II

Having due regard then for perspective, and trying not to confuse historical importance with the more vital interest which implies permanent claims, it seems pretty safe to come back to Irving and Poe, to Cooper and Hawthorne.  Even as in the sketch and tale Irving stands alone with such a masterpiece as “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”; and Poe equally by himself with his tales of psychological horror and mystery, so in longer fiction, Cooper and Hawthorne have made as distinct contributions in the domain of Romance.  Their service is as definite for the day of the Romantic spirit, as is that of Howells and James for the modern day of realism so-called.  It is not hard to see that Irving even in his fiction is essentially an essayist; that with him story was not the main thing, but that atmosphere, character and style were,—­the personal comment upon life.  One reads a sketch like “The Stout Gentleman,” in every way a typical work, for anything but incident or plot.  The Hudson River idyls, it may be granted, have somewhat more of story interest, but Irving seized them, ready-made for his use, because of their value for the picturesque evocation of the Past.  He always showed a keen sense of the pictorial and dramatic in legend and history, as the “Alhambra” witnesses quite as truly as the sketches.  “Bracebridge Hall” and “The Sketch Book,” whatever of the fictional they may contain, are the work of the essayist primarily, and Washington Irving will always, in a critical view, be described as a master of the English essay.  No other maker of American literature affords so good an example of the inter-colation of essay and fiction:  he recalls the organic relation between the Sir Roger de Coverley Papers and the eighteenth century Novel proper of a generation later.

His service to all later writers of fiction was large in that he taught them the use of promising native material that awaited the story-maker.  His own use of it, the Hudson, the environs of Manhattan, was of course romantic, in the main.  When in an occasional story he is unpleasant in detail or tragic in trend he seems less characteristic—­so definitely was he a romanticist, seeking beauty and wishing to throw over life the kindly glamour of imaginative art.  It is worth noting, however, that he looked forward rather than back, towards the coming realism, not to the incurable pseudo-romanticism of the late eighteenth century, in his instinct to base his happenings upon the bedrock of truth—­the external truth of scene and character and the inner truth of human psychology.

Admirably a modern artist in this respect, his old-fashionedness, so often dilated upon, can easily be overstated.  He not only left charming work in the tale, but helped others who came after to use their tools, furthering their art by the study of a good model.