...e. It is after all, in Edmund Quincy's phrase, not specific gravity, but specific levity which often serves to keep a reputation afloat. When Irving came back to New York he might be seen, as George Curtis describes him, about 1850, on an autumnal afternoon, tripping with an elastic step along Broadway, with low-quartered shoes neatly tied, and a Talma cloak — a short garment that hung from the ...