Letters: Volume I [1], 1802-1823 (The complete works of Washington Irving, Volume XXIII [23]) [Hardcover]

Washington Irving (Author), Ralph M. Aderman (Editor), Herbert L. Kleinfield (Editor), Jenifer S. Banks (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1978 | ISBN-10: 0805785221 | ISBN-13: 978-0805785227

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1882. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... unavoidable calamities. When such a spirit breaks forth into complaint, however brief, we are aware how great must be the suffering that extorts the murmur. We sympathize with James, a romantic, active, and accomplished prince, cut off in the lustihood of youth from all the enterprise, the noble uses, and vigorous delights of life; as we do with Milton, alive to all the beauties of nature and glories of art, when he breathes forth brief, but deep-toned lamentations over his perpetual blindness. Had not James evinced a deficiency of poetic artifice, we might almost have suspected that these lowerings of gloomy reflection were meant as preparative to the brightest scene of his story; and to contrast with that refulgence of light and loveliness, that exhilarating accompaniment of bird and song, and foliage and flower, and all the revel of the year, with which he ushers in the lady of his heart. It is this scene, in particular, which throws all the magic of romance about the old Castle Keep. He had risen, he says, at daybreak, according to custom, to escape from the dreary meditations of a sleepless pillow. "Bewailing in his chamber thus alone," despairing of all joy and remedy, " fortired of thought and wobegone," he had wandered to the window, to indulge the captive's miserable solace of gazing wistfully upon the world from which he is excluded. The window looked forth upon a small garden which lay at the foot of the tower. It was a quiet, sheltered spot, adorned with arbors and green alleys, and protected from the passing gaze by trees and hawthorn hedges. Now was there made, fast by the towers wall,-X garden fairs, and in the corners set An arbour green with wandis long and small Railed about, and so with leaves beset Was all the place and hawthorn hedges knet, ...

Product Details

• Hardcover: 798 pages
• Publisher: Twayne Publishers Inc.,U.S. (June 1, 1978)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805785221
• ISBN-13: 978-0805785227
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,450,537 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)