“I have,” confided Washington Irving to his friend
and effective literary
agent Henry Brevoort, “by patient & persevering labour of my
most
uncertain pen, & by catching the gleams of sunshine in my cloudy mind,
managed to open to myself an avenue to 〈a〉 some degree of profit
&
reputation.”
The “avenue” in question was The Sketch Book of Geoffrey
Crayon, Gent. – America's first internationally
acclaimed work of literature
– which, by March 1821, had become a direct route to respectability
and
the British establishment, opening to Irving the world of stately homes
and their real-life avenues, previously only glimpsed from afar. Pieced
together after the collapse of his family business, the collection of sketches
may have been a carefully engineered career move, but Irving avoided any
suggestion of personal cost in catching only those “gleams of sunshine,”
and apparently censoring his cloudier, less amenable self. He continued:
“I value it the more highly because it is entirely independent and
self
created; and I must use my best endeavours to turn it to account”
(LI.614). In the context, “independent” –
a charged word for his
generation – is striking, given that The Sketch Book
was anything but.