These young gentlemen liked to be thought “sad dogs.”  That they were less abandoned than they pretended to be the sequel of their lives shows:  among Irving’s associates at this time who attained honorable consideration were John and Gouverneur Kemble, Henry Brevoort, Henry Ogden, James K. Paulding, and Peter Irving.  The saving influence for all of them was the refined households they frequented and the association of women who were high-spirited without prudery, and who united purity and simplicity with wit, vivacity, and charm of manner.  There is some pleasant correspondence between Irving and Miss Mary Fairlie, a belle of the time, who married the tragedian, Thomas A. Cooper; the “fascinating Fairlie,” as Irving calls her, and the Sophie Sparkle of the “Salmagundi.”  Irving’s susceptibility to the charms and graces of women—­a susceptibility which continued always fresh—­was tempered and ennobled by the most chivalrous admiration for the sex as a whole.  He placed them on an almost romantic pinnacle, and his actions always conformed to his romantic ideal, although in his writings he sometimes adopts the conventional satire which was more common fifty years ago than now.  In a letter to Miss Fairlie, written from Richmond, where he was attending the trial of Aaron Burr, he expresses his exalted opinion of the sex.  It was said in accounting for the open sympathy of the ladies with the prisoner that Burr had always been a favorite with them; “but I am not inclined,” he writes, “to account for it in so illiberal a manner; it results from that merciful, that heavenly disposition, implanted in the female bosom, which ever inclines in favor of the accused and the unfortunate.  You will smile at the high strain in which I have indulged; believe me, it is because I feel it; and I love your sex ten times better than ever."[1]

[Footnote 1:  An amusing story in connection with this Richmond visit illustrates the romantic phase of Irving’s character.  Cooper, who was playing at the theatre, needed small-clothes for one of his parts; Irving lent him a pair,—­knee-breeches being still worn,—­and the actor carried them off to Baltimore.  From that city he wrote that he had found in the pocket an emblem of love, a mysterious locket of hair in the shape of a heart.  The history of it is curious:  when Irving sojourned at Genoa he was much taken with the beauty of a young Italian lady, the wife of a Frenchman.  He had never spoken with her, but one evening before his departing he picked up from the floor her handkerchief which she had dropped, and with more gallantry than honesty carried it off to Sicily.  His pocket was picked of the precious relic while he was attending a religious function in Catania, and he wrote to his friend Storm, the consul at Genoa, deploring his loss.  The consul communicated the sad misfortune to the lovely Bianca, for that was the lady’s name, who thereupon sent him a lock of her hair, with the request that