In a few nights, however, all this was changed; for the moon, which had been invisible, began to “roll in full splendor above the towers, pouring a flood of tempered light into every court and hall.”

Says Irving, “I now felt the merit of the Arabic inscription on the walls—­’How beauteous is this garden; where the flowers of the earth vie with the stars of heaven.  What can compare with the vase of yon alabaster fountain filled with crystal water?  Nothing but the moon in her fullness, shining in the midst of an unclouded sky!”

“On such heavenly nights,” he goes on, “I would sit for hours at my window inhaling the sweetness of the garden, and musing on the checkered fortunes of those whose history was dimly shadowed out in the elegant memorials around.  Sometimes, when all was quiet, and the clock from the distant cathedral of Granada struck the midnight hour, I have sallied out on another tour and wandered over the whole building; but how different from my first tour!  No longer dark and mysterious; no longer peopled with shadowy foes; no longer recalling scenes of violence and murder; all was open, spacious, beautiful; everything called up pleasing and romantic fancies; Lindaraxa once more walked in her garden; the gay chivalry of Moslem Granada once more glittered about the Court of Lions!

“Who can do justice to a moonlight night in such a climate and in such a place?  The temperature of a summer night in Andalusia is perfectly ethereal.  We seem lifted up into an ethereal atmosphere; we feel a serenity of soul, a buoyancy of spirits, an elasticity of frame, which render mere existence happiness.  But when moonlight is added to all this, the effect is like enchantment.  Under its plastic sway the Alhambra seems to regain its pristine glories.  Every rent and chasm of time; every moldering tint and weather-stain is gone; the marble resumes its original whiteness; the long colonnades brighten in the moonbeams; the halls are illuminated with a softened radiance—­we tread the enchanted palace of an Arabian tale!”

When one may journey with such a companion, through a whole volume of enchantment and legend and moonlight, it is not strange that “The Alhambra” has been one of the most widely read books ever produced by an American writer.

CHAPTER XIV

THE LAST YEARS OF IRVING’S LIFE

Some people have thought that Irving’s long residence abroad indicated that he did not care so much as he should for his native land.  But the truth is, the years after his return to the United States were among the happiest of his life; and more and more he felt that here was his home.

In 1835 he purchased, as I have already said, a small piece of land on the Hudson, on which stood the Van Tassel house mentioned in the “Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”  It was an old Dutch cottage which had stood for so many years that it needed to be almost entirely rebuilt; and Irving spent a considerable sum of money to fit it up as his bachelor quarters.  First he shared it with one of his bachelor brothers; but soon he invited his brother Ebenezer to come with his family of girls to occupy it with him.