Without being a
dazzling beauty, she was lovely in person and mind, with most engaging
manners, a refined sensibility, and a delicate and playful humor.
The loss was a crushing blow to Irving, from the effects of which he
never recovered, although time softened the bitterness of his grief into
a tender and sacred memory. He could never bear to hear her name spoken
even by his most intimate friends, or any allusion to her. Thirty years
after her death, it happened one evening at the house of Mr. Hoffman,
her father, that a granddaughter was playing for Mr. Irving, and in
taking her music from the drawer, a faded piece of embroidery was brought
forth. "Washington," said Mr. Hoffman, picking it up, "this is a piece
of poor Matilda's workmanship." The effect was electric. He had been
talking in the sprightliest mood before, but he sunk at once into utter
silence, and in a few moments got up and left the house.
After his death, in a private repository of which he always kept the key,
was found a lovely miniature, a braid of fair hair, and a slip of paper,
on which was written in his own hand, "Matilda Hoffman;" and with these
treasures were several pages of a memorandum in ink long since faded.
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