At this time Irving was much perplexed about his career.  He had “a fatal propensity to belles-lettres;” his repugnance to the law was such that his mind would not take hold of the study; he anticipated nothing from legal pursuits or political employment; he was secretly writing the humorous history, but was altogether in a low-spirited and disheartened state.  I quote again from the memorandum:—­

“In the mean time I saw Matilda every day, and that helped to distract me.  In the midst of this struggle and anxiety she was taken ill with a cold.  Nothing was thought of it at first; but she grew rapidly worse, and fell into a consumption.  I cannot tell you what I suffered.  The ills that I have undergone in this life have been dealt out to me drop by drop, and I have tasted all their bitterness.  I saw her fade rapidly away; beautiful, and more beautiful, and more angelical to the last.  I was often by her bedside; and in her wandering state of mind she would talk to me with a sweet, natural, and affecting eloquence, that was overpowering.  I saw more of the beauty of her mind in that delirious state than I had ever known before.  Her malady was rapid in its career, and hurried her off in two months.  Her dying struggles were painful and protracted.  For three days and nights I did not leave the house, and scarcely slept.  I was by her when she died; all the family were assembled round her, some praying, others weeping, for she was adored by them all.  I was the last one she looked upon.  I have told you as briefly as I could what, if I were to tell with all the incidents and feelings that accompanied it, would fill volumes.  She was but about seventeen years old when she died.

“I cannot tell you what a horrid state of mind I was in for a long time.  I seemed to care for nothing; the world was a blank to me.  I abandoned all thoughts of the law.  I went into the country, but could not bear solitude, yet could not endure society.  There was a dismal horror continually in my mind, that made me fear to be alone.  I had often to get up in the night, and seek the bedroom of my brother, as if the having a human being by me would relieve me from the frightful gloom of my own thoughts.

“Months elapsed before my mind would resume any tone; but the despondency I had suffered for a long time in the course of this attachment, and the anguish that attended its catastrophe, seemed to give a turn to my whole character, and throw some clouds into my disposition, which have ever since hung about it.  When I became more calm and collected, I applied myself, by way of occupation, to the finishing of my work.  I brought it to a close, as well as I could, and published it; but the time and circumstances in which it was produced rendered me always unable to look upon it with satisfaction.  Still it took with the public, and gave me celebrity, as an original work was something remarkable and uncommon