Morris: Irving' s Fiction in France 



21 



self-assurance of the inhabitants of our country towns. Whence 

 comes a heavy and pretentious tone which the author of the History 

 of New York can not throw off. One can see he is sure of producing 

 laughter. M. Sedley likewise thinks the work is too American 

 to keenly interest Europeans (p. viii). 



As to his place in American literature M. Chasles declared in 

 1841 that ''he was the best writer in America'V^ which of course was 

 not at that time saying a great deal; and M. Eyma said, in 1846, that 

 he had ''created a literature in America" (p. 569). Others divide this 

 honor between Irving and Cooper. "A. M." for example, says in the 

 Globe that Washington Irving and Cooper are for him the two transcend- 

 ant geniuses of the United States, while M. Moreau states, in the 

 Grande Encyclopedie, that, with Cooper, Irving is "one of the initiators 

 of American literature". Still others rank him below Cooper. Fon- 

 taney, for example, asserts that "Washington Irving is a man of less 

 importance than Cooper" (p. 517), while M. Lomenie believes that 

 Irving's talent, occupying itself with subjects already exhausted for 

 us, is much inferior to the talent of Cooper (p. 8). M. Milne declares 

 that he is a "writer of the first order and that he deserves one of the 

 first places among classic authors" (p. vii). 



His influence is apparent, it is claimed, on both sides of the At- 

 lantic. According to M. Barot he was imitated by Thomas Halibur- 

 ton (p. 217); according to M. de Gourmont, he is the "ancestor of 

 American humor" (p. 58). In England he is considered, says M. 

 Rosenzweig, "as a master and a model", and it is not the least of the 

 merits of the Sketch-hook, says the same authority, that it has furnished 

 Dickens the inspiration for certain portions of some of his best stories. 



Summary. To sum up, Irving's sensibility, as revealed in his 

 works of fiction, is characterized, according to his French critics, by 

 profound sincerity, sobriety, and tenderness. His imagination, 

 habitually light, dreamy, and inclined toward the fantastic, is at the 

 same time capable of lofty flights. As an observer, he is honest, ac- 

 curate, and discriminating, but perhaps not very profound. His 

 judgment is sound and his taste good. His talent is complex. He is in 

 the first place a painter. His descriptions of nature are exact and his 

 portraits lifelike, but his pictures of manners, especially those of 

 English manners, are somewhat overdrawn. In the second place, he 

 is a historian, but not so much a historian as a litterateur. He is also 



Globe, 1827, p. 415 (anonymous). 

 3s Revue des Deux Mondes, 15 April, 1841, p. 309. 

 69 Globe, 1831, p. 625. 



