human
Sketch-Book created a sensation in America, and the echo of it was not long in reaching England. The general chorus of approval and the rapid sale surprised Irving, and sent his spirits up, but success had the effect on him that it always has on a fine nature. He writes to Leslie:
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Now you suppose I am all on the alert, and full of spirit and excitement. No such thing. I am just as good for nothing as ever I was; and, indeed, have been flurried and put out of my way by these pufflngs. I feel something as I suppose you did when your picture met with success, --anxious to do something better, and at a loss what to do.
human
I feel great diffidence, he writes Brevoort, March 3, 1819,
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This diffidence was not assumed. All through his career, a breath of criticism ever so slight acted temporarily like a boar-frost upon his productive power. He always saw reasons to take sides with his critic. Speaking of
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in a letter of March, 1820, when Scott and Lockhart and all the Reviews were in a full chorus of acclaim, he says:
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I wish I did possess more of it, but it seems my curse at present to have anything but confidence in myself or pleasure in anything I have written.
human
Sketch-Book