumn scene with great vividness, accu- racy, and beauty ; the brilliant trees, the birds, the abundant harvest, sun- set on the still Hudson. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 51 clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The sis forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet. Streaming files of wild ducks began to make their appearance high in the air ; the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of 620 beech and hickory nuts, and the pensive whistle of the quail at intervals from the neighboring stubble-field. The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the fulness of their revelry they fluttered, chirping^ and frolicking, from bush to bush and tree to tree, capricious from the very 625 profusion and variety around them. There was the honest cock-robin, the favorite game of stripling sportsmen, with its loud, querulous note ; and the twittering blackbirds flying in sable clouds ; and the golden-winged woodpecker, with his crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and splendid plumage ; eso and the cedar-bird, with its red-tipped wings and yellow-tipped tail, and its little monteiro cap of feathers ; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his gay ligit-blue coat and white under- clothes, screaming and chattering, nodding and bobbing and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with every songster ^ of the grove. As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly autumn. On all sides he beheld vast stores of apples, some hanging in oppressive opulence on m the trees, some gathered into baskets and barrels for the mar- ket, others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out the promise of cakes and hasty-pudding; and the yellow pumpkins lying be- m neath them, turning up their fair round bellies to the sun, and 632. Monteiro. Meaning? 638. Culinary (Lat. culina, a kitchen, food), relating to the kitchen or to the art of cookery ; used in the kitchen. 52 THE SKETCH-BOOK. giving ample prospects of the most luxurious of pies ; and anon lie passed the fragrant buckwheat-fields, breathing the odor of the beehive, and as he beheld them, soft anticipations stole over his mind of dainty slap-jacks, well buttered, and garnished ^'^ with honey or treacle, by the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel. Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and " su- gared suppositions," he journeyed along the sides of a range of hills which look out upon some of the goodliest scenes of the sm mighty Hudson, The sun gradually wheeled his broad disk down into the west. The wide bosom of the Tappan Zee lay motionless and glassy, except that here and there a gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue shadow of the dis- tant mountain. A few amber clouds floated in the sky, with- eeo out a breath of air to move them. The horizon was of a fine golden tint, changing gradually into a pure apple green, and from that into the deep blue of the mid-heaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the precipices that over- hung some parts of the river, giving greater depth to the dark- ees gray and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast ; and as the reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if the vessel was suspended in the air. . m It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle of the Herr Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and flower of the adjacent country : old farmers, a spare, leathern-faced race, in homespun coats and breeches, blue stockings, huge shoes, and magnificent pewter buckles ; their era brisk withered little dames, in close crimped caps, long-waisted 651. Treacle (" From the old confection called triacle, which was supposed to be a sovereign remedy against poison, and was named from Middle Greek tlierion, a viper, either because it was good against the bite of vipers, or be- cause it was supposed to be made of viper's flesh." Wedgwood), sugar spume, sugar syrup, molasses. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 53 short gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and pincushions, and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside ; buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers, excepting where a straw hat, a fine ribband, or perhaps a white frock, gave symptoms of gso city innovation ; the sons, in short square-skirted coats with rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their hair generally queued in the fashion of the times, especially if they could procure an eel-skin for the purpose, it being esteemed through- out the country as a potent nourisher and strengthener of the ess hair. Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having come to the gathering on his favorite steed Daredevil, a crea- ture, like himself, full of mettle and mischief, and which no one but himself could manage. He was, in fact, noted for ego preferring vicious animals, given to all kinds of tricks, which kept the rider in constant risk of his neck ; for he held a tractable, well-broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit. Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that burst upon the enraptured gaze of my hero as he entered the eos state parlor of Van Tassel's mansion, — not those of the bevy of buxom lasses, with their luxurious display of red and white, but the ample charms of a genuine Dutch country tea-table, in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped-up platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only 700 to experienced Dutch housewives ! There was the doughty doughnut, the tenderer oly koek, and the crisp and crumbling cruller ; sweet-cakes and short-cakes, ginger-cakes and honey- cakes, and the whole family of cakes. And then there were apple-pies and peach-pies and pumpkin-pies ; besides slices of ros 677. With scissors and pincnsMons, and gay oalioo pockets, etc. See History of New Yoi-k, Book III. Chap. 4. 683. Queued (Fr. queue, a tail ; Lat. cauda, tail), twisted or braided into a tail or pendant. 696. Bevy (Fr. bevee, a flock of qiiails, larks, etc.), a company (of ladies or girls). 702. Oly koek (Dutch oliekoek, oil-cake), a cake fried in lard. There are many kinds, as crullers, doughnuts, etc. 54 THE SKETCH-BOOK. ham and smoked beef ; and, moreover, delectable dishes of pre- served plums and peaches and pears and quinces, not to men- tion broiled shad and roasted chickens, together with bowls of milk and cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much as I have enumerated them, with the motherly teapot sending up no its clouds of vapor from the midst — Heaven bless the mark ! I want breath and time to discuss this banquet as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry as his historian, but did ample justice to every dainty. 715 He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer, and whose spirits rose with eating as some men's do with drink. He could not help, too, rolKng his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility that he might one day be lord 720 of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendor. Then he thought how soon he 'd turn his back upon the old school-house, snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van Ripper and every other niggardly patron, and kick any itinerant peda- gogue out of doors that should dare to call him comrade. 725 Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with a face dilated with content and good-humor, round and jolly as the harvest moon. His hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being confined to a shake of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, a loud laugh, and a pressing invitation to " fall to, 730 and help themselves." - And now the sound of the music from the common room or hall summoned to the dance. The musician was an old gray-headed negro, who had been the itinerant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than half a century. His instrument 735 709. Higgledy-piggledy, in confusion. 724. Niggardly ("The habit of attention to minute gains in earning money is closely connected with a careful unwillingness to spend, and the primary meaning of niggard is one who scrapes up money by little and little." Wedgwood), stingy. Itinerant (Lat. iter, itineris, journey), travel- ling, in the habit of joiimeying from place to place. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 55 was as old and battered as himself. The greater part of the time he scraped on two or three strings, accomiDanying every movement of the bow with amotion of the head, bowing almost to the ground and stamping with his foot whenever a fresh couple were to start. 740 Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon his vocal powers. I^ot a limb, not a fibre about him was idle ; and to have seen his loosely hung frame in full motion, and clattering about the room, you would have thought St. Vitus himself, that blessed patron of the dance, was figuring before you in person'. 745 He was the admiration of all the negroes, who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm and the neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid of shining black faces at every door and window, gazing with delight at the scene, rolling their white eyeballs, and showing grinning rows of ivory from ear to ear. 750 How could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and joyous ] The lady of his heart was his partner in the dance, and smiling graciously in reply to aU his amorous oglings ; while Brom Bones, sorely smitten with love and jeal- ousy, sat brooding by himself in one corner. 755 When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a knot of the sager folks, who, with old Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the piazza, gossiping over former times, and draw- ing out long stories about the war. This neighborhood, at the time of which I am speaking, was 76o one of those highly favored places which abound with chronicle and great men. The British and American line had run near 744. St. Vitus. He is said to have been the son of a noble Sicilian, and to have been secretly brought up in the Christian faith by his nurse. It is related that his father beat and imprisoned him, to force him to renounce his religion, but that, while in the dungeon, his father looked through the keyhole and saw him dancing with seven beautiful angels. He is sometimes assumed to be the patron saint of dancers and actors, and is invoked against the nervous disease, St. Vitus' dance. 751. Flo|^ger of urchins. Ichabod has various names and epithets, — " the flogger of urchins," "a worthy wight," "a Imge feeder," "worthy peda- gogue," "the enraptured Icliabod," "a kind and thankful creature," etc. Is there any special appropriateness in each ? 56 THE SKETCH-BOOK. it during the war ; it had, therefore, been the scene of marauding, and infested with refugees, cow-boys, and all kinds of border chivalry. Just sufficient time had elapsed to enable each story- 765 teller to dress up his tale with a little becoming fiction, and, in the indistinctness of his recollection, to make himself the hero of every exploit. There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue-bearded Dutchman, who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old rro iron nine-pounder from a mud breastwork, oidy that his gun burst at the sixth discharge. And there was an old gentleman who shall be nameless, being too rich a mynheer to be lightly mentioned, who, in the battle of White Plains, being an excellent master of defence, parried a musket-ball with a small-sword, 775 insomuch that he absolutely felt it whiz round the blade, and glance off at the hilt : in proof of which he was ready at any time to show the sword, with the hilt a little bent. There were several more that had been equally great in the field, not one of whom but was persuaded that he had a considerable hand in 78o bringing the war to a happy termination. But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and appari- tions that succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legendary treasures of the kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive best in these sheltered long-settled retreats ; but are trampled under rss foot by the shifting throng that forms the population of most of our country places. Besides, there is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have scarcely had time to finish their first nap, and turn themselves in their graves, before their surviving friends have travelled away from the 790 neighborhood ; so that when they turn out at night to walk 764. Cow-boys, a band of plunderers in the time of the American Revo- lution. They infested the "neutral gi-ound " lying between the American and British lines, and robbed all those who had taken the oath of allegiance to the Continental Congress. 773. Mynheer (Ger. mein, my; herr, sir, lord). A Dutch word meaning Sir, Mr., or my lord ; in English use, a Dutchman. 774. "White Plains. An indecisive engagement between the Americans and British took place here, October 28, 1776. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 57 their rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts, except in our long-established Dutch communities. The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of super- ras natural stories in these parts, was doubtless owing to the vicin- ity of Sleepy Hollow. There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region ; it breathed forth an atmos- phere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land. Several of the Sleepy Hollow people were present at Van Tassel's, and, £oo as usual, were doling out their wild and wonderful legends. ISIany dismal tales were told about funeral trains, and mourning cries and wailings heard and seen about the great tree where the unfortunate Major Andre was taken, and which stood in the neighborhood. Some mention was made also of the woman sos in white that haunted the dark glen at Eaven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a storm, having perished there in the snow. The chief part of the stories, how- ever, turned upon the favorite spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman, who had been heard several times of late, sio patrolling the country ; and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard. The sequestered situation of this church seems always to have made it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll surrounded by locust-trees and lofty elms, from among gis which its decent whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through the shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet of water, bordered by high trees, between which peeps may be caught at the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where 820 804. Major Andr^. John Andre, the British agent in the affairs of Arnold's treason, was captured September 23, 1780, by three niilitia-meu, who refused the large bribes he offered for his release, and delivered him xip to the mili- tary authorities. He was hanged as a spy, and his body was buried under the gallows at Tappan, near the Hudson River ; but in 1821 his remains were delivered to the English, on petition of the Duke of York, and were placed in a grave near a monument erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey. 813. Sequestered (Lat. sequestrare, to seclude), secluded. 58 THE SKETCH-BOOK. the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, oue would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace. On one side of the church extends a wide woody dell, along which raves a large brook among broken rocks and trunks of fallen trees. Over a deep black part of the stream, not far from the church, was szs formerly thrown a wooden bridge ; the road that led to it, and the bridge itself, were thickly shaded by overhanging trees, which cast a gloom about it, even in the daytime, but occasioned a fearful darkness at night. Such was one of the favorite haunts of the headless horseman, and the place where he was most fre- sao quently encountered. The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the horseman re- turning from his foray into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged to get up behind him ; how they galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge ; when the gss horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer into the brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap of thunder. This story was immediately matched by a thrice marvellous adventure of Brom Bones, who made light of the Galloping aw Hessian as an arrant jockey. He affirmed that, on returning one night from the neighboring village of Sing-Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper ; that he had offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but, just as 845 they came to the church bridge, the Hessian bolted, and van- ished in a flash of fire. All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which men talk in the dark, the countenances of the Ksteners only now and then receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sm sank deep in the mind of Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large extracts from his invaluable author, Cotton Mather, 833. Foray (Lat. foris, externally, beyond boundaries ? or French four- rager, to fodder, forage, ravage; Anglo-Sax. foder, food ?), a hostile military incursion, especially in border warfare. 845. Beat the goblin horse all hollow. All hollow, meaning completely, is colloquial and inelegant. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 59 and added many marvellous events that had taken place in his native State of Connecticut, and fearful sights which he had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow. sss The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered together their families in their wagons, and were heard for some time rattling along the hollow roads and over the distant hills. Some of the damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite swains, and their light-hearted laughter, mingling with seo the clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands, sound- ing fainter and fainter until they gradually died away, — and the late scene of noise and frolic was all silent and deserted. Ichabod only lingered behind, according to the custom of coun- try lovers, to have a tete-a-tete with the heiress, fully convinced 865 that he was now on the high road to success. What passed at this interview I will not pretend to say, for in fact I do not know. Something, however, I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air quite desolate and chop-fallen. these women ! these 87o women ! Could that girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks 1 Was her encouragement of the poor peda- gogue all a mere sham to secure her conquest of his rival? Heaven only knows, not 1 ! Let it suffice to say, Ichabod stole forth with the air of one who had been sacking a hen- sis roost, rather than a fair lady's heart. Without looking to the right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth on which lie had so often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks roused his steed most uncour- teously from the comfortable quarters in which he was soundly sso sleeping, dreaming of mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of timothy and clover. 859. Pillions (Gaelic j?eaK, a coverlet, skin, or mat; pillean, a pad or pack- saddle). A pillion is a cushion for a woman to ride on behind anotlier person on the same horse. 865. T6te-^-tete (from the rare Lat. testa, head, and meaning literally head to head), a face-to-face conference, a cosey interview, a familiar conversation. 882. Timothy. The common name of herds-grass, said to be derived from one Timothy Hanson, who carried it to England from America about 1780. 60 THE SKETCH-BOOK. It was the very wMiing-time of night that Ichabod, heavy- I hearted and crest-faUen, pursued his travels homewards, along 1 the sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and sss ■ which he had traversed so cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was as dismal as himself. Far below him the Tappan Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of Avaters, with here and there the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at anchor under the land. In the dead hush of midnight he could even hear m the barking of the watch-dog from the opposite shore of the Hudson ; but it was so vague and faint as only to give an idea of his distance from this faithful companion of man. Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farmhouse away 895 among the hills ; but it was like a dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melan- choly chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bull-frog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomforta- bly, and turning suddenly in his bed, - ^^ All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew darker and darker ; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, m approaching the very place where many of the scenes of the ghost-stories had been laid. In the centre of the road stood an enormous tulip-tree, which towered like a giant above all the other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a kind of land- mark. Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large enough to m form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into the air. It was connected with the tragical story of the unfortunate Andr(5, who had been taken prisoner hard by, and was universally known by the name of 883. The very witching-time of night. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2, line 406. 898. Guttural (Lat. guttur, throat), formed in the throat; spoken of a sound made with a peculiar rough, croaking, gurgling, or grunting noise in the throat. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 61 Major Andre's tree. The common peoj^le regarded it with a 915 mixture of respect and superstition, partly out of sympathy for the fate of its ill-starred namesake, and partly from the tales of strange sights and doleful lamentations told concerning it. As Ichabod approached this fearful tree he began to whistle : he thought his whistle was answered ; it was but a blast sweep- 920 ing sharply through the dry branches. As he approached a little nearer, he thought he saw something white hanging in the midst of the tree : he paused and ceased whistling ; but on looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place where ihe tree had been scathed by lightning, and the white wood laid 925 bare. Suddenly he heard a groan, — his teeth chattered and his knees smote against the saddle : it was but the rubbing of one huge bough upon another, as they were swayed about by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him. 930 About two hundred yards from the tree a small brook crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and thickly wooded glen, known by the name of Wiley's Swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served for a bridge over this stream. On that side of the road where the brook entered the wood, a group of oaks and 935 chestnuts, matted thick with wild grape-vines, threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge was the severest trial. It was at this identical spot that the unfortunate Andre was cap- tured, and under the covert of those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen concealed who surprised him. This has ever 940 since been considered a haunted stream, and fearful are the feel- ings of the school-boy who has to pass it alone after dark. As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump ; he 917. Ill-starred, under the influence of unlucky stars, unfortunate. The word is a sort of relic of the old belief that the stars, visible or high in the sky at the time of a person's birth, determined his destiny. 925. Scathed (A.-S. sceatha, damage, hurt; scethan, to harm), injured, damaged with suddenness and violence. Pronunciation ? 940. Yeomen (Gothic gavi ; Ger. gau ; Frisian gao, a country district, rural place), dwellers in the country (rather than the city). 62 THE SKETCH-BOOK. summoned up, however, all his resolution, gave his horse lialf a score of kicks in the ribs, and attempted to dash briskly across 945 the bridge ; but instead of starting forward, the perverse old animal made a lateral movement, and ran broadside against the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked lustily with the contrary foot : it was aU in vain. His steed started, it is true ; but it swo was only to plunge to the opposite side of the road into a thicket of brambles and alder-bushes. The schoolmaster now bestowed both«ivhip and heel upon the starveling ribs of old Gunpowder, who dashed forward snuffling and snorting, but came to a stand just by the bridge with a suddenness that had nearly sent his 955 rider sprawling over his head. Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the side of the bridge caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, black, and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the 96o gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveller. The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror. What was to be done ? To turn and fly was now too late ; and, besides, what chance was there of escaping ghost or ges goblin, if such it was, which could ride upon the wings of the wind 1 Summoning up, therefore, a show of courage, he de- manded in stammering accents, "Who are you?" He received no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more agitated voice. Still there was no answer. Once more he cudgelled wo the sides of the inflexible Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor into a psalm-tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion, and with a scramble and a bound stood at once in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal, yet the form of the un- 975 known might now in some degree be ascertained. He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions, and mounted on a black 953. Starveling, hungry, lean, meagre, tliin, wasted from lack of nutri- ment. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 63 horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his gso fright and waywardness. Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight com- panion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Galloping Hessian, now quickened his steed in hopes of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, quickened his 986 horse to an ecjual pace. Ichabod pulled up and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind : the other did the same. His heart began to sink within him ; he endeavored to resume his psalm- tune, but his parched tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a stave. There was something in the moody 990 and dogged silence of this pertinacious companion that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving 995 that he was headless ! But his horror was still more increased on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of the saddle : his terror rose to desperation ; he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden movement to give 1000 his companion the slip, but the spectre started full jump with him. Away then they dashed, through thick and thin, stones flying, and sparks flashing, at every bound. Ichabod's flimsy garments fluttered in the air, as he stretched his long lank body away over his horse's head in the eagerness of his flight. 1005 They had now reached the road which turns off" to Sleepy Hollow ; but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it, made an opposite turn, and plunged headlong down the hill to the left. This road leads through a sandy hollow, shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile, 1010 990. Stave (akin to staff; Icelandic steff, strophe), a verse in psalm-singing, or so much of a hymn as is given out at once by the precentor to be sung by the congregation ; a staff or metrical portion of a tune. 64 THE SKETCH-BOOK. where it crosses the bridge famous in gobiin story ; and just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church. As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskilful rider an apparent advantage in the chase; but just as he had gotiois half-way through the hollow, the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping from under him. He seized it by the pommel, and endeavored to hold it firm, but in vain ; and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it trampled 1020 under foot by his pursuer. For a moment the terror of Hans Van Eipper's wrath passed across his mind, — for it was his Sunday saddle j — but this was no time for petty fears ; the goblin was hard on his haunches, and (unskilful rider that he was !) he had much ado to maintain his seat, sometimes slipping 1025 on one side, sometimes on the other, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse's backbone with a violence that he verily feared would cleave him asunder. An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the church bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection 1030 of a silver star in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones' ghostly competitor had disappeared. " If I can but reach that bridge," thought Ichabod, " I am safe." Just then he 1035 heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him : he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge ; he thundered over the resounding planks ; he gained the oppo- site side : and now Ichabod cast a look behind, to see if his 1040 pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and 1011. Goblin (Fr. gobelin, a hobgoblin), a supernatural being, misshapen, hideous, monstrous. 1034. If I can but reach that bridge, etc. See Burns's Tarn O^Shanter for an illustration of the superstitious notion that witches cannot cross the middle of a stream. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 65 brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stir- rups and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It 1045 encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash : he was tum- bled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider passed by like a whirlwind. The next morning the old horse was found, without his saddle, and with the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass 1050 at his master's gate. Ichabod did not make his appearance at breakfast. Dinner-hour came ; but no Ichabod ! The boys assembled at the school-house, and strolled idly about the banks of the brook ; but no schoolmaster. Hans Van Eipper now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor Ichabod loss and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and after diligent investigation they came upon his traces. In one part of the road leading to the church was found the saddle trampled in the dirt ; the tracks of horses' hoofs, deeply dented in the road, and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the bridge, beyond loeo which, on the bank of a broad part of the brook where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate Icha- bod, and close beside it a shattered pumpkin. The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to be discovered. Hans Van Eipper, as executor of loes his estate, examined the bundle which contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of two shirts and a half, two stocks for the neck, a pair or two of worsted stockings, an old pair of cor- duroy small-clothes, a rusty razor, a book of psalm-tunes full of dog's-ears, and a broken pitch-pipe. As to the books and fur- loro niture of the school-house, they belonged to the community ; excepting Cotton Mather's History of Witchcraft, a New Eng- land Almanac, and a book of dreams and fortune-telling ; in 1065. Executor. The person appointed by tlie maker of a will to see that it is carried into effect. What is an administrator ? 1068. Corduroy (Fr. corde-du-roi, cord of the king), a thick ribbed cotton- cloth used for pantaloons, gaiters, etc. 1070. Dog's-ears, the turned-down corners of the leaves in a book. 66 THE SKETCH-BOOK. which last was a sheet of foolscap much scribWed and blotted in several fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in honor 1075 of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the flames by Hans Van Eip- per, who, from that time forward, determined to send his children no more to school, observing that he never knew any good come of this same reading and writing. Whatever money the school- loso master possessed — and he had received his quarter's pay but a day or two before — he must have had about his person at the time of his disappearance. The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church on the following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were vm collected in the churchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkin had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget of others, were called to mind ; and when they had diligently considered them all, and compared them with the symptoms of the present case, they shook their loso heads, and came to the conclusion that Ichabod had been carried oft" by the Galloping Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody's debt, nobody troubled his head any more about him : the school was removed to a different quarter of the hollow, and another pedagogue reigned in his stead. 1095 It is true, an old farmer who had been down to New York on a visit several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventure was received, brought home the intelli- gence that Ichabod Crane was still alive ; that he had left tlie neighborhood, partly through fear of the goblin and Hans Van 1100 Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been suddenly dismissed by the heiress ; that he had changed his quarters to a distant part of the country ; had kept school and studied law at the same time ; had been admitted to the bar, turned poli- tician, electioneered, written for the newspapers, and finally uos 1074. Foolscap. A fooVs cap was a pointed cap once worn by profes- sional jesters, court fools, or circus clowns. The figure of this cap was formerly used as the water-mark of the writing-paper now known as fools- cap. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 67 had been made a justice of the Ten-pound Court. Brom. Bones, too, who shortly after his rival's disappearance conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar, was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was re- lated, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of uio the pumpkin ; which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell. The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these matters, maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited away by supernatural means ; and it is a favorite story, often ms told about the neighborhood round the winter evening fire. The bridge became more than ever an object of superstitious awe, and that may be the reason why the road has been altered of late years, so as to approach the church by the border of the mill-pond. The school-house, being deserted, soon fell to decay, im and Avas reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue ; and the ploughboy, loitering homeward of a still summer evening, has often fancied his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm-tune among the tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow. ^^ POSTSCEIPT, FOUND IN THE HANDWRITING OP MR. KNICKERBOCKER. The preceding tale is given, almost in the precise words in which I heard it related at a Corporation meeting of the ancient city of Manhattoes, at which were present many of its sagest 1106. Ten-pound Court, an inferior court having jurisdiction in cases in- volving not over ten pounds. 1014. Spirited away, carried away swiftly and secretly, as if by a spirit. Postscript (Lat. post, after, and scriptwn, written), a sentence or passage added to a letter, and signed by the writer ; any addition made to a book or composition after it had been supposed to be finished. 3. City of Manhattoes, New York. See History of New York, Book II. Chap. 6. 68 THE SKETCH-BOOK. and most illustrious burghers. The narrator was a pleasant, shabby, gentlemanly old fellow, in pepper-and-salt clothes, with 5 a sadly humorous face, and one whom I strongly suspected of being poor, — he made such efforts to be entertaining. When his story was concluded, there was much laughter and appro- bation, particularly from two or three deputy aldermen, who had been asleep the greater part of the time. There was, 10 however, one tall, dry -looking old gentleman, with beetling eye- brows, who maintained a grave and rather a severe face through- out ; now and then folding his arms, inclining his head, and looking down upon the floor, as if turning a doubt over in his mind. He was one of your wary men, who never laugh but is upon good grounds, — when they have reason and the law on their side. When the mirth of the rest of the company had subsided, and silence was restored, he leaned one arm on the elbow of his chair, and, sticking the other a-kimbo, demanded, with a slight but exceedingly sage motion of the head, and 20 contraction of the brow, what was the moral of the story, and what it went to prove ? The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to his lips, as a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, looked at his inquirer with an air of infinite deference, and, 23 lowering the glass slowly to the table, observed that the story was intended most logically to prove : — " That there is no situation in life but has its advantages and pleasures, — provided we will but take a joke as we find it: " That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troopers is 30 likely to have rough riding of it. " Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused the hand of a Dutch heiress is a certain step to high preferment in the state." 4. Burghers, burgesses or freemen of a burgh or borough, citizens. "Bor- ough is a word spread over all the Teutonic and Roinance languages The origin seems to be the Gothic hairgan, A.-S. heorgan^ to protect, keep, preserve The primitive idea seems to bring under cover." Wedgivood. 19. A-kimbo, with hands resting on the hips and the elbows turned out- wards. THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 69 The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer after this explanation, being sorely puzzled by the ratiocination 3« of the syllogism : while, methought, the one in pepper-and-salt eyed him with something of a triumphant leer. At length he observed that all this was very well, but still he thought the story a little on the extravagant, — there were one or two points on which he had his doubts. ' ^^ "Faith, sir," replied the story-teller, "as to that matter, I don't believe one half of it myself." SUGGESTIONS OF TOPICS OF INQUIRY. What is the general character of this sketch, — patlietic ? didactic ? humorous ? Where is Sleepy Hollow ? Describe it. Who is the hero of this sketch ? tlie heroine ? Name all the characters, and connect with each appropriate qualifying words or phrases. Of what are there descriptions in this sketch '/ Persons, scenes, animals, buildings ? Of what else ? Select one description of each kind. Keproduce one of the selections in fresh words. What are some of the most prominent traits in Ichabod's character ? Name, and describe briefly, the horses in this sketch. Make four short quotations, each complete in itself. Select several of the most humorous passages. Write a composition on " School in Sleepy Hollow." When is Ichabod Crane most ludicrous ? What does Ichabod do when he is very much frightened ? How were the guests entertained at the " quilting frolic " ? Commit to memory the most beautiful description in the piece. 35. Batiocination (Lat. ratiocinatio, reasoning), the act or process of rea- soning, (Jr of deducing consequences from premises. 36. Syllogism (Gr. and Lat. ), a form of reasoning or argument consisting of three propositions, of Avhich the first two are called the premises, and the last the conclusion ; if the two first propositions are true, the conclusion necessarily follows. 37. Leer (Icelandic hliira, hlera, to listen ; whence comes the notion of looking in a sly or covert way ; Dutch loeren), a sidewise look with archness, smirking, aff"ectation, or implied solicitation. The word usually bears an unfavorable sense. 70 THE SKETCH-BOOK. Describe the Headless Horseman as Ichabod saw him. Explain the mystery of his appearance to Ichabod. Who settled Ichabod's estate ? What property had he ? What accounts of Ichabod were brouglit from New York ? What did the " old country wives " maintain ? Analyze the last sentence in the piece. Select any sentence that pleases you, and give the meaning of it in different words, making an equivalent sentence. Make six such equivalent sentences, each of which shall mean exactly the same as the following : " There is no situation in life but has its advantages and pleasures, — provided we will but take a joke as we find it." This practice of constructing equivalent sentences is always entertaining, and one of the most profitable of language lessons. THE WIDOW AND HER SON. " Pittie old age, within whose silver haires Honour and reverence evermore have rained." Marlowe's Tamburlaine. Those who are in the habit of remarking such matters must have noticed the passive quiet of an English landscape on Sun- day. The clacking of the mill, the regularly recurring stroke of the flail, the din of the blacksmith's hammer, the whistling of the ploughman, the rattling of the cart, and all other sounds of rural labor, are suspended. The very farm-dogs bark less frequently, being less disturbed by passing travellers. At such times I have almost fancied the winds sunk into quiet, and that the sunny landscape, with its fresh green tints melting into blue haze, enjoyed the hallowed calm. " Sweet day, so pure, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky." Well was it ordained that the day of devotion should be a day of rest. The holy repose which reigns over the face of nature has its moral influence ; every restless passion is charmed down, and we feel the natural religion of the soul gently spring- ing up within us. For my part, there are feelings that visit me Marlowe's Tamburlaine. Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) had perhaps the most dramatic genius of all of Shakespeare's contemporaries. Tambur- laine the Great is one of his tragedies. 3. Clacking. Chaucer says, "Age clappeth as a mill." 11. " Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright. The bridal of the earth and sky, The dews shall weep thy fall to-night, For thou must die." From a poem called "Virtue," by George Herbert (1593-1633). 72 THE SKETCH-BOOK. in a country church, amid the beautiful serenity of nature, which I experience nowhere else ; and if not a more religious, I think I am a better man on Sunday than on any other day of the seven. During my recent residence in the country I used frequently to attend at the old village church. Its shadowy aisles, its mouldering monuments, its dark oaken paneUing, all reverend with the gloom of departed years, seemed to fit it for the haunt of solemn meditation; but being in a wealthy aristocratic neighborhood, the glitter of fashion penetrated even into the sanctuary, and I felt myself continually thrown back upon the world by the frigidity and pomp of the poor worms around me. The only being in the whole congregation who appeared thor- oughly to feel the humble and prostrate piety of a true Chris- tian was a poor decrepit old woman, bending under the weight of years and infirmities. She bore the traces of something better than abject poverty. The lingerings of decent pride were visible in her appearance. Her dress, though humble in the extreme, was scrupulously clean. Some trivial respect, too, had been awarded her, for she did not take her seat among the village poor, but sat alone on the steps of the altar. She seemed to have survived all love, all friendship, all society ; and to have nothing left her but the hopes of heaven. When I saw her feebly rising and bending her aged form in prayer ; habitually conning her prayer-book, which her palsied hand and failing eyes would not permit her to read, but which she evidently knew by heart ; I felt persuaded that the faltering voice of that poor woman arose to heaven far before the re- sponses of the clerk, the swell of the organ, or the chanting of the choir ! I am fond of loitering about country churches, and this was 29. Frigidity {lidX. frigus, cold), coldness. 32. Decrepit (Lat. de, from, and crepare, to make a noise ; whence Lat. decrepitus, witliout noise. Spoken of old age or old people), worn out, infinn from age. . 42. Conning (A.-S. cunnan, to know ; ken, to perceive by the sense of sight, observe), studying, poring over. THE WIDOW AND HER SON. 73 so delightfully situated, that it frequently attracted me. It stood on a knoll, round which a small stream made a beautiful so bend, and then wound its way through a long reach of soft meadow scenery. The church was surrounded by yew-trees which seemed almost coeval with itself. Its tall Gothic spire shot up lightly from among them, with rooks and crows gen- erally wheeling about it. I was seated there one still sunny ss morning, watching two laborers who were digging a grave. They had chosen one of the most remote and neglected corners of the churchyard ; where, from the number of nameless graves around, it would appear that the indigent and friendless were huddled into the earth. I was told that the new-made grave eo was for the only son of a poor widow. While I was medi- tating on the distinctions of worldly rank, which extend thus down into the very dust, the toll of the bell announced the approach of the funeral. They were the obsequies of poverty, with which pride had nothing to do. A coffin of the plainest es materials, without paU or other covering, was borne by some of the villagers. The sexton walked before with an air of cold indifference. There were no mock mourners in the trappings of affected woe ; but there was one real mourner who feebly tottered after the corpse. It was the aged mother of the 70 deceased, — the poor old woman whom I had seen seated on the steps of the altar. She was supported by a humble friend, who was endeavoring to comfort her. A few of the neighbor- ing poor had joined the train, and some children of the village were running hand in hand, now shouting with unthinking 75 mirth, and now pausing to gaze, with childish curiosity, on the grief of the mourner. As the funeral train approached the grave, the parson issued 52. Yew-trees, evergreen trees common in English cliurcliyards. 53. Coeval (Lat. con, with, and cem/.m, age), of the same age. 64. Obsequies (Lat. obsequi, to follow), funeral rites. Tliis word is rarely used in the singular number. 68. Mock mourners, etc. Perhaps the author has in mind the English custom of hiring mourners or "mutes" to stand before the house of a dead person, and to precede the bier in a funeral procession. 74 THE SKETCH-BOOK. from the church porch, arrayed in the surplice, with prayer- book in hand, and attended by the clerk. The service, how- ever, was a mere act of charity. The deceased had been destitute, and the survivor was penniless. It was shuffled through, therefore, in form, but coldly and unfeelingly. The well-fed priest moved but a few steps from the church door ; his voice could scarcely be heard at the grave ; and never did a I hear the funeral service — that sublime and touching cere- mony — turned into such a frigid mummery of words. I approached the grave. The coffin was placed on the ground. On it were inscribed the name and age of the de- ceased, — " George Somers, aged twenty-six years." The poor ao mother had been assisted to kneel down at the head of it. Her withered hands were clasped, as if in prayer, but I could perceive by a feeble rocking of the body, and a convulsive motion of the lips, that she was gazing on the last relics of her son with the yearnings of a mother's heart. 95 Preparations were made to deposit the coffin in the earth. There was that bustling stir which breaks so harshly on the feelings of grief and affection ; directions given in the cold tones of business ; the striking of spades into sand and gravel ; which, at the grave of those we love, is, of all sounds, the 100 most withering. The bustle around seemed to waken the mother from a wretched reverie. She raised her glazed eyes, and looked about with a faint wildness. As the men ap- proached with cords to lower the coffin into the grave, she wrung her hands, and broke into an agony of grief. The poor los woman who attended her took her by the arm, endeavoring to raise her from the earth, and to whisper something like con- solation : " Nay, now, nay, now — don't take it so sorely to heart." She could only shake her head and wring her hands, as one not to be comforted. "" As they lowered the body into the earth, the creaking of the 87. Mummery (a mummer is originally a masker), a hypocritical disguise or parade. 102. Severie. See note on reveries, page 3. THE WIDOW AND HER SON. 75 cords seemed to agonize her; but when, on some accidental obstruction, there was a justling of the coffin, all the tenderness of the mother burst forth ; as if any harm could come to him who was far beyond the reach of worldly suffering. us I could see no more — my heart swelled into my throat — my eyes filled with tears — I felt as if I were acting a barbarous part in standing by and gazing idly on this scene of maternal anguish. I wandered to another part of the churchyard, where I remained until the funeral train had dispersed. 120 When I saw the mother slowly and painfully quitting the grave, leaving behind her the remains of all that was dear to her on earth, ^nd returning to silence and destitution, my heart ached for her. What, thought I, are the distresses of the rich ] they have friends to soothe — pleasures to beguile — a world to 125 divert and dissipate their griefs. What are the sorrows of the young 1 Their growing minds soon close above the wound — their elastic spirits soon rise beneath the pressure — their green and ductile affections soon twine round new objects. But the sorrows of the poor, who have no outward appliances to soothe iso — the sorrows of the aged, with whom life at best is but a win- try day, and who can look for no after-growth of joy — the sorrows of a widow, aged, solitary, destitute, mourning over an only son, the last solace of her years, — these are indeed sor- rows which make us feel the impotency of consolation. 135 It was some time before I left the churchyard. On my way homeward I met with the woman who had acted as comforter : she was just returning from accompanying the mother to her lonely habitation, and I drew from her some particulars con- nected with the affecting scene I had witnessed. i*> The parents of the deceased had resided in the village from childhood. They had inhabited one of the neatest cottages, and by various rural occupations, and the assistance of a small garden, had supported themselves creditably and comfortably, and led a happy and blameless life. They had one son, who had grown us 129. Ductile (Lat. ducgre, to lead), easy to be led, pliant. The aflFections are like shoots or tendi-ils of a vine. 76 THE SKETCH-BOOK. up to be the staff aud pride of their age. " 0, sir ! " said the good •woman, " he was such a comely lad, so sweet-tempered, so kind to every one around him, so dutiful to his parents ! It did one's heart good to see him of a Sunday, dressed out in his best, so tall, so straight, so cheery, supporting his old mother im to church, — for she was always fonder of leaning on George's arm than on her good-man's; and, poor soul, she might well be proud of him, for a finer lad there was not in the country round." Unfortunately, the son was tempted, during a year of scarcity 155 and agricultural hardship, to enter into the service of one of the small craft that phed on a neighboring river. He had not been long in this employ when he was entrapped by a press-gang, and carried off to sea. His parents received tidings of his seizure, but beyond that they could learn nothing. It was the loss of leo their main prop. The father, who was already infirm, grew heartless and melancholy, and sunk into his grave. The widow, left lonely in her age and feebleness, could no longer support herself, and came upon the parish. Still there was a kind feeling toward her throughout the village, and a certain respect as being les one of the oldest inhabitants. As no one applied for the cottage in which she had passed so many happy days, she was permitted to remain in it, where she lived solitary and almost helpless. The few wants of nature were chiefly supplied from the scanty productions of her little garden, which the neighbors would no now and then cultivate for her. It was but a few days before the time at which these circumstances were told me, that she was gathering some vegetables for her repast, when she heard the cottage door which faced the garden suddenly opened. A 152. Good-man, "a familiar yet respectful appellation of a husband." 157. Small craft, small vessels of various kinds ; as sloops, schooners, etc. 158. Press-gang, a detachment of seamen under the command of an officer, ■who had power in time of war to seize men and force them to enter the Brit- ish naval service. 164. Came upon the parish, became dependent upon public charity. To go on the parish in England is to become chargeable, as a pauper, to the paro- chial poor-rate. THE WIDOW AND HER SON. 77 stranger came out, and seemed to be looking eagerly and wildly 175 around. He was dressed in seaman's clothes, was emaciated and ghastly pale, and bore the air of one broken by sickness and hardships. He saw her, and hastened towards her, but his steps were faint and faltering ; he sank on his knees before her, and sobbed like a child. The poor woman gazed upon him with a iso vacant and wandering eye. ** 0, my dear, dear mother ! don't you know your son 1 your poor boy George 1 " It was indeed the wreck of her once noble lad, who, shattered by wounds, by sickness and foreign imprisonment, had at length dragged his Avasted limbs homeward, to repose among the scenes of his iss childhood. I will not attempt to detail the particulars of such a meeting, where joy and sorrow were so completely blended : still he was alive ! he was come home ! he might yet live to comfort and cherish her old age ! Nature, however, was exhausted in him ; lao and if anything had been wanting to finish the work of fate, the desolation of his native cottage would have been sufficient. He stretched himself on the pallet on which his widowed mother had passed many a sleepless night, and he never rose from it again. 195 The villagers, when they heard that George Somers had re- turned, crowded to see him, offering every comfort and assistance that their humble means afforded. He was too weak, however, to talk, — he could only look his thanks. His mother was his constant attendant, and he seemed unwilling to be helped by 200 any other hand. There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood; that softens the heart, and brings it back to the feelings of infancy. Who that has languished, even in advanced life, in sickness and despondency; who that has pined on a 205 weary bed in the neglect and loneliness of a foreign land ; but has thought on the mother " that looked on his childhood," 193. Pallet {lioX. palea, chaflf; Fr. paille, straw), a humble bed of straw or chaff. 202 - 219. Notice the beautiful tribute to a mother's love. 78 THE SKETCH-BOOK. that smoothed his pillow, and administered to his helplessness ? Oh ! there is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to her son that transcends all other aflfections of the heart. It is 210 neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor daunted by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled by ingratitude. She wUl sacrifice every comfort to his convenience ; she will sur- render every pleasure to his enjoyment ; she will glory in his fame, and exult in his prosperity j and, if misfortune overtake 215 him, he will be the dearer to her from misfortune ; and if dis- grace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him in spite of his disgrace ; and if all the world beside cast him off, she will be all the world to him. Poor George Somers had known what it was to be in sickness, 220 and none to soothe ; lonely and in prison, and none to visit him. He could not endure his mother from his sight ; if she moved away, his eye would follow her. She would sit for hours by his bed, watching him as he slept. Sometimes he would start from a feverish dream, and look anxiously up 225 until he saw her bending over him ; when he would take her hand, lay it on his bosom, and fall asleep with the tranquillity of a child. In this way he died. My first impulse on hearing this humble tale of affliction was to visit the cottage of the mourner, tind administer pecuniary 230 assistance, and, if possible, comfort. I found, however, on in- quiry, that the good feelings of the villagers had prompted them to do everything that the case admitted ; and as the poor know best how to console each other's sorrows, I did not venture to intrude. 2s« The next Sunday I was at the village church; when, to my surprise, I saw the poor old woman tottering down the aisle to her accustomed seat on the steps of the altar. She had made an effort to put on something like mourning for her son ; and nothing could be more touching than this 240 struggle between pious affection and utter poverty : a black 211. Notice the alliteration. THE WIDOW AND HER SON. 79 ribbon or so, a faded black handkerchief, and one or two more such humble attempts to express by outward signs that grief which passes show. When I looked round upon the storied monuments, the stately hatchments, the cold marble pomp, 245 with which grandeur mourned magnificently over departed pride, and turned to this poor widow, bowed down by age and sorrow at the altar of her God, and oflTering up the prayers and praises of a pious, though a broken heart, I felt that this living monument of real grief was worth them all ! 250 I related her story to some of the wealthy members of the congregation, and they were moved by it. They exerted them- selves to render her situation more comfortable, and to lighten her afflictions. It was, however, but smoothing a few steps to the grave. In the course of a Sunday or two after, she was 255 missed from her usual seat at church, and before I left the neighborhood, I heard, with a feeling of satisfaction, that she had quietly breathed her last, and had gone to rejoin those she loved, in that world where sorrow is never known, and friends are never parted. 2eo 244. Passes, surpasses, exceeds, goes beyond. Storied monuments, monu- ments on which are inscribed some accounts of the brave deeds or the noble lives of those in memory of whom they are erected. 245. Hatchments. In heraldry, a hatchment is the coat-of-arms of a person dead ; by it, his rank may be known. More specifically, " A hatchment (corrupted from achievement) is an armorial escutcheon [or frame bearing such escutcheon], lozenge-shaped, sxispended in front of a house, in a church, or on the hearse at funerals, to mark the decease of a member of the family. .... From the form and accompaniments of the field, and the color of the ground of the hatchment, the sex, position, and rank of the deceased may be known." ZelVs Encyclopaedia. 80 THE SKETCH-BOOK. SUGGESTIONS OF TOPICS OF INQUIEY. What is the general character of this sketch ? humorous ? pathetic ? narra- tive ? Where is the scene laid ? Quote to prove the correctness of your answer. What is the author's description of the church and the congregation ? Give it in your own language. Of whom does he speak particularly ? Why ? Describe the funeral in your own words. What funeral service was read? Evidence of the correctness of your answer ? Why is the sorrow of the poor woman very great ? Tell in fresh words all that is related of George Somers. Commit to memory, "When I looked round upon the storied monuments," etc., to the end of the paragraph. Select some of the most pathetic passages and expressions. Are the words used in this sketch, generally speaking, short or long, com- mon or imcommon ? Select all the words that are at all uncommon, and all the long words, and make an answer to the previous question from your own knowledge of words, and by means of your own judgment. Is there simplicity or complexity in the story ? Are the incidents multi- plied and complex, or few and simple ? Are they extraordinary, or do they relate to the common life of poor people? Can you give any reason why the story is so touching ? Does the author seem to feel what he says ? Would this have any effect on his writing ? Give the substance of the last paragraph of the sketch. Give in your own words an equivalent for each sentence in this paragraph, being careful to get in all the ideas and no more. Find synonymous words (i. e. words having the same or nearly the same meaning) for the following : serenity, frigidity, awarded, survived, inscribed, quitting. Point out any difference that may exist in the meaning or use of the equivalent words. Q RIP VAN WINKLE. 81 RIP VAN 'WINKLE. [The following Tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who was very curious in the Dutch history of the province, and the manners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. His historical researches, however, did not lie so much among books as among men ; for the former are lamentably scanty on his favorite topics ; whereas he found the old burghers, and still more their wives, rich in that legendary lore so invaluable to true history. Whenever, therefore, he happened upon a genuine Dutch family, snugly shut up in its low-roofed farmhouse, under a spreading sycamore, he looked upon it as a little clasped volume of black-letter, and studied it with the zeal of a bookworm. The result of all these researches was a history of the province during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he published some years since. There have been various opinions as to the literary character of his work, and, to tell the truth, it is not a whit better than it should be. Its chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy, which indeed was a little questioned on its first appearance, but has since been completely established ; and it is now admitted into all historical collections, as a book of unquestionable authority. The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his work, and now that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much harm to his memory to say, that his time might have been much better employed in weightier labors. He, however, was apt to ride his hobby his own way ; and though it did now and then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors, and grieve the spirit of some friends, for whom he felt the truest deference and affection ; yet his errors and follies are remembered "more in sorrow than in anger," and it begins to be suspected that he never intended to injure or offend. But, however his memory may be appreciated by critics, it is still held dear by many folk whose good opinion is well worth having ; particularly by certain biscuit-bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on their new-year cakes ; and have thus given him a chance for immortality, almost equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo Medal, or a Queen Anne's farthing.] 82 THE SKETCH-BOOK. EIP VAN WINKLE. A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER. " By Woden, God of Saxons, From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday, Trath is a thing that ever I will keep Unto thylke day in which I creep into My sepulchre." Cartwright. Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson, must remember the Kaatskill Mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season, every change « of weather, indeed every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on lo the clear evening sky ; but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory. At the foot of these fairy mountains the voyager may have 15 descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle-roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints Posthumous (Lat. pnst, after, posterns later, postumus or posthumus, latest, last), horn after the death of a parent; published after the death of an author ; coming after one's death. Thylke (Old Eng. compound of thus and like), that same, Cartwright. William Cartwright (1611-1643) studied sixteen hours a day, wi-ote plays and lyrics, preached able sermons, aad gave excellent lec- tures at Oxford on metaphysics. 2. Kaatskill, usually written Catskill. RIP VAN WINKLE. 83 of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists in the early times of 20 the province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuyvesant, (may he rest in peace !) and there were some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built of small yeUow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with ^ weathercocks. In that same village, and in one of these very houses, (which, to teU the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and weather- beaten,) there lived many years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a simple good-natured fellow, 30 of the name of Eip Van Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege of Fort Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a ss simple good-natured man ; he was, moreover, a kind neighbor, and an obedient hen-pecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal popularity ; for those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under vt the discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation, and a curtain lecture is worth aU the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffer- 33. Peter Stuyvesant, the fourth and last, as well as the ablest and most noted, governor of New Netherlands, afterwards New York. He conquered the Swedes on the Delaware. Their settlement, near the present site of Wilmington, was called Fort Christina. 40. Obsequious, meanly conciliatory and submissive. 41. Shrews, scolding, vixenish, vexatious women. 42. Malleable (Lat. malleus, a hammer), capable of being hammered into plates, or beaten into any desired shape. 43. Curtain lecture, a scolding administered by a wife to her husband after they have gone to bed. 84 THE SKETCH-BOOK. ing. A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects, be « considered a tolerable blessing ; and if so, Eip Van Winkle was thrice blessed. Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the good wives of the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles ; and never failed, when- so ever they talked those matters over in their evening gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ss ghosts, witches, and Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was surrounded by a troop of them, hang- ing on his skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a thou- sand tricks on him with impunity ; and not a dog would bark at him throughout the neighborhood. eo The great error in Eip's composition was an insuperable aver- sion to all kinds of profitable labor., It could not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance ; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be en- es couraged by a smgle nibble. He would carry a fowling-piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squir- rels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neigh- bor even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all ro country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone fences : the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husbands would not do for them. In a word, Eip was ready to attend to anybody's business but his own ; but 75 as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible. 45. Termagant (or Tervagant, one of the supposed deities of the Saracens, who was represented in our old dramas as a most boisterous and violent char- acter), tumiiltuous, boisterous, furious, violently quarrelsome and scolding. 64. Tartar's. See note on Tartar, p. 44. RIP VAN WINKLE. 85 I In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm ; it was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the -whole country ; everything about it went wrong, and would go wrong, so in spite of him. His fences were continually falling to pieces ; his cow would either go astray, or get among the cabbages j weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere else ; the rain always made a point of setting in just as he had some out-door work to do ; so that though his patrimonial ss estate had dwindled away under his management, acre by acre, xintO. there was little more left than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it was the worst conditioned farm in the neighborhood. ^ His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged so to nobody. His son Eip, an urchin begotten in his own like- ness, promised to inherit the habits, with the old clothes of his father. He was generally seen trooping like a colt at his mother's heels, eqiiipped in a pair of his father's cast-off galli- gaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as 95 a fine lady does her train in bad weather. Eip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than work for a 100 pound. If left to himself, he would have whistled life away in perfect contentment ; but his wife kept continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night her tongue was incessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure 105 to produce a torrent of household eloquence. Eip had but one 79. Pestilent, troublesome, plaguing. 91. TJrcMn. See note on this word, p. 34. 94. Galligaskins, large open hose, or loose wide breeches, formerly used by the inhabitants of Gascony in France. (This word is not now used, ex- cept in humorous language. It is said to be a corruption of the French Avord Greguesqn, Greek ; Lat. grcecics. ) 95. Ado (said to be from a and do ; like the French d, to [from Lat. ad, to] and /aire, to do), trouble. 86 THE SKETCH-BOOK. ■way of replying to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said nothing. This, however, always provoked a fresh volley from his wife, so that he was no fain to draw off his forces, and take to the outside of the house, — the only side which, in truth, belongs to a hen-pecked husband. Eip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much hen-pecked as his master ; for Dame Van Winkle regarded us them as companions in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evU eye, as the cause of his master's going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit befitting an honora- ble dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods; but what courage can withstand the ever-during and all- 120 besetting terrors of a woman's tongue 1 The moment Wolf entered the house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle, he would fly to the 125 door with yelping precipitation. Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on ; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long while he used to console himself, 130 when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village, which held its sessions on a bench before a small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of his Majesty George the Third. Here they used to sit in the shade through a long lazy 135 summer's day, talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy stories about nothing. But it would have been worth any statesman's money to have heard the profound dis- cussions that sometimes took place, when by chance an old newspaper fell into their hands from some passing traveller. 140 How solemnly they would listen to the contents, as drawled out 134. Bubicnnd, reddish. RIP VAN WINKLE. 87 by Derrick Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, a dapper, learned little man, who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in the dictionary; and how sagely they would delib- erate upon public events some months after they had taken 145 place ! The opinions of this junto were completely controlled by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the door of which he took his seat from morning till night, just moving sufficiently to avoid the sun and keep in the 150 shade of a large tree ; so that the neighbors could tell the hour by his movements as accurately as by a sun-dial. It is true he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe incessantly. His adherents, however, (for every great man has his adherents,) perfectly understood him, and knew how to gather his opinions, iw When anything that was read or related displeased him, he was observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short, frequent, and angry puffs ; but when pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds ; and sometimes, taking the pipe from his mouth, and leo letting the fragrant vapor curl about his nose, would gravely nod his head in token of perfect approbation. From even this stronghold the unlucky Eip was at length routed by his termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquillity of the assemblage and call the members les all to naught ; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible virago, who charged him outright with encouraging her husband in habits of idleness. Poor Eip was at last reduced almost to despair ; and his only iro alternative, to escape from the labor of the farm and clamor of his wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away into the 142. Dapper, smart, little and active, neat and qnick. 147. Junto {La,t. junctiis, joined? ST^an. junta ; Ital. giunto), a cabal ; a faction ; a band of men secretly joined together for partisan or political pur- poses. 167. Virago (Lat. virngn, a manlike or heroic maiden ; from vir, a man, from virere, to be green or vigorous), a female warrior. 88 THE SKETCH-BOOK, woods. Here he would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a fellow-sufferer in persecution. "Poor 175 Wolf," he would say, " thy mistress leads thee a dog's life of it ; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee ! " Wolf would wag his tail, look wist- fully in his master's face, and if dogs can feel pity, I verily be- lieve he reciprocated tlie sentiment with all his heart. iso In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, E,ip had unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Kaat- skill Mountains. He was after his favorite sport of squirrel shooting, and the still solitudes had echoed and re-echoed with the reports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, iss late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, covered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a precipice. From an open- ing between the trees he could overlook all the lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but 190 majestic course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in the blue highlands. On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled with fragments iss from the impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For some time Eip lay musing on this scene ; evening was gradually advancing ; the mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys; he saw that it would be dark long before he could reach the village, 200 and he heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of encountering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle. As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a distance, hallooing, " Eip Van Winkle ! Eip Van Winkle ! " He looked round, but could see nothing but a crow winging its solitary 205 flight across the mountain. He thought his fancy must have 196. Impending (Lat. in, upon, and pendere, to hang), overhanging, threatening. RIP VAN WINKLE. 89 deceived him, and turned again to descend, when he heard the same cry ring through the still evening air : " Eip Van Winkle ! Rip Van Winkle ! " — at the same time Wolf bristled up his back, and, giving a loud growl, skulked to his master's 210 side, looking fearfully down into the glen. Eip now felt a vague apprehension stealing over him ; he looked anxiously in the same direction, and perceived a strange figure slowly toiling up the rocks, and bending under the weight of something he carried on his back. He was surprised to see any human being 215 in this lonely and unfrequented place, but supposing it to be some one of the neighborhood in need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it. I On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the singu- larity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short, square-built 220 old fellow, with thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion, — a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist, several pairs of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoulder a stout 225 keg, that seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to ap- proach and assist him with the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this new acquaintance. Rip complied with his usual alacrity ; and mutually relieving each other, they clam- bered up a narrow guUy, apparently the dry bed of a mountain 230 torrent. As they ascended. Rip every now and then heard long rolling peals, like distant thunder, that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather cleft, between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted. He paused for an instant, but supposing it to be the muttering of one of those 235 transient thunder-showers which often take place in mountain heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they came 221. Grizzled (Gr. graus, an old -woman ; Fr. gris, gray ; Eng. grizzled, having the appearance of being powdered), of mixed black and white, gray. 222. Jerkin (Languedoc jhergaou, an overcoat ; Fr. jar got, a coarse over- garment in the coimtry ; Dutch jurk, a child's pinafore, a frock), a jacket, a short body-coat, waistcoat. 230. Gully (Fr. goidet, neck of a bottle, gullet), a gulch or channel worn in the earth by running water. 90 THE SKETCH-BOOK. to a hollow, like a smaU amphitheatre, surrounded by perpen- dicular precipices, over the brinks of which impending trees shot their branches, so that you only caught glimpses of the 240 azure sky and the bright evening cloud. During the whole time Eip and his companion had labored on in silence ; for though the former marvelled greatly what could be the object of carrying a keg of liquor up this wild mountain, yet there was something strange and incomprehensible about the un- 245 known, that inspired awe and checked familiarity. On entering the amphitheatre, new objects of wonder pre- sented themselves. On a level spot in the centre was a com- pany of odd-looking personages playing at ninepins. They were dressed in a quaint outlandish fashion ; some wore short 2so doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts, and most of them had enormous breeches, of similar style with those of the guide. Their visages, too, were peculiar : one had a large head, broad face, and small piggish eyes ; the face of another seemed to consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted 255 by a white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a little red cock's tail. They all had beards, of various shapes and colors. There was one who seemed to be the commander. He was a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance ; he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and jeo feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with roses in them. The whole group reminded Eip of the figures in an old Flemish painting, in the parlor of Dominie Van Shaick, the village parson, and which had been brought over from Holland at the time of the settlement. aes 238. Amphitheatre (Gr. &,fx.^l, amphi, about, around, and Biarpov, theatron, a place for seeing, a play-house, a theatre), a buildkig of an oval or elliptical form for beholding games, combats, and other spectacles. 251. Doublets (Lat. duo, two, and plico, I fold ; or duo, two, and pleo, I fill ; duplus, twofold, or twice filled ; Fr. doubler, to double ; double, doubled), originally a wadded garment [for defence ; a close-fitting coat with skirts reaching a little below the girdle. 260. Hanger, a short broad sword, suspended at the side. 261. Boses. As used here, this word means ornamental ties or knots of ribbon in the form of roses. RIP VAN WINKLE. 91 "What seemed particularly odd to Eip was, that though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the scene but the noise of 2ro the halls, which, whenever they were rolled, echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder. As Eip and his companion approached them, they suddenly desisted from their play, and stared at him with such fixed statue-like gaze, and such strange, uncouth, lack-lustre counte- 275 nances, that his heart turned within him, and his knees smote together. His companion now emptied the contents of the keg into large flagons, and made signs to him to wait upon the company. He obeyed with fear and trembling ; they quaffed the liquor in profound silence, and then returned to 280 their game. By degrees Eip's awe and apprehension subsided. He even ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the bev- erage, which he found had much of the flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty soul, and was soon 286 tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked another ; and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often that at length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep. On waking, he found himself on the green knoll whence he 290 had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes, — it was a bright sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze, " Surely," thought Eip, " I have not slept here all night," He recalled the oc- 295 currences before he fell asleep. The strange man with a keg of liquor — the mountain ravine — the wild retreat among the rocks — the woe-begone party at ninepins — the flagon — " Oh ! 285. Hollands, gin made Id Holland. 287. Flagon (Fr. flacon, a bottle ; from rare Lat. /ascowewi), a bottle witb narrow mouth used for holding and conveying liquors. 92 THE SKETCH-BOOK. that flagon ! that wicked flagon ! " thought Rip ; " what excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle %" goo He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean, well- oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roysters of the mountain had put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him ans with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had dis- appeared, but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him and shouted his name, but all in vain ; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was to be seen. , sio He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening's gam- bol, and if he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual activity. " These mountain beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, " and if this frolic should lay 315 me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some difficulty he got down into the glen : he found the gully up which he and his com- panion had ascended the preceding evening ; but to his aston- ishment a mountain stream was now foaming down it, leaping 320 from rock to rock, and filling the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up its sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of birch, sassafras, and witch- hazel, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the wild grape- vines that twisted their coils or tendrils from tree to tree, and 325 spread a kind of network in his path. At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs to the amphitheatre ; but no traces of such opening remained. The rocks presented a high impenetrable wall, over 302. Firelock, a sort of musket or gun in which the powder was fired by a spark from a flint and steel. 304. Roysters (or roisters ; Gaelic riastair, become disorderly ; Piatt Deutsch rastern, to clatter), loud-voiced or rollicking fellows, jolly blades. 322. Hade ahift, contrived. RIP VAN WINKLE. 93 which the torrent came tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, 330 and fell into a broad deep basin, black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor flip was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog ; he was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice ; 335 and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man's perplexities. What was to be done? the morning was passing away, and Eip felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog and his gun ; he dreaded to meet his wife ; but it would not do to starve 340 among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps homeward. As he approached the village he met a number of people, but none whom he knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had S4S thought himself acquainted with every one in the country round. Their dress, too, was of a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed. They all stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their eyes upon him, in- variably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence of this 350 gesture induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same, when, to his astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot long ! He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and point- ing at his gray beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he 355 recognized for an old acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very village was altered ; it was larger and more populous. There were rows of houses which he had never seen before, and those which had been his familiar haunts had disappeared. Strange names were over the doors — strange faces at the win- sco dows — everything was strange. His mind now misgave him ; he began to doubt whether both he and the world around him were not bewitched. Surely this was his native village, which he had left but the day before. There stood the Kaatskill Mountains ; there ran the silver Hudson at a distance ; there 365 94 THE SKETCH-BOOK. was every hill and dale precisely as it had always been ; Rip was sorely perplexed. " That flagon last night," thought he, ** has addled my poor head sadly ! " It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own house, which he approached with silent awe, expecting every 370 moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay, the roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half-starved dog that looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. 375 This was an unkind cut indeed. " My very dog," sighed poor Rip, " has forgotten me ! " He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. The desolateness overcame all his aso connubial fears, — he called loudly for his wife and children j the lonely chambers rang for a. moment with his voice, and then all again was silence. He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the village inn ; but it, too, was gone. A large rickety wooden sss building stood in its place, with great gaping windows, some of them broken, and mended with old hats and petticoats ; and over the door was painted, " The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there was now reared a tall naked 390 pole, with something on the top that looked like a red night- cap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular assemblage of stars and stripes ; all this was strange and incom- prehensible. He recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face 368. Addled (A.-S., ydel, idle, barren ? Originally spoken of spoiled eggs ?), turned to decay, spoiled. 390. A tall naked pole, etc., a flag-pole, or "liberty -pole," on which was a red cap. In ancient times, when a slave was freed, what was called the Phrygian cap (a bonnet rouge) was put upon the head in token of freedom ; "the cap with which the Roman master crowned his slave, when he took off the gyves." The red cap worn by French revolutionists is by them cherished as a symbol of liberty. RIP VAN WINKLE. 95 of King George, under which he had smoked so many a peace- 395 ful pipe ; but even this was singularly metamorphosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted in large characters, General Washington. 400 There was, as usual, a crowd of folks about the door, but none that Eip recollected. The very character of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, 405 with his broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco-smoke instead of idle speeches ; or Van Bum- mel, the schoolmaster, doling forth the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean, bilious-looking fellow, with his pockets full of handbills, was haranguing vehemently 410 about rights of citizens — elections — members of congress — liberty — Bunker's Hill — heroes of seventy-six — and other words, which were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the bewil- dered Van Winkle. The appearance of Eip, with his long grizzled beard, his rusty 415 fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and an army of women and children at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They crowded round him, eying him from head to foot with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired " on which side he voted." 420 Eip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired 397. Metamorphosed (Gr. ^lera, meta, implying change ; iJ.op(i>-fi, morphe, form), transformed. 404. Phlegm (Gr. .^ ,; • .:;:.v.':-;-:V ^Y;--Vsx''- ^AM»,«.^.. -?^^» <^fifiA -'^^AAA -^^Waaa«aa*,- '^OaaaO. -*- ^' ^ Cv ■'N ' c?-?*»,x:'' '-■^^*»?:^.Q5i;^m^5??%^A«^^A..,..^.f-""^^-^ ^^^»fiA^A, v^^Mrnr^p^f^;^>^/p^^^^, 'v;' >^' ^,^f^.f\i 1 .V ' '' -/J/^\(?''^f ^^MAfSf mm ^^/^A^^AAa.a/^^^^^^^^" w^l ^^p^^^^mmmm. sMBWimiBStta'WW .•^o^^^^rc^ Af^.C^,rsf\'/>\/pf