Transcription
CATALOG NUMBER F&E 33
OBJECT NAME Letter (“facsimile”)
DATE February 12, 1851
AUTHOR Washington Irving
RECIPIENT Jesse Merwin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Merwin
MEDIUM Paper, ink
PEOPLE Judge Van Ness [poss. William P. Van Ness] ,
Dominic Van Ness, congressman ?? Van Allen, John Moore (lake),
PLACES Sunnyside, Kinderhook, Lindenwald, lake near Kinderhook,
KEYWORDS anecdotes of youth, John Moore as inspiration for vagabond Dirk
Schuyler character, school house torn down, new school house,
horse riding,
Sunnyside Feb 12th 1851
You must excuse my very good friend Merwin, for / suffering your letter to remain so long unanswered, / you can have no idea how many letters I have / to answer, beside [lagging?] with my pen at my / own literary tasks, so that it is impossible for / me to avoid being behind hand in my correspondence / Your letter was indeed most welcome, calling up as / it did recollections of pleasant scenes and pleasant / days passed together in time long since at Judge / Van Nesses in Kinderhook. Your mention of the death / of good old Dominic Van Ness recalls the apostolic / zeal with which he took our little sinful community / in hands when he put up for a day or two at the / judges; and the wholesome castigation he gave us / all one Sunday beginning with the two country /
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Belles who came fluttering into the school house / during the sermon, decked in their city finery, / and ending with the judge himself, in the strong hold / of his own mansion. How soundly he gave it to us! / how he peeled off every rug of self righteousness / with which we tried to cover ourselves, and laid the / rod on the bare backs of our consciences! The good / plain spoken honest old man! How I honored him for / his simple, straight forward earnestness; his homely sincerity. With which he [^ He certainly] handled us without mittens, / but I trust we were all the better for it. How different / he was xx from the brisk, dapper, self sufficient / little apostle who cantered up tot he Judges door a day / or two after; who was so full of himself that he had no / thought to bestow on our religious delinquencies; who did / nothing but boast of his public trials of skill in argument / with rival preachers of other denominations, and how he / had driven them off the field and [??-ed] over them….
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hYou must remember the bustling self confident little man / with a [tin] trumpet in the handle of his riding whip, with / which I presume he blew the trumpet in Zion!
DDo you remember our fishing expedition in company / with congress man Van Allen to the little lake a few / miles from Kinderhook; and John Moore the vagabond ad - / [illegible]- miral of the lake who sat crouched in a heap in the middle / of his canoe in the center of the lake, with fishing rods / stretching out in every direction like the long legs of a / spider. And do you remember our piratical prank, when / we made up by for our own bad luck in fishing by plunder / plundering his canoe of its fish when we found it adrift. / and do you remember how John Moore came splashing / along the marsh on the opposite border of the lake, roaring / at us, and how we finished our [prolick?] by driving off / and leaving the congressman to John Moores mercy; tickling / ourselves with the idea of his being scalped at least. Oh / well aday, proud Merwin; those were the days of our youth / and folly, I trust we have grown wiser and better since / then; we certainly have grown older. I don’t think we could / rob John Moore’s fishing canoe now. By the way that same / John Moore [^ and the anecdote you told of him] gave me the idea of a vagabond character / Dirk Schuyler, in my Knickerbocker history of New York which / I was then working.
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You tell me the old school house is torn down and a nice / one built in its place. I am sorry for it. I should have liked / to see the old school house once more; where I and after / my morning’s literary task was over I used to come and / wait for you occasionally until school was dismissed: / and you used to promise to keep back the punishment of some / little tough bottmed dutch boy until I should come for / my amusement _ but never kept your promise. I don’t / think I should look with such a friendly eye at the new school / house, however nice it might be.
Since I saw you in New York I have had [llegible] attacks / of bilous [inter??ent] fever which shook me terribly; but / they cleared out my system, and I have now since been / in my usual excellent health; able to mount my horse/ and gallop about the country almost as briskly as when / I was a youngster. Wishing you the enjoyment of the / same inestimable blessing and begging you to remember / me to your daughter who penned your letter and to your / son whom out of old kindness and companionship, you / have named after me
I remain ever, my good friend,
Yours very truly and cordially
Washington Irving
Jesse Merwin Esq’rTranscriber
Kathryn AlexanderLanguage
English
