During the year 1818, while Washington Irving was at work on the sketches and stories of The Sketch Book, he wrote to his friend Brevoort: “I have been for some time past engaged in the study of the German language, and have got so far as to be able to read and splutter a little. It is a severe task, and has required hard study; but the rich mine of German literature holds forth abundant reward.” The first of the “abundant rewards” which he won from the “rich mine of German literature” are to be seen in his use of German materials for the four so-called short stories in The Sketch Book (1819–1820). At the end of his Dresden diary, which came to a close on July 11, 1823, he wrote, perhaps with himself in mind:Solitary miners of literature in Germany—men working hours and hours each day in dull little towns.
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