"The more I saw her, the more I had reason to admire her. Her mind seemed to unfold itself leaf by leaf, and every time to discover new sweetness. Nobody knew her so well as I, for she was generally silent.... Never did I meet with more intuitive rectitude of mind, more delicacy, more exquisite propriety in word, thought, and action than in this young creature. Her brilliant little sister used to say that 'people began by admiring her, but ended by loving Matilda.' For my part I idolized her." Irving then continues by giving a long account of his efforts to succeed in his literary and legal work with a view of earning a place in life so as to enable him to marry. "In the midst of this struggle and anxiety she fell into a consumption. I cannot tell you what I suffered.... I saw her fade rapidly away, beautiful, and more beautiful, and more angelic to the very last. I was often by her bedside, and when her mind wandered she would talk to me with a sweet, natural, and affecting eloquence that was overpowering. I saw more of the beauty of her mind in that delirious state than I ever had before.... I was by her when she died, and was the last she ever looked upon.... She was but seventeen."
So poignant was the grief of Irving that for thirty years after her death he did not like any one to mention her name to him. One day he was visiting her father when one of her nieces, taking some music from a drawer, brought with it a piece of embroidery. "Washington," said Mr. Hoffman, "this was poor Matilda's work." The effect was instantaneous. The light-hearted conversationalist of a moment before became silent and soon left the house. When in _Bracebridge Hall_ he writes,--"I have loved as I never again shall love in this world--I have been loved as I shall never again be loved,"--is he not thinking of the fair Matilda? And in a note-book we find,--"She died in the beauty of her youth, and in my memory she will ever be young and beautiful."
In May, 1815, Irving went abroad for the second time. His purpose was to stay a few months; he remained seventeen years. The first sight that greeted the newly arrived American in Liverpool was the mail-coach bringing the news of the battle of Waterloo. Irving's sympathies were with Napoleon. "In spite of all his misdeeds he is a noble fellow, and I am confident will eclipse in the eyes of posterity all the crowned wiseacres that have crushed him by their overwhelming confederacy." In the year 1818 the Irving brothers went into bankruptcy. Washington's interest in the business was that of a younger brother who had little responsibility. But of late years he had been much harassed by the accumulating troubles. With the end of the business anxieties he turns to literature with a whole-souled devotion. His home friends tried to secure for him the position of Secretary of the Legation in London; his brother William wrote that Commodore Decatur was keeping open for his acceptance the office of Chief Clerk in the Navy Department; but Irving turned the offers aside. Irving is usually imaged as a sunshiny, genial, easy-going gentleman into whose blood little of the iron of firmness had been infused. The fact that he not only refused these offers but also rejected offers from Scott and Murray shows that he had will enough to keep to the bent of his genius at a time when he needed money and influence. Murray offered him a salary of £1000 a year to be the editor of a periodical.