Washington was not very fond of study, but he was a great reader.  At eleven his favorite stories were “Robinson Crusoe” and “Sindbad the Sailor.”  Besides these, he read many books of travel, and soon found himself wishing that he might go to sea.  As he grew up he was able to gratify his taste for travel, and some of his finest books and stories relate to his experiences in foreign lands.  In the introduction to the “Sketch Book” he says, “How wistfully would I wander about the pier-heads in fine weather, and watch the parting ships bound to distant climes—­with what longing eyes would I gaze after their lessening sails, and waft myself in imagination to the ends of the earth!”

CHAPTER II

IRVING’S FIRST VOYAGE UP THE HUDSON RIVER

Irving’s first literary composition seems to have been a play written when he was thirteen.  It was performed at the house of a friend, in the presence of a famous actress of that day; but in after years Irving had forgotten even the title.

His schooling was finished when he was sixteen.  His elder brothers had attended college, and he never knew exactly why he did not.  But he was not fond of hard study or hard work.  He lived in a sort of dreamy leisure, which seemed particularly suited to his light, airy genius, so full of humor, sunshine, and loving-kindness.

After leaving school, he began to study law in the office of a certain Henry Masterton.  This was in the year 1800.  He was admitted to the bar six years later; but he spent a great deal more of the intervening time in traveling and scribbling than in the study of law.  His first published writing was a series of letters signed “Jonathan Oldstyle,” printed in his brother’s daily paper, “The Morning Chronicle,” when the writer was nineteen years old.

Irving’s first journey was made the very year after he left school.  It was a voyage in a sailing boat up the Hudson river to Albany; and a land journey from there to Johnstown, New York, to visit two married sisters.  In the early days this was on the border of civilization, where the white traders went to buy furs from the Indians.  Steamboats and railroads had not been invented, and a journey that can now be made in a few hours, then required several days.  Years afterward, Irving described his first voyage up the Hudson.

“My first voyage up the Hudson,” said he, “was made in early boyhood, in the good old times before steamboats and railroads had annihilated time and space, and driven all poetry and romance out of travel....  We enjoyed the beauties of the river in those days.[+]

[Footnote +:  Irving was the first to describe the wonderful beauties of the Hudson river.]

“I was to make the voyage under the protection of a relative of mature age—­one experienced in the river.  His first care was to look out for a favorite sloop and captain, in which there was great choice....