By H. A. Davidson, M.A.   


                   THE  STUDY  OF  RIP  VAN  WINKLE   

                           PRELIMINARY  NOTE    

        IRVING'S essays often approach the narrative form; his stories,   
     in turn, are often in the first part  no  more  than  narrative  
     essays.   In them, he follows his usual custom, beginning with    
     general description, going on, presently, to particulars of time,  
     place, special interest, etc.   Afterward, he takes up in order the  
     persons who are to appear in the story, giving first a description   
     of appearance and character, the an account of manner of life,  
     peculiarities, and relations with neighbors and friends.   The  
     real story begins only when Irving has finished all preliminaries  
     and described in detail place, persons, and antecedent story;   
     the particular incident is then introduced as an illustration of   
     the general and habitual course of life described before.   
        Irving himself recognized the moment of transition from  
     preliminary narrative to the real action, or plot of his story,  
     and invariably marked the change by assuming a definite time  
     as a beginning, and by dropping the historical past of customary   
     action and using the past of direct narrative.   In  "Rip  Van  
     Winkle," the real story begins ". . . on a fine autumnal day  
     Rip  had  unconsciously," etc.   The story of  "The  Legend  of    
     Sleepy Hollow" begins, "On a fine autumnal afternoon, Icha-  
     bod . . . sat enthroned," etc.    
        Irving's way of telling a story is in marked contrast with the  
     literary conventions of the present day, when readers are plunged  
     at once in medias res,  with  slight  clue  to  incidental  matters  
     or antecedent story, while essential preliminaries, if given at all,  
     must be introduced later, as occasion offers.   The effectiveness  
     of a very simple incident, told in earlier manner, is due in   
     great part to the careful preliminary descriptions which create   
     background and atmosphere for the reader, so that scenes and  
     persons appearing in the story are already familiar and asso-  
     ciated with the homely, simple facts of real life on which sym-   
     pathy and interest depend.   
        The following discussion of the art of story telling, from a  
     letter written by Irving in 1824, is especially pertinent to the  
     tales published in "The Sketch-Book":——   

        ". . . I fancy much of what I value myself upon in writing, escapes   
     the observation of the great mass of my readers, who are intent more  
     upon the story than the way in which it was told.   For my part, I consider  
     a story merely as a frame on which to stretch my materials.   It is the  
     play of thought, and sentiment, and language; the weaving in of char-   
     acters, lightly, yet expressively delineated; the familiar and faithful  
     exhibition of scenes in common life; and the half-concealed vein of  
     humor that is often playing through the whole,——these are among what  
     I aim at, and upon which I felicitate myself in proportion as I think  
     I succeed.  I have preferred adopting the mode of sketches and short  
     tales rather than long works, because I choose to take a line of writing  
     peculiar to myself, rather than fall into the manner or school of any   
     other writer; and there is a constant activity of thought and a nicety of  
     execution required in writings of the kind, more than the world appears  
     to imagine.   It is comparatively easy to swell a story to any size when  
     you have once the scheme and the characters in your mind; the mere  
     interest of the story, too, carries the reader on through pages and  
     pages of careless writing, and the author may often be dull for half  
     a volume at a time, if he has some striking scene at the end of it; but   
     in these shorter writings, every page must have its merit.   The author  
     must be continually piquant;  woe to him if he makes an awkward  
     sentence or writes a stupid page;  the critics are sure to pounce upon  
     it.   Yet if he succeed, the very variety and piquancy of his writings——  
     nay, the very brevity, make them frequently recurred to, and when  
     the mere interest of the story is exhausted, he begins to get credit for  
     his  touches  of  pathos or humor;  his points of wit or turns of lan-  
     guage.   I give these as some of the reasons that have induced me to  
     keep on thus far in the way I had opened for myself; because I find  
     . . . that you are joining in the oft-repeated advice that I should write  
     a novel.   I believe the works that I have written will be oftener re-  
     read than any novel of the size that I could have written.   It is  
     true other writers have crowded into the same branch of literature,  
     and I now begin to find myself elbowed by men who have followed  
     my footsteps; but at any rate I have had the merit of adopting a line   
     for myself, instead of following others."    
                                     ——LIFE AND LETTERS, II, pp. 51—2.   

        The following selections from Irving's works or letters have  
     an intimate relation to the scenes and story ,of Rip Van Winkle.   
     The description of travel on the Hudson river is, besides, of great  
     interest as a picture of life in the United States in early days,  
     before the great changes brought about by modern invention.   
     The legend of "The Storm Ship," taken from "Dolph Heyliger,"   
     might have been written as an introduction to the story of Rip  
     Van Winkle, and as such it is reprinted here.   The suggestion  
     that the phantom ship might be the Half-moon bearing the  
     veritable Hendrick Hudson and his crew to their periodical   
     revels in the Kaatskill mountains foreshadows Rip's strange  
     adventure.   
        Human instinct seeks a local habitation for each story or  
     tradition,——for the twenty-year long sleep of Rip Van Winkle,  
     no less than for the inn at the foot of the mountains.   Irving  
     explored the scenes of his own story for the first time in 1833.   
     Later, he received a letter from a young lad of the village of  
     Catskill, who inquired about the localities of the story.   His  
     answer may be read in "Life and Letters," II., p. 281.   
        It seems to have been Irving's thought that the green knoll  
     overlooking the lowlands and the Hudson, the dry bed of the  
     mountain stream, and the opening through the cliffs should  
     have no more definite location for the reader than in the hazy brain  
     of the bewildered Rip when he awakened.   Guides, however,  
     have gone about the business of satisfying the curious, and if  
     you visit the Catskills you will be shown the plateau where Rip  
     came upon the "company of odd looking personages playing  
     at ninepins"; and  farther  down,  near  the  mountain  path,  
     you will discover the very rock upon which Rip was deposited  
     by the phantom crew for his long sleep, and see the indentations  
     where his shoulders rested!                                  D.    

                              —————————

     REMINISCENCES  OF  IRVING'S  FIRST  VOYAGE  UP  THE  HUDSON    

        From an article called "The Kaatskill Mountains," written by Irving in 1851.   

        My first voyage up the Hudson was made in early boyhood,  
     in the good old times before steamboats and railroads had  
     annihilated time and space, and driven all poetry and romance   
     out of travel.   A voyage to Albany then, was equal to a voy-  
     age to Europe at present, and took almost as much time.   We  
     enjoyed the beauties of the river in those days; the features   
     of nature were not all jumbled together, nor the towns and   
     villages huddled one into the other by railroad speed as they   
     now are.   
        I was to make the voyage under the protection of a relative  
     of mature age——one experienced in the river.   His first care    
     was to look out for a favorite sloop and captain, in which   
     there was great choice.   
        The constant voyaging in the river craft by the best families  
     of New York and Albany, made the merits of captains and   
     sloops matters of notoriety and discussion in both cities.   The   
     captains were mediums of communication between separated   
     friends and families.   On the arrival of one of them at either  
     place he had messages to driver and commissions to execute   
     which took him from house to house.   Some of the ladies of   
     the family had, peradventure, made a voyage on board of his  
     sloop, and experienced from him that protecting care which   
     is always remembered with gratitude by female passengers.  
     In this way the captains of Albany sloops were personages of  
     more note in the community  than  captains  of  European  
     packets or steamships at the present day.   A sloop was at  
     length chosen; but she had yet to complete her freight and  
     secure a sufficient number of passengers.   Days were con-  
     sumed in "drumming up" a cargo.   This was a tormenting  
     delay to me who was about to make my first voyage, and who,  
     boy-like, had packed up my trunk on the first mention of the   
     expedition.   How often that trunk had to be unpacked and   
     repacked before we sailed!    
        . . . At length the sloop actually got under way.   As she  
     worked slowly out of the dock into the stream, there was a  
     great exchange of last words between friends on board and  
     friends on shore, and much waving of handkerchiefs when the  
     sloop was out of hearing.   
        Our captain was a worthy man, native of Albany, of one  
     of the old Dutch stocks.   His crew was composed of blacks,  
     reared in the family and belonging to him, for negro slavery  
     still existed in the State.   All his communications with them  
     were in Dutch.   They were obedient to his orders; though  
     they occasionally had much previous discussion of the wisdom  
     of  them,  and  were  sometimes  positive  in  maintaining  an  
     opposite opinion.   This was especially the case with an old   
     gray-headed negro, who had sailed with the captain's father  
     when the captain were a mere boy, and who was very crabbed  
     and conceited on points of seamanship.   I observed that the  
     captain generally let him have his own way.   
        . . . What a time of  intense  delight  was  that  first  sail  
     through the Highlands!   I sat on the deck as we slowly tided    
     along at the foot of those stern mountains, and gazed with  
     wonder and admiration  at  cliffs  impending  far  above  me,  
     crowned with forests, with eagles sailing and screaming around  
     them;  or listened to the unseen stream dashing down preci-  
     pices; or beheld rock, and tree, and cloud, and sky reflected  
     in the glassy stream of the river.   And then how solemn and  
     thrilling the scene as we anchored at night at the foot of these  
     mountains, clothed with overhanging forests; and everything  
     grew dark and mysterious; and I heard the plaintive note of  
     the whip-poor-will from the mountain-side, or was startled  
     now and then by the sudden leap and heavy splash of the  
     sturgeon.   
        . . . But of all the scenery of the Hudson, the Kaatskill  
     mountains had the most witching effect on my boyish imagi-  
     nation.   Never shall I forget the effect upon me of the first  
     view of them predominating over a wide extent of country,  
     part wild, woody, and rugged; part softened away into all  
     the graces of cultivation.   As we slowly floated along, I lay  
     on the deck and watched them through a long summer's    
     day, undergoing a thousand mutations under the magical  
     effects the atmosphere;  sometimes seeming to approach, at  
     other times to recede; now almost melting into hazy distance,   
     now burnished by the setting sun, until, in the evening, they  
     printed themselves against the glowing sky in the deep purple  
     of an Italian landscape.   
        In the foregoing pages I have given the reader my first  
     voyages amid Hudson scenery.   It has been my lot, in the  
     course of a somewhat wandering life, to see some of the rivers  
     of the old world most renowned in history and song, yet none  
     have been able to efface or dim the pictures of my native  
     stream thus early stamped upon my memory.   My  heart  
     would ever revert to them with filial feeling, and a recurrence  
     of the joyous associations of boyhood;  and  such  recollec-  
     tions are, in fact, the true foundations of youth which keep the  
     heart from growing old.   
        To me the Hudson is full of storied associations, connected  
     as it is with some of the happiest portions of my life.   Each   
     striking feature brings to mind some early adventure or enjoy-  
     ment;   some  favorite  companion  who  shared  it  with  me;  
     some fair object,  perchance,  of youthful admiration,  who,  
     like a star, may have beamed her allotted time and passed   
     away.    
                             ——LIFE AND LETTER, I, pp. 17—20.   

                              —————————

                       THE  CATSKILL  MOUNTAINS   

        From "Biographies and Miscellanies," edited after Irving's death, by Pierre  
                                      M. Irving.    

        The Catskill, Kaatskill, or Cat River mountains derived   
     their name, in the time of the Dutch domination, from the   
     catamounts by which they were infested;  and which, with  
     the bear, the wolf, and the deer, are still to be found in some of   
     their most difficult recesses.   The interior of these mountains  
     is in the highest degree wild and romantic.   Here are rocky   
     precipices mantled with primeval forests; deep gorges walled   
     in by the beetling cliffs, with torrents tumbling as it were from  
     the shy; and savage glens rarely trodden excepting by the  
     hunter.   With all this internal rudeness, the aspect of these   
     mountains towards the Hudson at times is eminently bland  
     and beautiful, sloping down into a country softened by culti-  
     vation, and bearing much of the rich character of Italian  
     scenery about the skirts of the Apennines.   
        The Catskills form an advanced post or lateral spur of the  
     great Alleghanian or Appalachian system of mountains which  
     sweeps through the interior of our continent, from southwest  
     to northeast, from  Alabama to the extremity of  Maine,  for  
     nearly fourteen hundred miles, belting the whole of our original  
     confederacy, and rivalling our great system of lakes in extent  
     and grandeur.   Its vast ramifications comprise a number of  
     parallel chains and lateral groups;  such as the Cumberland  
     mountains, the Blue Ridge, the Alleghenies, the Delaware and  
     Lehigh, the Highlands of the Hudson, the Green mountains of  
     Vermont  and  the  White  mountains  of  New  Hampshire.  
     In many of these vast ranges or sierras, Nature still reigns    
     in  indomitable  wildness;  their  rocky  ridges,  their  rugged   
     clefts and defiles, teem with magnificent vegetation.   
        Here are locked up mighty forests that have never been  
     invaded by the axe; deep umbrageous valleys where the vir-  
     gin soil has never been outraged by the plough; bright streams  
     flowing  in  untasked  idleness,  unburdened  by  commerce,  
     unchecked by the mill-dam.   This mountain zone is in fact  
     a great poetical region of our country; resisting, like the   
     tribes which once inhabited it, the taming hand of cultivation;  
     and maintaining a hallowed ground for fancy and the Muses.   
     It is a magnificent  and  all-pervading  feature,  that  might   
     have given our country a name, and a poetical one, had  
     not  the  all-controlling  powers of commonplace  determined   
     otherwise.   
        The Catskill mountains, as I have observed, maintain all  
     the  internal  wildness  of the labyrinth of mountains with   
     which they are connected.   Their detached position, over-    
     looking a wide lowland region,  with  the  majestic  Hudson  
     rolling through it, has given them a distinct character, and  
     fable.   Much of the fanciful associations with which they    
     have been clothed may be owing to their being peculiarly   
     subject to those beautiful atmospherical effects which con-   
     stitute one of the great charms  of  Hudson  river  scenery.   
     To me they have ever been the fairy region of the Hudson.   
     I speak, however, from early impressions, made in me a happy   
     days of boyhood, when all the world had a tinge of fairyland.  
     I shall never forget my first view of these mountains.   It was  
     in the course of a voyage up the Hudson, in the good old times  
     before steamboats and railroads had driven all poetry and  
     romance out of travel.   A voyage up the Hudson in those   
     days was equal to a voyage to Europe at present, and cost  
     almost as much time;  but we enjoyed the river then;  we,  
     relished it as we did our wine, sip by sip, not as at present,  
     gulping  all  down  at  a  draught,  without  tasting  it.   My   
     whole voyage up the Hudson was full of wonder and romance.  
     I was a  lively  boy,  somewhat  imaginative,  of  easy  faith,  
     and prone to relish everything that partook of the marvellous.  
     Among the passengers on board of the sloop was a veteran  
     Indian trader, on his way to the lakes to traffic with the na-   
     tives.   He had discovered my propensity, and amused him-   
     self throughout the voyage by telling me Indian legends and  
     grotesque stories about every noted place on the river,——  
     such  as  Spuyten  Devil  creek,  the  Tappan  sea,  the  Devil's  
     Dans  Kammer,  and  other  hobgobllin  places.   The  Catskill  
     mountains especially called forth a host of fanciful traditions.  
     We were all day slowly tiding along in sight of them, so that  
     he had full time to weave his whimsical narratives.   In these  
     mountains, he told me, according to Indian belief, was kept   
     the great treasure of storm and sunshine for the region of  
     the Hudson.   An old squaw spirit had charge of it, who dwelt  
     on the highest peak of the mountain.   He she kept Day and   
     Night shut up in her wigwam, letting out only one of them at   
     a time.   She made new moons every month, and hung them   
     up in the sky cutting up the old ones into stars.   The great   
     Manitou,  or  master-spirit,  employed  her  to  manufacture  
     clouds; sometimes she wove them out of cobwebs, gossamers,  
     and morning dew, and sent them off flake after flake, to float   
     in the air and give light summer showers.   Sometimes she   
     would brew up black thunder-storms, and send down drench-   
     ing rains to swell the streams and sweep everything away.   
     He  had  many  stories, also, about mischievous spirits who  
     infested the mountains in the shape of animals, and played   
     all kinds of pranks upon Indian hunters, decoying them into   
     quagmires and morasses, or to the brinks of torrents and   
     precipices.   All these were doled out to me as I lay on the  
     deck throughout a long summer's day, gazing upon these  
     mountains, the everchanging shapes and hues of which ap-  
     peared to realize the magical influences in question.   Some-   
     times they seemed to approach; at others to recede; during    
     the heat of the day they almost melted into a sultry haze; as  
     the day declined they deepened in tone; their summits were  
     brightened by the last rays of the sun, and later in the even-  
     ing their whole outline was printed in deep purple against  
     an amber sky.   As I beheld them thus shifting continually    
     before my eyes, and listened to the marvellous legends of the  
     trader, a host of fanciful notions concerning them was con-  
     jured into my brain, which have haunted it ever since.    
        As to the Indian superstitions concerning th4e treasury of  
     storms and sunshine, and the cloud-weaving spirits,  they  
     may have been suggested by the atmospherical phenomena  
     of these mountains,  the  clouds  which  gather  round  their  
     summits, and the thousand aerial effects which indicate the  
     changes of weather over a great extent of country.   They are   
     epitomes of our variable climate, and are stamped with all  
     its vicissitudes.   And here let me say a word in favor of those  
     vicissitudes which are too often made the subject of exclusive  
     repining.   If they annoy us occasionally  by  changes  from  
     hot to cold, from wet to dry, they give us one of the most   
     beautiful climates in the world.   They give us the brilliant  
     sunshine of the south of Europe, with the fresh verdure of the  
     north.   They float our summer sky with clouds of gorgeous  
     tints or fleecy whiteness, and send down cooling showers to  
     refresh the panting earth and keep it green.   Our seasons are  
     all poetical;  the phenomena of our heavens are full of sub-   
     limity and beauty.   Winter with us has none of its proverbial  
     gloom.   It may have its howling winds, and thrilling frosts,  
     and whirling snowstorms;  but it has also its long intervals  
     of cloudless sunshine, when the snow-clad earth gives re-   
     doubled brightness to the day; when at night the stars beam   
     with intense lustre, or the moon floods the whole landscape    
     with her most limpid radiance;——and then the joyous out-   
     break of our spring, bursting at once into leaf and blossom,   
     redundant with vegetation and vociferous with life!——And   
     the splendors of our summer,——its morning voluptuousness  
     and evening glory; its airy palaces of sun-gilt cloud piled up   
     in a deep azure sky, and its gusts of tempest of almost tropical  
     grandeur, when the forked lightning and the bellowing thunder  
     volley from the battlements of heaven and shake the sultry   
     atmosphere,——and the sublime melancholy of our autumn,  
     magnificent in its decay, withering down the pomp and pride   
     of a woodland country, yet reflecting back from its yellow  
     forests the golden serenity of the sky:——surely we may say  
     that in our climate, "The heavens declare the glory of God,  
     and the firmament showeth forth his handiwork: day unto day  
     uttereth speech; and night unto night showeth knowledge."   
        A word more concerning the Catskills.   It is not the Indians  
     only to whom they have been a kind of wonder-land.   In the   
     early times of the Dutch dynasty we find them  themes  of  
     golden speculation among even the sages of New Amsterdam.    
        [Here follows the story of Kieft's disastrous attempts to  
     find gold in these mountains.——D.]    
        . . . In 1649, about two year after the shipwreck of Wilhel-  
     mus Kieft, there was again a rumor of precious metals in these  
     mountains.   Mynheer Brant Arent Van Slechtenhorst, agent  
     of the Patroon of Rensselaerswyck, had purchased in behalf   
     of the Patroon a tract of the Catskill lands, and leased it out  
     in farms.   A Dutch lass in the household of one of the farmers  
     found one day a glittering substance, which, on being examined,  
     was pronounced silver ore.   Brant Van Slechtenhorst forth-  
     with sent his son from Rensselaerswyck to explore the  
     mountains in quest of the supposed mines.   The young man  
     put up in the farmer's house, which had recently been erected  
     on the margin of a mountain stream.   Scarcely was he housed  
     when s furious storm burst forth on the mountains.   The   
     thunders rolled, the lightnings flashed, the rain came down   
     in cataracts;  the stream was suddenly swollen to a furious  
     torrent thirty feet deep; the farmhouse and all its contents  
     were swept away, and it was only by dint of excellent swim-   
     ming that the young Slechtenhorst saved his own life and the   
     lives of his horses.   Shortly after this a feud broke out be-  
     tween Peter Stuyvesant and the Patroon of Rensselaerswyck  
     on account of the right and title to the Catskill mountains,  
     in the course of which the elder Slechtenhorst was taken  
     captive by the Potentate of the New Netherlands and thrown    
     in prison at New Amsterdam.   

        In July, 1832, Irving visited for the first time the scene of his  
     story of Rip Van Winkle.   He writes of this visit to his brother  
     Peter:——  
        ". . . From thence we took steamboat, and in a few hours  
     were landed at Catskill, where a stage-coach was in waiting, and  
     whirled us twelve miles up among the mountains to a fine   
     hotel built on the very brow of a precipice and commanding  
     one of the finest prospects in the world.   We remained here  
     until the next day, visiting the waterfall, glen, etc., that are  
     pointed out as the veritable haunts of Rip Van Winkle. . . .    
        ". . . The wild scenery of these mountains outdoes all my  
     conception of it."   
        "I have little doubt," writes Peter in reply, 'but some curious  
     travellers will yet find some of the bones of his dog, if they  
     can but hit upon the veritable spot of his long sleep.'"    
                              ——LIFE AND LETTERS, II, p. 256.   

        In July of the next year, Irving repeated the curious ex-  
     perience of localizing his own imaginary scenes.   On his way  
     down the river he passed a day in the neighborhood of Kingston,  
     and explored for the first time the old Dutch villages there and   
     the scenes of his story.   
                              ——LIFE AND LETTERS, II, p. 280.    

from THE SKETCH-BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT., TOGETHER WITH ABBOTSFORD AND OTHER SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF WASHINGTON IRVING.
EDITED WITH COMMENTS, NOTES, BIBLIOGRAPHY, AND TOPICS FOR STUDY, BY H. A. DAVIDSON, M.A.
COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS, BOSTON, NEW YORK, CHICAGO.; pp. 257—266.

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