It was of the evening of his first arrival in Washington that he writes:  “I emerged from dirt and darkness into the blazing splendor of Mrs. Madison’s drawing-room.  Here I was most graciously received; found a crowded collection of great and little men, of ugly old women and beautiful young ones, and in ten minutes was hand and glove with half the people in the assemblage.  Mrs. Madison is a fine, portly, buxom dame, who has a smile and a pleasant word for everybody.  Her sisters, Mrs. Cutts and Mrs. Washington, are like two merry wives of Windsor; but as to Jemmy Madison,—­oh, poor Jemmy!—­he is but a withered little apple john.”

Odd characters congregated then in Washington as now.  One honest fellow, who, by faithful fagging at the heels of Congress, had obtained a profitable post under government, shook Irving heartily by the hand, and professed himself always happy to see anybody that came from New York; “somehow or another, it was natteral to him,” being the place where he was first born.  Another fellow-townsman was “endeavoring to obtain a deposit in the Mechanics’ Bank, in case the United States Bank does not obtain a charter.  He is as deep as usual; shakes his head and winks through his spectacles at everybody he meets.  He swore to me the other day that he had not told anybody what his opinion was, whether the bank ought to have a charter or not.  Nobody in Washington knew what his opinion was—­not one—­nobody; he defied any one to say what it was —­anybody—­damn the one!  No, sir, nobody knows;’ and if he had added nobody cares, I believe honest would have been exactly in the right.  Then there’s his brother George:  ’Damn that fellow,—­knows eight or nine languages; yes, sir, nine languages,—­Arabic, Spanish, Greek, Ital—–­And there’s his wife, now,—­she and Mrs. Madison are always together.  Mrs. Madison has taken a great fancy to her little daughter.  Only think, sir, that child is only six years old, and talks the Italian like a book, by—–­; little devil learnt it from an Italian servant,—­damned clever fellow; lived with my brother George ten years.  George says he would not part with him for all Tripoli,’” etc.

It was always difficult for Irving, in those days, to escape from the genial blandishments of Baltimore and Philadelphia.  Writing to Brevoort from Philadelphia, March 16, 1811, he says:  “The people of Baltimore are exceedingly social and hospitable to strangers, and I saw that if I once let myself get into the stream, I should not be able to get out under a fortnight at least; so, being resolved to push home as expeditiously as was honorably possible, I resisted the world, the flesh, and the devil at Baltimore; and after three days’ and nights’ stout carousal, and a fourth’s sickness, sorrow, and repentance, I hurried off from that sensual city.”