Rip Van Winkle

Introduction

The following taleTale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York. He took a great interest in the province’s Dutch history and the customs of the descendants of its earliestDiedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who was very curious in the Dutch History of the province and the manners of the descendants from its primitiveExplanation: Diedrich Knickerbocker is Irving’s fictional historian. The Introduction, Note and Postscript belong to the story’s playful frame: their claims of historical accuracy are part of the fiction. settlers. His historical research, however, took him among people rather than books. There were sadly few books researches, however, did not lie so much among books as among men; for the former are lamentably scanty on his favourite topics, whereas the old townspeople, and still more their wives, were full of the legends topics; whereas he found the old burghers, and still more, their wives, rich in that legendary lore, so invaluable to true history. Whenever he came across Whenever, therefore, he happened upon a genuine Dutch family, snugly shut up in its low-roofed farmhouse farm-house, under a spreading sycamore, he saw it as a little book bound with clasps and printed in black-letter, an old Gothic typeface. He looked upon it as a little clasped volume of black-letter, and Explanation: Black-letter is an old typeface with heavy, angular letters. Knickerbocker treats the family as a book he can study; the comparison is retained.studied it with the zeal of a bookworm.

The result of all this research these researches was a history of the province under its province, during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he published some years ago.since. Opinions differ about the literary quality of his work. To There have been various opinions as to the literary character of his work, and, to tell the truth, it is not a bit whit better than it should be. Its chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy. This was questioned a little when the book first appeared, accuracy, which indeed was a little questioned on its first appearance, but has since been completely established. The book is now included in all historical collections as anestablished; and it is now admitted into all historical collections, as a book of unquestionable authority.

The old gentleman died shortly after his work was published. Now the publication of his work; and now that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much harm to his memory to say that his time might have been much better spent on more serious work.employed in weightier labours. He liked to ride his hobby-horse He, however, was apt to ride his hobby Explanation: Riding a hobby-horse means pursuing a favourite interest. Irving extends the horse image with the dust kicked into the neighbours’ eyes.in his own way. Now and then it kicked a little dust into his neighbours’ eyes and upset some friends way; and though it did now and then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbours, and grieve the spirit of some friends, for whom he felt the deepest respect and affection. Yet his mistakes truest deference and affection, yet his errors and follies are remembered “more in sorrow than anger,” and people are beginning to suspect it begins to be suspected, that he never meant to hurtintended to injure or offend. Whatever the critics think of him, many people still hold his memory dear, and their But however his memory may be appreciated by critics, it is still held dear by many folks, whose good opinion is well worth having. Certain biscuit-bakers have even stamped his portrait on their New Year cakes. They having; particularly by certain biscuit-bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on their new-year cakes, and have thus given him a chance of immortality for immortality, almost equal to having his portrait the being stamped on a Waterloo medal or a Queen Anne farthing, a small coin.medal, or a Queen Anne’s farthing.Explanation: The farthing was a small British coin. Irving jokingly compares a portrait on a cake with portraits stamped on medals or coins.

Whoever has travelledWHOEVER has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the CatskillKaatskill mountains. They are a detached dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family. To family, and are seen away to the west of the river, they rise swelling up to a noble height and lord height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season, every change of weather—indeed, weather, indeed, every hour of the day—changes the magical colours day produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains. All mountains; and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, regard them as perfect barometers, instruments that help predict the weather.as perfect barometers.Explanation: A barometer measures air pressure and can help predict changes in the weather. Here the mountains themselves act as weather signs. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky. Sometimes, though sky; but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they they will gather a hood of grey mist around their summits. In vapours about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, it glows will glow and light up like a crown of glory.

At the foot of these fairy mountains, the traveller may have spottedvoyager may have descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose wooden-tiledVillage, whose shingle roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the high groundupland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a very old little village, founded by Dutch colonists in the province’s early days, around little village of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists, in the early times of the province, just about the beginning of good Peter Stuyvesant’s time as governor the government of the good Peter Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace!). Until a few years ago, peace!), and there were some of the original settlers’ houses were still standing. They were houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow bricks bricks, brought from Holland, with lattice windows and peaked gable fronts topped with rooster-shaped weather vanes.having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weathercocks.

In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and weather-beaten), there lived, many years ago, while the country was stillsince, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a simple, good-natured fellow, namedof the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles who servedfigured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege of Fort Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the warlikemartial character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple, good-natured man; he was alsowas, moreover, a kind neighbour, and an obedient henpecked husband. Perhaps being a henpecked husband gave him the meek spirit that made him so universally popular. Men ruled by scolding wives at home tend to be especially eager to please and make peace when they are out.Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal popularity; for those men are apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home. No doubt their tempers become Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of household troubles. A curtain-lecture—a scolding at bedtime—is domestic tribulation, and a curtain-lecture is Explanation: A curtain-lecture was a scolding given in bed, behind the bed curtains. These comments are the narrator’s comic account of marriage, not a rule about women or family life.worth all the sermons in the world for teaching patience and endurance.the virtues of patience and long-suffering. A quarrelsometermagant wife may therefore, in some ways, be considered quite a blessing. If so, Rip Van Winkle was three timesmay, therefore, in some respects, be considered a tolerable blessing, and if so, Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed.

One thing is certain:Certain it is, that he was a great favourite among all the good wives of the village, who, as women so kindly tend to dousual with the amiable sex, took his sidepart in all family squabbles, and never failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening gossipgossipings, to lay all the blame on his wife, DameDame Van Winkle. The children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He joined in their gamesassisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and Native AmericansIndians. Whenever he went here and theredodging about the village, he was surrounded by a troop of them hanging on his coat-tailsskirts, clambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks on him without being punishedwith impunity; and not a dog would bark at him throughout the neighbourhood.

The great flaw in Rip’s character was an overwhelming dislike of any work that could earn him money.error in Rip’s composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labour. It could not be through a lack of hard work or perseverance. He for want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar’s lance lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even when he did not get though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a hunting gunfowling-piece on his shoulder, for hours at a timetogether, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down valleydale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He never refused to help a neighbour, even with the hardest work. He was always among the first to join the country gatherings for husking maize would never refuse to assist a neighbour even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man in all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone fences. The fences; the women of the village also used village, too, used to employ him to run errands and do their errands, and to do such little odd jobs that as their less obliging husbands would not do.do for them. In a word, Rip was ready to attend to anybody’s business but his own. But he found it impossible to do his duty to his family and keep his own farm in order.own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible.

In fact, he declared that working on his farm was useless. It it was of no use to work on his farm; it was the most troublesome pestilent little piece of ground in the whole country; everything went wrong there, whatever he did.about it went wrong, in spite of him. His fences kept falling to pieces. His cow either wandered away or got among the cabbages. Weeds grew faster were continually falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray, or get among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere else, and else; the rain always made a point of starting just when he had setting in just as he had some outdoor work to do. Under his management, the land he had inherited dwindled away, do; so that though his patrimonial estate had dwindled away under his management, acre by acre, until little more remained than a patch of maize and potatoes. Yet it was still the worst-kept there was little more left than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it was the worst-conditioned farm in the neighbourhood.

His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to nobody. His son Rip, a little rascal made in his father’s own image, looked likely to inherit his father’s habits along with his old clothes.an urchin begotten in his own likeness, promised to inherit the habits, with the old clothes, of his father. He was usually seen following his mother like a colt, wearing generally seen trooping like a colt at his mother’s heels, equipped in a pair of his father’s cast-off loose breeches. He had great trouble holding them galligaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as a fine lady holds up the trailing back of her dress does her train in bad weather.

Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals with foolish, well-oiled natures. They mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easily, easy, eat white bread or brown—whichever needs brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble—and trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. Left If left to himself, he would have whistled his life away in perfect contentment. But life away, in perfect contentment; but his wife kept hammering into his ears continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night, her tongue never stoppedwas incessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure to produce a torrent of household eloquence. Rip had onlybut one way of replying to all lectures of the kind. By frequent use, itkind, and that, by frequent use, had grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, turned his eyes upwardcast up his eyes, but said nothing. This This, however, always provoked a fresh volley from his wife. He was forced to withdraw his forces and retreat outside wife, so that he was fain to draw off his forces, and take to the outside of the house—the only side that truly which, in truth, belongs to a henpecked husband.