^tanbarb library Whitton 
LIFE AND LETTERS OF 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
BY 
JOHN T. MORSE, Jr. 
IN TWO VOLUMES 
VOLUME II. Dr. Holmes in 1893 LIFE AND LETTERS 
OF 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
BY 
JOHN T. MORSE, Jr. 
IN TWO VOLUMES 
VOLUME II. 
BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
Htlicrsttie press', Cambriboe Copyright, 1896, 
By JOHN T. MORSE, Jr. 
All rights reserved. 
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., V. S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company. CONTENTS 
PAGE 
CHAPTER XIII 
Occupations : Methods of Work 1 
CHAPTER XIV 
Resigns Professorship : Lives of Motley and Emerson 42 
CHAPTER XV 
European Trip : Old Age 65 
CHAPTER XVI 
Death 92 
Letters: 
I. To James Russell Lowell ..... 107 
II. To James William Kimball 139 
III. To John Lothrop Motley 153 
IV. To Harriet Beecher Stowe ...... 223 
V. To Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward .... 256 
VI. Miscellaneous Letters 269 
Index 321 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
VOLUME II 
PAGE 
Oliver Wendell Holmes. From a photograph by Notman 
Photo. Co., 1892 Frontispiece 
Dr. Holmes's Farewell Address. Harvard Medical School, 
November 28, 1882 48 
Facsimile of an Autograph Copy of The Last Leaf . 98 
James Russell Lowell. From a photograph by Notman 
Photo. Co., 1889 126 
Dr. Holmes's Mother, Sarah Wendell Holmes. From a 
photograph taken in the " Gambrel-Roofed House " . . 164 
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. From a photograph . 256 
A Morning Walk. Snap-shot at " The Autocrat," November, 
1893, as he was leaving his Boston home, 296 Beacon Street . 266 
John 0. Sargent. From a photograph by Sarony . . . 312 MEMOIRS AND CORRESPONDENCE 
CHAPTER XIII 
OCCUPATIONS : METHODS OF WORK 
Dr. Holmes was a man of many tastes, which 
pressed close upon each other through his life in a pro- 
cession broken by no intervals of tedium. He had the 
mechanical ingenuity which is, or used to be, the pro- 
verbial gift of the Yankee. He was always " tinker- 
ing " at one contrivance or another. When the first 
enthusiasm about the microscope had passed, the train 
of thought awakened thereby led him to make a clever 
invention, - the small stereoscope for hand use. I 
recollect the first one of these clever adaptations, 
made - all save the lenses, of course - by his own 
hands, and to which only small improvements in the 
way of finish were afterward added. If he had taken 
out a patent for this he would have made a large sum 
of money, would perhaps have become, for those times 
in Boston, a rich man. Why he did not do so I cannot 
say, - whether it was from a bit of that sentiment 
which has so often led physicians to refrain from bur- 
dening their inventions with the added cost of a royalty, 
or whether he did not give much consideration to the 
mercantile value of what he had done. I can say, 
however, that I often heard him speak of the sums 
which he had thus " lost," and never heard him express 
any regret that his invention had not been laid beneath 
this fine for his benefit. 2 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Here too is an intimation of Dr. Holmes's skill in 
another handicraft. I venture to publish the note, 
since Mr. Sumner is dead without progeny; if it is a 
little caustic, it is also amusing in its presentation of 
a quite familial' trait of the egotistical statesman: - 
TO GEORGE ABBOT JAMES. 
296 Beacon Street April 22, 1886. 
Dear Mr. James, - If I do not put down a 
few words on paper now, I shall be apt to forget to 
do it in the various distracting preparations for the 
voyage. 
I remember the dinner you refer to, well. I recall 
more especially Mr. Sumner's learned discourse on 
book-binding. 
How formidable a little cheap knowledge looks to 
those who are wholly ignorant of its familiar terms! 
I recollect that the word " forwarding " made almost 
a sensation, as Sumner spoke of it. What is "for- 
warding " ? It includes all that part of a book- 
binder's work which is necessary for the preservation 
of a volume. 
All the rest is " finishing," - coloring the leather, 
gilding, and ornamentation of every kind. 
I think we were all interested in Sumner's dinner- 
table lecture, - I am sure he enjoyed giving it as 
much as any old Professor discoursing to a class of 
students. 
When you hear a distinguished personage using 
long words or technical phrases that frighten you and 
make you think how learned he is and how desperately 
ignorant you and all your acquaintances are, as soon 
as the speech is over, and the company separates, go 
to your dictionary or cyclopaedia and look out his OCCUPATIONS : METHODS OF WORK 
3 
polysyllables, and ten to one you will get him off his 
high horse in five minutes. 
If he quotes a Latin sentence, see if Bohn's Hand- 
book has n't got it. If a line from any English poet 
or prose - writer, look in your Bartlett's Familiar 
Quotations. This will probably fetch him. 
I bound a book myself once. I don't believe 
Sumner ever did. - But I liked his talk about it, and 
hunted up the sources of his knowledge. 
At one time the Doctor was seized with an ardent 
desire to learn to play upon the violin. I think there 
was not the slightest reason to suppose that he ever 
could learn, and certainly he never did; but he used 
to shut himself up in his little " study," beside the 
front door in the Charles Street house, and fiddle 
away with surprising industry, and a satisfaction out 
of all proportion to his achievement. After two or 
three winters he reached a point at which he could 
make several simple tunes quite recognizable, and 
then finally desisted from what would have been a 
waste of time had it not been a recreation. 
Photography he took up in the old days of " wet 
process," when it was by no means the easy and fash- 
ionable amusement which modern inventions have 
made of it. He arrived at a great degree of skill, 
and found amusement in it for many years. 
He had a lifelong enthusiasm for great trees. In 
his youth, travelling about the country on his lecturing 
tours, he always had a measuring tape in his pocket, 
and used to stretch it around the girth of any espe- 
cially big fellow with as much interest as fashionable 
young ladies show in taking the circumference of each 
other's waists. His memory was loaded with statis- 4 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
tics, and even when he was in England, he still could 
pull out a bit of string to see whether or not the 
giants of Old England surpassed those of New Eng- 
land. It was amusing, he once said, to " see how 
meek one of the great swaggering elms would look, 
when it saw the fatal measure begin to unreel itself." 
An especial one of these cis-Atlantic monsters he 
remembered well, " as we measured the string which 
was to tell the size of its English rival. As we came 
near the end of the string, I felt as I did when I was 
looking at the last dash of Ormonde and The Bard 
at Epsom. Twenty feet, and a long piece of string 
left I-Twenty-one. - Twenty-two. - Twenty-three. - 
An extra heart-beat or two. - Twenty-four I - Twenty- 
five, and six inches over!! " 
In 1885, when he was living at Beverly Farms, he 
used to walk over to see " the finest oak he could re- 
member." " I never pass it," he said, " without a 
bow and a genuflexion." It stood upon some land 
belonging to me, and I often found him looking at 
it with an expression of eager admiration. He said 
to me once : " Ab, J., you think that you own that 
tree; but you don't, it owns you ! " 
In time he came to be recognized as such an author- 
ity as to big trees that he was even consulted by Pro- 
fessor Asa Gray, the famous botanist of Harvard 
University, and he made this reply : - 
TO MRS. ASA GRAY. 
January 24, 1871. 
My dear Mrs. Gray, - I am a little overwhelmed 
with my new reputation as a gardener; yet as I have 
succeeded in raising as many cauliflowers and cab- 
bages that did not head, as many rat-tail carrots and 5 
ram's-horn radishes, in our Cambridge sand-patch, 
which we called a garden, as any other horticulturist 
could show grown from the same surface of ground, I 
have some claim to the title. 
To answer Mr. Robinson's question: I never saw 
more than two or three good photographs of Ameri- 
can elms. The best is a large one of the " Johnston 
Elm," about three miles from Providence, one of the 
finest trees, as it was when I used to visit it, in New 
England. This was sent me, framed, by my nephew 
Dr. Parsons, of Providence, who may be in possession 
of the negative. It might of course be reduced, 
though it would not quite come up to the first direct 
photograph. I have stereographs of the Boston Elm, 
before its present condition of decadence, and one of 
the Washington Elm, the last a fair specimen of the 
tree, but neither of them equal to the great Johnston 
Elm. On the whole, I think it would be hard to get 
anything more satisfactory and easily obtained than a 
copy of my photograph of this great tree, which will 
be at his or your husband's service at any time, if a 
copy is desired. The original is a picture of perhaps 
eight or ten inches square. 
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table says: " I 
have brought down this slice of hemlock to show you. 
Tree blew down in my woods (that were) in 1852. 
Twelve feet and a half round, fair girth ; nine feet, 
where I got my section, higher up. This is a wedge, 
going to the centre, of the general shape of a slice of 
apple-pie in a large and not opulent family. Length, 
about eighteen inches. I have studied the growth of 
this tree by its rings, and it is curious. Three hun- 
dred and forty-two rings. Started, therefore, about 
OCCUPATIONS: METHODS OF WORK 6 
1510. The thickness of the rings tells the rate at 
which it grew. . . . Look here. Here are some hu- 
man lives laid down against the periods of its growth, 
to which they corresponded. This is Shakespeare's. 
The tree was seven inches in diameter when he was 
born ; ten inches when he died. A little less than ten 
inches when Milton was born ; seventeen when he 
died. Then comes a long interval, and this thread 
marks out Johnson's life, during which the tree in- 
creased from twenty-two to twenty-nine inches in diam- 
eter. Here is the span of Napoleon's career, - the 
tree does n't seem to have minded it." 
This was a bit of autobiography. He had such a 
tree-section, and devoted much minute toil to sticking 
into the rings on its big tabular surface a countless 
forest of little pins, each one tagged with the date of 
some event which was occurring when that ring of the 
tree was forming. 
" I like books, - I was born and bred among them, 
and have the easy feeling, when I get into their pres- 
ence, that a stable-boy has among horses. I don't 
think I undervalue them, either as companions or 
instructors." Thus said the Doctor, speaking through 
the mask of the Autocrat. In fact, he was a biblio- 
phile, but was not a bibliomaniac. He was an expert 
in judging the physical qualities of a, book ; he loved 
the clear old type of some of the earlier printers, and 
the strong wood-cuts made by a past generation. But 
mere rarity, or a purely artificial first-edition valuation, 
meant very little to him. If any admirer of his wants 
a good picture, by description, of his library, it can be 
found at the beginning of the Professor's second 
paper. 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 7 
Cicero and Bacon have uttered two notable pas- 
sages about books, and Holmes has a sentence which 
may go with them: " Some books are edifices, to 
stand as they are built; some are hewn stones, ready 
to form a part of future edifices; some are quarries, 
from which stones are to be split for shaping and 
after use." And here is a bit of drollery from his 
address at the opening of the Medical Library at 
Boston : " A library like ours must exercise the larg- 
est hospitality. A great many books may be found 
in every large collection which remind us of those 
apostolic-looking old men who figure on the plat- 
form at oxir political and other assemblages. Some 
of them have spoken words of wisdom in their day, 
but they have ceased to be oracles; some of them 
never had any particularly important message for 
humanity, but they add dignity to the meeting by their 
presence; they look wise, whether they are so or not, 
and no one grudges them their places of honor." 
May it be said, without irreverence, in speaking of 
Dr. Holmes's tastes, that he had a considerable infu- 
sion of the " sporting man " in his composition ? One 
of his most cherished memories of his early days in 
Europe was, that he saw Plenipotentiary win the 
Derby; and he always kept a lively interest in the 
incidents of the turf. He knew the points and the 
style of the favorites and the winners as they suc- 
ceeded each other, and he carried in his memory with 
extraordinary accuracy the records of the time made 
in all the important "events." His erudition concern- 
ing the race-horse sometimes astonished men who had 
always fancied that they themselves knew a good deal 
about these things, but never imagined that his mind 
OCCUPATIONS: METHODS OF WORK 8 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
could be busied with them. He was like his own Ma- 
jor Rowens : " He knew a neat, snug hoof, a delicate 
pastern, a broad haunch, a deep chest, a close ribbed- 
up barrel, as well as any other man in the town. He 
was not to be taken in by your thick-jointed, heavy- 
headed cattle, without any go to them, that suit a 
country parson, nor yet by the ' gaanted-up,' long- 
legged animals, with all their constitutions bred out 
of them, such as rich greenhorns buy and cover up 
with their plated trappings." And in another place, 
sketching this Yankee with such marvellous skill that 
it seems cruel to cut out a piece from so fine a whole, he 
tells us that the Major " had no objection, either, to 
holding the reins in a wagon behind another kind 
of horse, - a slouching, listless beast, with a strong 
slant to his shoulder, and a notable depth to his quar- 
ter, and an emphatic angle at the hock, who commonly 
walked or lounged along in a lazy trot of five or six 
miles an hour; but, if a lively colt happened to come 
rattling up alongside, or a brandy-faced old horse- 
jockey took the road to show off a fast nag and threw 
his dust into the Major's face, would pick his legs up 
all at once, and straighten his body out, and swing off 
into a three-minute gait, in a way that ' Old Blue ' 
himself need not have been ashamed of." The pic- 
ture is enough to make an old country jockey " wrig- 
gle," as Dr. Holmes said that the Biglow Papers made 
him do. He even held horse-racing to be so impor- 
tant an interest of humanity that, in the preface to a 
late edition of The Professor, enumerating the amend- 
ments made necessary by sundry striking changes and 
advances which had taken place in the world since its 
first publication, he included among them that " the 
speed of the trotting-horse has been so much devel- OCCUPATIONS : METHODS OF WORK 
9 
oped that the record of the year when the fastest 
time to that date was given must be very consider- 
ably altered." 
Neither wras he altogether oblivious even of the 
prize ring; he had the B oxi an a prints, and he knew 
well the great deeds, doughty though brutal, of Hee- 
nan and Sayers and Yankee Sullivan and other cham- 
pions. This interest, however, was chiefly from the 
side of physical development; and when he visited 
some of these heroes, and studied their muscles with 
admiration, it was only in the hours of peace ; I never 
heard of his going to see a pugilistic "set-to." The 
truth is that the Doctor was a great lover of fine, 
symmetrical, powerful growth, whether in tree, horse, 
or man, and he hugely liked the fellow who could 
fight, and who would do so upon due occasion. There 
are a few combats in his books, described with much 
gusto ; Bernard Langdon's fine muscles are affection- 
ately depicted, and made effectively useful; and the 
sketch of the Southerner knocking down the butcher 
is like some of the English bouts of Town and Gown. 
He liked mere size, too, and used to find infinite 
amusement in holding friendly chats with the " giants " 
at the shows. 
He was for many years, in mid-life, a zealous boat- 
ing-man, and before "improvement" had gouged up 
the bottom of Charles River to make building-lots 
along its banks, in the good old days when there was 
an extensive and beautiful estuary of real water there, 
he was one of the first to pull upon those lively and 
often sizeable waves, in a boat of the "long, sharp- 
pointed, black cradle " pattern. In this he was to be 
seen making long excursions when the season permit- 
ted ; and he had the contempt of a true expert for 10 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
" those miserable tubs, tugging in which is to rowing 
the true boat what riding a cow is to bestriding an 
Arab." There is a delightful sketch of this pursuit 
in the seventh paper of The Autocrat. 
These things were occupations; but of sheer hard 
work Dr. Holmes did as much as any man, even in 
the industrious communities of the Eastern States. 
People did not give him credit for this, or at least 
very insufficiently. Half of those who thought of him 
forgot his work at the Medical School altogether, 
and the other half fancied that he could repeat from 
year to year his lectures on the unchanging science 
of anatomy, much as the clergyman can pull out 
of the traditional barrel any old sermon that comes 
to hand, and preach it again for, it may be, the 
twentieth time. One could hardly help feeling that 
those easy, colloquial reports of the chats at the 
Breakfast - Table might have been jotted down or 
talked off to a stenographer in the same conversa- 
tional way in fact, in which they purported to have 
been uttered in fiction. Never were greater errors. 
The lectures were revamped every year with genuine 
hard labor. Keeping abreast with new ideas, even 
in anatomical studies, meant something; preparation 
each day called for some time and thought; and the 
tax of delivery, of holding the attention of the tired 
and disorderly medical students of those days, was a 
considerable drain on the nervous force. President 
Eliot, who knew whereof he spoke, paid him very 
handsome compliments upon the amount and serious- 
ness of his labor as a professor and instructor. 
As for the matter of literary composition, it was a 
very painstaking process with Dr. Holmes. His wit OCCUPATIONS: METHODS OF WORK 
11 
and humor and thoughts flowed exuberantly enough; 
but he was a most careful, accurate writer. Not only 
when he dwelt upon, but when he even alluded to, 
any topic whatever, whether in the way of science or 
history, or argument or idea, or of literary or theo- 
logical discussion, - whatever it might be, - he made 
sure by minute investigation that his knowledge was 
thorough, and that his use and treatment were correct. 
His hand was always on the Cyclopaedias, the Diction- 
aries of biography, the innumerable works of refer- 
ence of every conceivable kind, which stood in serried 
ranks beside his table. When he was writing the es- 
say on Jonathan Edwards, he showed me how he was 
doing the work : he had some large quarto blank books, 
with the pages divided into liberal sections by lines 
from top to bottom; the requisite space was set aside 
for each division of the topic in the biographical, the 
theological, and the critical departments; the names 
of writers who had written of Edwards, disputed with 
him, criticised him, or in any way contributed to the 
Edwards study, were set at the heads of the several 
columns; and synopses of their views were then set 
down, in such orderly contra-position as was possible. 
When he had finished this huge tabulation, the Doctor 
expected to be master of everything of value concern- 
ing his subject. "I can't afford," he said, "to lose 
any thing " Yet he had selected Edwards as the topic 
for an article, because he had for years been greatly 
interested in that terrible theologian; and before he 
entered upon this minute and elaborate preparation 
for writing, he was already so thoroughly informed 
that he could have delivered, extempore, a lecture 
which would have seemed the fruit of patient study. 
In this connection, a couple of letters written by 12 
Dr. Holmes to his friend Dr. Weir Mitchell will be 
of interest: - 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
TO DR. S. WEIR MITCHELL. 
Boston, March 27, 1871. 
My dear Dr. Mitchell, - I will give you my 
own experience very briefly, and then that of another 
which came to me with the most singular " aproposity," 
as one of my young barbarians has it. 
I cannot work many hours consecutively without 
deranging my whole circulating and calorific system. 
My feet are apt to get cold, my head hot, my muscles 
restless, and I feel as if I must get up and exercise 
in the open air. This is in the morning, and I very 
rarely allow myself to be detained indoors later than 
twelve o'clock. After fifteen or twenty minutes' walk- 
ing I begin to come right, and after two or three times 
as much as that I can go back to my desk for an hour 
or two. In the evening it is different. I always try 
to stop all hard work before eleven o'clock and take a 
book of light reading to clear my mind of its previous 
contents. So it is that I can hardly say I ever have 
a proper " brain-tire," because other systems give the 
alarm first. I should say rather that too long brain 
work gives me a sense of disgust, like over-feeding, 
than one of actual fatigue. It sometimes happens 
that my brain gets going and I cannot stop it - a 
very common experience - and then I lie awake, but 
this again is different from physical fatigue of the 
thinking organ. I want to sleep and cannot, - I 
count - I do sums - I repeat passages from memory, 
but the underthought keeps grumbling on like the 
bass in a Beethoven symphony. In a word my brain, 
as a rule, will not let itself get fatigued. It becomes OCCUPATIONS : METHODS OF WORK 
13 
disgusted, rather, and throws up work. In compo- 
sition, especially poetical composition, I stand on the 
bank of a river and hold myself very still, watching 
the thoughts that float by on the stream of association. 
If they come abundantly and of the right kind, there 
is a great excitement, sometimes an exalted state, 
almost like etherization, incompatible with a sense of 
fatigue while it lasts, and followed by a relief which 
shows there has been a tension of which I could not 
be conscious at the time. So much for myself. - 
While your letter was in my hand Dr. Edward [H.] 
Clarke, our first medical practitioner, Professor of 
Materia Medica in our school, came in, and knowing 
him to be a thinker, I questioned him. 
He was the first scholar of his class in the Academic 
department at Harvard, - the only first scholar I re- 
member who ever studied medicine. He studied too 
hard in the first part of his course, and was restricted 
by his advisers to two or three hours' work a day. The 
effect, he tells me, was this: He learned to work his 
brain very hard during the short time he gave to study, 
- a habit which he has kept up to this day, so that he 
says he can get up a new lecture of an hour in less 
than an hour's time, which for such a lecturer to say 
means a good deal. As a consequence of this forced 
labor he experiences a distinct sense of cerebral fa- 
tigue. There is a kind of pressure he experiences, 
such that he habitually clasps his hands over his head 
as if to "hold his head down." After such severe 
mental labor he wishes to lie down and rest. But 
after moderate, prolonged mental work he likes exer- 
cise as I do. He is very averse to the crowded hour 
or two's work on account of the effects which he de- 
scribes. 14 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
To return to myself, I cannot express the loathing 
with which my mind turns away from a subject it 
has got enough of. I like nine tenths of any matter 
I study, but I do not like to lick the plate. If I did, I 
suppose I should be more of a man of science and find 
my brain tired oftener than I do. Mental nausea 
takes the place of mental fatigue with me. I believe 
in the depleting, nerve-straining qualities of our 
climate, etc. Brown-Sequard told us his animals do 
not bleed so much in America as they did in Europe ! 
Is not that a startling statement ? 
Pardon my hasty letter, written only an hour or 
two after the receipt of yours, and believe me 
Always truly yours. 
TO THE SAME. 
Boston, March 30, 1871. 
Dear Dr. Mitchell, - I shrink with a blush of 
ingenuous modesty from having my name connected 
publicly with the idiosyncrasies I told you of in my 
free and easy letter. The facts of course you can use, 
if you can disguise them so as not to have them 
fastened upon me. But I felt as if I were condemn- 
ing my own intellect, according to the judgment of 
many persons. I have often regretted not having 
forcibly trained myself to the exhaustive treatment of 
some limited subject, and if I thought I should live to 
be a hundred years old I would devote ten years of 
the time, as it is, to such specialized study. You 
remember the story of the grammarian who had given 
his life to the study of certain nouns, and who regret- 
ted on his death-bed that he had not restricted himself 
to the consideration of the genitive case. When 1 OCCUPATIONS : METHODS OF WORK 
15 
read your paper on the poison of the rattlesnake I felt 
that such a labor as that, patient, thorough, leaving 
nothing to be gone over again, was just the sort of 
work I ought to have been compelled to begin, and 
led by other influences to carry to its completion. 
But my nature is to snatch at all the fruits of know- 
ledge and take a good bite out of the sunny side - 
after that let in the pigs. 
A thoroughly detestable statement; but let it stand, 
for there is too much truth in it. You can see I do 
not want to have it shown up as my particular form 
of mental weakness - shall I say, or only special de- 
velopment. It seems like putting a master key to the 
strong box that holds my intellectual treasures, such 
as they are, into the hands of any malignant - and I 
think we have such, who like to use anything they 
can get hold of relating to any of their betters. 
Enfin. I think you might use my experience, as 
to the surfeit of a subject coming before the sense of 
fatigue, without making it clear who the person was 
that made this revelation. 
Nobody but myself could tell it in full with all the 
reservations, qualifications, conditions of every kind, 
compensations, philosophical justifications, crack-put- 
tying subterfuges, and counterclaims to discursive 
intelligence, which render life tolerable with such a 
vicious and kicking brain as I have described my will 
as bestriding. 
I am glad my discourse interested you, and though 
I am afraid you will not think much of me after these 
two letters, you must remember that I have at least 
the merit of appreciating your sincere and thoroughly 
satisfactory labors. 16 
Very accurate and painstaking was he concerning 
the literary finish of his works. He wrote a simple, 
what may be called a gentlemanlike style, and of 
great purity, but crowded with allusions, so that it 
was truly remarked by one of his critics, and has been 
often repeated by others, that the greater the scholar- 
ship of the reader, the greater also the pleasure which 
he would derive from Dr. Holmes's writings. The 
same thing was true of Thackeray; both wrote for 
educated and well-read audiences. I remember once 
hearing a gentleman of some reputation in literature 
say - actually in addressing the Board of Overseers 
of a distinguished seat of learning - that he did not 
approve of teaching young men to write " good Eng- 
lish," to use words accurately and to construct sen- 
tences grammatically ; on the contrary, he said that he 
wanted an infusion of the wild rough inaccuracies of 
the great new West! He was the victim of a foolish 
notion, that one of the available ways to show " Amer- 
ican independence of England " was by devising a 
degraded dialect of the English language for use in 
the United States. Nor was he alone in this feeling 
that a coarse and imperfect form of speech was good 
enough for us ; there was, for a while, a mild pseudo- 
literary fad in this direction. Dr. Holmes looked 
upon it with disgust and indignation, making his 
opinions known with his usual outspoken courage, and 
exemplifying them by his own action, with the result 
that he was for a while subjected to some abuse, which 
he endured with tranquillity, or rather with indiffer- 
ence. An English writer, in the Quarterly Review, 
has a passage on this matter, which I desire to quote: 
" Opinions so directly contrary in many respects to 
the main direction of American movement brought 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES OCCUPATIONS : METHODS OF WORK 
17 
Holmes at one time into disrepute with the more ad- 
vanced of his countrymen. He was accused of attach- 
ing excessive importance to conventionalities of dress, 
manners, and speech ; he was charged with using his 
influence to starve and paralyze literary originality. 
To us it seems that his attitude was abundantly justi- 
fied. The debt which the best American literature 
and all who in the Old World and the New appre- 
ciate its mixture of freshness and refinement owe to 
Holmes is very great. How great the debt was has 
not yet been fully recognized by his countrymen. 
When young America demanded that the political 
revolution which separated the Old and New Worlds 
should have its literary counterpart in a similar revolt, 
Holmes threw all his influence into the opposite scale. 
He urged, with keen satire as well as with the force 
of example, that even a Republic must recognize the 
laws of conventional decorum, and that those who 
enter the Temple of the Muses outrage propriety if 
they ostentatiously flaunt their working - dress. To 
him, as much as to any other man, we owe it, that 
the Versailles of American literature has not been 
invaded to a greater extent than it has by the vocab- 
ulary and manners of the 4 Halles.' " 
Dr. Holmes occasionally discussed with Richard 
Grant White, who had made a close study of the 
English language, the use of one or another word or 
phrase ; and these two letters may be interesting. 
TO RICHARD GRANT WHITE. 
March 28, 1868. 
My dear Mr. White, - I was greatly pleased 
with your kind letter, and enjoyed the two articles 
from the Galaxy exceedingly. I hunted up the 
VOL. II. 18 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
" jewelry," and found it in The, Professor at the 
Breakfast-Table, page 27, in quotation marks it is 
true ; but, I am inclined to think, not so much as be- 
ing a questionable word as because it is one of the 
stately names applied to paltry things by our pinch- 
beck plebeians. I do not know, however, that I have 
used the word ; at any rate I think I shall be on the 
lookout for it hereafter. I was delighted with your 
vindication of " some " three or four, etc. It is a 
beautiful, brief, erudite excursus, and as I followed 
you from the Frog Pond to the Danube my heart 
swelled with the thought that so good a judge as your- 
self counted me not unworthy to handle the words 
that Alfred and Shakespeare and Bacon had spoken. 
I am so pleased with your hits at several detestable 
expressions that I must pick them out. " Retiring " 
for going to bed, - I have had my shy at that in The 
Autocrat, page 241. " Proven " for proved. Will 
you believe me when I tell you that Lowell uses 
" proven " (in his very last article, if I remember 
right, in the North American) 'I I could not believe 
my eyes, and accused him of leze majesty to the face, 
as Paul withstood Peter. It shows how the best of 
us are liable to be caught. I once used the expres- 
sion " In our midst." Edward Everett took me to 
task for it, and showed me an old review in which Dr. 
Gilman, of Charleston, S. C., had attacked him for 
the same phrase. The " consummation " criticism is 
pyramidal. I think I have seen the word so used 
myself. I tell a story in one of my books of a mar- 
riage between two servants, I saw or heard - (not con- 
summated but " transpire," to use the " newspapor- 
ial " or " reportorial " dialect), in which the question 
was thus put by the Rev. Baron Stow, Baptist minis- 19 
ter of this city: Wilt thou have this Lady 1 and, 
Wilt thou have this Gentleman ? Was not this an 
euphuism of solar, nay of systemic, dimensions ? 
OCCUPATIONS : METHODS OF WORK 
TO THE SAME. 
September 27, 1868. 
My dear Mr. White, - I have been reading 
your article in the Galaxy, which you kindly sent me, 
with pleasure and interest, as I read all your philologi- 
cal articles. You will indulge me in a comment or 
two. If I am not mistaken, the two first lines of 
nursery poetry you give on page 518 are both slightly 
in error. " Hush, my babe, lie still," etc., it is, as I 
remember it. " Now I lay me down to sleep " is, I 
think, the correct version. I do not see why you 
should object to " experience " as a verb. It is neces- 
sary to avoid a paraphrase, unless we return to the 
old use of experiment as signifying to learn by trial, 
etc.; and we want that as signifying to try in order 
to learn. What would our country deacons be if 
they had not " experienced religion " ? I can beat 
your stories about limb for leg. A schoolmate of 
mine, a girl of some fourteen or fifteen years old 
at the time, - niece of an American celebrity of 
the first water, - had occasion to mention to me, 
a year or two younger than herself, a misfortune 
which had happened to her mother (it was a fracture 
of the femur, in surgical language) - " Since mother 
broke " - (she hesitated) - " her foot?1 I assure 
you this is a genuine recollection. - " Gentleman" 
and " lady?' Did you ever see one of my failures 
called The Professor at the Breakfast-Table? If 
you did, and looked at the 182d page, you saw an 
account of the use of these words for " man " and 20 
" woman " in the marriage service. I should have 
said " stop at So-and-So's " was a Yankee vulgarism. 
Our country folk always say they are stopping at 
cousin Jehoiakim's, etc. Smock is a vulgar word, 
onomato-poetically vulgar ; shift will do better; both 
sound naked ; chemise does not call up the bare body. 
We clothe the nude word by Frenching it. 
I hate shew for shewed, in spite of your analogies. 
I only hear it from the half-breeds, or now and then 
from a careless person who has caught it in bad com- 
pany. 
Has Mr. Bergh the h final ? I am not sure. I find 
your article very pleasant, with its light, good-natured 
satire, as well as instructive. 
Somebody must have made some very foolish criti- 
cisms, which called forth this letter: - 
March 1, 1891. 
My dear Lady, - I am very much obliged to you 
for taking the trouble to tell me the story of your first 
acquaintance with my poems. The particular one, 
" The Music Grinders," was unlucky in having two or 
three words which alarmed your teacher, who was, I 
suppose, of the prunes and prisms variety of peda- 
goguesses! If her injured shade still wanders on 
earth, it may see by my later editions that " filthy " 
is changed to " odious," which I hope she recognizes 
as rendering the line presentable ! As for " oath " 
and " curse," I am sorry to say they stand as of old ; 
but I suspect readers are tougher now than they used 
to be. Your letter gives me pleasure, and I am grate- 
ful to you for it. 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES OCCUPATIONS : METHODS OF WORK 
21 
When the Doctor had brought any of his work to 
the point of finish which suited him, he was very chary 
of alteration by any one else. I fancy that he was 
seldom subjected to it; for a matter of the kind, stated 
in the following paragraph from one of his letters, 
was referred to by him with a frequency indicative of 
its being an unusual occurrence. 
" I very rarely adopt the suggestion of another per- 
son ; but I have done such a thing and sometimes been 
sorry, and sometimes glad, that I have done it. Ed- 
ward Everett corrected, as he thought, a line for me, 
and I accepted his alteration; forty years afterwards 
I restored the original reading. So you see I am not 
like to call you to account for not accepting my sug- 
gestions." 
When a lady suggested a slight verbal improve- 
ment in a line of " The Last Leaf," he rendered an 
elaborate and public acknowledgment, which would 
have been big enough as thanks for a whole stanza. 
This accurate habit of mind of the Doctor filled 
him with an anxious and ever-present fear of plagia- 
rism. The dread of unwittingly committing a literary 
theft seemed at times actually to haunt him; he said 
that he did not expect that such an accident would 
never befall, but he pleased himself with the belief 
that his extreme precaution had made it at least of 
rare occurrence. 
As for repeating himself, that was a different mat- 
ter,- objectionable, but entirely honest. He did it 
sometimes. What he said on the subject was very 
happily put: - 
" You don't suppose that my remarks made at this 
table are like so many postage-stamps, do you, - each 
to be only once uttered ? If you do, you are mistaken. 22 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
He must be a poor creature who does not often repeat 
himself. Imagine the author of the excellent piece of 
advice, 'Know thyself,' never alluding to that senti- 
ment again during the course of a protracted existence ! 
Why, the truths a man carries about with him are 
his tools; and do you think a carpenter is bound to 
use the same plane but once to smooth a knotty board 
with, or to hang up his hammer after it has driven its 
first nail ? I shall never repeat a conversation, but 
an idea often. I shall use the same types when I like, 
but not commonly the same stereotypes. A thought 
is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred 
times. It has come to you over a new route, by a new 
and express train of associations." 
He was himself the victim of a very curious, of 
course entirely accidental, theft of this kind. When 
The Innocents Abroad appeared, it bore on its un- 
blushing front a dedication which had already done 
the like service for the Doctor's Songs in Hany Keys. 
Mark Twain referred to the incident humorously at the 
Atlantic Breakfast; told how indignant he was when 
a friend charged him with the act; how penitently, 
when he found the charge to be true, he had writ- 
ten to Dr. Holmes; and how kindly the Doctor had 
replied, saying that he believed that all writers at 
times worked over the ideas of others unconsciously, 
and conceiving the development to be their own. 
So careful was the Doctor with his " copy " that he 
received the liberal praise of his printers, a thing 
which I fancy has befallen few authors, at least before 
the advent of the typewriting sisterhood. Mr. Hough- 
ton bore tribute to his neatly written white pages, 
bearing few interlineations, and those very carefully 
made; and said that so few corrections had to be made OCCUPATIONS : METHODS OF WORK 
23 
in going through the press that the Doctor " caused us 
but little trouble." On one occasion, in sending a 
poem to a newspaper, he wrote, in the accompanying 
note: " Poems are rarely printed correctly in news- 
papers. This is the reason so many poets die young. 
Please correct carefully." 
Yet all the Doctor's care could not always save him 
from the inevitable errors of the printing-house. In 
one of his papers occurred the sentence: " If all the 
medicine were thrown into the sea, it would be the 
better for mankind and the worse for the fishes." But 
instead of "fishes" the printed page made him say 
"physicians." The sentence as he intended it to be 
excited criticism enough, but the proof-reader's amend- 
ment changed criticism into a storm of indignation. 
The Doctor practised a pretty strict economy in what 
may properly be called his literary business. The 
wit and humor and wisdom in his brain were his stock 
in trade, just as are the merchant's goods in his ware- 
house. He designed to deal with them, guard and 
save them, and exchange them to as good advantage 
as possible for the paper money of the Republic, - 
which I take to be the proper adaptation for us of 
the good old phrase, " the coin of the realm." The 
Autocrat says: " What do you think an admiring 
friend said the other day to one that was talking good 
things, - good enough to print ? ' Why,' said he, 
' you are wasting merchantable literature, a cash 
article, at the rate, as nearly as I can tell, of fifty 
dollars an hour.' " Dr. Holmes appeared to be lavish 
in this fashion himself. I remember one evening two 
or three of us, then young collegians, were sitting at 
his dinner-table, in the Charles Street house, when 
The Autocrat had just taught him what sums he could 24 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
win by his brains ; he talked on most charmingly for 
an hour or two after the cloth was removed; then 
suddenly stopped short, sprang up, exclaimed: "Why I 
I believe I've wasted a hundred dollars worth on you 
boys to-night," and vanished merrily and in a twin- 
kling. In fact, however, he was by no means wasteful; 
and whenever, wherever, however he turned out a good 
article, to use the language of trade, he took care in 
due season to get the value of it. " It is a capital 
plan," said the Autocrat, " to carry a tablet with you, 
and, when you find yourself felicitous, take notes of 
your own conversation." Now the Doctor never did 
this, of course; but the best things which he said, the 
best bits in his letters, were very sure to be encountered 
afterwards in print. He gathered up the fragments, 
that nothing should be lost. 
Occasionally the exuberance of Dr. Holmes's merri- 
ment bubbled up in the shape of puns. The best 
opinion will probably declare that the collection of 
these trifles, which occupies a few pages in an early 
paper of The Autocrat, is a disfigurement. But such 
gay sparkles, when they occur in ordinary correspond- 
ence, should find criticism silent. These letters, though 
some of the puns are local, and so a little occult, may 
amuse the pun-lover: - 
TO DR. WILLIAM HUNT.1 
21 Charles Street, May 25, 1863. 
My dear Dr. Hunt, - Wendell has been doing 
very well, but of course without any notable change. 
1 At the battle of Fredericksburg, May, 1863, Lieutenant- 
Colonel Holmes, whose regiment formed a part of the corps of 
Major-General Sedgwick, was severely wounded in the heel. He 
was carried homeward, and on the way he remained for a while 
in Philadelphia, where he was under the care of Dr. Hunt. OCCUPATIONS : METHODS OF WORK 
25 
There has been very little pain, no mark of inflamma- 
tion, nothing but what belongs to the healing process. 
Dr. Bigelow probed the wound yesterday and found 
one portion of bone movable, and another part fixed 
but denuded. He is in excellent spirits, not at all 
nervous, as when he was last wounded, is very reason- 
ably tractable, avoids stimulants, smokes not enor- 
mously, feeds pretty well, and has kept tolerably quiet 
until to-day, when Dr. Bigelow let him ride out, and 
is, on the whole, a quite endurable patient. 
Again I must thank you for your kindness in taking 
charge of him, and pouring oil and wine into his 
wounds - in a metaphorical sense. If I contributed 
in any way to your enjoying your visit to Boston, it is 
nothing to the aid and comfort you have rendered 
him again and again, at a time when skilful and care- 
ful treatment were perhaps a matter of life and death, 
or of permanent injury, at the least, on one hand, 
and harmless scars on the other. 
Dr. Bigelow has done nothing but keep the wound 
open as you did. He makes him use a little plug of 
carrot for that purpose, which is handy enough, and 
seems to agree very well with the wound. 
There is something wrong about your quotation, 
non animal, etc., etc. I understood that you pur- 
chased a horse, whereas the line refers to the female 
. . . " qui trans mare currant." 
I should like to see you in the saddle upon your 
Vermont steed; it would so remind me of the Green 
Mountings. - Also, I pinched W.'s heel a little the 
other day and asked him into what vegetable I had 
turned his carrot. No answer. 
Why, into a Pa's nip I was my response. 26 
The weather here is very cold and the spring puns 
are very backward. Early Joe Millers, though forced 
so as to be up by the 1st of April, are like to yield 
but a poor crop. The art o' jokes don't flourish. I 
wish you to see that we are some punkins here in 
Hub town, though you have the demirep-utation of 
making worse puns and more of them in your city 
than are made in any other habitable portion of the 
globe. The tendency is hereditary, no doubt - all 
vices are. Did not Alexander the Great inherit his 
tendency to get drunk from his father, the notorious 
Fill-up of Macedon 2 - Good-by, my kind friend and 
my son's friend, whom I have delicately commemorated 
in my " Hunt after the Captain." 
P. S. I have at last found a man who has asked 
me about W.'s heel without referring to Achilles! 
" An Address without a Phoenix I " 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
TO F. A. ANGELL. 
March 31, 1864. 
Dear Sir, - I often wonder how a man gifted 
with a beautiful but too suggestive name, like yours, 
manages to get through the world and keep his 
temper. What infinite changes must have been rung 
upon the celestial title you bear! How every quota- 
tion in which it occurs must have grown so odiously 
familiar to your ears that you can see it rising to the 
lips of the man who is going to utter it, while it is yet 
a mere unformed idiotic purpose in his feeble con- 
sciousness ! How many times per annum, taking one 
season with another, do you hear: - 
" Angels and ministers of grace defend us " ? 
How large a proportion of your friends, as nearly OCCUPATIONS : METHODS OF WORK 
27 
as you can compute the amount, are in the habit of 
saying, when you call to see them: - 
Like ditto visits, few and far between ? 
Do your flatterers speak of all the rest of mankind 
as being made a little lower than the ditto ? 
Are you not told several times a week, on an aver- 
age, that no woman could resist your suit, as she could 
not refuse to be changed into a ditto? Have you 
ever corresponded with Deville, the famous phrenolo- 
gist in the Strand, London? I presume he is de- 
scended from the same stock with yourself, but that 
some ancestor of his must have fallen and had his 
name changed. Sir Roderick Impey Murchison is 
probably a branch of the same family. I should fear 
that after a certain length of time it would become 
unendurable to live in a perpetual atmosphere of 
pleasantries suggested by one's name. Did you ever 
pass a whole evening with friends where it was not 
played upon ? Have you turned misanthropic, and 
do you shun society in consequence of the perpetual 
attempts made on your good name ? There is one 
family in this city you ought to know; of course I 
mean the Wings. I have always understood they 
were connected to you in some way. Your compli- 
mentary letter almost " raised a mortal to the skies." 
I hope mine has not, by its trivialities, " brought an 
etc. down." 
TO MISS LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY. 
April 18, 1889. 
I thank you for your pleasant note, dear Miss 
Louise, and I wish you all happiness in your pro- 
jected visit to Europe. You must not think of chang- 28 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
ing your Guiney until you get back among your own 
people here in New England. 
Hoping that you will soon be in circulation among 
us once more, 
I am faithfully yours 
O. W. Holmes. 
Mr. Charles Francis Adams tells me that one fore- 
noon, when he and Mr. Schurz were calling on Dr. 
Holmes, a copy of Worcester's Unabridged Diction- 
ary lay on his desk. The Doctor told them that a 
canvasser for The Century Dictionary had just called, 
teasing him for a subscription. " No," said the Doc- 
tor, "I'm too old-eighty years-I shan't live to see 
the Century finished." To which the encouraging book- 
agent : " Nay, Doctor, you won't have to live so very 
much longer to use our book; we've already got to G." 
" And you may go to -I, if you like! " exclaimed the 
little Doctor; and the canvasser went - somewhere. 
Dr. Holmes's medical line of thought, in topic, 
illustration, expression, was so prominent in his writ- 
ings that some persons regarded it as a blemish. 
Others, more wisely, considered that it broadened his 
horizon, furnished him with many happy suggestions, 
and especially gave him a useful habit of accuracy 
and thoroughness. The (London) Lancet, speaking 
of him as a distinguished example of the physician in 
literature, says of him, very well, as it seems to me: 
"In him the physician - now as anatomist or physiolo- 
gist, now as psychologist, now as diagnostician - was 
ever present and ever speaking. . He wrote no book 
without drawing largely upon his scientific experience; 
he displayed in all his literary workmanship, in thought 
as much as in expression, an accurate tolerance - a OCCUPATIONS : METHODS OF WORK 
29 
capability of taking the large view, with a resolve to 
be correct about small things - that we make bold to 
say, as he would often proudly say, had been largely 
developed by his particular training; and many of his 
wittiest little parables and paraphrases, many of the 
most characteristic sayings of those three charming 
rulers of the breakfast-table, were the direct outcome 
of his medical learning." Moving in a different direc- 
tion is the remark of his kinsman, Colonel Henry 
Lee, a gentleman whose opinion is well worth having 
on any matter relating to Dr. Holmes. He said, ad- 
dressing the Massachusetts Historical Society after the 
Doctor's death: "Fortunate for Dr. Holmes were his 
practice and his lectures for thirty-five years. It gave 
him promptness, accountability, resolution, touch with 
the world. It was this commerce with the world that 
widened his observations and his sympathy." 
Though all the world thinks of Dr. Holmes as a 
wit, he was in fact a writer with very grave and seri- 
ous purposes. From a long line of pious ancestry he 
inherited a conscience which was ever vigilant and 
almost tyranically dominant. Nothing would have 
humiliated him more than to be regarded as a writer 
whose chief object, or at least principal achievement, 
had been the entertainment of his readers. He was a 
man profoundly in earnest, deeply conscientious. He 
wrote under an ever-present sense of responsibility. 
No temptation of fame, influence, or popularity would 
ever have induced him to state anything which he did 
not believe, or to withhold or exaggerate or mis-color 
what he did believe. The accuracy and propriety 
which have been imputed to him in the form and sub- 
stance of his writings extended to the moral element 
in them. He was extremely careful to say with preci- 30 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
sion that which he truly thought. The result was 
that in all the thirteen volumes of his collected Works 
there is probably not a line which he would wish to 
expunge. He was an entirely cleanly writer. Thirty 
years ago, this would have been assumed rather than 
mentioned, but the sudden dash towards the pig-sty, 
which has been made by so many writers lately, 
makes it desirable to declare that Dr. Holmes was not 
of this herd. He had too much respect for himself, for 
his fellow men and women, and for literature, which 
he loved, to write grossly. English and American 
writers might declare their prurient books to be dis- 
cussions of " social problems," and Frenchmen might 
allege that all nastiness is reality, and all reality 
is nastiness. The Doctor was not to be thus de- 
ceived. He rarely referred to this style of book, but 
when he did it was with curt condemnation. The 
Lancet, a newspaper whose praise is worth having, in 
the article just now quoted, further says : - 
" Si sic omnes ! For the public nowadays is suf- 
fering from a surfeit of medicine in its literature. 
Heredity and the transmission of physiological or 
psychological taints; sexual problems; problems in 
mental pathology, form the essence of the work of a 
large school of writers. Sometimes the work is well 
done and sometimes extremely ill done. Now and 
again the great romancer will by a few illuminating 
words supply a real contribution to the scientific side 
of psychology; more often we are asked to solace our- 
selves after the day's work with long-drawn questions 
pruriently put and left unanswered by a string of pom- 
pous deductions. And so we say : Ah, if all were 
like the Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table I Would 
that all our advanced novelists would recognize, first, OCCUPATIONS : METHODS OF WORK 
31 
that it is necessary to know before instructing and to 
see before leading, if the ditch is to be avoided; and, 
second, that there is wisdom in restraint and an art 
in remaining silent, - that furibund descriptions of 
animalism, if accurate, are inappropriate in general 
literature, and that to display to common gaze a dissec- 
tion of the morbid imaginings of the sick mind may 
be an act of positive indecency. Oliver Wendell 
Holmes was a man who knew. Whither he would 
lead, his readers might always be content to follow 
without fear of the ditch. His science was sound, his 
wisdom indubitable, and his powers of observation 
and introspection were of the acutest. And how did 
he use them? Not by shirking the responsibilities 
laid upon him by his possession of exceptional know- 
ledge, as great men have done before now through 
fear of giving offence; on the contrary, his whole 
work is pervaded by his particular learning. And 
not by persistently presenting to the mental eye the 
dissected body or the sick soul, the charnel-house, the 
bordel, or the asylum; on the contrary, his multifa- 
rious writings are absolutely free from the taint of 
nastiness. Oliver Wendell Holmes used his beautiful 
endowments in the highest way for the good of all, 
neither burying his talents nor prostituting them. He 
was removed by a lovable, modest, sympathetic nature 
from all possibility of writing the harmful; he was 
removed by a true and highly cultivated artistic sense 
from the common error of spoiling a picture by over- 
loading it with unnecessary details ; lastly, and chiefly, 
he was removed by his assured place as a man of 
scientific education, undoubted learning, and equally 
undoubted literary genius from all temptation to medi- 
cal or linguistic display. From this position, with the 32 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
conscientiousness of the skilled workman and the 
unpremeditated charm of the poet, he poured out 
broad lessons of human sympathy and preached a 
genial, yet shrewd, gospel of kindliness." 
" It is a good rule," wrote the Doctor, " for the 
actor who manages the popular street drama of Punch 
not to let the audience or spectators see his legs." 
But he could not follow his own rule; in point of 
fact probably no writer ever exposed his legs more 
audaciously, untiringly, than did the good Doctor. 
The (London) Spectator said, after his death: " Dr. 
Holmes is almost the only man in modern literature 
in whom the work and its author cannot be separated, 
and the personality, like the work, stirs an emotion 
of warm and lasting friendship." " None reveals his 
personal temperament more clearly," said George 
William Curtis; and an hundred writers have said 
the same thing in their respective ways. It was not 
possible, of course, that the observant Doctor himself 
should be ignorant of the truth. Hark to his words: - 
What have I rescued from the shelf ? 
A Boswell, writing out himself ! 
For though he changes dress and name, 
The man beneath is still the same, 
Laughing or sad, by fits and starts, 
One actor in a dozen parts, 
And whatsoe'er the mask may be, 
The voice assures us, This is he. 
And in The Poet at the Breakfast- Table he says: 
" Liberavi animam meam. That is the meaning of 
my book and of my literary life, if I may give such a 
name to that parti-colored shred of human existence." 
In point of fact Dr. Holmes's personality poured 
through his books like a stream in flood time through OCCUPATIONS : METHODS OF WORK 
33 
meadows, soaking and saturating them. He was in 
every page of the Breakfast-Table Series; he was 
never far or long away in the novels; he lurked in 
the stanzas of a large proportion of the lyrics. In a 
word it is fair to say that he was omnipresent; that 
those irrepressible legs were always keeping up their 
lively play before the spectator's eye. He did not 
work like the ant, by manipulation, acquisition, and 
dealing with outside materials ; but he spun his books 
out of himself, as a spider spins his web from his 
vitals. The man who can do this thing well can do 
the most popular writing in literature. He must be 
an egotist; but he must be precisely the right kind of 
egotist, for if he is not so, the sensitive taste of read- 
ers - who are very fastidious upon this point - will 
reject him. 
Now Dr. Holmes certainly was an egotist; not, 
however, in an offensive sense of the word. Along1- 
side of all his kindliness, his philanthropy, there ran 
ever the deep strong current of his own purpose. 
Whatever was the work which he happened at any 
time to have in hand, he gave himself to it with very 
great zeal; his interest in the occupation of each pass- 
ing hour was intense ; he was absorbed in his own 
aims, labor, plans, thoughts, ideals ; and he allowed 
nothing to interfere to any serious extent with their 
development. He was very rigid in protecting him- 
self against undue interruptions. To an endless 
stream of bores, who encroached upon his time, he 
was singularly courteous; and yet all the while he 
was cautious and watchful; he could afford to give 
these people about so many hours; when that allow- 
ance had been devoured, the portcullis fell, sharply, 
relentlessly, and there was no more trespassing, no 
VOL. II. 34 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
more time-filching that day. Of course this was ab- 
solutely necessary, for the visiting stream would have 
risen to the proportions of a drowning torrent, had it 
not been cautiously kept under control, - a task in 
which his wife was of infinite, untiring service to him. 
There is a story - just how it may be mingled of 
truth and jest I do not undertake to say - that he 
kept on hand a little pile of autograph extracts from 
his writings, and that when the visitor had reached the 
extreme limit of a call, yet seemed unaware of the 
fact, the Doctor would kindly hand him one of these 
extracts, courteously asking him to take it as a keep- 
sake. " They can't stop after that, however tough," 
he said. " I call the extracts my lubricant; it greases 
the way to send them off." 
Of these invaders some had a good right to come; 
others came to see a great man, and others came to 
let the great man see them. As a cat may look at a 
king, so an ass may look at a lion, - and there came 
a great number of the more ignoble animal. Some 
hunters also desired to entrap this lion for their 
own uses and purposes, and in order to propitiate the 
beast, they for the most part offered him the sweet 
titbits of flattery. The amount of this sort of food 
that was stuffed down his throat in the last forty 
years of his life would have been fatal to any digestion 
which has ever been created. He understood his 
danger well, and wrote of it: " So far as one's 
vanity is concerned it is well enough. But self-love is 
a cup without any bottom, and you might pour the 
Great Lakes all through it, and never fill it up. It 
breeds an appetite for more of the same kind. It 
tends to make the celebrity a mere lump of egotism. 
It generates a craving for high-seasoned personalities, occupations: methods of work 
35 
which is in danger of becoming slavery, like that fol- 
lowing the abuse of alcohol, or opium, or tobacco. 
Think of a man's having every day, by every post, 
letters that tell him he is this and that and the other, 
with epithets and endearments, one tenth part of 
which would have made him blush red-hot before he 
began to be what you call a celebrity! " In time the 
diet had its influence upon the Doctor. In his old 
age many people said that he was vain, and they spoke 
not altogether without truth. Old age of course is 
egotistical, perforce; the old man, stripped of his 
comrades, unable to share in current activities, is 
thrust back by the violence of unkindly circumstances 
upon the memory of those past incidents quorum 
magna pars fuit. It may be admitted that egotism 
and vanity found in Dr. Holmes's nature a soil suffi- 
ciently congenial to nourish them to tolerably fair 
growth in his declining years; but if there be a grain 
of truth in this, at least it is also true that the traits 
appeared in their amiable and attractive form, and 
that he was so simple, frank, honest, in his enjoyment 
of the good opinion of others, that every one was 
cordially glad to give the kind old man the harmless 
gratification of praise. I quote Colonel Lee again, the 
best of authorities: " He has been called vain, by 
himself and others; but it was vanity of an amiable 
and childlike kind, - confessed, and so apologized 
for; not denied or disguised or justified. It was not 
made offensive by superciliousness, nor contemptible 
by unmanliness, nor malignant by envy. Had he 
visited Rotten Row, and gazed at the well-born, well- 
dressed, well-mounted equestrians, he would have ex- 
ulted over their bright array, and not have growled 
out, as Carlyle did, ' There is not one of them can 
do what I can do.' " 36 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Yet, after all, who can be better quoted than the 
Doctor himself ? His books and his letters contain 
many scores of passages wherein he says in his light, 
humorous, outspoken way, with the twinkle in the eye, 
and the twitch at the mouth, that the flavor of flat- 
tery offends not his palate. lie assured his friend 
Mr. Appleton : " I was always patient with those who 
thought well of me, and accepted all their tributes 
with something more than resignation." He thanked 
Mr. May for sending him the Standard: " Its praise 
is extravagant, so far as my poem is concerned, but 
I have always been struck with the fact that a man 
bears superlatives about his own productions with 
wonderful fortitude." The Autocrat says: " I purr 
very loud over a good, honest letter that says pretty 
things to me." And again : " Non omnis moriar is 
a pleasant thought to one who has loved his poor 
little planet, and will, I trust, retain kindly recollec- 
tions of it through whatever wilderness of worlds he 
may be called to wander in his future pilgrimages." 
There is such a fragrance of humanity and fellowship 
about this passage, that any one would wish to min- 
ister pleasant words to him who wrote it. In truth 
the Doctor's vanity was of the sympathetic variety ; 
it did not seek, and was not to be put off with, mere 
intellectual appreciation. He did not crave admiration 
so much as a genial community of feeling. He did not 
so much desire that you should laugh at his witticism 
as that you should join him in laughing at it; or, if 
there was satire, the twinkle in your eye must be the 
return flash for that which parted from his own ; and 
if his sentiment called forth your tear, he valued it as 
a companion drop with his. Who could fail to feel 
kindly to a vanity of this sort ? It was in perfect 37 
accord with the Doctor's nature. In fact he had a 
kind of right to it. He had always shown kindliness 
and sympathy towards all the rest of mankind. Was 
he called upon to rule out himself alone from the 
benefit of his admirable traits; and must he do this 
only in order to respect a foolish modern prejudice 
against egotism? The requirement would have been 
indeed unreasonable! 
Beneath the superficial gratification which he gath- 
ered from flattering words, he kept his cool obser- 
vation and accurate measurement of facts. Wrhat 
he said in The Poet at the Breakfast-Table put the 
truth very well: " He looked pleased. All philoso- 
phers look pleased when people say to them virtu- 
ally, ' Ye are gods.' The Master says he is vain con- 
stitutionally, and thanks God that he is. I don't 
think he has enough vanity to make a fool of himself 
with it, but the simple truth is he cannot help know- 
ing that he has a wide and lively intelligence, and it 
pleases him to know it, and to be reminded of it, espe- 
cially in an oblique and tangential sort of way, so as 
not to look like downright flattery." 
This letter is not altogether inapropos, at this 
point: - 
OCCUPATION'S: METHODS OF WORK 
TO SAMUEL WILKS, M. D., GROSVENOR STREET, LONDON. 
July 10, 1875. 
My dear Sir, - I have kept your letter as we 
leave a Bon Chretien or a Rare-ripe - I hope you 
have that pear and peach - to mellow a little on my 
table, before saying these few words to let you know 
how much pleasure it has given me. I do not say 
that I have never had words as flattering to my self- 
love as yours ; but I cannot have often had such words 38 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
from any whose good opinion I should value so highly. 
For in the mean time, while my transatlantic fruit 
was ripening, I have read the four pamphlets you have 
kindly sent me, and found the reason why you were at 
home in my pages, - because the very qualities which 
you managed to find in them were already in your 
own intelligence, because your gamut of sensibilities 
was as wide in its extent as you were pleased to think 
my own. You speak so frankly, I must tell one or 
two of my own secrets. I do not know what to 
make of it sometimes when I receive a letter, it may 
be from Oregon or Omaha, from England or Austra- 
lia, telling me that I have unlocked the secret cham- 
ber of some heart which others, infinitely more famous, 
infinitely more entitled to claim the freedom, have 
failed to find opening for them. This has happened 
to me so often, from so many different persons, men 
and women, young and old, that I cannot help believ- 
ing there is some human tone in my written voice 
which sometimes finds a chord not often set vibrating. 
My mode of life is rather solitary than social, though 
I have contributed my share of hilarity to scores of 
festivals, and am almost entitled to be called the lau- 
reate of our local receptions of great personages, from 
Prince Albert Edward downward. I have long ceased 
to practice, but keep my professorship in the Medical 
School of Harvard University, which occupies and 
amuses me for seven months of the year. I go to a 
dinner-party once in a while, and once a month to the 
Saturday Club, where I meet Emerson, Longfellow, 
Lowell, and in other years used to meet Agassiz, Sum- 
ner, Motley, Hawthorne, and many others of more or 
less name and note. But I live quietly with my wife, 
by choice. My children (three) are all married, and OCCUPATIONS : METHODS OF WORK 
39 
I find my contemporaries getting old. But I find my 
sympathies not less active because I live a good deal 
out of the busy world, and because I find myself so 
much at home among what are called elderly people, 
not of course recognizing myself as one of them. I 
suppose that is the reason I have made so many 
friends. But I am also willing to take credit for cer- 
tain intellectual qualities, which you estimate at their 
full value at least; and this gives your letter a special 
significance, for I have read the four pamphlets you 
have sent me, and found so much in them that was in 
harmony with my own way of thinking, and so much, 
that was your own, of good sense and of ingenious 
observation, that your praise means a great deal to 
me. I feel very grateful to you for having the cour- 
age, I might almost call it, to say in good honest 
English what you felt about my books and myself. It 
is the best reward of authorship to be greeted in terms 
of friendship, nay something like affection, by those 
whose own words have cheered, comforted, consoled, 
strengthened, stimulated, if not instructed. I thank 
you from my heart for your most grateful letter. 
Dr. Holmes was upon the whole very fortunate in 
escaping any severe criticism, - for, of course, opposi- 
tion to his views, religious or other, could not be called 
criticism. He himself said some unkind things of the 
critics ; e. g., " What a blessed thing it is that Nature, 
when she invented, manufactured, and patented her 
authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips 
that were left." But, strange to say, these gentlemen 
did not retaliate; perhaps they felt that they would 
meet too little sympathy in any severe handling of an 
author who was more than popular, who was really 40 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
beloved, and who had the happy knack of uttering 
satire without giving offence. So in prudence, or 
kindness, or both, they generally gave him only fair 
words. The Nation once made a savage onslaught 
upon him, and succeeded in penetrating his philoso- 
phy and hurting his feelings. It was a triumph which 
was won, I think, only on this single occasion. But 
whether wounded or not, whether misrepresented or 
not, he had the good sense to avoid controversy. " If 
a fellow attacked my opinions in print, would I re- 
ply?" asks the Autocrat. "Not I. Do you think 
I don't understand what my friend, the Professor, 
long ago called the hydrostatic paradox of contro- 
versy f " - which enigmatic phrase he explained thus: 
" If you had a bent tube, one arm of which wras the 
size of a pipe-stem and the other big enough to hold 
the ocean, water would stand at the same height in 
one as in the other. Thus discussion equalizes fools 
and wise men in the same way, and the fools know 
it." 
Probably the " literary filter," referred to in the 
following letter, was not a perfect disinfectant; but it 
is certain that the principle laid down generally con- 
trolled the Doctor's action. 
April 28, 1859. 
My dear Sir, - I owe you many thanks for your 
kind and thoughtful note. I understand the article 
appeared, that it was well written, that it applied the 
usual terms to me, and so forth. I not only do not 
intend answering this or any other attack, but I do 
not mean to read one of them. If what I say cannot 
hold water, I am not going to stop the hole with " soft 
sawder." As I write from my convictions, after OCCUPATIONS : METHODS OF WORK 
41 
ample opportunity of seeing the utter hollowness of 
all the pretensions to the exclusive possession of truth 
and goodness by the people who claim to be our 
spiritual dictators, I shall not trouble myself whether 
they like it or not. If something did not pinch, there 
would be no squeak. 
I received this morning two letters from distant 
places expressing the greatest delight and sympathy, 
and I feel sure that there are good people enough to 
rally round every honest speaker, and see that he is 
not lynched for exercising the great inalienable right 
of every soul born into the world. I have a private 
committee of friends, to whom I have assigned the 
duty of reading all attacks on me and my doctrines. 
I sometimes ask them whether these attacks are clever 
or dull, what they take hold of, if they use epithets, 
and so on, and caution them to keep the papers out of 
my way. This patent literary filter of mine is a great 
convenience, it saves my temper, and allows my best 
friends to attack me as much as they like without my 
having to be aware of it; so that while my assailant 
thinks I am busy with his article I have forgotten my 
own even, and am busy on next month. Be sure that 
your expression of interest was very welcome, all the 
more so for knowing what hard things some others 
would be saying. I could not help answering [?], 
notwithstanding your plenary indulgence and uncon- 
ditional absolution. CHAPTER XIV 
RESIGNS PROFESSORSHIP : LIVES OF MOTLEY AND 
EMERSON 
The Doctor glided gently and imperceptibly into 
the period of old age. He came to it in excellent 
condition both of mind and body, for he had led a 
well-regulated life. He could tell of himself the tale 
of Adam in " As You Like It." Wine, tobacco, and 
late hours had never impaired his vigor, and as he 
had grown older he had grown always more abstemi- 
ous. He had been hard-working, but never really 
overworked, and he had never taken either work or 
play nervously and tensely. Above all, he had been 
but little preyed upon by anxieties; in the middle 
path between poverty and riches, he had probably 
moved along that road which really gives the most 
generous measure of content and comfort. He had 
strolled pleasantly and at his own pace along the side 
paths, by the enchanting hedgerows, quite apart from 
the hurly-burly of the highway where the throng 
hurried and jostled along, the millionnaires and the 
beggars crowding, hustling, and cursing each other. 
Thus leaving this procession, which could find no lei- 
sure for enjoyment, to push and tumble along as best 
it might, he meantime advanced pleasantly, falling in 
now and again with good company, moving through 
the changing shade or sunshine, enjoying all the pos- 
sible beauty and peacefulness of the journey through RESIGNS HIS PROFESSORSHIP 
43 
life. In this way, by degrees, he became old, and 
hardly knew it - would have forgotten it for a long 
while, perhaps, had he been a less close observer of 
facts, or if others had not called his attention to the 
climbing figures of the anniversaries. 
On December 3, 1879, there took place in Boston 
a redoubtable feast, not so much a merry-making as 
a stupendous compliment. It was given by the pub- 
lishers of The Atlantic Monthly in honor of the con- 
tributor who, more than any other one man, had caused 
its prosperity, who had been to it the life-blood racing 
through its veins. The celebration took place, as the 
lawyers say, "nunc pro tunc" on December 3d, as afore- 
said, but " as of " August 29th next preceding; for 
on that summer's day, unseasonably placed for social 
gatherings, Dr. Holmes had reached the scriptural 
limit of life. It was a very brilliant affair, and truly 
famous, that Atlantic Breakfast; every one of any 
account in literature either came to it, or regretted in 
becoming phrase that he could not come. There were 
poems and speeches, and really, though such things 
are apt to be a trifle stilted and artificial, this was a 
handsome success. Mr. Howells had been asked to 
sit at the end of the banqueting-table opposite Dr. 
Holmes, and the Doctor afterward wrote to him the 
following note: - 
TO WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS. 
December 14, 1879. 
My dear Mr. Howells, - I have never said a 
word to you about our Breakfast, which you con- 
ducted so admirably. It hardly seemed necessary, 
where everybody agreed as to your share of it, that 
any one should tell you what you must know so well. 44 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
You showed, I thought, great tact, and savoir dire 
and faire in your management of the south pole of 
the festival. Of course I was pleased - how could I 
help being pleased - with the penetrating and nicely 
accented praise you awarded me. We know the dif- 
ference between a smudge of eulogy and a stroke of 
characterization. Even in putting the holiday dress 
of adjectives on the person who is asked to come and 
hear himself canonized, there is all the difference in 
the world between those who know how to make it fit 
without pinching or bagging, and the kind, wTell-mean- 
ing friends who think, if they only take cloth enough 
and dictionary-spangles enough, though " the garment 
of praise hides all your points and betrays all your 
malformations," they have done all that a demigod 
could ask for. In return, I must congratulate you on 
the brilliant and commanding position you have fairly 
won for yourself. You have brought us an outside 
element which Boston needed, and have assimilated 
all that Boston could do for you (if you can be said 
to have needed anything) so completely that it seems 
as if you had cheated some native Esau out of his 
birthright. 
I hope you will live to see your septuagenarian 
breakfast and many a breakfast on the other side of it, 
not only famous, but happy in all that surrounds you. 
Perhaps some such extreme measure as this celebra- 
tion was necessary in order to impress upon the Doc- 
tor and the world the chronological fact upon which it 
was based, viz., that he was now at that age at which 
a well-constructed person should die, and of course 
had been an old man for at least ten years past. 
But what is more absurd than truth can often be! 45 
If Scripture and chronology thus conspired against the 
sprightly Doctor, they conspired in vain. Neither in 
body, mind, nor morale, did this vivacious, genial 
gentleman, a comrade for the young as for the old, 
seem a " trespasser upon the domain belonging to 
another generation." Being, however, an experienced 
physician and an intelligent man, he knew perfectly 
well the inevitable course of brain cells and tissues, 
and such-like crude components of the human experi- 
ment, and he knew that deterioration must have begun, 
and that the only question was as to the greater or 
less rapidity with which it would advance. Upon this 
point he did not mean to be deceived; he did not in- 
tend that the outside world should measure a deca- 
dence concerning which he was not himself accurately 
informed; he meant to be on his guard, and to have 
as few unpleasant remarks made behind his back as 
might be. So he began to keep upon himself the close 
and intelligent watch of the trained observer. It was 
noticed by those who knew him well that the faculty 
for keen and accurate observation, which all his life 
long had been one of the most striking of his mental 
traits, was now turned in its full force upon himself. 
If this was largely for the sake of self-knowledge and 
self-protection, yet it was not wholly so; for he felt a 
curious interest in studying old age from that only 
actual specimen from which any man can be sure 
that he is studying correctly; it was like vivisecting 
one's self; and he became absorbed in the process 
and the results. It was both a scientific investigation 
and a study of man. 
That this could be altogether pleasant can hardly 
be imagined ; but this memoir has been very ill-written 
if the reader has not divined that with the kindliness 
RESIGNS HIS PROFESSORSHIP 46 
and humanity of the Doctor's temperament, there 
were linked the kindred virtues of unconquerable 
cheerfulness and buoyancy, with the courage which is 
the natural comrade of these traits. It was not with 
grimness of spirit that he faced the advance of Time, 
as one resolved to do battle; his geniality did not 
grow out of a strenuous effort of the will; he only 
aided the liveliness and optimism of his amiable na- 
ture by a cool resolution ; and his philosophy was not 
defiant, but serene. 
In this way for fifteen years more he continued not 
only uniformly cheerful, but much of the time light- 
hearted and even merry. He had not very long before 
described himself, with his clear self-knowledge, in a 
letter to Motley: - 
" How strangely - with what curious suggestions 
and reminiscences, your Shelley neighborhood experi- 
ences come over me! I have always kept in ray mem- 
ory those ' Lines written in dejection near Naples,' or 
some of them, from which I think you quote. I have 
said a thousand times (I trust my memory now) : - 
I could lie down like a tired child 
And weep away this life of care 
Which I have borne, and still must bear, 
and the rest. But it was as a mood, and not as an 
habitual or very real feeling, for my temperament is 
too lively to be kept down long by the common bur- 
dens of this life of care. My spirits have, I think, 
grown more equable, and I am sure my temper has 
grown easier with years. But there I go again 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
'O 3e Pap^iros %opSois 
' Egomet ' p.ovvov vxet. 
I hope my Greek letters are right, - you may put in 47 
accents and aspirates to suit yourself, as Lord Timothy 
Dexter told his readers to do with their stops." 
He declared that he had a " right to rest after a 
life which had been tolerably laborious; " yet it was 
obviously his intention to curtail his work no faster 
than the gradual shrinkage of his faculties should 
make desirable. It was natural that the first lopping 
off should be the lectures at the Medical School. Ac- 
cordingly, on October 9, 1882, we find him intimating 
to Dr. Weir Mitchell his purpose in this direction: 
" I have not told you that I am very soon to resign my 
professorship. I have been thinking of it for some 
time, and very lately received a proposal from my 
publishers so tempting that I could not resist it. I 
hold on for a couple of months to give the Faculty 
and the Corporation of the University time to look 
round for some one to complete the course I have 
begun. Thirty-five years here - this is my thirty- 
sixth course - two years Professor at Dartmouth - 
that is long enough, isn't it? They say they don't 
want me to give up, but I had rather spend whatever 
days are left me in literary pursuits. So I expect to 
start the scimetar1 through a good many volumes of 
prose and verse - yours, I hope, among the earliest." 
And to Dr. Fordyce Barker: " I am glad to look for- 
ward to rest from my official duties as professor. I 
say look forward, for they want me to lecture a little 
longer, at any rate, and I shall hold on until about 
Thanksgiving time. I should have liked, on some 
accounts, to lecture two or three years longer. We 
have a grand new College building about five minutes' 
walk from my house. My colleagues do not seem to 
RESIGNS HIS PROFESSORSHIP 
1 The paper-cutter, which we have already heard of, ante, 
p. 352. 48 
be tired of me, and my duties have been made most 
agreeable to me in every respect. But I found I 
could make a very advantageous arrangement with my 
publishers, and I accepted the opening which pre- 
sented itself rather suddenly, just as our winter course 
was about to begin. I shall have a freedom I shall 
be glad of, and shall write when I feel disposed,- 
which, I think, will be pretty often when I have no 
routine duties to keep up a steady drain on my vital 
resources." 
On November 28, 1882, he delivered his Farewell 
Address to the Medical School. " I have delivered 
my last anatomical lecture," he said, " and heard my 
class recite for the last time." He gave something 
like an apology for having held his office so long, as 
though there might be some danger or suspicion that 
Science had advanced faster than an old man could 
keep pace with her: " But while many of the sci- 
ences have so changed that the teachers of the past 
would hardly know them, it has not been so with the 
branch I teach; or, rather, with that division of it 
which is chiefly taught in this amphitheatre. General 
anatomy, or histology, on the other hand, is almost all 
new; it has grown up, mainly, since I began my med- 
ical studies. ... If I myself needed an apology for 
holding my office so long, I should find it in the fact 
that human anatomy is much the same study that it 
was in the days of Vesalius and Fallopius, and that a 
greater part of my teaching was of such a nature that 
it could never become antiquated." 
He closed thus: " Let me add a few words which 
shall not be other than cheerful, as I bid farewell to 
this edifice which I have known so long. I am grate- 
ful to the roof which has sheltered me, to the floors 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES  which have sustained me, though I have thought it 
safest always to abstain from anything like eloquence, 
lest a burst of too emphatic applause might land my 
class and myself in the cellar of the collapsing struc- 
ture, and bury us in the fate of Korah, Dathan, and 
Abiram. I have helped to wear these stairs into hol- 
lows, - stairs which I trod when they were smooth 
and level, fresh from the plane. There are just thirty- 
two of them, as there were five and thirty years ago, 
but they are steeper and harder to climb, it seems to 
me, than they were then. I remember that in the early 
youth of this building, the late Dr. John K. Mitchell, 
father of our famous Dr. Weir Mitchell, said to me, 
as we came out of the demonstrator's room, that some 
day or other a whole class would go heels over head 
down this graded precipice, like the herd told of in 
Scripture story. This has never happened as yet; I 
trust it never will. I have never been proud of the 
apartment beneath the seats, in which my prepara- 
tions for lecture were made. But I chose it because 
I could have it to myself, and I resign it, with a wish 
that it were more worthy of regret, into the hands of 
my successor, with my parting benediction. Within 
its twilight precincts I have often prayed for light, 
like Ajax, for the daylight found scanty entrance, and 
the gaslight never illuminated its dark recesses. May 
it prove to him who comes after me like the cave of 
the Sibyl, out of the gloomy depths of which came 
the oracles which shone with the rays of truth and 
wisdomI " 
The students presented him with a silver loving- 
cup, an appropriate gift; for if later classes might 
have teachers equally efficient, no one else was likely 
to inspire such personal affection as had been felt for 
RESIGNS HIS PROFESSORSHIP 
49 
VOL. II. 50 
Dr. Holmes. He had not been forewarned of this, 
and being taken unawares was near to being overcome 
by a sentiment which it was inevitable that he should 
feel. He would not try at the moment to utter his 
thanks in words, but wrote afterward: - 
" This gift, of priceless value to me and to those 
who come after me, will meet another and similar one 
of ancient date, which has come down to me as an 
heirloom in the fifth generation from its original 
owner. The silver teapot, which serves the temperate 
needs of my noontide refection, has engraved upon it, 
for armorial bearings, three nodules, supposed to rep- 
resent the mineral suggesting the name of the recip- 
ient, the three words, Ex Dono Pupillorum, and the 
date 1738. This piece of silver was given by his Har- 
vard College pupils to the famous tutor, Henry Flynt, 
whose term of service, fifty-five years, is the longest 
on the college record. Tutor Flynt was a bachelor, 
and this memorial gift passed after his death to his 
niece, Dorothy Quincy, who did me the high honor of 
becoming my great-grandmother. Through her daugh- 
ter and her daughter's daughter it came down to me, 
and has always been held by me as the most loved 
and venerated relic which time has bequeathed me. 
It will never lose its hold on my affections, for it is 
a part of my earliest associations and dearest remem- 
brances. 
" But this loving-cup, which comes to me not by de- 
scent, but as a testimony that my own life as a teacher 
has not been undervalued, but thought deserving of 
such an enduring memorial, must hereafter claim an 
equal place in my affections with that most prized 
and cherished of all my household possessions. I 
hope that when another hundred and fifty years have 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES RESIGNS HIS PROFESSORSHIP 
51 
passed away, some descendant of mine will say, as he 
lifts this cup and reads the name it bears: ' He, too, 
loved his labor and those for whom he labored; 
and the students of the dead nineteenth century re- 
membered their old teacher as kindly, as gracefully, 
as generously, as the youth of the earlier eighteenth 
century remembered old Father Flynt, the patriarch 
of all our Harvard tutors.' " 
The University made him Professor Emeritus. 
I fancy that the official records do not contain a 
remark made by the Doctor on this occasion, apropos 
of the fact that when he began his labors there were 
six instructors, and now there were seventy: " But 
it is not every animal which has the most legs that 
crawls the fastest." 
The following spring, April 12, 1883, the members 
of the medical profession of New York gave a grand 
dinner at Delmonico's in honor of Dr. Holmes. Mr. 
Evarts, George William Curtis, Whitelaw Reid, and 
others, spoke, and the Doctor of course read a poem. 
It was another very handsome and flattering compli- 
ment,- a golden milestone in the journey. 
One by one friends and contemporaries, and the 
associates who had sat around the table of the dearly 
loved Saturday Club began to drop away, had in fact 
begun long ere Dr. Holmes reached his seventieth 
birthday. Agassiz had died in the last month of 1873. 
In 1877 Motley died; in 1882 Longfellow, and Emer- 
son followed. The Doctor began to feel, he said, that 
the old Club was, for him, a gathering of ghosts. 
He had always been greatly attracted by the gentle- 
ness and urbanity of Longfellow, and he made some 
remarks about him at the meeting of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society, and wrote some verses for The 52 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Atlantic Monthly. " But " he said, " it is all too little, 
for his life was so exceptionally sweet and musical 
that any voice of praise sounds almost like a discord 
after it; and yet, as he cannot sing his own requiem, 
we must utter ourselves as nature prompts us to." 1 
Of these departed friends, Dr. Holmes was called 
upon to write the lives of two, John Lothrop Motley 
and Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
Mr. Motley died in May, 1877, and Dr. Holmes 
wrote the customary brief memoir for the Massachu- 
setts Historical Society. Naturally enough, this was 
expanded into a small volume, for publication. It 
was fairly supposable that the Doctor was especially 
well equipped for the task. The two men were nearly 
of an age, - Motley was born in April, 1814; and 
though the five years of difference was an untraversa- 
ble space in their youthful days, afterward, when 
maturity had arranged the perspectives of life, they 
became close friends, and in no other letters does Dr. 
Holmes betray such warm personal feeling as in those 
to Motley. It may be said that he had fallen prone 
beneath the fascination of the handsome gentleman 
and brilliant historian. Therefore when now he was 
asked to narrate the career of his illustrious friend, 
the Doctor came to it with a full heart and an ardent 
pen. Yet he did not produce an entirely satisfactory 
book. Throughout, it is vivid, eloquent, and illumined 
with many charmingly written pages. It is a glowing, 
generous eulogy, an idealized picture of a man whose 
nature, moral, mental, and physical, held out a lure 
which Dr. Holmes's temperament was unable to resist. 
What, in fact, he did may be justly expressed in words 
used by himself upon another occasion: " Bidding 
1 Note to Paul H. Hayne. LIFE OF MOTLEY 
53 
the dead past unbury its dead, in new and gracious 
aspects; recalling what was best in their features, 
and clothing them in the embroidered garments of 
memory." 
He wrote to Mr. Motley's daughter, Lady Harcourt, 
when the book was about to be published: - 
" I hardly dare to think that I have told the story of 
your father's life in a way to satisfy you, even as an 
outline. I confess, I feel as if no one could do it to 
please in every way, and to the full extent, one who 
knew him so intimately and loved him so dearly. 
But I have at least tried to do him justice, and I feel 
sure you will give me credit for having done my best 
to honor his memory." 
Thus much, at least, there was no doubt that he had 
achieved. The volume was distinctly what is called 
" a tribute." It was a labor of love, an outpouring and 
lavishment of praise; but it was not history, not even 
biography. Undoubtedly there was excuse for this; 
for, from the elements involved, the task of composi- 
tion could hardly have been more difficult. Twice 
Motley had been in public life, and twice had left it 
under circumstances which were the more unfortunate 
because they were extremely discreditable to other 
persons whom, otherwise, the nation justly held in 
high honor. It was no easy matter to enter the laby- 
rinth of charges, criminations, and aspersions which 
ensnarled these incidents, and the Doctor keenly 
appreciated that to do his task well was almost impos- 
sible. He wrote anxiously to his old friend, John O. 
Sargent: - 54 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
TO JOHN O. SARGENT. 
February 3, 1878. 
My dear John, - I am more obliged to you than 
I can tell for your outspoken, intimate, and truly con- 
fidential letter. No higher compliment can be paid 
to one than to trust his discretion with the inside 
view of many details of life and character of those in 
whom he is interested, - details which he ought to 
know, but many of which he ought also to keep to 
himself. There is nothing that surprises me in 
what you say of our old friend; I have talked and 
corresponded with many of those who knew his char- 
acter and history best, and I was, during his last 
visit more especially, in the most intimate daily rela- 
tions with him at a time when his heart opened itself 
most freely. I had, besides, been almost his only 
regular correspondent in this country for some twenty 
years or more. So I knew his strong and weak points 
pretty well. If I had my will, I would never write 
anybody's biography or memoir, for we all want 
to draw perfect ideals, and all the coin that conies 
from Nature's mint is more or less clipped, filed, 
" sweated," or bruised and bent and worn, even if it 
was pure metal when stamped - which is more than 
we claim, I suppose, for anything human. 
But I write this note to thank you again and again 
for your great kindness in taking so much pains to 
give me a true picture of our impulsive, passionate, 
ambitious, proud, sensitive, but always interesting 
friend. It is going to be a very delicate business to 
speak of his diplomatic career. I must steer between 
the rocks as I best may. LIFE OF EMERSON 
55 
When a man of note in literature dies, the critics 
and reviewers, and the swarm of paragraphers who 
write the little " notices " for the newspapers, come 
by their chance, and are wont to use it with such 
discretion and intelligence as economical Nature has 
thought it worth while to bestow upon them. They 
contribute to the cairn, often too truly by the casting 
of stones, until the poor silent form beneath groans 
under their clumsy attentions. What protests would 
not Dr. Holmes have uttered against those obitu- 
ary writers who said that he was profoundly influenced 
by the writings of Emerson, and that the effect of the 
Emersonian philosophy can be plainly traced through- 
out his work • Not that he would have desired to 
come under the sway of a nobler teacher ; but he 
would have wished the truth to be told, and the truth 
was that he never came beneath any influence what- 
soever, either of any individual or of any school. 
George William Curtis truly says that neither " the 
storm of agitation nor the transcendental mist that 
. . . overhung intellectual New England greatly af- 
fected " the Doctor. It was certainly the case that he 
never showed the slightest inclination to enter the 
circle of the so-called " Emersonians." He under- 
stood Emerson with his intellectual intelligence; but 
he did not appreciate him sympathetically to any con- 
siderable degree, and was very far indeed from " sit- 
ting at his feet." Emerson wrote of religions, Holmes 
wrote of creeds ; Emerson dealt with Man, Holmes 
concerned himself with men; Emerson found his 
topics in idealities, Holmes found his in things con- 
crete ; Emerson was mystical, sometimes incompre- 
hensible, but no reader could close his intelligence 
against the lucidity of every sentence of Holmes. 56 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
The truth was that it was interesting to see two men, 
bred from like stock, belonging in the same genera- 
tion, living amid the same surroundings, both engaged 
in knocking off the fetters of old thought and belief, 
yet doing their work along lines so widely apart, in 
methods so utterly diverse, reaching such different 
kinds of men through such different influences, and 
never moving even tentatively towards any alliance in 
effort. The real curiosity is that under such circum- 
stances these two neighbors, fellow-laborers, friends, 
wrote, each as if he had never heard of the other nor 
read a line from his pen. This really was odd, - not 
that Holmes was influenced by Emerson, but that he 
did not seem to have been influenced by him in the 
very slightest degree. 
If evidence of this independence were needed, it is 
abundantly supplied by the Life of Emerson which 
the Doctor wrote for the American Men of Letters 
Series. In point of fact, so well was the Doctor's 
relationship towards " Emersonianism " known that, 
when it was learned that he had been invited to 
write this volume, the selection was generally regarded 
as far from fortunate. There was curiosity to hear 
what Holmes would say about Emerson, but there was 
no very great expectation of a biography which would 
gratify the admirers of the philosopher. It was the 
Holmes element, not the Emerson element, which was 
looked forward to. These anticipations were substan- 
tially fulfilled. The book has many brilliant sugges- 
tive passages in the vein of the writer, but the critic 
must declare that it achieves a limited success in de- 
picting its subject, and therefore, as a biography, it is 
entitled only to moderate praise. Yet it may be con- 
ceded that the task of writing the life of a philosopher LIFE OF EMERSON 
57 
is intrinsically of extreme if not insuperable diffi- 
culty ; and it is true that the reading public has set 
the stamp of its approval upon the Doctor's volume by 
buying it, and presumably also reading it with much 
avidity. 
Probably the inducement to the invitation to write it 
was found in the remarks which the Doctor delivered 
before the Massachusetts Historical Society, in May, 
1882 ; for he was never excelled in uttering a graceful 
tribute, and on this occasion he was equal to his best, as 
witness this one among many admirable paragraphs : - 
" What could we do with this unexpected, unpro- 
vided for, unclassified, half unwelcome newcomer, who 
had been for a while potted, as it were, in our Unita- 
rian cold green-house, but had taken to growing so fast 
that he was lifting off its glass roof and letting in the 
hailstorms ? Here was a protest that outflanked the 
extreme left of liberalism, yet so calm and serene that 
its radicalism had the accents of the gospel of peace. 
Here was an iconoclast without a hammer, who took 
down our idols from their pedestals so tenderly that 
it seemed like an act of worship." 
But despite the skill of such happy words, it may 
be safely believed that the misgivings of the Emerso- 
nians were shared by the Doctor himself, and that he 
undertook his task by no means without anxiety. He 
wrote his friend John O. Sargent, August 11, 1883: 
" I took it up very reluctantly, having been a late 
comer as an admirer of the Concord poet and philos- 
opher. But I have got interested in it, and am read- 
ing and studying to get at the true inwardness of this 
remarkable being and his world. I hope I shall come 
to be as familiar with him as you are with Horace." 
This is certainly not a promising attitude for a biog- 58 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
rapher to occupy towards his subject, - resolution to 
attempt, by study, to get at him. But if the circum- 
stances called for hard and thorough work, the Doctor 
gave it; and in time he was able to write to James 
Russell Lowell: "I find the study of Emerson curi- 
ously interesting, - few, I think, can bear study into 
all his mental, moral, personal conditions as he does."1 
Thus closely was he conducting his research, rather, it 
should be said, his inspection into his subject. Not 
altogether differently in times past he had studied in 
Paris; but he had found it easier to get at the cra- 
nial bones and the brain-cells than at thoughts and 
mental processes. 
He exhausted all resources, sought all assistance, 
and devoted a long period to the close investigation 
of the writings of Mr. Emerson. The man himself, 
as a man, he had known well, and he had felt, with 
a sentiment of warm admiration, the rare personal 
charm of that gentle and most lovable nature. He 
saw, too, with delighted appreciation, that fine humor 
which ran like a delicate, luminous, golden thread 
through the subtle braid of Emerson's expression, and 
which quite escaped the notice of many of the seri- 
ous-minded and high-souled idolaters at the Concord 
shrine. These were great and fortunate aids to the 
Doctor, yet in spite of all that he could do, I think 
that he never felt entirely easy with his work. Writ- 
ing to Mr. Alexander Ireland, he begs to be allowed 
to borrow from that gentleman's " very interesting 
volume of Recollections ; " he " hopes, with some def- 
erence," that he " may be able to add something to 
what has already been written ; " and he consoles him- 
self with the reflection that " the idea of this Series is 
rather, I think, to meet the need of that class of read- 
1 August 29, 1883. 59 
ers which dreads a surfeit, though it wants to be fed 
to a moderate amount, and may be made hungry for 
more, if we do not begin by cramming too hard."1 
In the course of his work he writes: - 
LIFE OF EMERSON 
February 9, 1884. 
My dear James, - Will you please mention to 
me anything and everything you have printed about 
Mr. Emerson ? 
Where is the letter you brought to the meeting of 
the Massachusetts Historical Society ? 
Is it possible for you to write out for me any remi- 
niscences of Emerson, - of the " Transcendental " 
people and times, of E.'s relations with yourself - 
with Margaret Fuller? - anything not already before 
the public ? 
I find myself somewhat in the position of Carlyle's 
editor - threshing the thrice-beaten straw; and I can 
do nothing but - let me change the metaphor - 
pump once more at the old wells. 
My dear, blessed, old friend, it is too bad to put 
so busy a man as you to the torture, but I am myself 
not unused to the thumbscrew and the bootikins, and 
have now and then helped out a friend, nay, a stran- 
ger, with a blank page before him and a Publisher's 
demon behind him. But if my request comes inop- 
portunely and distresses or overburdens you, as a 
straw too much sometimes does, say that your time 
and hands are too full, or in a single word that you 
are busy or tired, and forget my request. Not the 
less shall I remain 
Always affectionately yours, 
O. W. Holmes. 
TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. 
1 January 4, 1884. 60 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
TO MISS ELLEN EMERSON. 
October 9, 1884. 
My dear Miss Emerson, - You are too kind! 
Your letter is so full and precise in its answer to my 
questions that I feel very grateful for the pains you 
have taken with it. . . . Everybody wishes to know 
from the original sources of intimate knowledge those 
conditions of an extraordinary life which it shares 
with ordinary lives, - with their own. 
Dr. Johnson's cups of tea and his hoarded orange- 
peel make him real to us, and we are thankful to 
Boswell for telling us about them. In a generation 
or two your father will be an ideal, tending to become 
as mystical as Buddha but for these human circum- 
stances, which remind us that he was a man, " subject 
to like passions as we are," as well as Elias, of whom 
the Apostle speaks. It will delight so many people 
to know these lesser circumstances of a great life that 
I can hardly bear to lose sight of any of them, except 
the infirmities which time brought with it; and even 
these were very much less painful to tell of than such 
as have fallen to the lot of many famous men. 
He thanked Mr. Warner,1 the editor of the Series, 
for pointing out sundry repetitions. He says : - 
" I am afraid there may be others, for I have often 
picked up the same facts from different sources; and, 
writing at intervals, had forgotten the ground I had 
covered. The truth is that Emerson's life and writ- 
ings have been so darned over by biographers and 
critics that a new hand can hardly tell his own yarn 
from that of his predecessors, or one of theirs from 
1 July 11, 1884. LIFE OF EMERSON 
61 
another's. I wish you would point out anything that 
specially needs correction, and I will do what I can 
to make it right, if I have to break up stereotype 
plates to do it. . . . Don't think I am sensitive to 
corrections, but suggest anything that you, as editor, 
think will help make the Memoir better." 
How deeply the anxiety to do well sank into his 
mind, and how difficult he found his task, may be 
inferred from the fact that afterward, in writing the 
introduction to A Mortal Antipathy, he lugged in 
the matter, and disburthened himself, as from an over- 
laden recollection of his past labor, of these reflec- 
tions : - 
" And now for many months I have been living in 
daily relations of intimacy with one who seems nearer 
to me since he has left us than while he was here in 
living form and feature. I did not know how difficult 
a task I had undertaken in venturing upon a memoir 
of a man whom all, or almost all, agree upon as one 
of the great lights of the New World, and whom very 
many regard as an unpredicted Messiah. Never be- 
fore was I so forcibly reminded of Carlyle's description 
of the work of a newspaper editor, - that threshing 
of straw already thrice-beaten by the flails of other 
laborers in the same field. What could be said that 
had not been said of 'transcendentalism' and of him 
who was regarded as its prophet; of the poet whom 
some admired without understanding, a few under- 
stood, or thought they did, without admiring, and 
many both understood and admired, - among these 
there being not a small number who went far beyond 
admiration, and lost themselves in devout worship? 
While one exalted him as ' the greatest man that ever 
lived,' another, a friend, famous in the world of let- 62 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
ters, wrote expressly to caution me against the danger 
of overrating a writer whom he is content to recognize 
as an American Montaigne, and nothing more." 
One thing is noteworthy: the biographer got to the 
end of his work without once telling to his reader any 
of his own secrets ; what he himself held for truth or 
probability as to the matters dealt with by Emerson, 
what faith or what feeling he himself had towards 
mysticism and transcendentalism, toward God and 
man and the universe and all the points of religion 
interwoven therewith, he had managed to keep care- 
fully to himself. The curiosity to get at some definite 
notion of the Doctor's actual beliefs remained unsat- 
isfied, to the great disappointment of many a reader, 
who made his way through the volume, not in order 
to find out what Dr. Holmes thought that Emerson 
thought, but to find out what Dr. Holmes himself 
thought; and who was no wiser on this point when 
he closed than when he opened the book. The astute 
biographer had evaded even this trap and extreme 
temptation. He would never take his recipes and his 
formulas out of the province of medicine into that of 
religion. 
When the book was at last on the booksellers' 
counters, the delivered author wrote to Mr. Ireland,1 
with relief as obvious as if one could hear the sigh: - 
" I am taking the opportunity to send you the last 
book I have written. I doubt whether you will «care 
to read it; I doubt whether you will like it, if you do. 
I wish that, if it reaches you in safety, you could sit 
down at once and acknowledge its receipt. You may 
add, if you choose, that you ' hope in the near future 
to have the pleasure of reading it,' - the ' near future ' 
1 January 15, 1885. LIFE OF EMERSON 
63 
standing for the Greek Kalends. This I say in all 
sincerity. A volume like this carries dismay with it, 
when the recipient supposes he is expected to read 
it from title to Finis, and it is only as a friendly 
token that I send it." 
His brother John read the volume and sent to him 
a humorous compliment on not having written more: 
" You have achieved a wonder, it seems to me, in get- 
ting your work into so small compass, and I think it 
no small evidence of ability; people are so apt to 
swell and become dropsical with biographic autop- 
sies. . . . Now do take a turn at novel-reading and 
have a blow-out on tea, if you won't go anything 
stronger." 
Perhaps the foregoing remarks on the Emerson 
may seem unduly severe ; let the scales, then, be bal- 
anced by a critic, who was exceptionally able to form, 
and was sure to express, a just conclusion in this case, 
who lived at Concord, knew and fondly cared for 
Emerson, and never was charged with making truth- 
fulness subordinate to amenities. 
EBENEZER ROCKWOOD HOAR TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Concord, December 28, 1884. 
My dear Dr. Holmes, - Permit me to formally 
return my acknowledgment and thanks for your gift 
of the Memoir of Emerson, which will be a valued 
possession for its own merits, and very precious as a 
souvenir of your constant friendship. 
I was very much astonished, when you made your 
address on Emerson before the Historical Society, to 
find how much you knew and understood about him. 64 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
This is no disparagement, but merely the result of a 
strong impression that there were, in the mental activ- 
ities of each of you, departments (or I might say 
apartments) which the other had never visited. You 
will perhaps understand me better when I say that 
I felt the same kind of wonder at Mr. Emerson's 
own marvellous discourse on Burns, whose qualities 
I should have thought to be rather " out of his line " 
- though very much in mine. 
I do not yet believe that you have got hold of all 
there was in Emerson, any more than I thought in 
his lifetime that he understood all there was in you. 
Indeed, " much meditating these things," I incline to 
think that a perfect sympathy is only possible in a 
disciple and admirer - pure and simple - who has no 
separate gift or quality of his own. 
But I think the book is admirably done, and will 
be of great value in making Emerson's public and your 
public - so far as they are not the same - better ac- 
quainted. I have heard two or three very competent 
persons say that they were sorry there was not more 
in it of Dr. Holmes; a double-headed compliment, at 
once to your faithfulness as a biographer and charm 
as a writer on your own account. 
The memoir of Motley was finished in 1878; that 
of Emerson in the autumn of 1884. They were the 
only efforts which Dr. Holmes made in historical or 
biographical literature, and it cannot be denied that 
they showed no very high or rare degree of aptitude 
for that kind of work. There were too many fences 
in such fields, and he could not move discursively 
enough. CHAPTER XV 
EUROPEAN TRIP : OLD AGE 
In April, 1886, Dr. Holmes started, with his daugh- 
ter, Mrs. Sargent, upon a trip to Europe. He had not 
been abroad since he was a medical student, yet it was 
only a brief visit that he made now, - four months, 
including the two voyages, and he passed the time 
almost wholly in England. He had greatly changed 
his feelings and opinions concerning England and 
Englishmen since the days of his golden youth in 
Paris. Community of language and of blood had 
done its work; moreover, the Englishmen had appre- 
ciated and liberally praised his books, and it would 
have been unnatural and ungrateful if he had not 
rendered to them a handsome return in kind. So, 
now, although it was his last chance to see the world, 
their little island seemed to bound his desires and his 
curiosity. His stay was in reality a triumphal tour; 
he was overwhelmed with attentions, so that it was 
only by extreme care that he extricated himself alive 
from the hospitalities of his British friends. But if 
it was fatiguing it was exceedingly flattering; and it 
was a novel and interesting experience for the quiet 
townsman from Boston to find himself in the torrent 
of London society in " the season." " He is enjoying 
himself immensely," wrote James Russell Lowell, 
" and takes as keen an interest in everything as he 
would have done at twenty. I almost envy him this 
VOL. II. 66 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
freshness of genius. Everybody is charmed with him, 
as it is natural they should be." One regrets a little 
that the Englishmen did not see him at his best. Of 
course they appreciated the inroads of age, and made 
allowances for them ; but making allowances is not a 
vivid transaction, and the visions of fancy fall sadly 
short of the realism of actual encounter. We must all 
wish that he had made that trip thirty years earlier. 
There is no need to say much of this incident in 
his life, because the history of the journey was written 
by the Doctor himself, under the title of Our Hun- 
dred Days in Europe, a book pleasant enough to 
glance through, bearing in mind that the chief object 
of its writing was to make acknowledgment for the 
courtesies of the reception which had been extended 
to the author. 
It had happened that, after Dr. Holmes had suc- 
ceeded in outliving the allotted term of human exist- 
ence, Harvard University became aware that he was 
a man of somewhat more than average note. The 
consequence of this discovery had been that, in 1880, 
he was able to write to James Russell Lowell: "I 
bought me a new silk gown and went to Commence- 
ment, and they made me an LL. D." Now, during 
his stay in England, the British seats of learning 
seized the opportunity to do likewise ; Cambridge 
made him a Doctor of Letters, Edinburgh gave him 
another LL. D., and Oxford made him D. C. L. He 
was naturally gratified with these honors, and was 
not at all annoyed when the Cambridge undergradu- 
ates burst into an uproarious song of " Holmes, sweet 
Holmes." At Oxford he was let off with unwonted 
courtesy on the part of the galleries, for the only 
chaffing aimed at him personally was from one young EUROPEAN TRIP : OLD AGE 
67 
gentleman, who expressed a pardonable curiosity to 
know whether he came in the " One-Hoss Shay." 
But the like moderation was not shown towards the 
other participants in the ceremony, according to this 
account by a gentleman who wrote to The Outlook, 
over the signature of " Christ Church," and spoke as 
an eye-witness: - 
" This ' Commem ' of 1886 was a famous one. 
Honest John Bright had reconciled his Quaker con- 
science to red robes, and stood up to be honored. His 
grand face was applauded to the echo. But the gallery 
gods had heartier applause for Dr. Holmes, whose 
almost boyish countenance told them of the eternal 
youth in the poet's heart. What a quick response 
there was from those other hearts up aloft, who knew 
that the good Doctor would not mind the unbridled 
license which they enjoy one day in the year! The 
complimentary address was being read, Dr. Holmes 
standing in his scarlet finery, but the noise in the 
gallery was deafening: ' Hurry up your Latin, man.' 
' Open your mouth so that the Doctor can hear.' 
' Mispronounced again, sir; the Doctor is laughing 
at you,' and verily the Autocrat could not keep back 
a broad grin from that face which seemed indeed 
always kindly smiling. The speaker did finally 
stumble and stutter. Then how he was reviled! 
' Take a deeper breath, sir.' ' Now, one, two, three.' 
' Don't prompt him, O Vice-Chancellor.' ' I say, let 
him go it alone.' ' Lady's looking over your shoulder, 
sir.' Dr. Holmes's grin was subsiding as the speaker 
tried to find his place, so we next heard: ' Doctor 
wants to know where the joke is, sir.' ' Hurry up ! 
don't you see our guest is tired ? ' And when at last 
the end came, and the Autocrat was enrolled among 68 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
the worthies, ' Give the Autocrat a seat,' for the 
D. C. L. bench was well crowded. ' Room, room ! ' 
' Seat, seat! ' ' Come, show your manners, gentle- 
men ! ' ' No place for Wendell Holmes to sit! ' " 
In December, 1882, Dr. Holmes wrote to his friend 
Mrs. Kellogg: " You know I have given up my Pro- 
fessorship. I had a pleasant opening offered me, and 
as I had had about enough schoolmastering, I took off 
my professor's gown, and now I am in my literary 
shirt-sleeves." But literary shirt-sleeves were the garb 
for hard work, not for leisure. The biographies afore- 
mentioned and the European journal were not up to 
the mark of his ambition, which contemplated flights 
more like those of the past days. I do not think that 
he considered that he could any longer write so well 
as he had done in the heyday of his lively genius; but 
he thought that he could still write well enough to 
justify him in continuing; he believed that many read- 
ers would still be interested, chiefly perhaps the older 
men and women, who cherished associations with his 
earlier work. He knew that, for himself, it was at 
once wholesome and pleasurable. So he clung to his 
desk and his pen, and there was something at once 
pathetic and admirable in the mingling of self-know- 
ledge and resolution which impelled him to it. " The 
old man may go below his own mark with impunity," 
he said. He had always been kindly to his fellow- 
men, he hoped that they would be kindly also to him; 
he set them the example; he extended his native 
charity so that it included himself, - dealt out for 
his own benefit that which all his life long he had 
liberally dispensed for the benefit of others. 
Of A Mortal Antipathy mention has already been 69 
made in connection with his other novels. It was pub- 
lished in 1885. In March, 1888, he began the series of 
papers which he happily christened Over the Teacups. 
It would be idle to pretend that they are as good as the 
talk of the Autocrat; but they make very pleasant 
reading, with abundant infusion of the old-time wit, 
wisdom, and humor. Indeed, the display of these 
qualities, surviving in such freshness and luxuriance 
after eighty years of life, was an occurrence nearly if 
not altogether unprecedented in literature. The papers 
were really a magnificent tour de force of a spirited 
old man, unyielding, holding his own against the col- 
umn of the hostile years. 
The Doctor had been not a little anxious as to the 
reception which would be accorded to his reappear- 
ance in the colloquial vein. He wrote to his friend 
John Bellows, in England: " I don't suppose I can 
make my evening teacups as much of a success as my 
morning coffee-cups were, but I have found an occu- 
pation, and my friends encourage me with the assur- 
ance that I am not yet in my second childhood." He 
had modestly " thought that he had something left to 
say," and he was gratified when he " found listeners." 
Also he " had occupation and kept himself in relation 
with his fellow-beings." And although he had " cleared 
the eight-barred gate " and was not far from the ulti- 
mate deadly goal, the gallant old gentleman said : 
" New sympathies, new sources of encouragement, if 
not of inspiration, have opened themselves before me, 
and cheated the least promising season of life of much 
that seemed to render it dreary and depressing." Of 
course the way in which the public and the critics 
took the book was most gratifying; but the Doctor 
spoke with shrewd though pleased modesty about it. 
He wrote to Mrs. Dorr: - 
EUROPEAN TRIP: OLD AGE 70 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
" I am glad to know that you liked the tea I served 
you. Those wintry products of my freezing wits have 
been very kindly received. I was a little doubtful 
whether it was safe to begin a serial at threescore and 
twenty, but I found some entertainment in the work, 
and on the whole have not regretted my audacity. I 
do not expect to repeat the experiment, but it is not 
impossible that I may now and then send a paper to 
The Atlantic. Were it not for the continual calls 
upon me from all quarters, I could hardly help doing 
a little literary work now and then." 
The most remarkable feature in these papers is the 
poem of " The Broomstick Train," so humorous in con- 
ception, so spirited and lilting in execution. It was a 
marvel, as the production of a man upwards of eighty 
years of age; if the electric car had not been so re- 
cent an invention, we should swear that these dashing 
stanzas had been written by the Doctor in the flower 
of his days, and laid away, to be brought forth as the 
prodigy of those years which it was absurd to call 
declining, in the face of this ballad. The old gentle- 
man was pleased, and had reason to be, with the com- 
pliments which friends lavished upon this wonderful 
outburst of an octogenarian muse. He wrote: - 
August 13, 1890. 
My dear Warner, - I thank you for the pleasant 
words you wrote me about " my broomstick poem." 
It made me feel young to write it, and I am glad you 
thought it had something of the elasticity of youth in 
it. An old tree can put forth a leaf as green as that 
of a young one, and looks at it with a pleasant sort of 
surprise, I suppose, as I do at my saucily juvenile 
production. Thank you once more. 
TO CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. EUROPEAN TRIP: OLD AGE 
71 
A sad occurrence made an hiatus of many months' 
duration between the first and the second numbers of 
The Teacups. Dr. Holmes had been singularly fortu- 
nate in escaping bereavement, but it was impossible 
to tempt fate through so many years and pass without 
loss to the end of life. It was in 1884 that his son 
Edward had died. Now in the winter of 1887-88 his 
wife followed. To dwell upon what this meant is need- 
less, and I prefer to pass over that grief in silence. 
His daughter, Mrs. Sargent, at once came to live with 
him, and after a short while he made courageous efforts 
to rally, to escape a despairing decadence and come 
back to a system of life which might still have value 
and interest. But in April, 1889, the daughter fol- 
lowed the mother. Then Mr. Justice Holmes, with his 
wife, came to the charge of the Doctor's old age, and 
they stayed with him during the remainder of his days. 
In 1888 also died his classmate, Rev. James Free- 
man Clarke. This, though of course an entirely dif- 
ferent blow, was likewise a grievous one; I do not 
know to what extent the two men met from day to 
day, but certain it is that the Doctor had a warmth 
of feeling and an admiration for the clergyman such 
as he entertained for few others, if indeed for any 
other in these later years. He wrote as follows to 
another brother of the Class of '29: - 
TO REV. SAMUEL MAY. 
June 20, 1888. 
My dear May, - Do not wish you had spoken 
more, or less, or otherwise than you did speak at the 
funeral of our dearly beloved brother Clarke. I was 
struck with the deep feeling, yet entire self-mastery, 
which showed itself in your every word and tone. 72 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
We cannot disguise the fact, - the keystone of our 
arch has slid and fallen, and all we can do is to lean 
against each other until the last stone is left standing 
alone. 
But we must not come together - such of us as 
are left to meet - for tears and lamentations. If 
the meetings 1 are not cheerful and hopeful they will 
he looked forward to with pain instead of pleasure. 
I think it well, therefore, that the farewell letter, 
which would sadden us to tears, should, as you pro- 
pose, be sent in some form to every member of the 
class. I know, as you do, that if James could have 
ordered the next meeting and the very few that may 
be granted to the poor remnant of our threescore 
brothers, he would have wished it to be as free from 
sadness as a meeting of old men, bereft of so much 
that made life bright and beautiful, infirm, dim-eyed, 
slow of hearing, with halting intelligences and dulled 
sensibilities, can possibly be. 
A precious memory has taken the place of a beloved 
and noble presence. We must be thankful that we 
have enjoyed so large a share of a life which belonged 
to the world as one of its most cherished and rarest 
possessions. We know not who among us will be the 
last survivor, but whoever he is, he will be the heir of 
a great wealth of memories, among which none will be 
sweeter, none freer from blemish or shortcoming. 
I could not do myself or my subject any justice in 
the remarks which I dictated for the Christian Reg- 
ister. At the Historical Society I found I could not 
see to read my notes, and therefore spoke extempore, 
in great measure, with more effect, they said, than if 
I had read what I had written. 
1 Of the class of 1829. EUROPEAN TRIP ; OLD AGE 
73 
" I could not see to read my notes," says Dr. 
Holmes. It was not only tears, perhaps, but physical 
infirmity which caused this inability. He had a cat- 
aract gradually forming. With characteristic keen- 
ness of self-observation he had himself discovered 
this, as he told Mrs. Priestley, one of his English 
friends : " It is now some years since I gave up using 
the microscope, having found by the reflection from 
my lenses that there was an opacity somewhere in the 
field of vision of my working eye." To lose the 
amusement of the microscope was no longer of much 
account, but the serious question was whether this 
new menace would be fulfilled to the point of blind- 
ness. Fortunately it never was; the Doctor's sight 
grew very dim ; still his handwriting was always legi- 
ble, with only moderate difficulty, and he could man- 
age to read somewhat so long as he lived. Yet dur- 
ing his last years he had to use the services of a 
secretary for nearly all his work, and the black cloud 
ever hovered threateningly in the horizon. It is need- 
less to dilate upon what a misfortune loss of eyesight 
would have been to him ; but one would like to dilate, 
and eloquently too, upon the serene and cheerful 
courage with which he faced the dread prospect. He 
spoke of the condition often, but not once, so far as I 
have seen, with a moan. He admitted that he rather 
preferred " eyes au natureV* In October, 1887, he 
wrote to Dr. Weir Mitchell: " I have got to stop writ- 
ing letters on account of my eyes, which are, I fear, in 
serious difficulty, though they look well enough." In 
December of the same year he wrote to Mrs. Priest- 
ley : " I do not expect to write many more such let- 
ters, for my eyes are getting very bad, and I am afraid 
I have a prospect of a staff and a little dog before 74 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
me, if I live long enough. I enclose one of my for- 
mulae, which I use more and more, often writing or 
dictating a few words to be added on the next page. 
I have a very bright young secretary, who will do most 
of my writing for me, - who does much of it now. 
This letter shows you I am by no means blind, for I 
am writing it all propria manu, and though not 
elegant, it is far from illegible." And a* few days 
later the irresistible tendency of his youth for the 
making of puns reasserted itself in the following sen- 
tence in another letter to the same lady : " My eyes 
are getting dreadfully dim, and I should hardly know 
your beautiful face across the street. One of them 
has, I fear, though I don't quite know - a cataract 
in the kitten state of development. Well, I can write 
still, as you see, but I am getting my pretty secretary 
to do more and more of my writing for me." It was 
a question, he said, very philosophically, whether he 
should outlast his eyes, or his eyes would outlast him. 
Very narrowly it may be said that the latter event 
fell out, and most happily so. 
For a few years after giving up his place at Pitts- 
field Dr. Holmes passed his summers in various places 
and ways, as chance dictated, but after a while, as he 
grew older, the element of uncertainty became annoy- 
ing, and he established his permanent residence for 
the hot weather at Beverly Farms, on the North Shore 
of Massachusetts Bay. He had a pleasant little cot- 
tage in the village, hard by the railway station, and 
when the occupants of the neighboring town of Man- 
chester saw fit to christen that place " Manchester-by- 
the-Sea," he used to date his letters " Beverly-by-the 
Depot; " but later he had to abandon this little sar- 
casm, for he moved into another house more agreeably 75 
situated. This seaside region is a gay one during the 
summer months; the shore is very beautiful, and for 
several miles on each side of the Doctor's residence 
the summer houses of the city people crowd each other 
almost too closely, and the ceaseless stream of their 
gay equipages makes the road lively. The Doctor 
found much entertainment in the life and bustle of 
the place, which moreover held many of his and his 
wife's relatives and friends. He never acquired for 
it such an affection as he had felt for Pittsfield, yet 
in the public mind he became closely associated with 
it, because during the later years of his life his birth- 
day, falling in the midsummer, came to be celebrated 
as an anniversary upon which friends sought to de- 
monstrate affection and esteem. The school-children 
at Beverly Farms came in their holiday clothes to pre- 
sent their greetings, and to take away, each of them, 
some trifling souvenir. All the neighbors, also, the 
festal host of the " summer residents," came ; flowers 
and fruit filled the house, often sent from long dis- 
tances ; letters and telegrams descended like a summer 
shower; sometimes there were very handsome pres- 
ents : there was, for instance, an elaborate silver cup, 
inscribed as given by some ladies from whom any 
token of liking would have had value; poems were 
addressed to him; and let not the dread reporter be 
forgotten I for he invariably lent the sanction of his 
benign presence to the occasion, so that the cup of 
glory was filled quite to overflowing I The celebration 
became rather exhausting for the Doctor during the 
last few years, but his courteous soul would not permit 
him to say " not at home " to any one who showed to 
him the kindness of calling. Then, for days after- 
wards, he struggled to make due acknowledgment for 
EUROPEAN TRIP : OLD AGE 76 
all the tokens sent to him, sometimes trying to write 
briefly, and always insisting upon at least signing 
whatever had been written by his secretary after his 
own tired eyes had given out. Naturally these notes 
are not worth reproduction, save, perhaps, this one, 
written " in answer to a little note of birthday greeting 
sent from Ashfield by " James Russell Lowell, George 
William Curtis, and Charles Eliot Norton. 
Beverly Farms, Mass., September 2, 1885. 
My dear Friends, - I cannot make phrases in 
thanking you for your kind remembrance. I wrish 
you could all have been with me on the 29th ; every 
flower of garden and green-house, and fruits that Para- 
dise would not have been ashamed of, embowered and 
emblazoned our wayside dwelling. 
Grow old, my dear Boys, grow old! Your failings 
are forgotten, your virtues are overrated, there is just 
enough of pity in the love that is borne you to give 
it a tenderness all its own. The horizon line of a^e 
o 
moves forward by decades. At sixty, seventy seems 
to bound the landscape; at seventy, the eye rests on 
the line of eighty ; at eighty, we can see through the 
mist and still in the distance a ruin or two of ninety ; 
and if we reach ninety, the mirage of our possible 
centennial bounds our prospect. 
The interviewers pressed me hard, as you may have 
learned if you happened to see Monday's Advertiser. 
I surrendered at discretion, and answered all their 
questions. It looks a little foolish, perhaps, to be 
paraded as I have been in the Advertiser and the 
Globe (which reproduced a felonious old wood-cut of 
my countenance), but I could not avoid it without 
something like brutality after all the pains the inter- 
viewers had taken to get at me. 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES EUROPEAN TRIP : OLD AGE 
77 
My dear 
James, 
George, 
Charles, 
I thank you from my heart for remembering me. 
Affectionately yours, 
Wendell. 
Litera scripta manet. If this scrap of paper 
should last a century, somebody might think it was 
another and more famous Wendell's, so I will sign 
my name in full as 
Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
As it has been the practice in this Memoir to insert 
such letters and notes as fell naturally into the course 
of the narrative, and such as were hardly of sufficient 
importance to find a place among the formal "Let- 
ters," let me add here what may be called the cor- 
respondence of Dr. Holmes's old age. 
TO JOHN G. WHITTIER. 
October 18, 1881. 
My dear Whittier, - It is a pleasure to follow 
any suggestion of yours, for it is sure to be a good 
and kind one. I will request Messrs. Houghton & 
Mifflin to forward a set of my books to Swarthmore 
College, happy to find myself in such good company 
as yourself and Longfellow. I have passed a very 
pleasant summer at Beverly Farms, having nothing to 
complain of except rather more work of one kind and 
another than I wanted. I wish I could be utterly idle 
for a while, but I do not think I could be except on 
board ship. My peculiar pleasure, besides reading 
and driving, has been in making diagrams for my 78 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
anatomical lectures, and this was, after all, work, how- 
ever agreeable. 
I think I do not feel any considerable change in my 
general condition, - my sight grows dimmer, of course, 
- but very slowly. I have worn the same glasses for 
twenty years. I am getting somewhat hard of hear- 
ing,- "slightly deaf" the newspapers inform me, 
with that polite attention to a personal infirmity which 
is characteristic of the newspaper press. The dis- 
mantling of the human organism is a gentle process, 
more obvious to those who look on than to those who 
are the subjects of it. It brings some solaces with it: 
deafness is a shield ; infirmity makes those around 
us helpful; incapacity unloads our shoulders ; and 
imbecility, if it must come, is always preceded by 
the administration of one of Nature's opiates. It is 
a good deal that we older writers, whose names are 
often mentioned together, should have passed the 
Psalmist's limit of active life, and yet have an audi- 
ence when we speak or sing. 
I wish you all the blessings you have asked for me 
- how much better you deserve them I 
TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
Boston, April 29, 1885. 
My dear James, -I got yours of the 17th April 
day before yesterday. I need not say that it touched 
me deeply. It seems to me that I have been living 
with sorrow of late - grief of my own and that of 
others. The loss of my son Edward comes back to 
me every day, as I think of all that life promised him 
if he could but have had the health to enjoy it, and 
that we had hoped was returning to him when he was 
suddenly taken away. EUROPEAN TRIP : OLD AGE 
79 
Only a week or two ago occurred the funerals of 
two of my oldest friends, - Dr. Hooper and Dr. 
Cabot. They were buried on the same day. It is as 
if an autumn wind were tearing away the last leaves 
all around me. How can I help mourning with you in 
your separation from one with whom you have lived 
so long and happily ? All that friendship can do to 
lighten your burden you can be sure of. What pub- 
lic recognition of your services, what civic honors, 
may await you, I cannot say; but surely no career 
could have been more brilliantly and deservedly suc- 
cessful than your whole course as a diplomatist. You 
will come home to be admired and caressed - you 
will find the friends who are still left you as attached 
as ever. 
I can of course know nothing of your plans, but 
whether for public or private life, you have a record 
behind you and a store of memories, which will glorify 
and render beautiful your coming decades. I do not 
believe any son of Harvard ever received such a 
welcome as aw'aits you. I do not believe any foreign 
minister ever brought back such a reputation. You 
may be sure that the country is proud of you, and 
longs to get you back as much as England longs to 
keep you. 
TO REV. FREDERIC H. HEDGE, D. D. 
January 10, 1886. 
My dear old Friend, - You please me much by 
reminding me that there was one more old schoolmate, 
townsman, companion, almost coeval, always friend, 
who could without effort, as if we were boys again, 
call me Wendell. I can but think of four others, my 
wife of course excepted, who indulge me in the luxury 80 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
of my boyish name. . . . The ran nantes come very 
near to each other, as they cling to the few planks 
left together of the raft they set out upon, three or 
four score years ago. . . . 
September 4, 1887. 
Dear Dr. Dwight, - I have never thanked you, I 
fear, for your kind message. If I were a score or two 
years younger than I am I might be tempted to envy 
you, remembering my quarters at the old college, and 
being reminded of your comfortable and convenient 
arrangements in the new building. But I do not 
envy - I congratulate you ; and I only hope I did not 
keep you waiting too long for the place which you fill 
so ably. 
TO PROF. THOMAS DWIGHT. 
TO JOHN O. SARGENT. 
February 10, 1889. 
My dear John, - Whether I answered your letter 
of January 25th, a month almost ago, or not, I cannot 
swear; but this I know, that I read it with great 
delight, took down my Horace, found that you had 
got him neatly and accurately, and envied you for the 
moment your vital familiarity with that Roman gentle- 
man, who said so many wise and charming things with 
such concinnity as is to be found nowhere else that 
I know of. Perhaps I answered you at once, but if 
so, I forgot to mark your letter with the red cross X 
which alone prevents my answering the same letter 
three or four times. 
I am always delighted to hear from you - there is 
not a living person, except my brother John, who 
recalls my college life to me as you do. My friends 
- contemporary ones - are all gone pretty much. 81 
James Clarke was the one I miss most. William 
Amory I saw a good deal of in these last years. Asa 
Gray I liked exceedingly, though I did not see him 
very often. Herman Inches I go to see pretty often, 
but he is gradually wearing out, after outliving almost 
everybody who expected to go to his funeral. 
You make some fun of our Class meeting. It was 
not very exhilarating, but we got through it pretty 
well. Two who were there last year were missing. 
. . . There were six of us. . . . Stickney and Smith 
were both stone deaf, and kept up some kind of tele- 
phony with each other. I read them a poem in which 
were two lines that I remember: " So ends ' The 
Boys,' a life-long play;" and "Farewell; I let the 
curtain fall." The drama was really carried out very 
well. All kinds of character were represented, and 
we appeared on the stage in larger numbers for a 
longer time than any class of our generation. . . . 
How strange it is to see the sons of our contempora- 
ries getting gray, and their grandchildren getting en- 
gaged and married. I take the labuntur anni without 
many eheus. The truth is, Nature has her anodynes, 
and Old Age carries one of them in his pocket. It is 
some kind of narcotic, - it dulls our sensibility; it 
tends to make us sleepy and indifferent; and, in light- 
ening our responsibilities (which President Walker 
spoke of as one of its chief blessings), rids us of many 
of our worries. I don't think you grow old, and in 
many ways I do not feel as if I did. But sight and 
hearing won't listen to any nonsense; they both insist 
upon it: - 
EUROPEAN TRIP : OLD AGE 
'AvaKpeuv yepuv el. 
I wish I could get my courage up to do a little more 
writing; perhaps I shall; you would read what I 
VOL. II. 82 
wrote, it may be, and think of the old days of the 
Collegian, where we first wrote side by side. 
Good-by; I find it hard to keep up with my cor- 
respondence, but your letter was a refreshment. 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
September 2, 1889. 
My dear Whittier, - Here I am at your side 
among the octogenarians. At seventy we are objects 
of veneration, at eighty of curiosity, at ninety of 
wonder; and if we reach a hundred we are candidates 
for a side-show attached to Barnum's great exhibi- 
tion. . . . 
To Dr. Fordyce Barker he wrote in January, 1890: 
" The Harvard Club of New York have urged me to 
come to their annual meeting, but I tell them that my 
habitat is the hearth-rug, where I sit and repose like 
an old tabby cat." 
TO JOHN G. WHITTIER. 
March 15, 1890. 
My dear John, - You may be tempted for the 
moment to say sometimes, " What an insensible crea- 
ture that old friend of mine is! Here am I, one of 
the two or three living persons whom he loves to have 
still calling him Wendell (Lowell is almost the only 
other one), and I have twice written him within these 
last weeks, and not heard a word from him in reply." 
Well, the reason is, I have been overworked with let- 
ters and writing for The Atlantic, and I had perfect 
faith in you, that you would not say or think anything 
hard about me because I was not as punctual as I 
ought to be. Your letters were and are full of inter- 
TO JOHN O. SARGENT. EUROPEAN TRIP: OLD AGE 
83 
est to me. There was and is that fine-spirited ode 
with the life and glow of Horace in it, which I read 
with great delight; then there was that kind, friendly 
allusion to our old friend, Isaac McLellan. I don't 
believe I ever thanked him for his tribute to me on 
my threescore-and-twentieth birthday, but I will, you 
may be sure. The truth is, I received such a number 
of flattering letters, poems, etc. (including a prema- 
ture obituary in a Plattsburg newspaper), that I have 
to " buck " like a Mexican pony to get rid of my load 
of gratitude. Otherwise I could n't have forgotten 
dear good old Isaac. How his name recalls those old 
days when you and Epes and Isaac and Durivage 
were cheeping round with the egg-shells on our callow 
shoulders ! I ought not to include you, I know, for 
you were more matured in style and far more master 
of your weapons than most of the rest of us. I had 
a copy of The, Harbinger given me a little while ago 
by somebody, and it brought back that whole time to 
me. There is a Park Benjamin now, who writes, I 
find, and one of whose stories, The Bombardment of 
New York by an Iron-Clad^ I thought mighty good 
when I read it. But now my quasi contemporaries, 
besides yourself, are Lowell, nine years younger, and 
just now ailing in a way that makes me somewhat 
anxious, and Whittier, two years older. All the rest 
of my Boston and Saturday Club cronies are gone. I 
miss James Freeman Clarke sadly; he had grown 
to be a great power in our community, and was a 
favorite in society, as well as active in every good 
work. The worst of him was that his incessant in- 
dustry made everybody else seem lazy. I used to 
scold him for working so hard, but it did no good; 
he had to work himself to death. At the Saturday 84 
Club, where we used to have those brilliant gather- 
ings, there is hardly a face of the old times except 
Judge Hoar, and now and then John Dwight, the 
musical critic. 
I am living cheerfully enough with my son and his 
wife, go to concerts, to small gatherings, but in the 
main live very quietly. It was a bold, perhaps a rash 
thing to pledge myself (virtually) to a series of 
papers, but I found I must either take a vow of 
silence or begin writing at once, and so I determined 
to risk it. 
My eyes are giving me more and more trouble, yet 
you see I can write legibly; but I have much of my 
writing done for me by a young woman secretary. 
Good-by, dear John, I always love to hear from 
you. 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Boston, May 30,1890. 
My dear Mrs. Ward, - I really do not know 
whether I have thanked you for your new story or 
not, but to make sure, I thank you now. The truth 
is, I am in arrears with my correspondents; my table 
is crowded with books unthanked for, unacknow- 
ledged even, and of course unread. My secretary, 
who, in addition to her work at the Athenaeum, has 
been working between two and three hours a day for 
me, looked so tired yesterday that I told her not to 
come again until Monday. So I let everything else 
go until she comes. I am sometimes almost in de- 
spair between my wish to make some due acknowledg- 
ment to the friends who send me their books and 
write me their warm-hearted letters, and the difficulty 
of doing them any kind of justice. I shall have to 
TO ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD. 85 
carry many which I have but half read, and some 
which I have not read at all, to the country with me, 
and try to find time to read what I have only looked 
rapidly through or sometimes only glanced at here. 
I hate to say that I have not properly read your story, 
but there is so much study in it, - it suggests so many 
historical notes which one wishes to make as he goes 
along, or have a better scholar than himself make for 
him, that it is not enough to skim it for the story like 
a common romance. 
I write with effort, as I am afraid you perceive. I 
see no peace or rest for me without giving up this 
everlasting paying of tribute to strangers, who crowd 
upon me until I am worn out with their questions, 
their demands, their appeals, and feel like Christian 
with his burden on his back, with hardly, spirit enough 
left to throw it off. I must tell you this, for you were 
always sympathetic, and will understand that, with 
so many years as I have to carry, the grasshopper is 
beginning to be a burden. More and more I am try- 
ing to reduce my correspondence to formulae, and my 
secretary - a very intelligent and well-trained young 
lady - 
(At this point two colored persons came in and 
took a piece of my time and a trifling contribution in 
money.) 
Well, I am doing my best to keep my head level 
in the midst of the strain that is put upon me, and 
not to let some articles I am writing for The Atlantic 
betray my fatigue and lassitude. A letter from you 
would do me good, for I take very deep interest in all 
that relates to you and your affairs. It rejoices my 
heart to think that you are happy. You are worth 
loving, and are blessed in loving and being loved. 
EUROPEAN TRIP: OLD AGE 86 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
There is enough of you left over to provide for friend- 
ship, and I am proud to count myself one of your 
friends. 
TO MRS. CAROLINE L. KELLOGG. 
Boston, February 7, 1891. 
My dear Mrs. Kellogg, - Among all the young 
girls of my acquaintance you are conspicuous as one 
of the best correspondents that ever warmed my old 
heart with her lively letters. You are so good, too, 
not to expect long replies. The truth is, my eyes and 
my hand get tired with the scribbling I have to do, 
and it is a charity the good angels take cognizance of 
when a distant friend bestows three or four pages on 
me, knowing he or she will only get one in return, 
and perhaps not as much as that. 
I do so love to hear about dear old Pittsfield and 
what is done there, and who does it, and how the new 
city gets on, and all the rest. What have I got to 
tell you? Nothing but what the Boston papers report 
- if you ever see them. I know very little of what 
is going on. I go to the Symphony Rehearsals and to 
a five o'clock tea once in a while. I dine out at loim 
intervals, everybody of my generation being dead, 
pretty much, and the two generations that have come 
up since my day having their own circles, their own 
notions, their own habits. My two young people go 
to the theatre together, and I am glad to have them 
amuse themselves; but I rarely accompany them. 
Once in a while we all dine at some public table - 
Young's or Parker's - just for the fun of it and by 
way of change. Mrs. Judge knows how to make me 
comfortable, and does it wonderfully well. But I 
grow lazy, as I ought to. I would make a business 87 
of studying the science of doing nothing, if it did not 
come to me naturally enough. Yet, when I talk about 
laziness, I am really kept very busy. Here am I 
writing to you at 4.30 P.M. this Saturday; ten to one 
the door-bell will ring in the course of the next fifteen 
minutes, and a schoolma'am from Oshkosh, or an 
author from Dakota, or a poetess from Belchertown, 
will come in and interrupt me, and punch my brain 
and weary my flesh, so that I cannot get to the bottom 
of this page. I did n't believe I should get so far as 
this, when I began. I make my secretary do as much 
of my letter-writing as possible, and get off with as 
few words as I possibly can. You are good-you 
won't call me to account if I do not answer your de- 
lightful letters as they deserve. Supposing I should 
say, next time I get one from you, " Yours received, 
and contents noted. Blessings on you, blonde cherub, 
for your charming note of ten pages - not one too 
many." I may have to come to that; but do you 
write, just the same. 
Good-by, dear Mrs. Kellogg, brightest of your sex. 
Remember me to all that care for me. 
EUROPEAN TRIP : OLD AGE 
TO JOHN G. WHITTIER. 
September 3, 1891. 
My dear Whittier, -I have received both your 
kind letter and your welcome telegram. I need not 
apologize for this brief response, - you know all about 
it. I can only say that the avalanche of letters and 
other tokens of regard has fallen - nay, is still falling 
- and I have survived it.1 
I am longing to see you, and if you are coming to 
Danvers you must expect me to drive over for an hour's 
1 This refers, of course, to the birthday celebrations. 88 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
talk with you. As I have often said, we - that is, 
you and I, now-are no longer on a raft, but we are 
on a spar. 
I have been well in general health, but have had a 
good deal of asthma. This climate is too cold and 
rough for me, but I have found much that is delightful 
about my residence here. Perhaps the fault is not so 
much in latitude 42° as in cet. 82. 
I trust you are coming to Danvers, and that you 
will tell me as soon as you are there. 
Boston, November 1, 1891. 
My dear Mrs. Priestley, - Reading and writing 
letters becomes more and more difficult, but I am not 
blind by any means, as you see by this specimen of 
my handwriting. Much of my correspondence is 
attended to by an intelligent secretary, who could in 
reality answer most of my letters just as well as I 
myself. But I was and am so much pleased with your 
letter of Oct. 11th that I took the pen from the pretty 
lady who writes for me, determined that you should 
have a few words direct from me, not filtered through 
another agency. It is not strange that at threescore 
and twenty, and two over, one should find his eyes 
more or less dim, and his ears more or less dull. I 
like to write out the figures of my age in good Roman 
characters, thus: LXXXII. It gives them a patri- 
archal look and adds to what Wordsworth calls " the 
monumental pomp of age." I would not have said so 
much about myself if I did not know that you and 
your husband took and take a kindly interest in me 
and my conditions. I am living just as when you 
were here, but the loss of my daughter is not one to 
TO MRS. PRIESTLEY. 89 
be made good in this life. . . . The way in which The 
Teacups was received was very gratifying, - but oh, if 
only those whom I have lost could have shared my sat- 
isfaction I I do not expect to write any more books, 
but I may possibly publish a magazine article now and 
then. I am so glad that you and your husband liked 
my last book. I was taken by surprise when my 
publishers told me that twenty thousand copies had 
been disposed of in the course of. a few months since 
its publication. The pleasure of the pocket is very 
well in its way, but the pleasure of the hearty when 
your friends tell you they like what you have done, is 
of a better quality, and I have had both ; your letter 
was one of the most welcome evidences of my having 
succeeded with the few whose approval is so much 
more to be preserved than that of the many. . . . 
Thanking you most cordially for your very kind 
letter, I am, dear Mrs. Priestley, 
Always affectionately yours, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
EUROPEAN TRIP : OLD AGE 
TO DR. S. WEIR MITCHELL. 
October 2, 1893, 
My dear Mitchell, - I was exceedingly sorry to 
miss your visit the day before yesterday. I value your 
friendship as highly as I esteem your large and varied 
gifts and accomplishments, - and I have few friends 
left whom I can be proud of as well as attached to. 
Think of it! my last birthday left me threescore and 
twenty with four years added to the ever-growing heap. 
The parenthesis, which enclosed the year of the cen- 
tury I have already counted, leaves but small margins 
between 1800 and 1900, and now I find myself almost 
alone so far as my coevals are concerned. There 90 
are, however, two breakwaters left between me in my 
quiet harbor and the great unexplored ocean of eter- 
nity: my daughter-in-law's father, Mr. Dixwell, who 
graduated two years before I did, and that dear old 
nonagenarian, Dr. Furness, who, I think, will be kept 
alive by the skill of you Philadelphian doctors until 
he becomes a centenarian. 
I have been riding the high horse - let me get out 
of the saddle. My birthday found me very well in 
body and I think in mind. If I am in the twilight of 
dementia I have not found it out. I am only reason- 
ably deaf; my two promising cataracts are so slow 
about their work that I begin to laugh at them. I 
discovered one and studied it, as it was reflected in my 
microscope, more than a dozen years ago, and I can 
see with both eyes and read with one; and my writer's 
cramp is very considerate, and is letting me write 
without any interference, as you can see. 
I wrote a hymn a few months ago, which I will send 
you if I can find a copy - I don't believe you will 
say it " smacks of apoplexy," like the archbishop's 
sermon. If it does, no matter,*- I have had some fair 
work out of those old shrivelled cerebral convolutions. 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
TO MRS. CAROLINE L. KELLOGG. 
Beverly Farms, July 24, 1894. 
My dear Mrs. Kellogg, - Many thanks for your 
good long letter. I do not write such as that nowa- 
days, but when I write at all, I say the little I have 
to say in as few words as possible. What with eyes, 
and fingers that get cranipy, and general indisposition 
to any kind of work - the laziness of slow convales- 
cence, let us call it, - I am but a poor correspondent 
as a writer, though very good as a reader - of letters 
like yours. EUROPEAN TRIP : OLD AGE 
91 
If I had a million or so of dollars, and forty years 
instead of threescore and twenty-four, and could take 
my old place just as I left it, I should like to be your 
summer neighbor. But my habits are formed, my 
ways are established, and I am a pendulum with a 
very short range of oscillation. I send you one of my 
very best photographs, with all kindest regards. 
TO CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. 
Beverly Farms, Mass., September 13,1894. 
My dear Warner, - I am scattering thanks right 
and left - manibus plenis - from hands as full as 
they can hold ; and now I take up yours, and should 
like to answer it as it deserves to be answered. Your 
kind expressions are very grateful to me, and I feel 
more obliged to you, who must have enough writing to 
do to tire you out, for taking the trouble to say those 
agreeable and most welcome words. They do me 
good, - old age at best is lonely, and the process of 
changing one's whole suit of friends and acquaintances 
has its moments when one feels naked and shivers. 
I have this forenoon answered a letter from the 
grandson of a classmate, and received a visit from the 
daughter of another classmate, the " Sweet Singer " 
of the class of '29. So you see I have been contem- 
plating the leafless boughs and the brown turf in the 
garden of my memory. 
Not less do I prize my newer friendships, and it 
delights me to sign myself - 
Always affectionately yours, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes. CHAPTER XVI 
DEATH 
Death drew near to Dr. Holmes with steps so 
slow, so gently graded, that the approach was hardly 
perceptible. Body and mind could be seen to be los- 
ing something in vigor, if one measured by intervals 
of months, but hardly by shorter periods. He was 
out of doors, taking his usual walks, a few days be- 
fore the end came; he was up and about the house 
actually to the last day, and he died in his chair, - 
painlessly, as so humane a man well deserved to make 
his escape out of life, - on October 7, 1894. Two 
days later he was buried from King's Chapel. 
The expression of feeling which was called forth by 
the event was very striking. It was true that the 
Doctor had outlived his own generation, and had stood 
before men's eyes for several years past at a point 
much below his highest excellence. Yet these facts 
did not seem in any degree to weaken the sentiments 
of admiration and affection towards him; the world 
remembered him in his prime, and thought of him at 
his best. It was singular to note how strong a per- 
sonal feeling there was in all the utterances of regret. 
I sent to a "press-cutting agency" for the newspaper 
notices, and thus gathered and glanced over, more or 
less carefully, probably not less than three or four thou- 
sand "clippings," which must have represented not 
only a very large percentage of the cities and towns, 93 
but a goodly proportion of the villages, of the United 
States, with a great number from England and some 
from France and Germany. I doubt whether in all 
this number fifty could have been found which did 
not call the Doctor either "genial" or "kindly." A 
verdict from so numerous a jury was conclusive. It 
was noteworthy how the world had become so pro- 
foundly penetrated by the impression. It could not 
be explained by saying that the Doctor had attacked 
the inhumanity of the religious creeds, for others 
had done this; or by saying that he gave constant 
utterance to amiable sentiments in his writings, for 
this also had been done by others, even to the point 
of mawkishness. But in some way or another his 
writings were so impregnated by an atmosphere of 
humaneness that it rose from them like a moral fra- 
grance, and the gracious exhalation permeated the 
consciousness of every reader. His writings had 
been full of sympathy with his fellows, - his ship- 
mates on board this vessel of the earth, as he once ex- 
pressed it; and it was commonly felt that this was no 
comradeship of words only, but a genuine expression 
of his true nature. He said what all felt, when he 
wrote: " I have told my story. I do not know what 
special gifts have been granted or denied me; but 
this I know, that I am like so many others of my 
fellow-creatures, that when I smile, I feel as if they 
must; when I cry, I think their eyes fill; and it al- 
ways seems to me that when I am most truly myself 
I come nearest to them, and am surest of being lis- 
tened to by the brothers and sisters of the larger 
family into which I was born so long ago." Yet, 
withal, he had been a strenuous and earnest writer, 
trenchant when occasion demanded, and had led many 
DEATH 94 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
a gallant assault on entrenched prejudice. Remem- 
bering this, it is interesting to observe how the cler- 
gymen now spoke of him, showing a liberal feeling, 
a Christian charity, which was fully as creditable to 
those who gave as to him who received the generous 
laudation. Even the Catholics forgot that he had 
said that it was "Rome or Reason," the "three-hilled 
city against the seven-hilled city;" they ignored for 
a moment the "irrepressible conflict" which he had 
proclaimed, and gave him fair words of praise. So, 
too, did some of the Orthodox persuasion. How 
different this from what would have been the case 
had he died some thirty years before, with The Auto- 
crat and The Professor and Elsie Venner still fresh 
productions. Then the religious world would have 
thought that a very dangerous writer had been timely 
and wisely removed from his work of mischief. 
Of course it was not, in fact, Dr. Holmes who had 
worked the general change of feeling, of which this 
good-will, extended to himself, was only a striking 
manifestation. There had been going on a great tidal 
movement, which would have advanced without him, 
without Emerson, without any individual. But he, 
being a man of strong intellect and sympathetic tem- 
perament, had been one of the first to feel the new 
impulse; he had been among the few who formed the 
aggressive apex of the advance; he had shocked cher- 
ished beliefs, and had taken the consequences in the 
shape of abuse of himself and misrepresentation of his 
position; thus he had earned a right to receive that 
sort of praise and recognition which is accorded to 
all the so-called leaders of reform, - leaders but rarely 
creators of public sentiment. History indicates that 
the present age is instinct with such a spirit of hu- DEATH 
95 
maneness as has never been known in any other civili- 
zation, or in any previous stage of our own civiliza- 
tion. There is not found in contemporary literature 
any other writer reaching so wide a circle of readers 
as Dr. Holmes did, who was quite equal to him as 
an exponent or preacher of this development. Like 
Abou Ben Adhem, he loved his fellow-men ; and when 
I was young all the school-children knew, what I hope 
all school-children of the present day likewise know, 
that in the final competition "Ben Adhem's name led 
all the rest." 
Other reflections also are aroused by the words 
which were spoken and written of Dr. Holmes after 
his death. There were interesting and appreciative 
articles in some of the American magazines; but the 
perfunctory notices of the newspaper press of the 
country were for the most part discreditable to our 
journalism. In England his fame received more ade- 
quate recognition, and several weekly and daily papers 
had carefully written articles, expressing generous 
praise, which was the more valuable because it was 
critical and discriminating. The high estimation in 
which the Doctor was held in England deserves men- 
tion, alike in justice to him and to the Englishmen. 
Among the many complaints which we register against 
the Briton, a prominent one has been a disregard or 
contempt upon his part for our literary productions. 
But though Dr. Holmes uttered so exclusively the 
thought, the sentiment, and the life of New England, 
and presented the scenery, the characters, the humor 
of that small region so conspicuously that the sound- 
est criticism to which he was open was that of excessive 
localism, yet the Englishmen held him in very great 
popularity, and now showed for his memory as much 96 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
feeling and honor as his own countrymen did, if not 
even more. This truly indicated that he had suc- 
ceeded in drawing the real humankind; it indicated, 
too, that when we send to England first-rate books 
they will be read with appreciation. 
Punch had some lines so admirable that this vol- 
ume would be incomplete without them. 
"THE AUTOCRAT." 
Oliver Wendell Holmes. Born 1809, Died October 7,1894. 
" The Last Leaf ! " Can it be true, 
We have turned it, and on you, 
Friend of all ? 
That the years at last have power ? 
That life's foliage and its flower 
Fade and fall ? 
Was there one who ever took 
From its shelf, by chance, a book 
Penned by you, 
But was fast your friend for life, 
With one refuge from its strife 
Safe and true ? 
Even gentle Elia's self 
Might be proud to share that shelf, 
Leaf to leaf, 
With a soul of kindred sort, 
Who could bind strong sense and sport 
In one sheaf. 
From that Boston breakfast-table, 
Wit and wisdom, fun and fable, 
Radiated 
Through all English-speaking places. 
When were Science and the Graces 
So well mated ? 
Of sweet singers the most sane, 
Of keen wits the most humane, 
Wide, yet clear. DEATH 
97 
Like the blue, above us bent, 
Giving sense and sentiment 
Each its sphere ; 
With a manly breadth of soul, 
And a fancy quaint and droll, 
Ripe and mellow. 
With a virile power of " hit," 
Finished scholar, poet, wit, 
And good fellow ! 
Sturdy patriot, and yet 
True world's citizen ! Regret 
Dims our eyes 
As we turn each well-thumbed leaf; 
Yet a glory 'midst our grief 
Will arise. 
Years your spirit could not tame, 
And they will not dim your fame ; 
England joys 
In your songs, all strength and ease, 
And the " dreams " you " wrote to please 
Gray-haired boys." 
And of such were you not one ? 
Age chilled not your fire of fun. 
Heart alive 
Makes a boy of a gray bard, 
Though his years be, " by the card," 
Eighty-five ! 
Even the French press forgot, or forgave - or pos- 
sibly, let us admit, did not know - the expressions of 
repulsion which Dr. Holmes had uttered against their 
modern nasty literature, and they praised him very 
handsomely. It is difficult to imagine that the French- 
men could really have made much out of his writings, 
yet E Echo de la Semaine had a long, a very appre- 
ciative, even sympathetic, article about him. From. 
VOL. H. 98 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
another sheet I must cut two paragraphs, the one 
because it is amusing, the othei' because it shows such 
a fine ranking of much-abused New England: - 
"Il se distinguait par un heureux melange d'humeur 
et de sentiment. Il a trouve bien des mots qui reste- 
ront. C'est lui qui, plaisamment, baptisa Boston 
1'essieu du monde. Il appelait les tramways a con- 
ducteur electrique le train du manche a balai - nous 
dirions, je crois, de la queue de rat - jeu de mots un 
pen difficile a transporter en fran^ais." 
"La mort de Holmes marque la fin d'une brillante 
periode d'ecrivains a laquelle appartenaient, a cote 
de Longfellow et de Lowell, Whittier, le poete quaker 
de 1'emancipation des noirs, le philosophe Emerson, 
et tant d'autres noms eminents que nous pourrions 
citer sans sortir de la Nouvelle-Angleterre, cet etroit 
berceau de la civilisation et du genie americain, ce 
petit point sur le littoral de l'Atlantique qui est comme 
1'ame de la nation." 
At the same time a French translation of "The 
Last Leaf" appeared, not in rhyme, but preserving 
the measure and music of the original with great skill, 
and altogether seeming so clever and interesting that 
I venture to preserve it here: - 
Je l'ai vu, une fois d£j&, 
comme il passait devant la porte; 
et de nouveau 
les pierres du pavd rdsonnent, 
quand il frappe, en clianeelant, le sol 
de sa canne. 
On dit que, dans son printemps, 
avant que la faucille du Temps 
1'eut dbranchd, 
LA DERNIERE FEUILLE. Facsimile of an Autograph Copy of The Last Lea/ 
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// -^/f^r z&C'VC'' ^C/T/'ZT'tZt/. DEATH 
99 
c'dtait le plus bel homme que vit 
le Crieur dans sa ronde 
par la ville. 
Mais maintenant il marche dans les rues, 
jetant sur tout ce qu'il rencontre un coup d'ceil 
triste et morne ; 
et il secoue sa tete ddbile 
avec un air qui semble dire : 
" Elles sont parties ! " 
Les marbres moussus reposent 
sur les Idvres qu'il pressa 
dans leur fleur; 
et les noms qu'il aimait k entendre 
sont, depuis mainte annde, gravds 
sur la tombe. 
Ma grand'maman disait 
(pauvre vieille dame ! elle est morte 
il y a longtemps . . . ) 
qu'il avait le nez aquilin, 
et que sa joue dtait comme une rose 
dans la neige. 
Mais maintenant son nez s'est aminci 
et s'appuie sur son menton, 
comme une bdquille; 
et une bosse courbe son dos, 
et une felure mdlancolique 
est dans son rire. 
Je sais que c'est un pdchd 
de ma part d'etre ici & ricaner 
de lui sur ma chaise ; 
mais le vieux chapeau & trois cornea, 
et les culottes, et tout le reste, 
sont si baroques ! 
Et si je vivais assez pour etre 
la derniere feuille restde h l'arbre 
au printemps, 100 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
qu'k leur tour les gens sourient 
du vieux rameau d^laissd 
oil je m'attaehe ! 
It used to be the duty of the biographer who wrote 
of a person whom he had known well to close his 
memoir by giving some guidance concerning portraits. 
But photography has nearly or quite done away with 
all occasion for this. Dr. Holmes's face has certainly 
become familiar; and every one knows also that he was 
of short stature, and only in his later years somewhat 
inclined to be stout. I should say to any inquirer: 
Get the photograph which pleases you best, and you 
can't go far wrong; the photographs are almost by 
necessity good. But distrust the engravings which 
decorate (?) sundry volumes; I have seen some which 
were not so bad as one would expect them to be; but 
it is safe to rule them out of competition with the 
sun-pictures. The Doctor took a great deal of interest 
in his own personal aspect, both of face and figure, 
and, having a passion for physical perfection, he 
was not altogether satisfied with what Nature had 
done for him. "Very ugly, but horribly true," he re- 
marked of one of the likenesses; and once, when his 
publishers wanted a frontispiece, he said: "Take out 
the wrinkles! Every man, who is going to show his 
face to people who don't know him, has a right to 
show it at its best." Unfortunately, when the pho- 
tographer or engraver takes out wrinkles, he takes out 
character and expression with them. It may be sus- 
pected that the Doctor had himself in mind when he 
made the Poet at the Breakfast-Table remark: "His 
personal appearance was not singularly prepossessing; 
inconspicuous in stature and unattractive in features, " 
etc. But this would have been an unduly severe judg- 101 
ment, which no one else would have passed upon him. 
His singular animation was such that one hardly car- 
ried away any distinct impression of the lines of his 
face; and there was an activity in his movements 
which prevented one from thinking of him as at all 
physically insignificant, nor in truth was he so. He 
said some things of himself, so good-tempered and 
amusing, that I yield to the temptation to print them. 
DEATH 
Boston, February 27, 1871. 
My dear Dr. Barker, - I have got both your 
kind letters, and my mind is at ease about what I am 
to do when I arrive at New York. Country folks 
are so bewildered, you know! 
My plan is to start on Wednesday morning, as I 
told you, and to return on Saturday, if you will keep 
me so long. 
If your son comes to the station, please tell him to 
look about until he sets his eyes on the most anxious, 
inquisitive, puzzled-looking passenger of the whole 
crew, very likely seated on the end of a valise (con- 
taining a manuscript and a change or two of linen), 
or hanging on to a carpet-bag, and rolling his eyes 
about in all directions to find the one who is finding 
him. Five feet^ve (not four as some have pretended) 
in height. Not so far from the grand climacteric as 
he was ten years ago. If there is any question about 
his identity, a slight scar on his left arm . . . will at 
once satisfy the young gentleman. On being recog- 
nized, I shall rush into his arms, and attend him any 
whither in perfect confidence. 
TO DR. FORDYCE BARKER. 102 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
TO PAUL H. HAYNE. 
Boston, January 24, 1873. 
My dear Mr. Hayne, - I am very happy to 
help you in your pleasant project of getting your 
friends' pictures about you in place of their presence, 
as you cannot have that. I had a photograph taken 
a few months ago by one of our best artists, which on 
the whole I consider more satisfactory than any that 
has been taken of late. At the same time it is only 
fair to say that I do not pride myself particularly on 
any show that my portraits make. That is not my 
fault, however, and I look the camera in the face as 
good-naturedly as if it were going to make an Adonis 
of me. 
TO DR. S. WEIR MITCHELL. 
December 23, 1874. 
My dear Dr. Mitchell, - 
"Please find," as those horrid business letters say, 
the last photograph, or one of the last, that I have 
had taken. The photograph is a fair portrait enough; 
but I do not think my face is a flattering likeness of 
myself. Such as it is, however, you are most wel- 
come to the picture, and if you do not like it, you 
can shut it up in Paley's Natural Theology or Sam 
Jackson's Principles of Organic Medicine, if you 
happen to have a copy of either of these books, and 
it will be safe from inspection for one generation at 
least. 
TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
Boston, March 18, 1882. 
My dear James, - I do not see why I should be 
writing to you just as if you were at a distance from DEATH 
103 
me. Here you are on my table in the shape of Un- 
derwood's Memoir, embalmed, living, in fragrant ad- 
jectives as sweet as the spices that were wrapped up 
with the mummy of the grandest of the Pharaohs, 
There you are in a large reproduction of Mrs. 
M 's painting. There you are again, in plain 
sight as I sit, in the group where I, too, have the 
honor of figuring. I have been constantly reminded 
of you of late by the daily presence of that same lady, 
Mrs. M , who had a fancy for painting me, too, 
to which I felt bound to yield, although I have always 
considered my face a convenience rather than an orna- 
ment. I found her a very pleasant little lady, and I 
think she has made a picture which looks very much 
like you. The effect is very Titian-like, and you 
might pass for a Doge - (do not read it Dodge) - of 
Venice - (not Salem).1 
TO MRS. E. S. SINCLAIR. 
September 23, 1882. 
My dear Mrs. Sinclair, - 
I am very glad you liked my photograph; it is 
certainly less disagreeable than some I have seen - 
but Nature did not ask my advice about my features, 
and I take what was given me and am glad it is no 
worse. . . . 
"A good caricature, which seizes the prominent 
features and gives them the character Nature hinted, 
but did not fully carry out, is a work of genius." 
Thus Dr. Holmes wrote in the Hundred Days, re- 
1 A local jest; the Dodge family is almost a clan at Salem, 
Massachusetts. 104 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
membering doubtless that he himself had once served 
as an inspiration to some sketcher gifted with genius 
of this kind; for Vanity Fair (London) had once pub- 
lished a full-page caricature of him, - one of its fa- 
mous series of caricatures. It was grotesque, and yet 
it certainly was extremely clever, with so singular a 
life-likeness that many of his acquaintance declared 
that it brought him before them better than the graver 
portraits. He was not less amused and pleased by it 
than were his friends, for after all one is often philo- 
sophical in paying a fine which is based on one's own 
fame. In this light he regarded the drollery, and 
laughed good-naturedly. 
When Dr. Holmes was about starting upon his trip 
to England, in 1886, his friend Rev. James Freeman 
Clarke, D. D., addressed to him some stanzas of fare- 
well. The Doctor's expression concerning them, in 
his note of thanks, makes it appropriate to close these 
volumes with them. 
TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. 
April 26, 1886. 
My dear James, - I cannot tell how sweetly 
this sounded to me and now reads - dim, a little, 
with those half-formed "natural drops" that Milton 
speaks of. 
Do you know what I want to ask? Will you not 
print these dear lines as my envoi ? 
The lines were : - 
" May all good thoughts go with thee from this shore, 
All kindly greetings meet thee on the other ; 
Bring all they can they will not give thee more 
Than we send with thee, Poet, Friend, and Brother. DEATH 
105 
" While thou art absent we will say, ' How often 
The gloom from off our hearts his smile has lifted ; 
How well he knew our harder mood to soften, 
With gleams of sunlight where the storm clouds drifted ! 
" ' And how, when that o'erwhelming weight of duty 
Pressed upon Lincoln's weary hand and brain, 
Our Holmes's song of tenderness and beauty 
Gave that worn heart a moment's rest again I 
u ' Go, then, dear friend, by all good hopes attended ; 
To mother-England go, our carrier-dove, 
Saying that this great race, from hers descended, 
Sends in its Holmes an Easter-gift of love.' " LETTERS 
I. TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
Boston, November 10, 1848. 
My dear Sir, - I am not a fair judge - because 
I have some fair words among my betters whom you 
speak of. I attribute not the least value to my opin- 
ion. But I think it1 is capital - crammed full and 
rammed down hard - powder (lots of it) - shot - 
slugs - bullets - very little wadding, and that is gun- 
cotton - all crowded into a rusty looking sort of a 
blunderbuss barrel as it were - capped with a percus- 
sion preface - and cocked with a title-page as apropos 
as a wink to a joke. 
I did of course what everybody else does - looked 
to see if my own name was in the volume for good or 
evil, - but in doing so I saw enough to make me 
begin and go straight through it, - a thing I am not 
prone to. There is a vast deal of fun in it - plenty 
of good jokes, - but better than that, there is a force 
and delicacy of mental diagnosis (to speak profession- 
ally) that really surprised me. Carlyle & Emerson, 
for instance - the distinctions are subtile enough for 
Duns Scotus, yet not fantastic. I thought I could see 
meaning in every little scintilla of a trait you pointed 
out; but it would have been a blank had not that 
wonderful comet-seeker of yours - your fine achro- 
1 The reference is to The Fable for Critics. 108 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
matic apprehension - directed my poor intellectual 
lenses to it. 
Miranda is too good. I don't know these people 
much, but I supposed she posed for our old towns- 
woman, that used to be, - in the eocene period, when 
I was young. I have heard of a peg to hang a thought 
on, but if I want a thought to hang a Peg on I shall 
know where to go in future. . . . 
I shall send you my little book - which you may 
have seen advertised - in a few days. I liked a let- 
ter you once wrote me, very much, but I am afraid it 
is of no use to bother yourself with me. I can't be 
one of the " earnest " folks if I try ever so hard. I 
see so many bright facets in this crystalline order of 
things that I should like to set the whole of it, if I 
could, in a ring of verse, and play it on my finger in 
the sunshine of the " Infinite Soul " forever and ever. 
But you come in with your pumice and rub the polish 
off of one surface after another, - first the convivial 
facet with the temperance sand and scrubbing-cloths ; 
then the patriotic facet with the abolition grit; and 
so of the rest. However, I am thinking of what you 
said ever so long ago, and perhaps you would agree 
with me now, that it is easier to beget a new poet, or 
adopt one at the House of Industry, than it is to put 
new viscera - heart, brain, nerves, etc. - into the 
organization of an old one.1 
I think I understand you, and I know you under- 
stand me. There are a thousand things I admire in 
your intellect, and I am only too well pleased that 
such an old-fashioned versifying squaretoes as myself 
has done anything which pleased you. In the little 
book I spoke of I have not been very squeamish. I 
1 Referring to letter to Lowell, ante, i. 295. TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
109 
have printed my jolly verses, - on second thought 
I don't feel afraid they will hurt anybody, and I know 
they will please some. 
As for your poem, to come back to it, it speaks for 
itself that you will not let yourself be snuffed out as 
Keats did, if the American Dick and the rest 
should abuse you for it. It is fun, after all, to see a 
man that is not afraid of this or that little squibbing 
blackguard, -and I do think - excuse the expression 
- but I do think you have given them beans. 
Hoping that you will live a great many years to 
whack pretension, to praise without jealousy, to sepa- 
rate the sham from the real, but above all to throw 
your own manly and gentle nature into the graceful 
forms of art, 
I am yours most truly. 
8 Montgomery Place, January 14, 1849. 
I thank you, my dear sir, very sincerely for the 
Vision. It is a little book, it is thin ; there is not 
much more thickness to it than to a consecrated wafer, 
but one may get more out of it than from many a 
whole loaf. Many parts of it are eminently poeti- 
cal, and the whole story is a pure, beautiful, entire 
conception. To my ear it wants finish in some por- 
tions, and is marred by certain incongruities, one or 
two of which I will mention. Thus, the picture part 
of the poem is Yankee in its effect, and so far out of 
keeping. The dandelion, for instance, is an excellent 
herb, poetically and gastronomically, but has no par- 
ticular business in a poem which means to carry you 
as far from Cambridge and 1849 as may be. 110 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Again - 
" As the hang-bird is to the elm-tree bough." 
What propriety in introducing the Baltimore oriole 
in the tableau of that old feudal castle ? There are 
" objective " instances, as the Rev. Homer Wilbur's 
critic would say, of a want of unity, which shows itself 
" subjectively " in various other passages, where the 
old story, which should have been brocaded through- 
out with old-world and old-time imagery, is overlaid 
with fire-new philanthropizing and philosophizing gen- 
eralities. 
You laugh at the old square-toed heroic sometimes, 
and I must retort upon the rattlety-bang sort of verse 
in which you have indulged. I read a good deal of it 
as I used to go over the kittle-y-benders when a boy, 
horribly afraid of a slump every time I cross one of 
its up-and-down hump-backed lines. I don't mean 
that it cannot be done, or that you have not often 
done it so as to be readable and musical; but think of 
having to read a mouthful of such lines as this : - 
" For the frost's [?] swift shuttles its shroud had spun." 
There is only one man that can read such lines, 
and that is my quondam student Mr. George Cheyne 
Shattuck Choate, whose apprenticeship in learning to 
pronounce his own name has made him a match for 
all sorts of cacoepy. 
Now as to what pleases me most, - for one likes to 
know how each different taste is affected. 
Not the picture of June - it has great beauties but 
some of the discords I have spoken of - not the de- 
parting knight (paragraph III. p. 11) -it is bold, 
spirited, eminently picturesque, but exaggerated; not TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
111 
the leper's speech (p. 13), which reminds me too much 
of some of our " transcendental " friends. 
The brook is the most ingenious and exquisitely 
finished piece of pen fancy work I have seen for a 
long time. 
" Builds out its piers of ruddy light " struck me as 
a fine expression. But paragraph III. of part second 
is eminently beautiful, - the thought is natural and 
striking, the painting vivid, and the personification of 
the little spring altogether charming. Paragraph 
VI. of the same part is very striking, and the moral 
finely enucleated, only as it seems to me the knight is 
a little too good to allow Giles and Hodge to come 
into his dressing-room at all times without knocking. 
You will not find fault with me for the freedom of 
my criticisms, I am quite sure, but feel assured that 
a few blemishes, as they seem to me, do not lead me 
to overlook the many beauties in which the poem 
abounds. 
164 Charles Street, November 26, 1868. 
{Thanksgiving Day.) 
My dear James, - I have been reading your 
poems - those I knew so well over again - those I 
did not know, to find them worthy of their companion- 
ship. 
The world is with you now, and I can add very 
little to the welcome and the honors with which your 
new volume will be received. I cannot help, however, 
saying how much I am impressed by the lusty man- 
hood of your nature as shown in the heroic vigor of 
your verse; by the reach and compass of your thought; 
by the affluence, the felicity, and the subtilty of your 
illustrations, which weave with the thoughts they 112 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
belong to as golden threads through the tissue of 
which they form part; and perhaps most of all by that 
humanity in its larger sense, which belongs to you 
beyond any of those with whom your name is often 
joined. While I have been reading these grave and 
noble poems I have forgotten that you were a wit and 
a humorist, - that you were a critic and an essayist, 
to say nothing of your being a scholar such as we 
breed, if at all, only as the phoenix is bred. 
But your genius and your radiant panoply of ac- 
complishments do not make you insensible to the 
congratulations and the good wishes of your friends 
- especially of your old friends; and I, though not 
one of the very oldest - the pre-Adamite Company,- 
have seen my hair whiten since my life was richer for 
your friendship, and, if I mistake not, a silver arrow 
or two - perhaps from the head of one of those Dan- 
delions you sung of in the springtime - lodge in the 
brown magnificence of your kingly beard. 
Take my thanks, then, for the beautiful volume of 
noble verse, and my love and best wishes that you 
may live long to adorn and honor the literature of 
your country and your language. 
164 Charles Street, January 29, 1868. 
My dear James, - The two beautiful volumes 
came yesterday, - not less welcome because they have 
been long looked for. 
It is too late to praise the Biglow Papers, since the 
world has put the broad seal upon them. Besides, 
their qualities so contend for the mastery that if one 
gets only its due the others will seem unfairly dealt 
with. I must not say they are alive with wit and TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
113 
humor, for these are used with a purpose which lends 
dignity to their most sportive words. I think of the 
retiarius every time you step out on the sand, - you 
hold a net of fun in one hand and a trident of sense, 
wisdom, and honesty in the other. 
But if I say too much of these qualities I am in 
danger of forgetting all there is of feeling, of elo- 
quence, of subtlety, of learning, of observation, and, 
best of all, of true human nature in these full-blooded 
poems. So I will stop short in my praises, lest I 
should pile them so high that I should become envious 
of the monument I had reared, and grudge you some 
of the many gifts the gods have so freely granted you. 
It has been one of the great privileges of my last 
decade to enjoy your friendship, and these volumes 
will always make me richer, not merely by what their 
pages hold, but by constantly reminding me of the 
many delightful hours I have passed in the sunshine 
of your companionship. 
296 Beacon Street, March 22,1871. 
My dear James, - I got the other day your rich 
volume of criticisms and essays, which I blushed to 
set against the pauper Essay I sent you. . . . 
I have read much of your book in the North 
American and a little at odd minutes since it came, 
and I find wherever I open it so much scholarship, 
such acuteness of criticism, such overflowing exuber- 
ance of happy illustration, such continual sparkle of 
wit and humor, that I am afraid it makes me feel as 
Thackeray did when he read something of Dickens's 
- What is the use of trying against such a man as 
VOL. II. 114 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
this ? But again I think that my study lamp burns 
just as well as if there were no Fresnel illumination 
in the light-house, and comfort myself with the thought 
that, in a region where there is so much darkness, it 
is worth while for each and all of us to let his light 
shine as it can, were it only a match he scratches on 
his boot-sole. 
I have not welcomed you to my new house yet, 
where I hope to see you whenever you can stretch 
your legs so far or take a seat in the cars which leave 
the Tremont House every twenty minutes. They are 
driving me out of my library at this minute, to be dis- 
possessed for the rest of the week - the ceiling hav- 
ing to be re-frescoed by Guido Reni (Macpherson) in 
consequence of a pipe's bursting in the cold snap. 
So, hoping to meet you before long, I am as always. 
296 Beacon Street, September 28, 1875. 
My dear James,1-Two faculty meetings on 
Thursday of this week (Dental and Medical) which I 
cannot miss, and my lectures on the following Thurs- 
days, keep me in Boston in despite of all temptations. 
I never go to any shows nowadays - formerly they 
were autre chose - but if I did go to any, cattle- 
shows would be my favorite resort - especially in 
Spain, where I understand they have very fine ones. 
At our native exhibitions I have a wonderful liking 
for looking at prize pumpkins and squashes - great 
fellows marked 100 lb., 120 lb., 127 lb. I and so on 
- the rivalry excites me like a horse-race. As for 
fatted calves and the like, I am as eager for them as 
the prodigal son. The Great Cheese commonly shown 
1 Replying to an invitation to a cattle-show. TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
115 
comes ir. for a share of my admiration. The sampler 
worked by a little girl aged five years and three 
months, and the patch work quilt wrought by the old 
lady of eighty-seven years, four months, and six days, 
receive alike my respectful attention. I lift the 
dasher of the new patent churn with the proud feel- 
ing that I, too, am a contriver and see my unpatented 
gimcrack1 in every window. And the ploughing- 
match, too - not quite so actively exciting as Epsom 
(I don't mean the salts, of course, but the race), but 
still equal to bringing on a mild glow of excitement. 
Yes, I miss a good deal in not going to the cattle- 
shows. 
But we missed you sadly, my dear fellow, on Sat- 
urday. Good and great men are getting scarce, my 
James, and you must not be trifling in this way with 
your gouts and gastralgias. 
Do thank your son-in-law -(I met him the other 
day and he showed me a photograph of one of his 
children, which was a credit to all concerned) - for 
complimenting me with a wish for my presence. 
I have been having a very pleasant vacation at 
Beverly, Nahant, and Mattapoisett, and am beginning 
my seven months' lecture course feeling quite juve- 
nile for an elderly gentleman - however, the elders 
always had a good deal of real pith in them, I remem- 
ber, in my boyish days I and I suppose it is so now. 
Boston, March 21, 1876. 
My dear James, - Your book, " From the 
author," has been lying with a heap of others, some- 
times on top, sometimes underneath, for weeks and 
weeks, and I have never yet thanked you for it. 
1 The hand-stereoscope. 116 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
I was quite right. It was not written in a hurry, 
must not be read in a hurry, and need not be thanked 
for in a hurry. I have read one of the papers from 
time to time just when I felt like it, and it is only a 
day or two since I finished reading the Dante, which 
was the last I took up, and having read laid down 
with a sigh of regret that I could not earlier in my 
life have come under those influences (perhaps I 
ought to say could not have inherited those gifts) 
which would have fitted me to read such an Essay as 
a scholar and not as a school-boy. 
There is no need of my praising such a piece of 
criticism as this, - and I speak of this especially as 
the most elaborate, the most profound, the most 
learned, and the most subtile, where all are remark- 
able for these qualities in various degree, - I say 
there is no need of my praising a masterpiece like this. 
It serves a great purpose, quite independently of 
its value with reference to Dante and his readers ; it 
shows our young American scholars that they need 
not be provincial in their way of thought or their 
scholarship because they happen to be born or bred in 
an outlying district of the great world of letters. 
We Boston people are so bright and wide-awake, 
and have been really so much in advance of our fel- 
low-barbarians with our Monthly Anthologies, and 
Atlantic Monthlies, and Morth American Reviews, 
that we have been in danger of thinking our local 
scale was the absolute one of excellence - forgetting 
that 212 Fahrenheit is but 100 Centigrade. That is 
one way of looking at ourselves ; and the other, as 
you know, is looking on ourselves as intellectual 
colonial dependents, and accepting that " certain con- 
descension in foreigners," which you have so deli< 
ciously exploded, as all that we are entitled to. TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
117 
These criticisms of yours are more truly authorita- 
tive for me than any others that I read, and when I 
thank you for them it is as a pupil thanks a mas- 
ter. If I have sometimes spoken of criticism as a 
secondary function of the man of letters, I cannot 
have been thinking of such criticism as yours, the 
side-lights of which, if brought together, would make 
a series of brilliant original essays. 
Boston, December 25, 1877. 
My dear James, - What can I do better, this 
Christmas morning, than sit down and write Your 
Excellency a few lines or pages, as the case may be ? 
I venture to say that the Boston postmark looks 
pleasantly on the back of a letter - for you have paid 
your debts before sailing, I do not question, and I am 
sure that any letter from your own country will bring 
nothing but kind messages to one of its few represen- 
tatives whom it has any special reason to be proud 
of. Of course you are very fresh in all our memories 
just now, for it is only a week yesterday since we 
were celebrating Whittier's seventieth birthday, and 
on that occasion, as you know, I trust, before this, 
no one was more fully and warmly remembered than 
yourself. I please myself with thinking that you 
have had the Daily Advertiser with the account of 
the Dinner at the Brunswick, and the following num- 
ber of the same paper, in which Norton's response 
to a toast in your honor is given at length. It was 
very happy and full of feeling, and received by the 
audience in a way that would have pleased you. But 
you ought to have been there yourself to have been 
welcomed as you would have been, not merely for a 
thousand reasons which you know so well, but more 118 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
especially as the first Editor of The Atlantic, who set 
it on its legs - (why not ? You have often heard of 
an arm of the sea) - and in the words of Byron, bade 
it " roll on," which it has done so stoutly ever since. 
That dinner is almost all I have to tell you about, for 
at the November Club I could not be, because Eliot 
called a Faculty meeting which prevented my going, 
and I was out of town during the summer months, so 
that I have really seen almost nothing of our mutual 
friends since I bade you good-by on board the Par- 
thia. Even John I have not seen for weeks. My 
daily lecture, my visits to poor Edward Clarke, who 
died a few weeks ago, answering letters and looking 
over the books that are sent me - it is a lean life, 
isn't it? But I am getting notes together for my 
Memoir of Motley, and now and then writing a little 
something, for instance, a piece called "My Aviary" 
for the January Atlantic, and some verses for the 
Whittier dinner. You have something to tell, but 
what can I say to interest you? The migrations of 
the Vicar and his wife from the blue bed to the brown 
were hardly more monotonous than the pendulum- 
swing of my existence, so far as all outward occur- 
rences go. Yet life is never monotonous, absolutely, 
to me. I am a series of surprises to myself in the 
changes that years and ripening, and it may be a still 
further process which I need not name, bring about. 
The movement onward is like changing place in a 
picture gallery - the light fades from this picture and 
falls on that, so that you wonder where the first has 
gone to and see all at once the meaning of the other. 
Not that I am so different from other people - there 
may be a dozen of me, minus my accidents, for aught 
I know - say rather ten thousand. But what a TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
119 
strange thing life is when you have waded in up to 
your neck and remember the shelving sands you have 
trodden! 
I have often asked and now and then heard from 
you. You were said to have had some trouble, rheu- 
matic or other, but at last accounts to be rid of it. 
You were quoted as saying that your office was one 
that required a good deal of work, or more work than 
some of the other diplomatic stations. I hope you 
are well and used to your labors by this time, but I 
will say to you as I used to say to Motley, that I would 
on no account lay any burden upon you in the shape 
of answering this or any future letter of mine except at 
your convenience and as briefly as you will. With 
kindest regards to Mrs. Lowell, 
I am as always. 
Beverly Farms, September 22, 1878. 
My dear James, - Love me, love my - poems is 
not the way in which it is generally put. Love my 
poems, love you, would come nearer the truth. It did 
me good to get those pleasant words about my Atlantic 
verses, which I read, by the way, at the $ B K dinner, 
of which society they chose me President. So you 
see I have the honor of being your successor. I feel 
oldish for such places, but I think, generally speaking, 
the higher the place one holds, the more work others 
do for him, so that logically the supreme position in 
the universe would be one of absolute repose. Sixty- 
cight quotha I I shall never couple those two figures 
again after my name - sixty-mne, by 'r Lady - and 
so few good old men left! When a man says to him- 
self, I am now in my seventieth year - still more when 120 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
he writes it, as I do now, he feels as if he were talk- 
ing about somebody else, or reading in the obituary 
column of a newspaper, or scraping the moss from an 
old gravestone and spelling it out; but the idea that 
he is himself the subject of the malady called three- 
score years and ten - or like soon to be - the age at 
which King David (the brother poet, I mean) was 
advertising for a dry-nurse - 
I leave that sentence unfinished, expressly, inten- 
tionally, for what can I say to match the absurdity of 
the thought which presents itself as a fact and sounds 
so like a lie! - Ah well; age is well enough-but 
just now - 
I almost blush to write with so very little beyond 
the changes from the blue bed to the brown to tell 
you. Next Monday - the 30th, that is - we expect 
to return to Boston, having passed a delightful but 
exceedingly quiet summer here at Beverly Farms. . . . 
We are at a small wayside house, where we make 
ourselves comfortable, my wife, my daughter, and my- 
self, with books, walks, drives, and as much laziness 
as we can bring ourselves to, which is quite too little, 
for none of us lias a real genius for the far niente. 
All round us are the most beautiful and expensive 
residences, some close to the sea beaches, some on 
heights farther back in the midst of the woods, some 
perched on the edge of precipices; one has a net 
spread out which she calls a baby-catcher, over the 
abyss, on the verge of which her piazza hangs shud- 
dering. We go to most of these fine places once 
during the season. We see the fine equipages roll by 
(the constable does not take off his hat), and we carry 
as contented faces as most of them do. ... I wonder TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
121 
if you have ever found time to write your notice of 
Edmund Quincy? My Memoir of Motley is essen- 
tially done, and I have tied it up to carry to town with 
me. It is long for a Hist. Soc. memoir - nearly two 
hundred pages of my manuscript, which is square and 
pretty well filled. It cost me some trouble and may 
possibly provoke some antagonism, but the disputes 
are so nearly burned out (those about the Vienna 
resignation and the London recall) that my poking in 
the ashes may not burn my fingers. It is no great 
matter whether it does or not; I shall say my say in 
decent and, I think, very moderate language. - Even- 
ing before last I ran up to town to dine with Phillips 
Brooks, who had Dean Stanley as his guest. The 
Dean's face reminded me most oddly of that of my 
classmate, the late Judge Bigelow. I had some inter- 
esting talk with him, especially about the Motleys. 
Motley was a very warm admirer of yours, as you 
must know. He was one of the two you referred to, I 
feel sure, as making up a large part of the world which 
it was a pleasure to please by your writings - in one 
of your last poems, I mean, which I have not by me to 
refer to. Whenever my Memoir is printed I will 
send you an early copy. I do not suppose you have 
much time to read, but you can turn the pages over, 
and get your Sancho to cut them if they are not cut 
already. 
I am at the bottom of my page, and ask myself: 
why did I write ? What had I to tell ? Nothing, al- 
most, but my letter tells you that you are remembered 
in the quiet little place I write from, and I am but 
one of the many who often think of you and long to 
see you back again. 122 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Boston, May 13, 1879. 
My dear James, - Three or foui- months ago I 
sent you a copy of a Memoir of Motley, in which I 
thought you might find a few pages to interest you. 
Yes, sent it, but it never went, as I have recently 
learned. I left the care of it to the publishers, 
Houghton & Osgood, who sent it, as they thought, to 
the right people - Putnam, I think, in New York - 
at any rate, it was too heavy for the post, it seemed 
- (too heavy 1 ominous) - and so it lay quietly in 
their dungeon, week after week and month after 
month, and I am afraid has not gone yet, but I will 
find out very soon. I was provoked. Not that you 
want the book so much, not that you have got to read 
it and write a letter to me about it - DU prohibete - 
but I wanted you to know that you are in the memo- 
ries of many you have left behind you, mine especially. 
Think what the Club, where we oftenest met, now is. 
Emerson is afraid to trust himself in society much, 
on account of the failure of his memory and the great 
difficulty he finds in getting the word he wants. It is 
painful to witness his embarrassment at times, - still 
he has made out to lecture at Concord lately. I hope 
you saw that touching note of his, declining some in- 
vitation, in which he spoke of his memory as " hiding 
itself." Longfellow never conies; I think he has not 
been since you left us, though I meet him once in a 
while at a private dinner-party. Charles Norton 
comes, it is true, and now and then another Canta- 
brigian or two, but the club is reduced to little more 
than the dimensions of a walking-stick. I went last 
time and had some talk with C. N., who is greatly 
interested in an archaeological association, of which he 
is the moving spirit. It is going to dig up some gods 123 
in Greece, if it can get money enough - I suppose 
they may be required in some quarters to supply an 
apparent want. 
I am busy, as usual. I wish I could bring more to 
pass, for I am hardly ever idle. A fortnight ago I 
went to New York, and had a fine time, being break- 
fasted, lunched, dined, and made much of. Of course 
I had to say something for myself, and so I did. 
These occasional autos-da-fd, at which I am a kind of 
asbestos victim, are almost wearing the life out of me. 
It is as bad as habitual drunkenness, this habit I have 
been led into. Now comes the Moore centennial - 
it is worse than the seventeen-year locust plague - 
this centennial epidemic. "What do I write for?" 
Because they cajole, and flatter, and tease, and I have 
got into the way of yielding. Why can't you get a 
furlough and drop in at the $ B K meeting? they have 
made me President, because I am over-ripe, I sup- 
pose. Backward the course of empire takes its way. 
You were President when your hair was - brown? 
Mine is white. 
I write to tell you about the book you ought to 
have and have not got - you shall have it, whether 
you want it or not. Don't forget us all. Kindest 
regards to Mrs. Lowell. 
Boston, December 4,1879. 
My dear James, - At half-past six p. m. yesterday 
I got up from a " breakfast " given to me at the 
Brunswick by the publishers of The, Atlantic. My 
friends were there in great force, except Longfel- 
low, who sends me an affectionate note this morn- 
ing, telling me how he was prevented by a sharp and 
sudden attack of influenza from coming. Of course, 
TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 124 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
a banquet from which the two L's are absent is shorn 
of its brightest ornaments, but we did - they did, I 
should say - as well as possible under the circum- 
stances, and this morning I look back on all the fine 
things that were said and sung about me, and feel 
like a royal mummy just embalmed. The only thing 
is, that in hearing so much about one's self it makes 
him think he is dead and reading his obituary notices. 
My table is covered with letters, some of which are 
shrieking for answers, but I sit down to write to you 
first for a special reason. If you should see a copy of 
the Advertiser - and I suppose you may look at a 
Boston paper now and then - you will see in that of 
December 4th a report of this festival, and you will 
find your own name mentioned by me. I spoke of 
you as having been the cause of my writing The 
Autocrat by what you said to me when The Atlantic 
was started, and that any pleasure my writings had 
given, and my own enjoyment of the immediate occa- 
sion, they owed to you in addition to your own noble 
contribution to our literature. The wretches printed 
" noble " notable! The idea of my applying that luke- 
warm word to the grand poems which so largely merit 
the adjective I gave them! I was so vexed that, if I 
had not slept off my breakfast, I should have had an 
indigestion. It is perfectly true that but for these 
kind and confident words of yours I might not have 
taken up my pen in serious earnest, and so have 
missed the chance of saying some things I am glad 
to have said and which others have been willing to 
listen to. TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
125 
Boston, February 25, 1880. 
My dear James, - It is six weeks since I received 
your letter (of December 27th). When I think, as I 
return to it, of all you have been through within the 
past year, I reproach myself for not having sent at 
least a few words of reply before this. In spite of all 
you told me, I do not think I can bring home to my- 
self in imagination the terrible strain it must have 
been to watch one so dear to you through a long period 
of danger and distress, - unconscious, too, of all the 
affectionate care bestowed upon her, - and this in a 
strange land and with duties, I suppose, which were 
peremptory in their demands upon you. Most fer- 
vently I hope - what if I said I pray ? - not to Al- 
mighty " Protoplasm," surely, - that the precious life 
so interwoven with your own may be spared to you and 
restored to its former health, so that she, with whom 
you have been through the valley of the shadow, - 
almost that of death, - may be your companion dur- 
ing the brilliant years which lie before you. 
You have forgotten how many pleasant things you 
said to me in your last letter. It is my turn now. 
Ever since you dined at my table in company with 
Motley, I have thought of you as a Diplomatist in the 
making. I believe everybody is pleased with your 
appointment, here at home. Leland (Hans Breit- 
mann), who has been living in London some years, 
says you will be the most popular American Minister 
we have ever sent. I cannot help thinking " J. B." 
will take to you all the more heartily because you 
have lashed him pretty well in the poems which every- 
body in England (who reads) read at the time (if 
Rutledge's statistics are an index), and which will be 
re-read now with renewed delight for the neatness with 126 
which the licks were laid on. It won't hurt you to 
have won your spurs from Oxford and Cambridge be- 
fore you showed yourself to the Dons as an official 
personage. All things considered, I think nobody 
has appeared at the British Court from this side 
of the Atlantic since John Adams, who had a right to 
a sense of inward satisfaction quite up to your own. 
And what a place to fill I Do you remember what I 
myself said once ? 
I would perhaps be Plenipo, 
But only near St. Janies. 
Of course, all of us knew you ought to be there, and 
many of us hardly doubted that you would be. You 
know what creatures we have sometimes sent abroad 
as ministers, of any one of whom, if we should say that 
our realm contained 
Five hundred as good as he, 
it would be considered as a libel by implication. On 
the contrary, we consider you to be a regular e pluri- 
bus Unum (I mean The One out of a great many). 
You may get as much European epidermis as you like, 
the strigil will always show you to be at heart an un- 
changed and unchangeable New Englander. You are 
anchored here, and though your cable is three thou- 
sand miles long, it will pull you home again by and 
by; at least, so I believe, so I think all who know 
you believe. That is just what we like, - a man who 
can be at his ease in Court or cloister, and yet has a 
bit of Yankee backbone that won't soften in spite of 
his knee-breeches, his having to be " with high consid- 
eration," and the rest. All this I could n't help say- 
ing, for I feel it to be true as you know it to be. 
If I write you a letter from time to time, pray do 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES James Russell Lowell TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
127 
not let it weigh upon you that it must be answered. I 
think you can have very little leisure for any private 
correspondence. 
Boston, January 17, 1881. 
My dear James, - Whether you have time to 
read a letter is the question with me, not whether you 
have time to write one in answer. You must have 
more to do, to see, to say, to think about, than we quiet 
people at home can dream of. But I do not feel quite 
happy without reminding you once or twice a year, 
or even a little oftener than that, that there is such 
a place as New England, and that you have some 
friends there who have not forgotten you, and who 
will be very glad to see you back again - that is, 
whenever you have got enough of it and come of your 
own accord. . . . 
Perhaps you would like a word or two about the 
Club. No meeting the last Saturday of December, 
that being the 25th. The last of November we had a 
very good meeting for these degenerate days - Emer- 
son hors de combat, mainly, Agassiz dead, Longfellow 
an absentee, Lowell representing - the Club - at 
Her Imperial Majesty's Court. I feel like old Nestor 
talking of his companions of earlier days - divine 
Polyphemus, godlike Theseus, and the rest, - " men 
like these I have not seen and shall never look on their 
like " - at least until you come back and we have 
Longfellow and all that is left of Emerson to meet 
you. I say " all that is left." It is the machinery 
of thought that moves with difficulty, especially the 
memory, but we can hardly hope that the other mental 
powers will not gradually fade as that has faded. 
It is your business to outlive all of the group with 128 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
which, though ten years younger than the youngest, 
you are commonly named. If, as may be hoped, you 
should pass the later years of a long life in the old 
town you know and love so well, what a position you 
will hold - what homage will surround you! And 
what memories you will have to live upon I I am very 
much struck with the effect a few additional years 
have in adding to the respect and the tender regard 
with which one is treated. Of course I see this in the 
way in which Emerson and Whittier and Longfellow 
are looked upon and spoken of; but 1 myself experi- 
ence some of the same kindliness in the way in which 
I am received and spoken of, and am finding out that 
every age has its own privileges and pleasures. 
You ought to have been at the Cambridge semi- 
centennial, when your delightful and most welcome 
note was read. I only attended the school-gathering 
in the forenoon, at which Longfellow said a few words, 
and sat in the chair the children presented him a year 
or two ago, and I read a few verses. You must see 
our papers and must have seen the account - unless 
you are more thoroughly weaned from bathycolpian 
Cambridge than I believe you ever will be. 
Also you ought to see yourself embalmed in Har- 
per s Magazine. Underwood is potting our (literary) 
interiors, and doing us up in spices like so many dead 
Pharaohs. 
With loving remembrance, 
Always faithfully yours. 
Dorit think I expect answers. TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
129 
My little calendar reads thus : - 
JULY 
25 
Wut '3 best to think may n't puzzle me nor you, 
The pinch comes in decidin' wut to do. 
J. R. Lowell. 
My dear James, - I wonder if you find time to 
read anything besides official papers ? As for writing, 
you must have enough of that to do per alium if not 
per teipsum. Still, I told you I should write you from 
time to time, and now I am here at the seaside, and 
there is a little lull in my labors, and I am going to 
remind you that there is a Western hemisphere where 
you have a few friends left yet - I hope you may find 
them all when you come back. I think Longfellow 
shows his added years very plainly. I went a year or 
so ago with him to be photographed, and the picture 
showed less life than any I had seen of him. This 
may have been temporary, but I own that he appears 
to me more languid in his air and movements - it is 
not strange at seventy-four. But I have often noticed 
that there are unexplained movements in health at 
different ages, especially in later years, both downward 
and upward, towards Avernus and back again, so that 
one who seems to be failing will grow younger again 
next year, and begin quite fresh after his episode of 
depression. Emerson is gently fading out like a pho- 
tograph- the outlines are all there, but the details 
are getting fainter. He keeps his Egeria always near 
him to hint the right word to him - his faithful 
daughter Ellen. Whittier is pretty well, I believe, - 
but I have seen none of our old friends for some 
weeks, since I have been quietly living at my old 130 
quarters at Beverly Farms. The last Club I went to 
was at the end of May. The " Saturday " is not what 
it was when you were with us. We do our best to 
keep it alive. I, and a number of others, always pay 
two dollars whether we are there or not; which makes 
it easier for the financial infirmities. . . . The little 
block almanac or calendar, from which I took the text 
for this 25th of July, 1881, is one of several of a 
similar aspect which have been published here lately. 
Many of the mottoes are from your poems, others from 
the friends with whom your name is often coupled, of 
whom I have the honor to be one now and then. There 
has been a great deal done of late, especially in the 
West, to popularize American writers, especially poets. 
They have Brown, Jones, and Robinson " days " in 
Cincinnati and other cities - B. J. & R. being one or 
another of a very limited group of living writers, all 
of New England birth. When the school-children 
learn your verses they are good for another half cen- 
tury at any rate. But we are getting smothered with 
readable verse, like that girl in a novel I was reading 
the other day, who smothered herself with roses and 
other flowers instead of a pan of charcoal. I wish the 
women that send me their manuscripts would do as 
much I I will not ask you a question, because you 
might feel as if you ought to answer it, but I cannot 
help wondering if you see the inside of any printed 
books nowadays, except those you must consult. I 
have probably mentioned Edward Everett's story of 
Lord Palmerston to you every time I have written - 
namely, that he said, on being asked if he had read 
so and so: that he did not read any printed books. 
I have no doubt that, if I write again, I shall tell this 
over again. 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
131 
I begin to wonder whether you will ever come back 
to your (college) perch after so high and long a flight. 
What an oracle you will be, if you do! I can imagine 
you sitting at John's table with your old village cro- 
nies around, and discoursing to them on the small 
amount of wisdom with which the world is governed, 
and the great amount of talk that covers it. . . . All 
possibilities, however, are open to you, and your old 
friends may have to live chiefly on the memories of the 
time when you were among us, unless they live to be 
nonagenarians, when you will perhaps find yourself 
once more in the shade of your elms - and laurels. 
Beverly Farms, Mass., August 29, 1883. 
My dear James, - What can I do better on this, 
my seventy-fourth birthday, than sit down and remind 
you of my protracted existence? It seems so long 
since I said good-by to you on board the steamer - 
so long to me, and how much longer to you I You 
would have a great deal to tell me, and I have next 
to nothing to tell you, yet you know I claim this one- 
sided correspondence as my specialty. I should really 
feel ashamed if I thought I entailed any sense of obli- 
gation on you by my occasional letters. I have told 
you all along that I should write from time to time, 
and I mean to do it. But when I sit down and think 
of myself looking over at my old neighbor digging his 
potatoes, taking my daily walks (with my wife) to the 
beach, to the woods, or to the garden (Mr. F. Haven's), 
driving to Smith's Point, Essex Woods, Chebacco 
Pond, seeing no company except now and then a 
distinguished visitor, - Mr. Evarts, Mr. Bayard, or 
estrays from Washington, - when, I say, I think of 132 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
myself slowly oxydating in my quiet village life, and 
of you in the centre of everything, yourself a centre, 
I smile at the contrast, and wonder whether you still 
remember there is such a corner of the universe as 
that from which I am writing. I hear of you through 
various channels. I saw you in Punch the other day, 
- a very pretty compliment it was he paid your 
speech at the Lord Mayor's something or other. I 
wonder if anybody sent you the Cambridge paper in 
which your name was mentioned (with Gaston's and 
another) as a good candidate for Governor. How 
would you like, I wonder, the old shoes in which His 
Excellency, General Butler, stands to-day. I always 
thought you might turn up as the "dark horse" in 
some of the great handicap races. In the mean time 
you are greatly missed in our world of letters. We 
have had a promise of a Life of Hawthorne which you 
were to do for the series of American Men of Letters. 
I hope you will not give that up, for no one can fill 
your place. I should like mightily to see your name 
on the list, - it is announced, - but also to know that 
you were to find or make the time to write the Memoir 
in the intervals of diplomatic and social occupations, 
if such a thing is conceivable. I myself am at work 
on Emerson. I remember your early characterization 
of him, and of Carlyle, in the Fable for Critics, but 
when I get back to Boston I shall look out for all you 
have said about him and his followers in your various 
Essays, expecting to find my best conclusions antici- 
pated. I find the study of Emerson curiously inter- 
esting ; few, I think, can bear study into all their 
mental, moral, personal conditions as he does. I wish 
you were here, that I could talk him over with you. 
You must be what our people call " a great success " TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
133 
in England; now come home (when yon are ready) 
and you shall be Sir Oracle - not Magnus but 
Maximus Apollo, among your own admiring fellow- 
citizens. 
Boston, May 20,1885. 
My dear James, - I have just been reading your 
fine address at the unveiling of the bust of Coleridge. 
I read it not only with admiration of its masterly criti- 
cism, but with many incidental thoughts and recollec- 
tions which it brought up, my own first reading of 
" The Ancient Mariner," and the strange kind of 
intoxication it produced, a feeling as if I had been 
stunned and was left bewildered. What must I needs 
do but read the poem over again; and, being some- 
what light-headed from a cause which I will mention, 
I got a fair reminiscence of the old stunning sensa- 
tion. The cause I refer to is the fact that I have been 
shut up for nearly a fortnight with the worst attack 
of illness I have had for many a year. Until to-day 
the fever has been constant and prostrating, and I 
have been as worthless an invalid as you would desire 
to see - or rather, not see. " Give me some drink, 
Titinius," has been my favorite quotation. But I 
have followed you to the Abbey, to Windsor Castle, 
to Eton with Mr. Gladstone, and am thinking how 
soon you are to be back among innumerable admirers 
and a multitude of friends - missing, alas I how many 
faces of those who would have made your welcome 
sweet. You have two paths open before you now in 
your splendid maturity, a career of ambition with its 
excitements and possible rewards, and an age of well- 
won and honored retirement from toilsome duties, with 
leisure for the studies and labors which you love best. 134 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Old friends will return to you, if you want them, - 
new friends will cluster thickly about you; all that 
can be done to make the old Cambridge life worth 
living for you will be at your call. But I do not for- 
get the sacred ground I am approaching; I may be 
able to say things I cannot write, at least not now, 
after these many days of heated blood and throbbing 
pulses, in which time has been unreal and dream-like, 
and I find myself at length like one just waking from 
a trance. Your return must be an experiment to 
yourself. You come back a new man to old scenes 
which have been filling up with new life and leaving 
many a blank space where you will look for a face 
that was familiar. But your welcome will be without 
a parallel, and you can choose your own companion- 
ships. If you are tired of your old Cambridge sur- 
roundings,- and they must seem very limited after 
the wide life you have been living, - you have the 
latch-keys of two Universities in your pocket, and can 
suit yourself in the matter of localities. Of course 
we all hope you will come and make Elmwood classical 
again. 
I am afraid that my words as well as my handwrit- 
ing betray the strain through which my nervous sys- 
tem has been passing - but I hope to be all right 
before your return. 
Beverly Farms, July 19,1888. 
My dear James, - The enclosed printed paper, 
sent to me to send to you, must be my apology for 
writing when I have nothing to tell you of interest 
outside of my own affairs - which I love to think are 
not wholly without some interest for you. Here I TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
135 
am, then, in a really pleasant country house, living 
with my daughter, seeing little company of course, 
but now and then a pilgrim in the shape of an inter- 
viewer or a sight-seer, who fancies that I am worth a 
visit. I am writing nothing at present - I feel that 
sat prata biberunt from my cistern, at least until the 
springs have filled it up, which it is rather late in life to 
look for. I have taken some interest in other people's 
projects lately, - in some tree-portraits which Mr. 
Henry Brooks is getting up, and for which I have 
written an introduction, - in a Slang, etc., Diction- 
ary which Leland is going to publish, - I referred 
him to you for Yankee phrases, which you know bet- 
ter than anybody else, - in a new Library of Amer- 
can Literature in ten volumes, large octavo, edited 
by E. C. Stedman and Ellen M. Hutchinson, of which 
I received four volumes yesterday, with a promise of 
the others, as they are issued. You will, no doubt, 
receive a complimentary copy in due season. Much 
good may it do you ! I have often referred to Duyck- 
inck's Cyclopcedia of American Literature, not al- 
ways without interest. I have barely looked into this 
work, which begins with Captain John Smith, and in 
its fourth volume reaches Buckminster and William 
Tudor. How is he - are they - going to fill six more 
volumes after 1820 ? I think you will have to come 
in for a good large contribution. 
I am living as agreeably as is possible under my 
conditions. . . . But in the mean time my sight grows 
dimmer, my hearing grows harder, and I don't doubt 
my mind grows duller. But you remember what Lan- 
dor said : that he was losing his mind, but he did n't 
mind that, - he was losing or had lost his teeth - 
that was his chief affliction. Between nature and art 136 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
I get on very well in the dental way, - as for the 
mental, I will not answer. The last years of a pro- 
tracted life are made tolerable by a series of natural 
anodynes, which blunt the sensibilities to some extent 
at sixty or seventy, and after that go on benumbing 
one nerve-tip after another until, if we live long 
enough, we come to a state of passive apathy. It is 
hardly right for me to say this, for I am pretty thor- 
oughly alive yet. But just now I feel no inclination 
to write, - perhaps when autumn comes I may feel 
more like it. You have many bright years before 
you, but next month brings me to the beginning of 
my 80th year (how those figures look I), and not much 
can be looked for after that. No matter - I have 
said most of what I had to say. 
I told you I had nothing to write about. You 
have, and when you have nothing better to do I shall 
be delighted to hear from you. 
(I send one of my encyclicals, cut from a note of 
proper form and dimensions.) 
January 2, 1891. 
My dear James, - Your beautiful present of your 
collected works lies on my table in my reception-room, 
or lesser library, waiting for me to make a place 
of honor for it on the shelves near my hand in my 
library proper. I shall have to ask certain great au- 
thors, whom if I named you might accuse me of flat- 
tery, to lie a little closer, or to go up a shelf higher, to 
give your volumes place. I hope you will add two or 
three or more volumes to the noble collection, before 
you lay down your pen. It is such a comfort, when 
one gets a shining New Year's or Christmas gift, to TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
137 
read upon it the word sterling. I might say that 
of your literary work, only we do not have to look to 
find the hall-mark. 
You and I meet in a work which has greatly taken 
my fancy, - Mr. Henry Brooks's account of some of 
our great Massachusetts elms and other trees. I sug- 
gested the work thirty years ago, and gave him the 
hint of the five-feet-long rod, or wand, to give an idea 
of the size of the trees. I wrote the Introduction, 
and I found you were ahead of me after all. For 
Mr. Brooks found his leading [?] poetical motto in 
your verse. I am glad we come together, even if I 
get the worst of it. 
Our poor old raft of eighteen-twenty-niners is going 
to pieces ; for the first time no class meeting is called 
for the 8th of January. I shall try to get the poor 
remnant of the class together at my house ; but it is 
doubtful whether there is life enough left for a gath- 
ering of half a dozen. I have a very tender feeling 
to my coevals. You are not old enough to have a 
right to my octogenarian sensibilities and sentimen- 
talism ; but for want of older friends you must share 
in these clinging and lingering affections which the 
penultimate sometimes if rarely indulges toward the 
antepenultimate of a decade younger date. The hon- 
est truth is, that the eighth decade is so loaded with 
bodily and mental infirmities in a great majority of 
cases, that the survivors, who find themselves in it, 
have a sympathy with each other which the lusty sep- 
tuagenarian can hardly share. Your temporary ail- 
ment has brought you nearer to us for a while, but 
when you get all right and have been so for a time, 
you will heartily [?] realize the difference between 138 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
your vital conditions and those of Whittier and my- 
self. Amon" other octogenarian weaknesses the habit 
of prosing, as you see, is very noticeable; so I will say 
no more, but thank you again most warmly for your 
beautiful gift, and assure you of my long-cherished 
admiring affection. II. TO JAMES WILLIAM KIMBALL 
December 10, 1858. 
My dear Sir, - I write to thank you for your 
kind and truly Christian letter. The only regret I 
have felt was, that you seemed too fearful of giving 
offence. There is no need of further debate - we 
understand each other pretty well - kind souls both; 
and both, I believe, after the truth. 
It is well for me to have corresponded with you 
in one way, because it will make me more cautious 
of giving offence ; bad in another way, for the good- 
ness of men holding to ancient beliefs is the greatest 
obstacle to new truths - and as no past century has 
failed to bequeath us new views in religion, somebody 
must give us new light in this. I should like to help, 
if I might; but though I have been sometimes rudely 
and (even of late) needlessly attacked on erroneous 
[representations] of what I have said, I do not like to 
offend good people ; and if I err in this way it is as 
Saul did, thinking he was doing God service. But if 
somebody had not been offended a century ago, we 
should now have been hanging each other's grand- 
mothers for witches. 
I hope to send you a copy of my book in a few days, 
when I get some that are to my taste. I should like 
a copy of your little book, referred to. I have not 
finished the other yet, but shall do it soon. 140 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
March 8, 1860. 
My dear Sir, - Lectures being over, I am going 
to fulfil my promise, or threat, and send you a few 
thoughts on the subjects of your letter. 
Let me begin with two remarks. 
First, I have great pleasure in hearing you, or hear- 
ing from you, because I am entirely convinced of your 
kind spirit and sincerity, and that your Christianity 
has its true seat - in the heart. 
Secondly, I have not the least personal desire to 
change any other person's faith, who lives in peace 
with God and man, except just so far as he is an 
aggressive spiritual neighbor. One of my women 
goes to Mr. Kirk's, a very good young woman, I 
think. Two others are Roman Catholics; both of 
them are models. I have no disposition to meddle 
with the belief of either. Heaven has more gates 
than Thebes ever had, I believe, and I cannot suppose 
that these people, or any others, must borrow my key. 
But though I do not wish to make proselytes to my 
creeds, positive or negative, I like to state my beliefs 
to those who are inquiring ; and these of course are 
principally young persons, and especially of the in- 
tellectual classes. I have less hesitation, as the old 
traditional Westminster Catechism system has shown 
itself, in my experience, a dead failure, as I explained 
to you the other day. I will now touch your principal 
points briefly, to show how they strike my apprehen- 
sion. 1. " Gaining " by truth - " comfort " from 
adopting this or that view. I accept such ideas and 
language as appropriate to the " Retreat for aged and 
infirm women," but not for you or me. Truth is often 
very uncomfortable. If that has anything to do with 
your accepting it, I shall have to say: " Good-morn- TO JAMES WILLIAM KIMBALL 
141 
ing, Mr. Kimball, - we had better not waste each 
other's time in talking about these matters." I can't 
help it whether I gain or lose by a truth ; I must 
accept it. " But, Doctor, your views are [not] neces- 
sarily truth." "Very possibly, Mr. Kimball. But 
if you begin by saying that your personal interest ■- 
your profit - your comfort are to enter into an astro- 
nomical, geological, ethnological, or other scientific 
question you and I are to discuss, as an element for 
the solution of it, I say again: ' Good-morning, Mr. 
Kimball.' " 
2. If you choose to accept that hypothesis I mem 
tioned, and which seems to have struck you, viz., that 
the world was created with mock skeletons of almost 
innumerable mock genera and species, many of them 
holding the remains of mock food in their mock in- 
teriors, and with their teeth ground down as if by 
long use ; in other words, if you choose to believe the 
Creator the prototype of charlatans and jugglers, I 
shall have to say again, always with perfect respect 
and courtesy: ' Good-morning, Mr. Kimball.' " 
3. My statistics of clergymen, schoolmasters, chil- 
dren, showing the average results of the technical 
" evangelical " culture, must not be made too much of. 
So far as they go, they prove that a very large per- 
centage of very bad men are formed under these 
influences; but everybody knows that a great many 
good men grow up in this as in every form of faith. 
I have full confidence that in your own case your 
articles of belief are entirely consistent with love and 
good-will to all men; though what you mean by 
" freedom from solicitude of all kinds," and " equa- 
nimity " in the prospect that the vast majority of these 
fellow-creatures, whom you love, are to wallow in fire 142 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
forever, I cannot understand. Perhaps you do not 
believe this ; then you take the liberty to exercise 
your reason in accepting, or rejecting, or explaining 
away, a scriptural doctrine ; which is all that I do, - 
or am supposed to do. 
4. The Fall of Man. If the book of Genesis is a 
mere collection of beliefs and traditions, most of which 
God hath in these last days flatly contradicted out of 
his own authentic bibles of the firmament and the 
planetary strata, why of course the story of the Fall 
of Man must share the fate of Deucalion's deluge. 
I don't, therefore, enter upon the discussion of your 
questions of the origin of evil, etc., and your diffi- 
culties about it. All our present concern is, whether 
we have an authentic Divine communication in the 
book of Genesis. The most influential priesthood the 
world ever saw, more than half of them bound hand 
and foot in Romanism, are bribed by everything this 
world can offer - money, place, prejudice, fear, hope 
- to maintain Genesis to be literally the word of 
God, - and yet the belief is weakening every day, 
and bids fair in a generation or two to belong only 
to the ignorant and the hirelings of ecclesiasticism. 
Very uncomfortable, no doubt, to Galileo, to Dean 
Buckland, who went crazy, to Hugh Miller, who blew 
his brains out - some say because they were uncom- 
fortable ! 
Perhaps you will say nothing of importance has been 
disproved in Genesis. Please to mark this: every 
statement in that book has always been defended as 
important until the advance of knowledge has ren- 
dered it utterly untenable ; then it becomes unimpor- 
tant; and yet every commentator is seizing every 
external fact in corroboration of these early books, TO JAMES WILLIAM KIMBALL 
143 
while he rejects all that invalidate their authority, 
first as faults, and, as I have said, when science has 
annihilated that ground, as unimportantI Exam- 
ples: Astronomy: 1. It is a lie that the earth moves 
round the sun. 2. Science proves the lie is true. 
3. Of no importance whether the earth moves round 
the sun or not. Cosmogony: The world was made 
six thousand years ago. Deluge all over the earth 
four thousand years ago. Geology proves a universal 
deluge. Wonderful confirmation of Genesis. (See 
Buckland's old book, Reliquiae, Diluviance.) Science 
moves on a generation. Universal deluge not a fact, 
not possible. World million of ages old. Some 
shut their eyes and hoot at Geology. Some say it is 
unimportant. Some invent nonsensical tricks, like 
the make believe system already referred to. So of 
the history of the race, etc. 
If any of the distinct statements of Genesis are 
proved erroneous, of course the "Fall of Man" and 
the old dogma, 
" In Adam's fall 
We sinned all," 
become a mere legend. 
If the truth of the statements in Genesis about 
creation is an open question, then the Fall of Man is 
an open question also, and no open question is to be 
assumed as a truth of Divine Revelation. 
5. Re-generation. Re-ereation. Re-formation. All 
figurative terms. Sometimes there is a sudden and 
great change of character, - a slaver sea-captain be- 
comes a saint (John Newton). In such a case it is as 
proper to say a man is re-generated as to say that an 
overworked minister is " another man " after six 
months of re-creation. But in most cases of even 144 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
distinct conversion the change of character is very 
partial, and it is never total. Every sensible Deacon 
knows that his church members continue to love 
money, power, place, pretty faces, good dinners, etc. 
Perhaps not as much as before re-generation or re- 
formation, but so as to be easily managed by one or 
the other of these influences. 
The fatal effect of misinterpreting this figurative 
expression is seen in education. It poisons the train- 
ing of children from the cradle to treat them as nat- 
ural haters of God. I know no other way to account 
for the shocking effects I have seen, and everybody 
has constantly seen, from these doctrines in families. 
You remember a striking series I gave you in detail. 
I grant, however, that with a certain number of chil- 
dren, especially the feeble, the scroftflous, the con- 
sumptive, they produce a sickly saintliness which is 
often interesting, though in the larger sense abnormal. 
I much prefer persons who have been trained to spir- 
itual life - (Train up a child, etc.) - to those who 
have been changed to it. That is just exactly the 
advantage of our Christian civilization : that the new 
birth is, as it were, hereditary in the better races, 
so that a good proportion of children will grow up 
spiritually-minded, if they are treated as Christ would 
have treated them (Of such is the K. of II.), and 
not cut down to the roots, as fast as they sprout, by 
a soul-withering dogma. At the same time I wish 
you distinctly to observe that I recognize sudden 
changes of character as one of the means by which the 
Spirit of God reclaims those who have wandered from 
the path in which they have been or should have been 
trained. 
I know some persons I should be very glad to see TO JAMES WILLIAM KIMBALL 
145 
" converted." But the finest characters and noblest 
souls I have met have never been through any such 
technical process. Its frequency and phenomena ap- 
pear to depend very much on the grade of intelligence 
and social position. 
Holy affections are what we want, I suppose. The 
great majority of " converted " persons I have met 
with could not be distinguished from other people by 
any outward evidence of possessing them. On the 
other hand, I have seen abundant evidence of them in 
many persons to whom the very phraseology of " con- 
version " would sound strange and unfamiliar. " Ah, 
but, Doctor, they had not the supreme love of God. 
They did not love Him with all their soul, with all 
their mind, strength, etc." I answer, Nobody does. 
The command is a mere figure and hyperbole. If 
for instance, a man loved God with all his mind, he 
coukLnot spare a part of his mind to give attention 
to any earthly object. But we are commanded to 
love our neighbors, our wives, our husbands, even our 
enemies, each of whom will require a portion of our 
mind to be either loved or hated. Therefore, if we 
obey this command, we cannot love God with all our 
mind. If we love God with all our mind we cannot 
obey this command. 
The only way I can judge whether a man loves 
God is the apostle John's way, - to see whether he 
loves his brother Applying this, I do not think the 
technical "concerts" have compared favorably with 
the best persons, not technical " converts," I have 
known, or with the Roman Catholic holy men and 
women. 
In short, I consider that conversion of a Jew or a 
heathen to a new religion - from formalities to spir- 146 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
itual beliefs and affections - was one thing ; and that 
education in a Christian community and family ought 
to be a kind of congenital conversion, and very com- 
monly is, especially in the cultivated classes; so that 
with them " conversion " is the exception and Chris- 
tian nurture the rule, while, as you pass downward in 
the social scale, " conversion " is the rule and natural 
Christian development the exception. The moral and 
religious standard is most elevated, I think, in the 
higher social ranks, where development is the rule. 
Observe that I say the " higher," not the highest, for 
these last have some special temptations. I have 
written more than I meant to. I don't know that I 
shall want to take the trouble to write another letter, 
but I shall be very happy to hear from you. I repeat 
it, I have no doubt youi' creed agrees with you, and 
that under it your Christian affections grow and flour- 
ish. I have not the least desire to change it,, if you 
are really satisfied with it. Like all other good and 
kind men, you do not practically carry out some of its 
legitimate conclusions. If it makes you happy I am 
glad, but I cannot forget that it left William Cowper 
on his death-bed in " unutterable despair; " and I 
have seen enough of it in practice to feel sure that 
it has yet something to gain and a good deal to be 
rid of. 
March 18, 1860. 
My dear Sir, - I return the extract, which I 
have read with pleasure, and the paper, which has 
furnished me amusement. I reciprocate all your 
kindly feelings most cordially, and I have no doubt 
that if all the " evangelicals " I have known had had 
hearts and tempers like yours, I should have looked TO JAMES WILLIAM KIMBALL 
147 
less critically at some of their beliefs. Let me repeat 
it, - I have no wish to change your belief in anything, 
so far as it is adapted to your spiritual nature and 
necessities. Much of it I share with you : a supreme 
and absolute faith in one great Father; a revelation 
of Himself, " at sundry times and in divers man- 
ners," - infallibly in creation, more or less fallibly in 
all that has been committed to human tradition, pre- 
eminently in the life of one of the " sons of God " 
known on earth as the Anointed, of whom we have 
some imperfect records. That religion consists in 
holy affections, the evidence of which is in righteous 
life. If you believe that man is born under a curse 
derived from Adam, I do not. If you believe that a 
finite being is allowed to ruin himself forever, I do 
not. At any rate I am sure you hope, not. If you 
accept the whole collection of tracts called " the 
Bible " - the canon of which represents a majority 
vote, nothing more or less, - as infallible, I think 
your ground is demonstrably untenable. 
You and I may like to exchange opinions sometimes 
on special points, without going into protracted gen- 
eral discussions. It may not be important to your 
" salvation " to hold correct opinions on many points, 
where truth can be easily reached by any fair in- 
quirer ; but to your rational nature, to your dignity 
as a being; entrusted with the sacred franchise of 
thought, it may be very important. Heaven will not 
be the same to the saint who has slumbered on the 
pillow of tradition as to him who has kept his mind 
open to all truth. Whenever we can fix upon any 
single definite point in which we are interested, I shall 
always be pleased to compare our beliefs and their 
grounds. 148 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
May 12, 1876. 
Many thanks for your kind letter, dear Mr. Kim- 
ball, which I have read with the same feeling of re- 
spect and sympathetic assent to much of it as I have 
often listened to your conversation. The logic of the 
heart is too strong with you to let you be a quite 
faultless standard of dogmatic theology; but I think 
the mild, vaccinated form of that complaint is not so 
far removed from health by any means as the old 
natural disease of Calvinism. I shall not tell you just 
how much I agree with you, and just when I differ or 
dispute, but content myself with renewing my expres- 
sion of thanks for the interest you take in my spirit- 
ual condition, and assuring you that your faith 
includes what I hold to be the essentials - love of 
man and love of goodness - to the latter of which 
you may give what name you choose, but which I 
think many of your fellow-creatures have loved and 
still love under a different one. 
January 24, 1879. 
My dear Mr. Kimball, - It is very difficult to 
carry away the exact meaning of a somewhat ram- 
bling conversation. I find that I agree with most of 
what you say in your letter, and, so far as I can see, 
you have somewhat misinterpreted my expressions. 
King David was, like Burns, much given to women, 
but he had the finest emotional religious nature that 
has recorded itself, and we are all too glad to use his 
words, dearer on the whole to us than any other ex- 
cept those of Christ himself. The fact that Burns 
drank and lived in license does not prevent our recog- 
nizing the human element, which makes the " Cotter's TO JAMES WILLIAM KIMBALL 
149 
Saturday Night " and " Auld Lang Syne " go to our 
hearts. 
You misunderstand my notions of government in 
this world. I only repeat the scriptural doctrine, 
that the physical laws to which all are submitted have 
no moral discrimination. If you do not like my 
statement of the proposition, you can take that in the 
thirteenth chapter of Luke, second and fourth verses. 
I mean just that and no more. Gravity & Co. do 
not trouble themselves about moral distinctions - a 
snow-slide will smash a saint as willingly as a sinner 
- so these verses imply - so we feel practically. 
The rain falls on just and unjust - the sun rises on 
the evil and the good. 
Therefore, the sense of justice demands a rectifica- 
tion of these conditions in a future state - in other 
words, that a strictly moral government shall take the 
place of the present, which is so largely physical. 
This is what the New Testament promises - as do 
other and older religions - that of Egypt, for in- 
stance. 
I, like you, am an optimist - not quite so confident, 
perhaps, but still living in the habitual trust that this 
life is a school, the seemingly harsh discipline of which 
w ill be explained when we get into one of the upper 
classes. I dare not say that we are sure of this; but 
it is the only belief which makes life worth living. 
Some, I think, will say they are as sure of a future 
life as of this-but many good people speak more 
modestly and hesitatingly. They hope; they trust; 
they encourage the belief; live in it and die in it. 
So, too, I agree with you about the practical effect 
of the doctrine of Retribution. In one point I might 
not stand on exactly the same ground with yourself. 150 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
I consider the traditional beliefs so firmly grounded, 
especially in the Roman Catholic Church, - which is 
the only one logically safe, as it seems to me, though 
I am far from a Romanist, - I consider these tra- 
ditional beliefs, I say, so firmly grounded that the 
effects of such truths as " rationalists " have charge of 
and proclaim are very slow and gradual, and far less 
dangerous to the order of society than if they were 
easily and at once accepted. There are some beliefs 
I myself have which I should expect and rather hope 
to see antagonized, as many might not be ready to 
accept them without injury. 
I suppose you know how many of the great Dutch 
Biblical scholars deal with the Hebrew traditions. If 
not, you should get hold of The Bible for Learners, 
translated not long ago and republished in this coun- 
try. I am afraid our Sunday-school teachers would 
have hard work with their learners, if these learners 
got hold of the teachings of these learned divines; 
but whatever there is of truth in them will work its 
way slowly into general currency, - slowly; that is 
the safeguard. In that way the belief in witchcraft 
went out, without making all men Sadducees, as it was 
feared its disappearance certainly would. 
As to the terrible disadvantages - bad blood - 
neglected education, evil example, etc., to which so 
large a fraction of mankind are submitted, all that is 
a reason to demand, as well as expect, a future state, 
if the world has a moral Governor. 
Even as to the being " born again " I am not so 
sure that we might not partially agree. Love and 
obedience must be formed in the character somehow, 
before it is fit for the best company. Who reported 
that private midnight conversation, whether it was TO JAMES WILLIAM KIMBALL 
151 
correctly reported, just what it meant, is not quite 
clear to me. It should seem there was nothing in it 
that a " master in Israel " should not have been 
already acquainted with. 
I do not want, and I have not the time, to discuss 
the points on which we differ; but I am happy to 
point out some on which we agree. 
With the highest regard and esteem, I am, dear 
Mr. Kimball, 
Very sincerely yours. 
January 20, 1883. 
My dear Mr. Kimball, - Many thanks for your 
letter and the little book, which I read immediately 
on receiving it. All spiritual experiences are inter- 
esting, but their character depends greatly on tempera- 
ment, cheering and hopeful in a man like yourself, 
despairing and suicidal in melancholic persons like 
Cowper. 
Your Bible is my Bible; but you have only to look 
at the Biblical literature of to-day and you will see 
that the collection of separate treatises known under 
that name, many of them by unknown authors, is 
studied in a very different way from that in which 
our parents looked at it. You must not find fault 
with me for belonging to the present, when you see 
the changes that have shown themselves in the Church 
of Scotland, the Church of England, the theological 
schools of New Haven and Andover, and in the whole 
drift of opinion on the subject of eschatology, the 
Fall of Man, and the other doctrines dependent on 
this last conception of the relation of the race to its 
Creator. We cannot go back to the mother's womb 
of old beliefs. 152 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Are you not rejoiced beyond all expression to see 
that there is a growing disbelief in the doctrine that a 
great part of mankind are doomed to everlasting tor- 
ture with fire and brimstone, as expressly stated in 
certain too familiar texts ? 
Are you not glad that against any such belief is 
arrayed that other statement: " God is love " ? I 
know you must be; and so you need not take the 
trouble to answer my questions. III. TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
Boston, February 16, 1861.1 
My dear Motley, - It is a pleasing coincidence 
for me, that the same papers which are just announc- 
ing your great work, are telling our little world that 
it can also purchase, if so disposed, my modest two- 
volume story. You must be having a respite from 
labor. You will smile when I tell you that I have 
my first vacation since you were with us, - when was 
it? in'57? - but so it is. It scares me to look on 
your labors, when I remember that I have thought 
it something to write an article once a month for The 
Atlantic Monthly ; that is all I have to show, or 
nearly all, for three and a half years ; and in the mean 
time you have erected your monument more perennial 
than bronze in these two volumes of alto rilievo. I 
will not be envious, but I must wonder, - wonder at 
the mighty toils undergone to quarry the ore before 
the mould could be shaped and the metal cast. I 
know you must meet your signal and unchallenged 
success with little excitement, for you know too well 
the price that has been paid for it. A man does not 
give away the best years of a manhood like yours, 
without knowing that his planet has got to pay for 
his outlay. You have won the name and fame you 
must have foreseen were to be the accidents of your 
career. I hope, as you partake the gale with your 
1 This letter has been already printed in the Motley Corre- 
spondence. 154 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
illustrious brethren, you are well ballasted with those 
other accidents of successful authorship. 
I am thankful, for your sake, that you are out of 
this wretched country. There was never anything, in 
our experience, that gave any idea of it before. Not 
that we have had any material suffering as yet. Our 
factories have been at work, and our dividends have 
been paid. Society - in Boston, at least - has been 
nearly as gay as usual. I had a few thousand dollars 
to raise to pay for my house in Charles Street, and 
sold my stocks for more than they cost me. We have 
had predictions, to be sure, that New England was to 
be left out in the cold if a new confederacy was formed, 
and that the grass was to grow in the streets of Bos- 
ton. But prophets are at a terrible discount in these 
times, and, in spite of then* predictions, Merrimac 
sells at $1125. It is the terrible uncertainty of every- 
thing- most of all, the uncertainty of opinion of men, 
I had almost said of principles. From the impracti- 
cable Abolitionist, as bent on total separation from the 
South as Carolina is on secession from the North, to 
the Hunker, or Submissionist, or whatever you choose 
to call the wretch who would sacrifice everything and 
beg the South's pardon for offending it, you find all 
shades of opinion in our streets. If Mr. Seward or 
Mr. Adams moves in favor of compromise, the whole 
Republican party sways, like a field of grain, before 
the breath of either of them. If Mr. Lincoln says he 
shall execute the laws and collect the revenue, though 
the heavens cave in, the backs of the Republicans 
stiffen again, and they take down the old Revolution- 
ary king's arms, and begin to ask whether they can be 
altered to carry minie bullets. 
In the mean time, as you know very well, a mon- TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
155 
strous conspiracy has been hatching for nobody knows 
how long, barely defeated, in its first great move, by 
two occurrences, - Major Anderson's retreat to Fort 
Sumter, and the exposure of the great defalcations. 
The expressions of popular opinion in Virginia and 
Tennessee have encouraged greatly those who hope 
for union on the basis of a compromise; but this even- 
ing's news seems to throw doubt on the possibility 
of the North and the Border States ever coming to 
terms; and I see, in this same evening's paper, the 
threat thrown out that, if the Southern ports are 
blockaded, fifty regiments will be set in motion for 
Washington! Nobody knows; everybody guesses. 
Seward seems to be hopeful. I had a long talk with 
Banks; he fears the formation of a powerful Southern 
military empire, which will give us trouble. Mr. 
Adams predicts that the Southern Confederacy will 
be an ignominious failure. 
A Cincinnati pamphleteer, very sharp and know- 
ing, shows how pretty a quarrel they will soon get up 
among themselves. There is no end to the shades of 
opinion. Nobody knows where he stands but Wen- 
dell Phillips and his out-and-outers. Before this 
political cataclysm, we were all sailing on as quietly 
and harmoniously as a crew of your good Dutchmen 
in a treckschuyt. The Club has flourished greatly, 
and proved to all of us a source of the greatest de- 
light. I do not believe there ever were such agreeable 
periodical meetings in Boston as these we have had at 
Parker's. We have missed you, of course, but your 
memory and your reputation were with us. The 
magazine which you helped to give a start to has 
prospered, since its transfer to Ticknor & Fields. I 
suppose they may make something directly by it, and, 156 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
as an advertising medium, it is a source of great 
indirect benefit to them. No doubt you will like to 
hear, in a few words, about its small affairs. I don't 
believe that all the Oxfords and Institutes can get the 
local recollections out of you. I suppose I have made 
more money and reputation out of it than anybody 
else, on the whole. I have written more than anybody 
else, at any rate. Miss Prescott's stories have made 
her quite a name. Wentworth Higginson's articles 
have also been very popular. Lowell's critical articles 
and political ones are always full of point, but he has 
been too busy as editor to write a great deal. As for 
the reputations that were toutes faites, I don't know 
that they have gained or lost a great deal by what 
their owners have done for The Atlantic. But, oh I 
such a belaboring as I have had from the so-called 
"evangelical" press, for the last two or three years, 
almost without intermission! There must be a great 
deal of weakness and rottenness, when such extreme 
bitterness is called out by such a good-natured person 
as I can claim to be in print. It is a new experience 
to me, but is made up for by a great amount of sym- 
pathy from men and women, old and young, and such 
confidences and such sentimental epanchements^ that, 
if my private correspondence is ever aired, I shall pass 
for a more questionable personage than my domestic 
record can show me to have been. 
Come now, why should I talk to you of anything 
but yourself and that wonderful career of well-de- 
served and hardly-won success which you have been 
passing through since I waved my handkerchief to 
you as you slid away from the wharf at East Boston ? 
When you write to me, as you will one of these days, 
I want to know how you feel about your new posses* TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
157 
sion, a European name. I should like very much, 
too, to hear something of your every-day experiences 
of English life, - how you like the different classes 
of English people you meet, - the scholars, the upper 
class, and the average folk that you may have to deal 
with. You know that, to a Bostonian, there is no- 
thing like a Bostonian's impression of a new people 
or mode of life. We all carry the Common in our 
heads as the unit of space, the State House as the 
standard of architecture, and measure off men in 
Edward Everetts as with a yard-stick. I am ashamed 
to remember how many scrolls of half-an-hour's scrib- 
blings we might have exchanged with pleasure on one 
side, and very possibly with something of it on the 
other. I have heard so much of Miss Lily's praises, 
that I should be almost afraid of her if I did not feel 
sure that she would inherit a kindly feeling to her 
father's and mother's old friend. Do remember me to 
your children ; and as for your wife, who used to be 
Mary once, and whom I have always found it terribly 
hard work to make anything else of, tell her how we 
all long to see her good, kind face again. 
Give me some stray half hour, and believe me 
Always your friend. 
Boston, November 29, 1861.1 
My dear Motley, - I know you will let me begin 
with my personal story, for you have heard before this 
time about Ball's Bluff and its disasters, and among 
them that my boy came in for his honorable wounds. 
Wendell's experience was pretty well for a youngster 
1 This letter has been already printed in the Motley Corre- 
spondence. 158 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
of twenty. He was standing in front of his men when 
a spent ball struck him in the stomach and knocked 
him flat, taking his wind out of him at the same time. 
He made shift to crawl off a little, the colonel, at 
whose side he was standing, telling him to go to the 
rear. Presently he began to come right, and found he 
was not seriously injured. By the help of a sergeant 
he got up, and went to the front again. He had hardly 
been there two or three minutes when he was struck 
by a second ball, knocked down, and carried off. His 
shirt was torn from him, and he was found to be shot 
through the heart, - it was supposed through the 
lungs. The ball had entered exactly over the heart 
on the left side, and come out on the right side, where 
it was found, - a minie ball. The surgeon thought 
he was mortally wounded ; and he supposed so, too. 
Next day, better; next after that, wrote me a letter. 
He had no bad symptoms, and it became evident that 
the ball had passed outside the cavities containing the 
heart and lungs. He got on to Philadelphia, where 
he stayed a week, and a fortnight ago yesterday I 
brought him to Boston on a bed in the cars. He is 
now thriving well, able to walk, but has a consider- 
able open wound, which, if the bone has to exfoliate, 
will keep him from camp for many weeks at the least. 
A most narrow escape from instant death ! Wendell 
is a great pet in his character of young hero with 
wounds in the heart, and receives visits en grand 
seigneur. I envy my white Othello, with a semi- 
circle of young Desdemonas about him listening to 
the often told story which they will have over again. 
You know how well all our boys behaved. In fact, 
the defeat at Ball's Bluff, disgraceful as it was to the 
planners of the stupid sacrifice, is one as much to be TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
159 
remembered and to be proud of as that of Bunker 
Hill. They did all that men could be expected to do, 
and the courage and energy of some of the young cap- 
tains saved a large number of men by getting them 
across the river a few at a time, at the imminent risk 
on their own part of being captured or shot while 
crossing. 
I can tell you nothing, I fear, of public matters that 
you do not know already. How often I thought of 
your account of the Great Armada, when our own 
naval expedition was off, and we were hearing news 
from all along the coast of the greatest gale which had 
blown for years ! It seemed a fatality, and the fears 
we felt were unutterable. Imagine what delight it 
was when we heard that the expedition had weathered 
the gale, and met with entire success in its most im- 
portant object. 
February 3, 1862. 
My dear Motley, - I got your letter of January 
14th day before yesterday, Saturday. I was a little 
out of spirits yesterday, on account of ugly rumors as 
to the tone of the English press, etc., which had the ef- 
fect of knocking down stocks somewhat in New York, 
and dashing our sanguine anticipations a little for the 
time. This morning the papers tell us that many of 
these representations are thought to be mere secession 
contrivances, and we hear from Washington that the 
advices from foreign Governments were never so 
friendly as at this time. They begin to talk about 
the entente cordiale between this country and Eng- 
land as like to be reestablished - so may it prove I 
Not that England can ever be to us what she has 
been. Those sad words from John Bright's letter 160 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
have expressed the feelings that have sunk deep into 
the hearts of all (who have hearts to be reached) 
among us. " There has been shown [us] no gener- 
osity, such as became a friendly nation, and no sym- 
pathy with [us] in [our] great calamity." Those 
beautiful breasts of our " mother " country, from 
which it seemed that nothing could wean us, have 
shrivelled into the wolf's dugs, and there is no more 
milk in them for us henceforth evermore. The West 
end is right. Not by aggression, but by the naked 
fact of existence, we are an eternal danger and an 
unsleeping threat to every government that founds 
itself on anything but the will of the governed. We 
begin to understand ourselves and what we represent, 
now that we find who are our enemies, and why, and 
how they would garrote us now that our hands are on 
these felons' throats, if they could paint a lie over 
so that its bones would not show through. I do be- 
lieve Hell is empty of Devils for the last year, this 
planet has been so full of them helping the secession 
liars. 
You don't want my rhetoric, but plain talk about 
what is going on. We are generally hopeful, so far 
as I hear talk around me. The Mason and Slidell 
matter has long been in the silurian strata of the past. 
The events that are more than six weeks old all go 
with pre-adamite creations. All the world seemed to 
think Pilot Seward was drifting on to a lee shore, and 
that he would never double that terrible Cape Fear in 
the distance. Presently he heaves in sight, canvas 
all spread, and lo! it seems the wind is blowing off 
the shore, as it has been any time these fifty years. 
Confidence holds good in McClellan, I feel well 
assured. The Tribune attacks him; some grumble at TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
161 
delays ; but I believe the wisest heads are as yet rea- 
sonably patient. They know that the Virginian roads 
are impracticable at this particular time. They know 
the enlistment period of many of the rebel troops is 
about to expire - before this very month is out. It 
is perfectly plain from the rebel organs that the delay 
is telling immensely on them; that they begin to feel 
the pressure of the cordon sanitaire which is drawing 
its ring of fire around them. 
The financial business seems now to be the immedi- 
ate subject of doubts and differences of opinion. I 
talked with Frank Lowell this morning about it. He 
did not profess to be an expert in finance (though he 
must have a good deal of acquaintance with it). He 
thought the difficulty was in Chase's inexperience, not 
providing long enough beforehand for the inevitable 
want of the Treasury. About the taxation schemes, 
you may find out from the papers, - I have n't found 
out what the scheme is which is likely to be adopted. 
I believe our people are worked up to the paying 
point, which, I take it, is to the fighting point as 
boiling heat (212°) to blood heat (98°). 
When I write you letters you must take my igno- 
rance with my knowledge, and I know rather less of 
finance than you do of medicine. I have always 
thought that if I had passed a year or two in a count- 
ing-room it would have gone far towards making a 
sensible man of me. But I have no doubt you have 
other friends who can tell you what there is to be told, 
not found in the papers, on this matter of finance and 
currency. I only know there is a great split about 
making government paper legal tender, and if I could 
see Bill Gray five minutes just at this point, could 
find out where the pinch is, and what kept him awake 
VOL. II. 162 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
a week or two ago, as I hear something did, thinking 
about it. 
I have told you I am hopeful, and always have been. 
Hands off, and we 'll lick these fellows out of their 
insolent adjectives. We did lick 'em well at Mill 
Spring the other day, and at Drainsville a little before 
this, and, I myself entertain no manner of doubt, can 
whip them man for man at any time, in a fair field, 
picked against picked, average against average. We 
are the conquerors of Nature, they of Nature's weaker 
children. We thrive on reverses and disappointments. 
I have never believed they could endure them. Like 
Prince Rupert's drops, the unannealed fabric of rebel- 
lion shuts an explosive element in its resisting shell 
that will rend it in pieces as soon as its tail, not its 
head, is broken fairly off. That is what I think, - I, 
safe prophet of a private correspondence, free to be 
convinced of my own ignorance and presumption by 
events as they happen, and to prophesy again - for 
what else do we live for but to guess the future in 
small things or great, that we may help to shape it, or 
ourselves to it. 
Your last letter was so full of interest, by the ex- 
pression of your own thought and the transcripts of 
those of your English friends - especially the words 
of John Bright, one of the two foreigners that I want 
to see and thank - the other being Count Gasparin -- 
that I feel entirely inadequate to make any fitting 
return for it. I meet a few wise persons, who for the 
most part know little - some who know a good deal, 
but are not wise. I was at a dinner at Parker's the 
other day where Governor Andrew and Emerson, and 
various unknown dingy-linened friends of progress, 
met to hear Mr. Conway, the not unfamous Unitarian TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
163 
minister of Washington, Virginia-born, with seven- 
teen secesh cousins, fathers, and other relatives, tell 
of his late experience at the seat of Government. He 
had talked awhile with father Abraham, who, as he 
thinks, is honest enough, but simply incompetent and 
without a plan. I don't know that his opinion is good 
for much. He is an out-and-out immediate emanci- 
pationist, - believes that is the only way to break the 
strength of the South; that the black man is the life 
of the South ; that they dread work above all things, 
and cling to the slave as the drudge that makes life 
tolerable to them. He believes that the blacks know 
all that is said and done with reference to them in the 
North; their longing for freedom is unalterable ; that 
once assured of it under Northern protection, the 
institution would be doomed. I don't know whether 
you remember Conway's famous " One Path " sermon 
of six or eight years ago. It brought him immediately 
into notice. I think it was Judge Curtis (Ben) who 
commended it to my attention. He talked with a 
good deal of spirit. I know you would have gone 
with him in his leading ideas. Speaking of the com- 
munication of knowledge among the slaves, he said 
if he stood on the upper Mississippi and proclaimed 
emancipation, it would be told in New Orleans before 
the telegraph would carry the news there ! 
I am busy with my lectures at the college, and don't 
see much of the world. But I will tell you what I 
see and hear from time to time, if you like to have 
me. I gave your message to the Club, who always 
listen with enthusiasm when your name is mentioned. 
My boy is here - still detailed on recruiting duty - 
quite well. I hope you are all well and free from all 
endemic visitations, such as Sir Thomas Browne refers 164 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
to when he says that " cholical persons will find little 
comfort in Austria or Vienna." 
P. S. Our last accounts from the Burnside expe- 
dition, which had such a hard time getting to its 
destination, are all very encouraging. 
Boston, 21 Charles Street, 
August 29, 1862.1 
My dear Motley, - I don't know how I can em- 
ploy the evening of my birthday better than by sitting 
down and beginning a letter to you. I have heard of 
your receiving my last, and that you meant to reply 
to it soon. But this was not in the bond, and whether 
you write or not, I must let you hear from me from 
time to time. I know what you must endure with a 
non-conductor of a thousand leagues between you and 
this great battery, which is sending its thrill through 
us every night and morning. I know that every dif- 
ferent handwriting on an envelope, if it comes from a 
friend, has its special interest, for it will give an im- 
pression in some way differing from that of all others. 
My own thoughts have been turned aside for a while 
from those lesser occurrences of the day, which would 
occupy them at other times, by a domestic sorrow, 
which, though coming in the course of nature, and at 
a period when it must have been very soon inevitable, 
has yet left sadness in mine and other households. 
My mother died on the 19th of this month at the age 
of ninety-three, keeping her lively sensibilities and 
sweet intelligence to the last. My brother John had 
long cared for her in the most tender way, and it 
1 This letter has been already printed in the Motley Corre- 
spondence. Sarah Wendell Holmes (Dr. Holmes's Mother) TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
165 
almost broke his heart to part with her. She was a 
daughter to him, she said, and he had fondly thought 
that love and care could keep her frail life to the fill- 
ing up of a century or beyond it. It was a pity to 
look on him in his first grief; but Time, the great con- 
soler, is busy with his anodyne, and he is coming back 
to himself. My mother remembered the Revolution 
well, and she was scared by the story of the redcoats 
coming along and killing everybody as they went - 
she having been carried from Boston to Newburyport. 
Why should I tell you this ? Our hearts lie between 
two forces, - the near ones of home and family, and 
those that belong to the rest of the universe. A little 
magnet holds its armature against the dragging of 
our own planet and all the spheres. 
I had hoped that my mother might have lived 
through this second national convrdsion. It was 
ordered otherwise, and with the present prospects I 
can hardly lament that she was spared the period of 
trial that remains. How long that is to be no one can 
predict with confidence. There is a class of men one 
meets with who seem to consider it due to their ante- 
cedents to make the worst of everything. I suppose 
may be one of these. I met him a day or 
two since, and lost ten minutes in talk with him on 
the sidewalk ; lost them, because I do not wish to talk 
with any man who looks at this matter empirically as 
an unlucky accident, which a little prudence might 
have avoided, and not a theoretical necessity. How- 
ever, he said to me that the wisest man he knew - 
somebody whose name I did not know - said to him 
long ago that this war would outlast him, an old man, 
and his companion also, very probably. You meet 
another man, and he begins cursing the Government 166 
as the most tyrannical one that ever existed. " That 
is not the question," I answer. " How much money 
have you given for this war ? How many of your 
boys have gone to it ? How much of your own body 
and soul have you given to it ? " I think Mr. 
is the most forlorn of all the Jeremiahs I meet 
with. Faith, faith is the only thing that keeps a 
man up in times like these ; and those persons who, 
by temperament or under-feeding of the soul, are in a 
state of spiritual anaemia, are the persons I like least 
to meet, and try hardest not to talk with. 
For myself, I do not profess to have any political 
wisdom. I read, I listen, I judge to the best of my 
ability. The best talk I have heard from any of our 
home politicians was that of Banks, more than a year 
and a half ago. In a conversation I had with him, 
he foreshadowed more clearly the plans and prospects, 
and estimated more truly the resources, of the South 
than any one else with whom I had met. But pro- 
phets in America and Europe have been at a very 
heavy discount of late. Count Gasparin seems to me 
to have the broadest and keenest understanding of 
the aims and ends of this armed controversy. If we 
could be sure of no intermeddling, I should have no 
anxiety except for individuals and for temporary in- 
terests. If we have grown unmanly and degenerate 
in the north wind, I am willing that the sirocco 
should sweep us off from the soil. If the course of 
nature must be reversed for us, and the Southern 
Goths must march to the " beggarly land of ice " to 
overrun and recolonize us, I have nothing to object. 
But I have a most solid and robust faith in the ster- 
ling manhood of the North, in its endurance, its 
capacity for a military training, its plasticity for every 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
167 
need, in education, in political equality, in respect for 
man as man in peaceful development, which is our 
law, in distinction from aggressive colonization; in 
human qualities as against bestial and diabolical 
ones; in the Lord as against the Devil. If I never 
see peace and freedom in this land, I shall have faith 
that my children will see it. If they do not live long 
enough to see it, I believe their children will. The 
revelations we have had from the Old World have 
shed a new light for us on feudal barbarism. We 
know now where we are not to look for sympathy. 
But oh! it would have done your heart good to see the 
processions of day before yesterday and to-day, the air 
all aflame with flags, the streets shaking with the tramp 
of long-stretched lines, and only one feeling showing 
itself, the passion of the first great uprising, only the 
full flower of which that was the opening bud. 
There is a defence of blubber about the arctic 
creatures through which the harpoon must be driven 
before the vital parts are touched. Perhaps the 
Northern sensibility is protected by some such encas- 
ing shield. The harpoon is, I think, at last through 
the blubber. In the mean while I feel no doubt in my 
own mind that the spirit of hostility to slavery as the 
cause of this war is speedily and certainly increasing. 
They were talking in the cars to-day of Fremont's 
speech at the Tremont Temple last evening. His al- 
lusions to slavery - you know what they must have 
been - were received with an applause which they 
would never have gained a little while ago. Nay, I 
think a miscellaneous Boston audience would be more 
like to cheer any denunciation of slavery now than 
almost any other sentiment. 
Wednesday evening, September 3d. I have 168 
waited long enough. We get the most confused and 
unsatisfactory yet agitating rumors. Pope seems to 
be falling back on the capital after having got the 
worst of it in a battle on the 30th. Since that there 
has been little fighting so far as we know, but this 
noon we get a story that Stonewall Jackson is march- 
ing by Leesburg on Baltimore, and yesterday we 
learned that Cincinnati is in imminent danger of a 
rebel invasion. How well I remember the confidence 
that you expressed in General Scott, - a confidence 
which we all shared ! The old General had to give 
up, and then it was nothing but McClellan. But do 
not think that the pluck or determination of the 
North has begun to yield. There never was such a 
universal enthusiasm for the defence of the Union 
and the trampling out of rebellion as at this perilous 
hour. I am willing to believe that many of the 
rumors we hear are mere fabrications. I won't say 
to you : " Be of good courage," because men of ideas 
are not put down by the accidents of a day or a year. 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
December 15, 1862. 
My dear Motley, - 
As I am in the vein of saying things that ought to 
please yon, let me say that my heart always swells 
with pride, and a glitter comes over my eyes, when I 
read or hear your denunciations of the enemies of 
liberty at home and abroad, and your noble pleas for 
the great system of self-government now on its trial 
in a certain sense - say rather, now putting our peo- 
ple on trial, to see whether they are worthy of it. 
There were many reasons why you should have lost TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
169 
your passion for a republican government. The old 
civilizations welcome you as an ornament to their 
highest circle. At home you of course meet in the 
upper political spheres much that is not to your taste 
- untaught men, uncouth women, plebeian aspects. 
But you remain an idealist, as all generous natures 
do and must. I sometimes think it is the only abso- 
lute line of division between men, - that which sepa- 
rates the men who hug the actual from those who 
stretch their arms to embrace the possible. I reduce 
my points of contact with the first class to a mini- 
mum. When I meet them, I let them talk, for the 
most part, for there is no profit in discussing any liv- 
ing question with men who have no sentiments, and 
the non-idealists have none. We don't talk music to 
those who have no ear ; why talk of the great human 
interests to men who have lost all their moral sensi- 
bilities, or who never had any ? One thinks of these 
same abstractions as practical matters in times like 
these and places like this. You know quite as well as 
I do that accursed undercurrent of mercantile materi- 
alism, which is trying all the time to poison the foun- 
tains of the national conscience. You know better 
than I do the contrivances of that detested horde of 
mercenary partisans who would in a moment accept 
Jeff Davis, the slave-trade, and a Southern garrison 
in Boston, to get back their post-offices and their 
custom-houses, where the bread they have so long 
eaten was covered with slime, like that of their brother 
serpents, before it was swallowed. The mean sympa- 
thizers with the traitors are about in the streets under 
many aspects. You can generally tell the more 
doubtful ones by the circumstance that they have a 
great budget of complaints against the government, 170 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
that their memory is exceedingly retentive of every 
reverse and misfortune, and that they have the small 
end of their opera-glasses towards everything that 
looks encouraging. I do not think strange of this in 
old men; they wear their old opinions like their old 
clothes, until they are threadbare, and we need them 
as standards of past thought which we may reckon our 
progress by, as the ship wants her stationary log to 
tell her headway. But to meet young men who have 
breathed this American air without taking the conta- 
gious fever of liberty, whose hands lie as cold and 
flabby in yours as the fins of a fish, on the morning of 
a victory - this is the hardest thing to bear. Oh, if 
the bullets would only go to the hearts that have no 
warm human blood in them I But the most generous 
of our youth are the price that we must pay for the 
new heaven and the new earth which are to be born of 
this fiery upheaval. I think one of the most trying 
things of a struggle like this is the painful revelation 
of the meanness which lies about us unsuspected. 
Perhaps I am harder than you would be in my judg- 
ment, but it does seem to me that the essential ele- 
ments of the armed debate now going on are so evi- 
dent, that it is a shame for any man, woman, or child 
in the land of school-houses and colleges not to know 
which is the civilized side - though the youth at 
Cambridge, in England, may settle it in their debat- 
ing society that God and all his holy angels are with 
the slave-breeders. 
Thomas Starr King, who has been the apostle of 
liberal religion and political freedom in California, 
wrote me two or three weeks ago that he was to de- 
liver some lectures on American Poets, among whom 
he was good enough to include me. He wanted some TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
171 
verses to finish off the lecture he had devoted to me, 
and I wrote him a dozen, of which one or two may 
prove readable to you. They are not to be printed as 
yet, but by and by perhaps will come out in The 
Atlantic (which by the way is thriving, I understand, 
in these times). . . . 
[Written in margin of the letter.] The title of 
this Poem is " Choose you this Day whom you will 
serve." How absurd ! I have written the whole piece 
out in full. I do solemnly aver that when I began 
this letter I had no thought of the above poem; I do 
conscientiously assert that when I began the poem on 
the preceding page I had no intention of copying 
more than three or four of its verses. So help me 
Phoebus! 
Horns to bulls, stings to bees - to poets verses, as 
weapons of offence and defence. However, if you 
should write me a letter one of these days, you may 
criticise them if you like, as they may not be printed 
for months yet. I think Starr King will speak them 
so as to put meaning into them, if they have none of 
their own. 
I have said nothing about the military situation. 
This noon I was saying that I looked for news from 
the other side of Richmond. This afternoon it comes. 
I am writing Monday. What news may come to- 
morrow is quite uncertain, but I myself cannot help 
thinking that Burnside will be very glad to wait, if 
he can, until the cannon begin to roar to the east and 
the south of Richmond. I will leave a little space for 
anything I may hear before I mail my letter. 
Tuesday, December Tlth. I could have wished that 
the mail and my letter had gone yesterday. We get 
to-day the news that Burnside has withdrawn all his 172 
troops over to this side of the Rappahannock, and 
taken up his pontoon bridges. He failed in his re- 
peated attempts to storm the rebel works, and found 
it such a desperate undertaking that he seems to have 
given up for the present. There is no question that 
this news has exercised a most depressing effect on all 
but the secession sympathizers, who, grudging every 
success to the Cabinet and its new general, are se- 
cretly comforted, as I guess by certain signs, that the 
" Onward to Richmond " has again met with a check. 
It looks to me now as if the movement were a precau- 
tion against a possible necessity rather than an imme- 
diate necessity. The river was fast rising with the 
rain which was falling. It would never do to be cut 
off from supplies and reinforcements by a swollen 
stream, and so Burnside quietly, and as it seems with- 
out loss, without the enemy's being aware of what he 
was about, last night sent over his artillery, and then 
followed it by all his infantry. We have become so 
used to disappointments that we have learned to bear 
them with a good deal of equanimity. We hope this 
is only temporary, but it has dashed our spirits, and 
begun to knock stocks about a little. . . . You will 
think, I know, of my first-born in the midst of the 
scenes his regiment has been going through. He is 
suffering from dysentery, I am afraid pretty sick, but 
we are impatiently waiting to hear from him. A note 
of two or three lines, written in pencil to a friend in 
Philadelphia on the 10th, was the first news we had 
of his being ill, and is the last thing we have heard 
from him to the present moment. He cannot have 
been in the fights, and therefore must have been really 
" down," as he says in his note. The experience has 
no doubt brought on with aggravated symptoms the 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
173 
trouble from which he suffered so severely on the 
Chickahominy, but which did not keep him from being 
on duty until the last of the battles - Malvern Hill - 
had been fought. 
Let us keep up our courage for our country and 
ourselves. It- is harder for you, I have no doubt, 
than for me, at home and getting the news two or 
three times daily. Many things that sound ill do not 
worry me long, for I am a man of large faith, and 
though the Devil is a personage of remarkable talents, 
I think the presiding wisdom is sure to be too much 
for him in the end. We are nervous just now, and 
easily put down, but if we are to have a second na- 
tional birth, it must be purchased by throes and ago- 
nies, harder, perhaps, than we have yet endured. I 
think of you all very often; do remember me and my 
wife (who is giving all her time to good deeds) most 
kindly to your wife and daughter. 
Yours always in faith and hope. 
Boston, October 10, 1865.1 
My dear Motley, - When Miss Lily left us last 
March, we hardly thought she would be so very soon 
back in America as we hear she is to be. I cannot let 
the day of her marriage go over without a line to her 
father and mother as a substitute for the epithala- 
mium with which a century ago I should (if all 
parties had been extant) have illuminated the Gentle- 
'maribS Mag azine. I hear from one of my Providence 
friends the best accounts of Mr. Ives. I hope that 
the alliance will prove very happy to her, to you, to 
1 This letter has already been printed in the Motley Corre- 
spondence. 174 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
your wife, and all your connections. It is having a 
son, a brother, born full grown, to receive a daughter's 
husband as a member of one's family. With all the 
felicitations which rise to my lips, for I feel now as if 
I were talking with you face to face, I cannot help 
remembering how much there must be of tender re- 
gret mingling with the blessings that follow the dear 
child over the threshold of the home she had bright- 
ened with her presence. Even the orange flowers 
must cast their shadow. 
Yet I cannot help thinking that the new attractions 
which our country will have for you will restore you 
and your family to those who grudge your possession 
to an alien capital; and that, having stood picket 
manfully at one of our European outposts through the 
four years' campaign, you may wish to be relieved, 
now that the great danger seems over. So we shall 
all hope, for our sakes. What a fine thing it would 
be to see you back at the Saturday Club again I 
Longfellow has begun to come again. He was at his 
old place, the end of the table, at our last meeting. 
We have had a good many of the notabilities here 
within the last three or four months ; and I have been 
fortunate enough to have some pleasant talks with 
most of them. Sir Frederick Bruce, the new Minister, 
pleased us all. You may know him, very probably. 
White-haired, white-whiskered, red-cheeked, round- 
cheeked, with rich dark eyes, hearty, convivial, not 
afraid to use the strengthening monosyllable, for which 
Englishmen are famous, pretty freely, outspoken for 
our side as if he were one of us, he produced, on me 
at least, a very different effect from that of lively Lord 
Napier or plain and quiet Lord Lyons. 
I had a good deal of talk with Grant, whom I met TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
175 
twice. He is one of the simplest, stillest men I ever 
saw. He seems torpid at first, and requires a little 
management to get much talk out of him. Of all the 
considerable personages I have seen, he appears to me 
to be the least capable of an emotion of vanity. He 
can be drawn out, and will tell his habits and feelings. 
I have been very shy of repeating all he said to me, 
for every word of his is snapped up with great eager- 
ness, and the most trivial of his sayings, if mentioned 
in the hearing of a gossip, would run all through the 
press of the country. His entire sincerity and homely 
truthfulness of manner and speech struck me greatly. 
He was not conscious, he said, of ever* having acted 
from any personal motive during his public service. 
We (of the West), he said, were terribly in earnest. 
The greatest crisis was the battle of Shiloh; that he 
would not lose; he would have fought as long as any 
men were left to fight with. If that had been lost the 
war would have dragged on for years longer. The 
North would have lost its prestige. Did he enjoy 
the being followed as he was by the multitude ? " It 
was very painful." This answer is singularly charac- 
teristic of the man. They call on him for speeches, 
which he cannot and will not try to make. 
One trait, half physiological, half moral, interested 
me. He said he was a good sleeper; commonly slept 
eight hours. He could go to sleep under almost any 
circumstances ; could set a battle going, go to sleep as 
if nothing were happening, and wake up by and by, 
when the action had got along somewhat. Grant has 
the look of a plain business man, which he is. I doubt 
if we have had any ideal so completely realized as 
that of the republican soldier in him. I cannot get 
over the impression he made on me. I have got some- 176 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
thing like it from women sometimes, hardly ever 
from men, - that of entire loss of selfhood in a great 
aim which made all the common influences which 
stir up other people as nothing to him. I don't think 
you have met Stanton. I found him a very mild, 
pleasant person to talk with, though he is an ogre 
to rebels and their Northern friends. Short, with 
a square head, broad not high, full black beard turn- 
ing gray; a dark, strong-looking man; he talks in 
a very gentle tone, protruding his upper lip in rather 
an odd way. Nothing could be more amiable than 
the whole man. It was pleasant chat, mainly, we had 
together. One thing he said which I could not forget. 
Speaking of the campaign of the Wilderness: "It 
was the bloodiest swath ever made on this globe." 
Perhaps a little hasarde, this statement, but coming 
from the Secretary of War it has its significance. 
Old Farragut, whom I foregathered with several 
times, is the lustiest galliard of sixty-something, one 
will meet with in the course of a season. It was odd 
to contrast him and Major Anderson. I was with 
them both on one occasion. The Major - General, I 
should say - is a conscientious, somewhat languid, 
rather bloodless-looking gentleman, who did his duty 
well, but was overtasked in doing it. Nothing would 
have supported him but, etc., etc.; but the old Ad- 
mirable- bona fide accident - let it stand ; is full of 
hot red blood, jolly, juicy, abundant, equal to any- 
thing, and an extra dividend of life left ready for 
payment after the largest expenditure. I don't know 
but he is as much the ideal seaman as Grant the ideal 
general; but the type is not so rare. He talks with 
everybody, merry, twinkling-eyed, up to everything, 
fond of telling stories, tells them well; the gayest, 177 
heartiest, shrewdest old boy you ever saw in your life. 
The young lady (so to speak), whom you would natu- 
rally address as his daughter, is Mrs. Farragut, the 
pretty wife of the old heart-of-oak Admiral. 
Mr. Burlingame has come home from China on a 
visit. It is strange what stories they all bring back 
from the Celestials. Richard Dana, Burlingame, Sir 
F. Bruce, all seemed filled with a great admiration 
of the pigtails. " There are twenty thousand Ralph 
Waldo Emersons in China," said Mr. B. to me. " We 
have everything to learn from them in the matter of 
courtesy. They are an honester people than Euro- 
peans. Bayard Taylor's stories about their vices do 
them great injustice. They are from hasty impres- 
sions got in seaport towns." This is the kind of way 
they talk. 
Mr. Howells, from Venice, was here not long ago; 
tells me he has seen you, who are his chef, I sup- 
pose, in some sense. This is a young man of no small 
talent. In fact, his letters from Venice are as good 
travellers' letters as I remember since " Eothen." 
My son, Oliver Wendell H., Jr., now commonly 
styled Lieutenant-Colonel, thinks of visiting Europe 
in the course of a few months, and wants me to ask 
you for a line of introduction to John Stuart Mill and 
to Hughes. I give his message or request without 
urging it. He is a presentable youth, with fair ante- 
cedents, and is more familiar with Mill's writings than 
most fellows of his years. If it like your Excellency 
to send me two brief notes for him, it would please us 
both, but not if it is a trouble to you. 
And now, as I am closing my gossipy letter, full 
of little matters which I hoped might interest you for 
a moment, let me end as I began, with the thoughts 
DO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
VOL. II. 178 
of you and yours, which this day brings up so freshly 
before me. Peace and prosperity and happiness to 
both households, the new and the old ! What can I 
say better than to repeat that old phrase, - the kindly 
Roman's prayer as a poor Christian would shape it on 
this " auspicious morning," quod bonum, faustum, 
felix,fortunatumque sit! Love to all. 
Boston, July 18, 1869. 
My dear Motley, - It is two months to-day since 
I dined with you at No. 2 Park Street. You ought 
to be at home by this time in London, and ready for 
my little budget of Boston small-talk, which ought to 
be welcome to you as a change from the great affairs 
with which you are dealing, or of which you must 
be thinking. I am only anxious that they should be 
small enough matters that I write to you about, for 
I have talked a good deal with Sumner of late, and 
know what laborious correspondence you have to keep 
up with him. I have had some talk with Judge 
Hoar, too, and I know you must be occupied enough 
for the first weeks or months with your newr duties to 
find little time or thought for the trifles with which 
I fill up my slight pages. 
I believe my staple is commonly myself, a person 
in whom I am ashamed to take so much interest, but 
he is so fond of you, and misses you so much, that you 
can excuse almost anything. 
I had been writing continuously for a good while 
when you went away, in a somewhat new direction, 
but whether anything will come of it I am not yet 
quite sure. In the mean time I have been disgrace- 
fully good-natured and written several small occa- 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
179 
sional copies of verses, one or two of which I shall 
enclose, to remind you of my fatal facility at that kind 
of good-natured literature. 
I think, on the whole, the most interesting thing I 
have to tell you relates to a piece of literary and per- 
sonal history, which I trust to your discretion a little 
prematurely. Singularly enough, I suspect you to be 
one of a limited number of persons to whom the main 
facts involved have long been familiar. 
At the request of Mrs. Stowe, I looked over the 
proofs of an article, which is to come out in the Sep- 
tember number of The Atlantic Monthly, and will 
consequently startle the world about the middle of 
August, - before which time I consider it as confiden- 
tially in my knowledge, and imparted to you (for 
whom it may possibly have less interest than I sup- 
pose) in the exercise of my own discretion. 
It relates to the true history of Lord Byron's rela- 
tions with Lady Byron, as disclosed to Mrs. Stowe by 
Lady B. The essential point is that incestuous rela- 
tion which is represented as the true source of the 
difficulty, and though the name of the relative is not 
mentioned, it is plain enough who is referred to. 
I was not consulted about the matter of publishing 
Lady Byron's revelations. Mrs. Stowe assured me 
that she had made up her mind about that. All she 
asked was my literary counsel and supervision, which 
I very willingly gave her. 
This article must create a great sensation in many 
quarters, - you know better than I, a great deal, 
how far it will be a surprise in the circles of English 
society. So, look out, about the middle of August, 
for the September number of The Atlantic Monthly. 
We have had the Coliseum fever, and happily recov- 180 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
ered. It was a grand affair, I assure you. I doubt 
if forty thousand people were ever seen before under 
one unbroken continuity of roof, in a single honest 
parallelogram. I will give you in little its dimensions, 
as compared with the Coliseum at Rome, - which 
last building had velaria, very proba- 
bly, for emperors, ambassadors, and 
such, but had no proper roof. The 
audience was truly a wonderful sight, and the vast 
orchestra and chorus, though not deafening, as many 
expected, was almost oceanic in the volume of its 
surges and billows. I wrote a hymn for it, which 
Amory told me, two days ago, I had not been praised 
enough for. How I loved him I 
And that reminds me to tell you that there was a 
very pleasant excursion, two days ago, where I met 
him, and he made me happy, as I tell you. Mr. 
George Peabody - the Dives who is going to Abra- 
ham's bosom, and I fear before a great while - asked 
a company of twenty or thereabouts to come to Dan- 
vers, - or rather " Peabody," as they call it now, - 
to look at the buildings he has given, the library, etc., 
and have a good time and a collation. There was 
Mr. Adams and Mr. Sumner - governors, judges,- 
Mayor Shurtleff, Bigelow, Warren, Clifford, William 
Gray, and so on, and among the rest William Amory 
and myself. We had a very pleasant day of it. I 
said to myself: It is just possible, not likely, but it 
may possibly happen, that they will call on you for 
something. So I wrote them a toast, or sentiment. 
It was nothing, but it touched them off like a lucifer 
match. I wish we had had you there. We would 
have squeezed you, as we did Sumner, and got a 
speech out of you, which could hardly help being un- TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
181 
premeditated. I believe I was the only person there 
wary enough to foresee the possibility of a sudden 
call, - I know that Dr. Lothrop had to ask an extem- 
pore blessing, - which he did so well that we thought 
he must have been rehearsing it for a week. You 
shall have my " sentiment," taking it for granted that 
you understand the difference between fireworks on 
the evening of July Fourth and the look of the frames 
the next morning: - 
Bankrupt ! Our pockets inside out ! 
Empty of words to speak his praises ! 
Worcester and Webster up the spout! 
Dead-broke of laudatory phrases ! 
Yet why with flowery speeches tease, 
With vain superlatives distress him ? 
Has language better words than these - 
" The Friend of all his race - God bless him ! " 
A simple prayer, but words more sweet 
By human lips were never uttered 
Since Adam left the country seat 
Where angel wings around him fluttered ! 
The old look on with tear-dimmed eyes, 
The children cluster to caress him, 
And every voice unbidden cries - 
" The Friend of all his race - God bless him ! " 
More little matters. We have got a grand new 
equestrian statue of George Washington, " first in 
war," etc., in the Public Garden. It reminds me of 
Rauch's statue of Frederic at Berlin, which I never 
saw, except in a glass stereograph - almost as good, 
however, as the statue itself. It faces down Common- 
wealth Avenue, as if he were riding out of Boston. I 
wonder we have not had an epigram, in some New 
York paper, to the effect that he is turning his horse's 
tail to us. They can turn it about, however, as they 182 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
have done with Everett's. I suppose you will be in 
bronze one of these days, - but I hope they will make 
you face Boston. This new and first equestrian statue 
we have seen here is generally admired. I think it is 
admirable in its effect, and 1 have not heard any but 
favorable criticisms so far. So you see, what with her 
Coliseum, and its thousand instruments and ten thou- 
sand singers, and its " man on horseback " (what a 
wonderfully picturesque generalization that was of 
Caleb Cushing's! ), and its two members of the Cabi- 
net and Minister to England, our little town of Boston 
feels as good as any place of its size, to say nothing of 
bigger ones. 
We saw in the paper, the other day, that you, with 
your wife and daughters, were going into society 
" with a rush," as it was elegantly put. I hope you 
have strength and patience for the labor that must be 
connected with all this social expenditure of vitality. 
You remember I got some quinine pills for you, as you 
went off,- they did not kill you, that is certain,- 
whether they did you any good, I am afraid you have 
forgotten by this time. 
I am going to enclose you my Halleck poem, written 
at the request of the New York Committee, and one 
or two other trifles. They will have a home flavor, I 
know, and you will get a whiff of Boston and Cam- 
bridge associations out of them, if nothing else,- 
just as Mr. Howells told me, coming in in the cars, 
yesterday, that the smell of the Back Bay salt water 
brought back Venice to him. . . . TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
183 
Boston, September 26, 1869. 
My dear Motley, - You need never excuse your- 
self for not sending letter for letter - I do not expect 
it - I was going to say I do not wish it, for I feel 
what a load any letter must be to one overburdened 
already with such a mass of correspondence. Even 
without this special reason I should never be very 
particular. I can say with Lady Montagu: " I am 
not so wrong-headed as to quarrel with my friends the 
minute they don't write; I'd as soon quarrel at the 
sun the minute he did not shine, which he is hindered 
from by accidental causes, and is in reality all that 
time performing the same courses and doing the same 
good offices as ever." 
The first thing I naturally recur to is the Byron 
article. In your letter of August 4th you say " there 
will be a row" about it. Has n't there been ! We 
have had three storms this autumn: 1. The great 
gale of September 8th, which I recognized while it 
was blowing as the greatest for fifty-four years, - for 
you remember that I remember the September gale. 
2d. The Byron whirlwind, which began here and 
travelled swiftly across the Atlantic; ami 3d, the gold- 
storm, as I christened the terrible financial conflict 
of the last week. About the Byron article I confess 
that, great as I expected the excitement to be, it far 
exceeded anything I had anticipated. The prevailing 
feeling was that of disbelief of the facts. The general 
opinion was strongly adverse to the action of Mrs. 
Stowe. My impression is that the belief in the essen- 
tial fact is growing stronger since the unsatisfactory 
statements of the parties most interested. I see that 
there is a more decided division of opinion on the main 
question in England than here - or than there was 184 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
here at first, at any rate. In the mean time the poor 
woman, who, of course, meant to do what she thought 
an act of supreme justice, has been abused as a hyena, 
a ghoul, and by every name and in every form, by the 
baser sort of papers. The tone of the leading ones 
has been generally severe, but not brutal. I might 
have felt very badly about it, if I had had any respon- 
sibility in counselling Mrs. S. to publish, but she had 
made up her mind finally, and had her article in type, 
before I heard or knew anything of it. 
This last week we had a Humboldt celebration, or 
rather two, in Boston. One in which Agassiz was the 
orator, the other in which a German - Heinzel by 
name - was the speaker. Agassiz did himself credit 
by a succinct account of Humboldt's life and labors, 
and interesting anecdotes of his personal relations 
with him. He was in great trouble all the time. . . . 
Curious hint for public speakers who use glasses. I 
sat next Charles Sumner. " Agassiz has made a mis- 
take," he said, " he has eye-glasses - he ought to have 
spectacles. In three or four minutes his skin will get 
moist and they will slip and plague him." They did 
not in " three or four minutes," but in the last part 
of his address they gave him a good deal of trouble, 
keeping one hand busy all the time to replace them as 
they slid down his nose. Remember this if you have 
occasion to speak an hour or two before an audience 
in a warm room. Of course I wrote a poem, which 
I had the wonderful good sense to positively refuse 
delivering in Music Hall after the long Address of 
Agassiz, but read at the soiree afterwards. I thought 
well of it, as I am apt to, and others liked it. Ap- 
plaud my abstinence in not sending it to you - it will TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
185 
be in print one of these days, perhaps in Atlantic. 
. . . That same day Heinzel, as I said, delivered an 
address, to the Germans chiefly, in Boston, in which 
he claimed Humboldt as an Atheist, in opposition to 
Agassiz, who cited passages in which Humboldt re- 
ferred to the Deity. 
Longfellow has got home, not looking younger, cer- 
tainly, but luminous with gentle graces as always. 
Walking on the bridge two or three weeks ago, I met 
a barouche with Miss G and a portly mediaeval 
gentleman at her side. I thought it was a ghost, 
almost, when the barouche stopped and out jumped 
Tom Appleton in the flesh, and plenty of it, as afore- 
time. We embraced - or rather he embraced me and 
I partially spanned his goodly circumference. He has 
been twice here - the last time he took tea and 
stayed till near eleven, pouring out all the time such a 
torrent of talk, witty, entertaining, audacious, ingen- 
ious, sometimes extravagant, but fringed always with 
pleasing fancies as deep as the border of a Queen's 
cashmere, that my mind came out of it as my body 
would out of a Turkish bath - every joint snapped 
and its hard epidermis taken clean off in that four 
hours' immersion. Tom was really wonderful, I think. 
I never heard such a fusillade in my life. You may 
be sure your name came up between us, and if you 
had been just outside the door you might have heard 
" something to your advantage," as the Times adver- 
tisements have it; for your oldest friends are among 
the warmest, you may be well assured. 
So you see I have told you of small local and per- 
sonal matters, not so well as a lively woman would 
have done it, but as they came up to my mind. I 186 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
read somewhere lately a letter of a great personage 
then abroad - I think it was old John Adams - 
in which he begs for a letter full of trifling home- 
matters. He gets enough that strains him to read, 
and he wants undress talk. I can tell you nothing of 
the large world you will not get better from other 
correspondents, but I can talk to you of places and 
persons and topics of limited interest which will 
perhaps give you five minutes of Boston, and be 
as refreshing as a yawn and stretch after being fixed 
an hour in one position. Park Street looks very 
dreary since you and your wife and daughters have 
left it - I can't help hoping that you will be sated 
with honors and labors by and by. I have not said 
a word about the race, which was on the whole a 
pleasant interlude, notwithstanding our misfortune. 
Boston, April 3, 1870. 
My dear Motley, - I feel as if I must have 
something or other to say that will interest you, but 
what it is, if there is anything, I can hardly guess as 
yet. L' appetit vient en mangeant, I have no doubt, 
and if I can only tell you that I am alive and have not 
forgotten you, I shall perhaps feel better for saying it. 
I have been rather miserable this winter by reason of 
asthmatic tendencies, which, without preventing me 
from doing my work, keep me more or less uncomfort- 
able, and tell me to decline my invitations for a while. 
I have been well enough, however, of late, and went 
to a dinner-party at Mrs. 's yesterday, and a kind 
of soiree she had after it. This good lady (who is a 
distant relation of Mrs. Leo Hunter) had bagged Mr. 
Fechter, the player, who has been turning the heads TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
187 
of the Boston women and girls with his Hamlets and 
Claude Melnottes. A pleasant, intelligent man,-■ 
you may have met him or at any rate seen him, - 
but Boston furores are funny. The place is just of 
the right size for aesthetic endemics, and they spare 
neither age nor sex - among the women, that is, for 
we have man-women and woman-women here, you 
know. It reminds me of the time we had when Jef- 
ferson was here, but Fechter is feted off the stage as 
much as he is applauded on it. I have only seen him 
in Hamlet, in which he interested rather than over- 
whelmed me. But his talk about Rachel and the rest 
with whom he has played so much was mighty pleasant. 
z Another sensation in a somewhat different sphere 
is our new Harvard College President. King Log 
has made room for King Stork. Mr. Eliot makes the 
Corporation meet twice a month instead of once. He 
comes to the meeting of every Faculty, ours among 
the rest, and keeps us up to eleven and twelve o'clock 
at night discussing new arrangements. He shows an 
extraordinary knowledge of all that relates to every 
department of the University, and presides with an 
aplomb, a quiet, imperturbable, serious good-humor, 
that it is impossible not to admire. We are, some of 
us, disposed to think that he is a little too much in a 
hurry with some of his innovations, and take care to 
let the Corporation know it. I saw three of them the 
other day and found that they were on their guard, as 
they all quoted that valuable precept, festina lente, 
as applicable in the premises. I cannot help being 
amused at some of the scenes we have in our Medical 
Faculty, - this cool, grave young man proposing in 
the calmest way to turn everything topsy-turvy, taking 
the reins into his hands and driving as if he were the 188 
first man that ever sat on the box. I say amused, 
because I do not really care much about most of the 
changes he proposes, and I look on a little as I would 
at a rather serious comedy. 
" How is it ? I should like to ask," said one of our 
number the other evening, " that this Faculty has gone 
on for eighty years, managing its own affairs and 
doing it well, - for the Medical School is the most 
flourishing department connected with the college, - 
how is it that we have been going on so well in the 
same orderly path for eighty years, and now within 
three or four months it is proposed to change all our 
modes of carrying on the school - it seems very ex- 
traordinary, and I should like to know how it happens." 
" I can answer Dr. 's question very easily," 
said the bland, grave young man: " there is a new 
President." 
The tranquil assurance of this answer had an effect 
such as I hardly ever knew produced by the most 
eloquent sentences I ever heard uttered. Eliot has a 
deep, almost melancholy sounding voice - with a little 
of that character that people's voices have when there 
is somebody lying dead in the house, but a placid 
smile on his face that looks as if it might mean a deal 
of determination, perhaps of obstinacy. I have great 
hopes from his energy and devotion to his business, 
which he studies as I suppose no President ever did 
before ; but I think the Corporation and Overseers 
will have to hold him in a little, or he will want to 
do too many things at once. 
I went to the Club last Saturday, and met some 
of the friends you always like to hear of. I sat by 
the side of Emerson, who always charms me with his 
delicious voice, his fine sense and wit, and the delicate 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 189 
way he steps about among the words of his vocabulary, 
- if you have seen a cat picking her footsteps in wet 
weather, you have seen the picture of Emerson's ex- 
quisite intelligence, feeling for its phrase or epithet, - 
sometimes I think of an ant-eater singling out his 
insects, as I see him looking about and at last seizing 
his noun or adjective, - the best, the only one which 
would serve the need of his thought. 
Longfellow was there, - not in good spirits I 
thought by his looks. On talking with him I found 
it was so. He feels the tameness and want of inter- 
est of the life he is leading after the excitement of 
his European experience, and makes no secret of it. 
I think the work of translating Dante kept him easy, 
and that he is restless now for want of a task. ... I 
hope he will find some pleasant literary labor for his 
later years, - for his graceful and lovely nature can 
hardly find expression in any form without giving 
pleasure to others, and for him to be idle is, I fear, 
to be the prey of sad memories. 
Lowell was not at the Club. I saw him at the Feb- 
ruary one seeming well and in good spirits. 
Agassiz, you know, has been in a condition to cause 
very grave fears. I am happy to say that he is much 
improved of late. . . . 
I have left no room to talk of your affairs, to sym- 
pathize with your spoliation, - to say how grand we 
all felt when we read of your famous reception of the 
great folks the other day, nor to tell you how we miss 
you and your family here in your own little city, 
which you must not forget because it looks so small 
in the distance. You like a letter from me every few 
months, I am sure, though there is not a great deal in 
it. You know you need not answer. 
TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 190 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Boston, December 22, 1871. 
My dear Motley, - It is several months, I think, 
since I have put you to the trouble of reading one of 
my gossiping letters, telling you all about myself and 
my small affairs and the trivialities which I can think 
of as possibly like to interest you. I saw your brother 
Edward yesterday, and he told me that he had just 
written you twelve pages of news, so that it does seem 
this time as if I should have hard work to find any- 
thing to tell you about that you do not know already. 
. . . At this moment, as I write, a flock of a hundred 
or more wild ducks are swimming about and diving in 
a little pool in the midst of the ice, for the river has 
just frozen over again, and the thermometer was at 
zero yesterday. I think you would call my library a 
pleasant room, even after all the fine residences you 
have seen. I do not think the two famous Claudes 
of Longford Castle, with the best picture Turner ever 
painted between them, would pay me for my three 
windows which look out over the estuary of Charles 
River. But you know what a faculty I have of being 
pleased with anything that is mine. You will indulge 
me, I know, in telling you about matters that interest 
me, especially as I have to take so much interest in my- 
self lately, because I have a good deal to do and must 
put my spirit into it, and that makes one more or less 
an egotist. Firstly, then, our new President, Eliot, 
has turned the whole University over like a flapjack. 
There never was such a boulever sement as that in our 
Medical Facidty. The Corporation has taken the 
whole management of it out of our hands and changed 
everything. We are paid salaries, which I rather 
like, though I doubt if we gain in pocket by it. 
We have, partly in consequence of outside pressure, TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
191 
remodelled our whole course of instruction. Conse- 
quently we have a smaller class, but better students, 
each of whom pays more than under the old plan of 
management. It is so curious to see a young man like 
Eliot, with an organizing brain, a firm will, a grave, 
calm, dignified presence, taking the ribbons of our 
classical coach and six, feeling the horses' mouths, 
putting a check on this one's capers and touching that 
one with the lash, - turning up everywhere, in every 
Faculty (I belong to three)^ on every public occasion, 
at every dinner orne, and taking it all as naturally as 
if he had been born President. I don't know whether 
I said all this last time and the time before that, 
but if I did I trust you have forgotten it. In the 
mean time Yale has chosen a Connecticut country 
minister, cet. 60, as her President, and the experi- 
ment of liberal culture with youth at the helm versus 
orthodox repression with a graybeard Palinurus is 
going on in a way that it is impossible to look at 
without interest in seeing how the experiment will 
turn out. 
I suppose Edward has told you all about the Grand 
Duke's visit and the stir it made in our little city. 
You are so used to great folks that a Grand Duke is 
not more to you than a Giant or a Dwarf is to Bar- 
num ; but we had not had a sensation for some time, 
and this splendid young man - for he is a superb 
specimen - produced a great effect. I suppose you 
get the Boston papers sometimes and read what your 
fellow-citizens are doing. The dinner the gentlemen 
[gave] was a handsome one - thirty-five dollars a 
plate ought to pay for what the Californians call a 
" square meal." Speeches and a poem, of course - 
blush for me I - the whole affair was a success, with 192 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
one or two fiascos. II made a sad mess of it; 
nobody understands how lie can contrive, with so 
much taste and experience as he has, to make such a 
piece of work as he did the other night, and as he did 
at the Burns Centenary Dinner. D was as heavy 
as a Dutch galleon, - his grandpa was Ambassador 
to Russia, and he was thinking too much about that, 
perhaps. D is able, but somehow he does not 
clear the top bar. Winthrop was admirable ; Lowell 
was very happy. Phillips Brooks was much ap- 
plauded ; and the Russian Minister that was - Cata- 
cazy - made a speech which, under the circumstances, 
was adroit and felicitous to a wonderful degree. 
Winthrop went over its points two or three evenings 
ago at a dinner at our friend William Amory's, and 
considered it, for a man placed as he was, almost mar- 
vellous for what it said and for what it avoided. Well, 
en revanche for our dinner, the Grand Duke gave one 
at the Revere House to a few guests, viz., the Gov- 
ernor, President Eliot, Longfellow, Lowell, Mr. Fox, 
Mr. Winthrop, the Russian Consul, myself, and his 
suite. It was very handsome and very pleasant, and 
I had some very pretty speeches made to me, as I 
don't doubt everybody else did, for it is my belief that 
flattering adjectives are the modern substitute for the 
broad pieces which princes and nobles used to scatter 
so freely in other days. . . . 
Just now I am in rather good spirits, because I 
have begun a new series of papers for The Atlantic, 
for which I am to be handsomely paid, and which 
people seem to be inclined to accept kindly. I do not 
think I am quite contented unless I am doing some- 
thing besides lecture at the College; but I can never 
come within sight of that industry which would have TO JOHN LOTHEOP MOTLEY 
193 
made you famous for learning, if that was not eclipsed 
by more brilliant qualities. I hope you are going on 
with your work to your satisfaction, and I can't help 
hoping you will get through with it, by and by, and 
come back to the place that wants you and the friends 
that miss you. We come together on Saturdays and 
have good talks and pleasant, rather than jolly, times. 
Many of your old friends are commonly there,- 
among the rest Sumner not rarely. . . . There is a 
great deal of good feeling, I think, in our little circle 
of literary and scientific people here. I find Long- 
fellow peculiarly sweet in disposition, gentle, soothing 
to be with, not commonly brilliant in conversation, but 
at times very agreeable, and saying excellent things 
with a singular modesty. It is almost impossible to 
make him speak in public, - he would not say one 
word when called upon at the dinner to the Grand 
Duke, - but at the last Club he offered the health of 
Agassiz, - who was just about to leave on the explor- 
ing expedition for the Pacific,-and made a very 
neat little speech, which was received with much 
applause. . . . 
I ought to have spoken, but I forgot it, of Sumner's 
attitude to Grant, which, I judge from the papers, is 
one of uncompromising hostility. Attempts have been 
made to reconcile them, but it seems without success. 
He is now going very strongly for the one-term prin- 
ciple, - not to go into effect [ till ?] after the next 
election. You know all about this, very probably, by 
direct information from Sumner himself. 
Well, I have jase to more than your heart's con- 
tent, I am sure, and I can only send my love and my 
wife's love to all of you, and assure you all that many 
friends want to see you all very much, and we as 
much as any. 194 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Boston, August 28, 1872. 
My dear Motley, - I want to talk to you about 
matters that interest everybody, but my pen will have 
its way and begin as usual with my own affairs. I 
have got through the series of papers I am writing 
for The Atlantic in good season, and they will be 
published from month to month during the year, and 
in a volume on the 17th of October. 
Your niece-in-law, Mrs. Lewis Stackpole, is one of 
the few civilized persons I have seen on the pavement 
since I came back. She was in Boston on a flying 
visit, looking as ruddy and as hearty as rowing and 
sailing could make her. The children were all well, 
she said, - little Lewis and I are great friends, and 
when I lift him up he drops my letters into the iron 
box with a skill which he and I consider remarkable. 
A year ago about this time I was staying at Na- 
hant, in the house with Sumner. He talked a good 
deal with me about public matters, - among other 
things about the next election. Did I think Grant 
would be reelected ? - Yes, I did. - You think Grant 
will be the next President, do you ? - Yes, I do. Sum- 
ner looked as many volumes as evei' did my Lord Bur- 
leigh, but said nothing. I have not seen' him since 
the astounding political movements of the last few 
months. I must say - but you know all about it - a 
great deal more, probably, than I do - that he does 
not carry his usual following with him. I think he 
must have been startled to find that, of all his politi- 
cal associates, General Banks, whose company I fear 
he would not have elected, is the only one with any- 
thing more than a local name, whom he has trans- TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
195 
ferred to the new party, - I mean among our Massa- 
chusetts people. You will smile when you see I say 
" he has transferred." I did not mean to put it quite 
so strongly, but I doubt if he would be greatly 
shocked, for our friend Charles, who has been and is 
a great power in the land, is a little prone to think 
Petal Jest moi. I trust you are sensible enough not 
to consider my opinion as worth two cents. But such 
as it is I put it on record for my future confusion, if 
I turn out to be mistaken. I believe the Greeley 
movement will be a diminuendo, and the Grant and 
Wilson one a crescendo. I happened to meet that 
illustrious swell, Sam O , this morning, looking 
as big as if he had just swallowed the Archbishops 
of York and Canterbury, and I found his talks with 
New York people of different conditions and interests 
convinced him of the same thing. I do not suppose 
you mean to take any part in this contest, but I 
thought you would like to have my guess to throw 
into the heap of conjectures. It seems odd to find 
Garrison and Phillips, Dana and Hoar, all going 
directly against Sumner. 
I see your book is soon promised. How happy you 
ought to consider yourself that you have a record of 
noble achievements, which have given you a great and 
lasting reputation to fall back upon after the disap- 
pointments of political life, which not even Sumner's 
life-long service could secure him against. Love to 
your wife and children. 
November 16, 1872, Saturday. 
My dear Motley, - I wrote to you on Michael- 
mas day, as an Englishman would reckon, September 
29th, a couple of sheets of the usual personalities and 196 
trivialities, I suppose, for I hardly know what was in 
them. Now I feel as if I had something to write 
about, and yet I really believe I have very little to 
tell you in addition to what you must have learned 
through many channels before this letter reaches you. 
The recollection of the Great Fire will always be 
associated with a kindly thought of yourself in my 
memory. For on Saturday, the 9th November, your 
sister, Mrs. S. Rodman, sent me a package of little 
Dutch story-books, which you had been so good as to 
procure for me. You have no idea with what a child- 
like, or if you will childish, interest I looked at those 
little story-books. I was sitting in my library, my 
wife opposite, somewhere near nine o'clock, perhaps, 
when I heard the fire-bells and left the Dutch picture- 
books, which I was very busy with (trying to make 
out the stories with the aid of the pictures, which was 
often quite easy), and went to the north window. 
Nothing there. We see a good many fires in the 
northern hemisphere, which our windows command, 
and always look, when we hear an alarm, towards 
Charlestown, East Cambridge, Cambridge, and the 
towns beyond. Seeing nothing in that direction I 
went to the windows on Beacon Street, and looking 
out saw a column of light which I thought might 
come from the neighborhood of the corner of Boyl- 
ston and Tremont streets, where stands one of the 
finest edifices in Boston, the " Hotel Boylston," put 
up by Charles Francis Adams. The fire looked so 
formidable, I went out, thinking I would go to Com- 
monwealth Avenue and get a clear view of it. As I 
went in that direction I soon found that I was ap- 
proaching a great conflagration. There was no getting 
very near the fire; but that night and the next morn- 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
197 
ing I saw it dissolving the great high buildings, which 
seemed to melt away in it. My son Wendell made 
a remark which I found quite true, that great walls 
would tumble and yet one would hear no crash, - 
they came down as if they had fallen on a vast feather- 
bed. Perhaps, as he thought, the air was too full of 
noises for us to note what would in itself have been a 
startling crash. I hovered round the Safety Vaults 
in State Street, where I had a good deal of destructi- 
ble property of my own and others, but no one was 
allowed to enter them. So I saw (on Sunday morn- 
ing) the fire eating its way straight toward my depos- 
its, and millions of others with them, and thought how 
I should like it to have them wiped out with that red 
flame that was coming along clearing everything 
before it. But I knew all was doing that could be 
done, and so I took it quietly enough, and managed 
to sleep both Saturday and Sunday night tolerably 
well, though I got up every now and then to see how 
far and how fast the flames were spreading northward. 
Before Sunday night, however, they were tolerably 
well in hand, so far as I could learn, and on Monday 
all the world within reach was looking at the wilder- 
ness of ruins. To-day, Saturday, I went with my 
wife to the upper story of Hovey's store on Summer 
Street, a great establishment, - George Gardner, you 
remember, owns the building, - which was almost 
miraculously saved. The scene from the upper win- 
dows was wonderful to behold. Right opposite, 
Trinity Church, its tower standing, its walls partly 
fallen, more imposing as a ruin than it ever was in its 
best estate, - everything flat to the water, so that we 
saw the ships in the harbor as we should have done 
from the same spot in the days of Blackstone (if there 198 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
had been ships then and no trees in the way), here 
and there a tall chimney, - two or three brick piers 
for safes, one with a safe standing on it as calm as if 
nothing had happened, - piles of smoking masonry, 
the burnt stump of the flagstaff in Franklin Street, 
- groups of people looking to see where their stores 
were, or hunting for their safes, or round a fire-engine 
which was playing on the ruins that covered a safe, to 
cool them, so it could be got out, - cordons military 
and of the police keeping off the crowds of people 
who have flocked in from all over the country, etc., 
etc. 
Any reporter for a penny paper could tell you the 
story, I have no doubt, a great deal better than I can. 
You will have it in every form, - official, picturesque, 
sensational, photographic ; we have had great pictorial 
representations of it in the illustrated papers for two 
or three days. 
I hope you and your friends lose nothing of impor- 
tance. . . . But everybody seems to bear up cheer- 
fully and hopefully against the disaster, and the only 
thought seems to be how best and soonest to repair 
damages. 
Things are going on now pretty regularly. Fronde 
is here, lecturing ; I went to hear him Thursday, and 
was interested. He referred to " your great histo- 
rian, Motley," in the course of his lecture. After 
the lecture we had a very pleasant meeting of the 
Historical Society at Mr. J. A. Lowell's, where 
Froude was present. Winthrop read a long and 
really interesting account of the fires which had hap- 
pened in Boston since its settlement, beginning with 
Cotton Mather's account of different ones, and coming 
down to the " Great Fire " of 1760. Much of what TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
199 
he read I find in Drake's History of Boston, from 
which also I learn that the " Great Fire " began in 
the house of Mrs. Mary Jackson and Son at the sign 
of the Brazen Head in Cornhill, and that all the 
buildings on Colonel Wendell's wharf were burned. 
My mother used to tell me that her grandfather 
(Col. W.) lost forty buildings in that fire, which 
always made me feel grand, as being the descendant 
of one that hath had losses, - in fact makes me feel a 
little grand now, in telling you of it. Most people's 
grandfathers in Boston, to say nothing of their great- 
grandfathers, got their living working in their shirt- 
sleeves, but when a man's g. g. lost forty buildings, 
it is almost up to your sixteen quarterings that you 
knew so much about in your Austrian experience. . . . 
August 26, 1873. 
My dear Motley, - You can imagine how sad all 
your friends felt when they got that first story of your 
illness. It came in such a way that it was hard to 
disbelieve, and although we all hoped that it might 
be a telegraphic sensational over-statement, the relief 
was very great and the rejoicing most hearty when 
we received the second message, that your complaint 
had been magnified in an " absurdly exaggerated " 
story, and that it did not threaten your life or your 
continued usefulness and enjoyment. There are few 
men better loved by their friends than yourself; 
and who are there of whom their country is prouder 
as representing its noblest literary attainment and 
achievement ? Such was the feeling produced by 
that first telegram that it seemed almost like a resur- 
rection to picture you again in health, and in the full 200 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
exercise of all your active powers. But I, who saw 
Agassiz utterly prostrated by an attack evidently in- 
volving the nervous centres, and have since met him 
again and again in company and at the Club as full 
of life as ever, and seen him successfully start a new 
school on his island domain, am ready to believe that 
great scholars are beyond the reach of those enemies 
to life which are too much for common people. You 
know Ben Pierce has shown that good brains make 
their owners live longer than ordinary ones. Only 
they must rest at intervals from their work. I believe 
the absolute necessity of this is recognized by our 
practitioners of to-day as never before, and I trust, if 
you have been working too hard, they will scare you 
into a flash of idleness, or, at the most, easy labor. 
All the above is said in virtue of my once having 
been your medical adviser. You may be well enough 
to laugh at doctors before this reaches you, and I 
most sincerely hope that your neuralgia, or whatever 
the trouble may be, has left you, with nothing to 
remember but the hint that you must not overtax that 
vast capacity for work and that indomitable spirit, 
which have already raised such enduring monuments. 
May I gossip a few minutes? I write, you see, 
from Nahant, where I have been during July and 
August, staying with my wife in the cottage you must 
remember as Mr. Charles Amory's. ... So I have 
been here, as I said, playing cuckoo in the nest, with 
my wife, who enjoys Nahant much more than I do 
- having had more or less of asthma to take off 
from my pleasures. Still, there has been much that 
is agreeable, and as a change from city life I have 
found it a kind of refreshment. 
Many of your old friends are our neighbors. Long- 201 
fellow is hard by, with Tom Appleton in the same 
house, and for a fortnight or so Sumner as his guest. 
I have enjoyed a great deal in their company. Sum- 
ner, who was very nearly killed and buried by the 
newspapers, seems as well as ever* and gave us famous 
accounts of what he did and saw in England, among 
other things a certain christening, where a Very Dis- 
tinguished Personage officiated as godmother. It 
sounded like a story out of a picture-book to our ears, 
unused to such grandeur, and we listened like the 
three-years child of " The Ancient Mariner." You 
remember our old friend Pepys; well, I don't believe 
you made as much of a live queen as he did of a 
mummied one. 
Nearly opposite me is , who calls you by your 
old college name, as Falstaff called the Prince Haly 
and who with all of us was greatly concerned when we 
got the false telegram. and his wife come in and 
out of their square box of a house like the little man 
and woman who emerge from the respective doors of 
their small residence as the weather is fair or foul. 
He sits and smokes on the piazza; she waters her 
plants with the fidelity of a nursing-mother. Time 
has not darkened his locks or softened the somewhat 
rigid outlines of his character; he is still " a good 
hater," and tosses the objects of his contempt with a 
short, muscular jerk, as a bull tosses a dog. I think 
he does not touch the world at a great many points 
- in which particular he differs from the porcupine. 
There is something likeable if not lovable in hard old 
; everybody likes a rill from a rock better than 
the water of a stream that runs profusely over sand or 
mud. A little further on is your long-suffering class- 
mate, I • I drop in to see him every day or two. 
TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 202 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Invalidism is a profitable recreation, but a poor pro- 
fession. You remember the iron chamber with seven 
windows overhead, in the Blackwood story. The 
captive wakes the second morning and counts but six ; 
the third morning he can count but five, and so on, 
until the prison walls close on him. Poor I has 
been going through some such experience; he bears it 
as well as might be expected, but his ailments neces- 
sarily absorb too much of his thought for his mind to 
keep its interest in other matters, as it would were he 
not always suffering. Still, I think he likes to have 
his friends visit him, and it has been one of my chief 
pleasures here to drop in and have a chat with him, 
that should make him forget his troubles, if that might 
be, for a few minutes, or a good many minutes, not 
very rarely. 
I have dined since I have been here at Mr. George 
Peabody's with Longfellow, Sumner, Appleton, and 
William Amory ; at Cabot Lodge's with nearly the 
same company; at Mr. James's with L. and S., and at 
Longfellow's en families pretty nearly. Very pleas- 
ant dinners. I wish you could have been at all of 
them. I find a singular charm in the society of Long- 
fellow, - a soft voice, a sweet and cheerful temper, a 
receptive rather than an aggressive intelligence, the 
agreeable flavor of scholarship without any pedantic 
ways, and a perceptible soup^on of humor, not enough 
to startle or surprise or keep you under the strain of 
over-stimulation, which I am apt to feel with very 
witty people. Sumner seems to me to have less imagi- 
nation, less sense of humor or wit, than almost any 
man of intellect I ever knew. P. B. said of him in 
the Temple Place days, that if you told him the moon 
was made of green cheese, he would say, " No! it TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
203 
cannot be so," and give you solid reasons to the con- 
trary. We had a pleasant little laugh over his un- 
imaginative way of looking at things to-day. But we 
like to hear him talk, and give him his head whenever 
he gets into a narrative quorum pars, - and you know 
well in how many large affairs and with how many 
notable persons he has been concerned in his national 
and personal career. 
I have been twice at your brother Edward's, who 
seems to have everything charming about him. My 
wife thinks his two daughters the very pictures of 
all that is lovely, and I must say it would be hard 
to find two sweeter specimens of young American 
womanhood. I was quite surprised at his daughter- 
in-law's talent for sketching. She catches likenesses 
in a remarkably happy way. 
Nahant is a gossipy Little Pedlington kind of a 
place. As Alcibiades and his dog are not here, they 
are prattling and speculating and worrying about the 
cost of Mr. J 's new house, which, externally at 
least, is the handsomest country house I ever saw, 
and is generally allowed to be a great success. The 
inside is hardly finished, except the hall and dining- 
room, which are very fine. 
On Monday we go back to Boston, after two 
months' stay. Mr. Sargent sailed for home on the 
21st in the Siberia. I have not room for any more 
gossip, and there is not the least chance for all the 
kind messages I should send you from the many 
friends all around me. 
Pray do not think of troubling yourself to answer 
this letter, no matter how well you feel. 204 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
May 18, 1874. 
My dear Motley, - It was a real surprise to me 
to get your letter of the 17th April. Much as I was 
gratified to receive such a proof that your mind and 
your hand were, so far as that showed, in good work- 
ing order, I had to accept the fact you told me - 
that a pen felt like a sledge-hammer in your hand; 
and my first impulse was to say you must not make 
such an effort again to give me the assurance that you 
remember me kindly. I know you do, and if you 
remain as silent as your own hero, or the Egyptian 
Sphinx, or Harpocrates himself, you never need think 
that I shall count you in my debt, or forget to let 
you hear from me now and then, whenever I have 
anything to tell you. 
Let me talk, then, as if you were sitting by me here 
in my library, - not forcing myself to speak only of 
what is enlivening, but speaking of things as they 
have been going on round us lately. 
I know you will want to hear something about the 
friends we have lost lately, but I hardly remember 
what I have already written; I am sure at any rate 
that we had not had Schurz's Eulogy. It was a re- 
markably satisfactory and successful performance, 
happy in its delineation of the grand features of Sum- 
ner's character, picturesque in its details of scenes in 
which he figured, written in miraculously good Eng- 
lish for a foreigner, and delivered in a very impressive 
way. I dined with him and his wife and daughter 
at Mrs. Lodge's after the Eulogy, and passed a very 
pleasant evening. Of course, let me say en passant, 
Mrs. Lodge always has something affectionate to say 
about you and your family whenever I meet her. 
Your estimate of the loss the nation has sustained in TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
205 
Sumner's death does not seem in the least an exag- 
gerated one. I should say that the general verdict 
would concur very nearly with your own opinion. 
Coming home from , William Amory joined 
me, and wanted to know all I could tell him about 
you. I always find him good company - in some 
ways better than anybody else, for he has known 
Boston on its fairer side longer as well as better than 
almost any other person I can talk with easily, has a 
good memory, talks exceedingly well, and has a pleas- 
ant, courteous way which is exceptional rather than 
the rule among the people that make up our New 
England society. 
Yesterday I went out to Cambridge and called on 
Mrs. Agassiz - the first time I have seen her since 
her husband's death. She was at work on his corre- 
spondence, and talked in a very quiet, interesting way 
about her married life. What a singular piece of 
good fortune it was that Agassiz, coming to a strange 
land, should have happened to find a woman so won- 
derfully fitted to be his wife that it seems as if he 
could not have bettered his choice if all womankind 
had passed before him, as the creatures filed in pro- 
cession by the father of the race! 
I have been, too, to see Hillard, and saw him for 
the first time. He is quite crippled - cannot move 
his arm, and walks with a crutch, but talked not with- 
out a certain degree of cheerfulness. I was told that 
he had improved very much within the last few weeks. 
Another invalid, whom I visit now and then, is old 
Dr. Bigelow. He is now eighty-seven years old, and 
I think is rather proud of saying so. He used to be 
rather shy about his age, I fancied, though the Trien- 206 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
nial Catalogue settles the matter pretty closely for all 
our graduates. His iron-gray wig was the most ad- 
mirably managed confession with extenuating circum- 
stances that ever perruquier put together. There was 
just gray enough to hint that he did not call himself 
exactly young, and a good background of dark, to 
imply that others were not to call him old. He is 
utterly blind, as I think I have told you, and yet is 
very cheerful, and talks of old times in a very agree- 
able and amusing way. 
Since I wrote last I have got through my winter 
course of lectures, and enjoy my release from almost 
daily duties, which I like well enough, and which 
probably make me happier than I should be without 
them. I begin now, since the new order of things 
came in with the new president, in October, and lec- 
ture five and four times a week until the beginning of 
May. It used to be only four months. But even in 
the interval of lectures I do not get free from a good 
deal of work of one kind and another. I have done 
enough to know what work means, and should think I 
had been a hard worker if I did not see what others 
have accomplished. I can never look on those great 
histories of yours and think what toil they cost, what 
dogged perseverance as well as higher qualities they 
imply, without feeling almost as if I had been an idler. 
But I suppose it is not worth one's while to think too 
much about what he might have done or might have 
been. Our self-determination is, I suspect, much more 
limited than we are in the habit of considering it. 
Schopenhauer says that if a cannon-ball in its flight 
suddenly became conscious, it would think it was 
moving of its own free-will. I must not let my meta- 
physics take away the merit of your labors, but still J TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
207 
think you were in a certain sense predestinated and 
forced by some mysterious and irresistible impulse to 
give Holland a history, and make yourself a name in 
the world of letters. 
I have not yet read the Life of Barneveldt, and can- 
not do justice to it until I have finished up some things 
that have been waiting to be done and will not be put 
off any longer. But I think I shall have a special 
enjoyment in it, not merely because it is one of your 
pieces of historical tapestry, but for a reason I will 
tell you. I happened to see in a London Catalogue 
that was sent me the name of a book which you, no 
doubt, know well enough, and which may be of small 
account in your valuation - Meursii Athenes Batavcs. 
It has something more than fifty portraits of Profes- 
sors in the University, together with plans of Leyden 
and the manner of its relief, etc., etc. I have become 
so familiar with the features of Gomarus and Ar- 
minius, of William of Orange and "Janus Dousa," of 
Grotius and Joseph Scaliger and the rest, that I am 
all ready to read about the times in which they lived. 
I took down your volume with the siege of Leyden in 
it, and read it with infinite delight, having the plan 
of my little quarto volume before me. I began to 
understand, as I never did before, the delight which 
must have blended itself with your labors in bringing 
to the light the old story of that little land of heroes; 
and my own Dutch blood moved me to a livelier sense 
of gratitude to you for all you had done to rescue that 
noble past from oblivion, than I had ever felt before. 
I must have told you in my last all the gossip I 
could think of about the gayeties of the past winter. 
I have come down-or got up - to dinner-parties as 
the substantial basis of my social life. They have 208 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
slacked off (Novanglice) of late, so that I am now as 
domestic as a gallinaceous fowl, in place of chirruping 
and flitting from bough to bough. 
In the mean time I have my little grandchild to 
remind me that I must not think too much of the 
pomps and vanities of the world, with two generations 
crowding me along. 
We are all well, and living along in our quiet way 
with as much comfort as we have any right to, and 
more than most people have to content themselves 
with. I have one trouble I cannot get rid of, namely, 
that they tease me to write for every conceivable an- 
niversary. I wrote a hymn which was sung at the 
delivery of Schurz's Eulogy. Waldo Higginson came 
this afternoon to get me to write a hymn for the dedi- 
cation - no - the opening or completion of the Me- 
morial Hall. You remember Sydney Smith's John 
Bull - how he "blubbers and subscribes," - I scold 
and consent. 
July 26, 1874. 
My dear Motley, - I am in town, that is, if you 
will let me call Boston town - along with my wife, 
never more agreeably alone, except that the middle of 
the day is rather hot. We are both trying very hard 
to be lazy, which is next to impossible for her, and 
not so easy for me as I could wish. In the mean time 
the world is providing us with sensations of various 
kinds, which keep up something like pulsations in the 
emotional centres. First, we had the comet, which 
whisked its tail under the nose of the Great Bear for 
a few evenings, and which somebody announced in 
one of our papers as about to close the human stage TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
209 
of terrestrial developments by asphyxiating the whole 
of us with carbonic acid gas or some such unbreatha- 
ble atmosphere. In your higher latitude you ought 
to have seen more of " Coggia's " comet, which they 
pretended was making straight at us and to hit or 
miss somewhere about the 20th of this month. Then 
we had the "boy-fiend," - the most remarkable case 
of demoniacal propensities I ever heard of, - a boy of 
fourteen years old, who enticed small children into 
lonely places and cut and mutilated them in various 
strange, yet quasi methodical fashions, ending by cut- 
ting the throats of a little girl and afterwards of a 
little boy. They had a story of pre-natal influences, 
that reminded me of a heroine of one of my own books, 
but I believe it was not founded in anything. Then 
came the most odious, repulsive, miserable, dragging 
piece of scandal this country has ever known, - of 
which we have heard a great deal too much already, 
but for that very reason must now hear the whole, 
that we may know what to think of it. The Byron 
business was bad enough, but Byron had been long 
dead, and nobody took him for a saint, however inno- 
cent he may have been of the particular offence Mrs. 
Stowe charged upon him. But here is the most pop- 
ular Protestant preacher, I think, that ever lived, a 
man whose church would be filled, if there was a bull- 
fight in the next street, - who gets a salary of twenty 
thousand dollars and is worth it to his church, - who, 
as a lecturer, is handled by his impresario as if he were 
a prima donna, - who has done more sensible, effect- 
ive, good-natured talking and writing to the great 
middle class and the " unknown public " than any man 
we ever had in this country, - with a good deal of 
Franklin's sense and humor, with a power of holding 
VOL. IL 210 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
great assemblies like Whitfield, - the best known 
and most popular private citizen, I suppose, we have 
ever had, - a saint by inheritance and connections of 
every kind, and yet as human as King David or 
Robert Burns, so that his inherited theology hangs 
about him in rags, and shows the flesh of honest man- 
hood in a way to frighten all his co-religionists, - 
here is this wonderful creature, popular idol, the hope 
of liberal orthodoxy, accused of reading the seventh 
commandment according to the version that left out 
the negative. There is no doubt that he has compro- 
mised himself with unsafe persons and brought grave 
suspicions on himself, but the hope is universal that 
his defence, yet to come, will show that he has been 
slandered, and that his own assertions of innocence 
will be made good by a thorough sifting of the testi- 
mony that is brought against him. His accuser, 
Theodore Tilton, appears as badly as a man can, in 
every point of view, but it is pretended that other 
witnesses are to be called, and sick as everybody is of 
the monster scandal, it is felt that all must be known, 
since so much has already been made public. I am 
afraid you will turn away with something like disgust 
from the pages that I have filled with this matter, but 
the truth is, nothing ever made such a talk, and if it 
had been a settled fact that the comet was to hit the 
earth on the 2 2d of July, late on the evening of the 
21st people would have been talking of the great 
" Beecher-Tilton scandal." 
You may well imagine I have little but these news- 
paper matters to talk to you about. We are living in 
a desert. I feel, as I walk down Beacon Street, as if I 
were Lord Macaulay's New Zealander. I expect to 
start a fox or a woodchuck as I turn through Claren- TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
211 
don or Dartmouth Street, and to hear the whir of the 
partridge in Commonwealth Avenue. The truth is I 
have no country place of my own, and we are so much 
more comfortable in our house here that we can hardly 
make up our minds to go to any strange place in the 
country, or by the seashore. . . . 
Yesterday the Saturday Club met, and found our- 
selves fourteen, or more, in all - Lowell, with his seven 
L's great and small, being with us for the first time 
since his return. Except that he has cut his hand- 
some shining locks, I should not notice any change in 
him. He is just as pleasant and natural as always, 
and it is hard to believe that he has been away so 
long. Longfellow is, I suppose, at Nahant, at any 
rate he was not there; but Emerson was, and Dana 
and Judge Hoar, and among the rest " Bill Hunt," 
the artist, who has been a member some time. . . . 
Bill looked like a St. Peter by Rembrandt, in a 
brown velvet coat, and I did not see his infelicities 
depicted on his apostolic countenance. . . . 
Don't give me up because I have spoiled these two 
sheets of note-paper with poor, petty, paltry cackle 
about matters that should never have been talked of. 
They have in point of fact taken the place of every- 
thing else almost, in common talk. I have only space 
left to say that you must not think of tiring your- 
self with holding that pen which weighs so much in 
your hand, even to acknowledge this letter. I hear 
you have been improving, though rather slowly, and 
I shall hope to hear that you keep on so until you 
are well enough to come back and rejoice all our 
hearts. 212 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
December 21, 1874. 
My dear Motley, - I could hardly make up my 
mind to write until I had something cheerful and 
pleasant to say, for I knew that the great trouble of 
your brother Edward's family would sadden every- 
thing I should say until you had had time, and all of 
us had, to turn the leaf on which that sorrow was 
written. 
Now, then, that we have another little S boy 
next door but one to us, now that we have just had 
a most agreeable reminder of you all in the shape of 
an English visitor, I feel as if I could write a Christ- 
mas letter with something of life in it. . . . As for 
the beauty of apple - dumplings and plum - puddings 
and babies' faces, that is a matter I do not go into so 
confidently; but I think this is a very good-looking 
baby. . . . 
Mr. A W , to whom you gave a letter to 
me, proves to be a very nice young fellow. There is 
something very pleasing, ingenuous, natural, fresh, 
and unspoiled about him which pleases us all very 
much. He came to dine with us once, and made 
himself very agreeable - quite different from any 
Englishman I have seen for a good while, but having 
a quality 1 have recognized ever since my student-days 
in Paris belonging to some young Englishmen and 
almost never found in Americans. It is a certain 
delightful childlike element - not the emotional mo- 
bility of many continental people - not that of Agas- 
siz, for instance, who laughed and cried like a three- 
year-old boy, and gave one such a hug as a father 
gives his baby - a child its father, I should have said, 
- but a kind of simplicity, I had almost said inno- 
cence, that is almost never seen in our hard-featured TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
213 
Yankees. Mr. W talked very agreeably, but he 
had some curious theological ideas which he brought 
forward with the best possible good-nature and ease, 
- about the fulfilment of Hebrew prophecies and the 
Scarlet Lady, and the coming grand consummation 
of all things, - queer ideas of one kind and another, 
which I suppose he grew up with in one of those quiet 
English homes sweet with the sanctities of extinct 
beliefs as the tombs of dead Pharaohs with the 
balsams of ancient forests. Well, we liked Mr. 
A W , who has been here two or three times 
since he dined with us, and pleased us even more than 
at first. ... I had a very agreeable talk with an old 
friend of yours at the Club the other day - Lord 
Dufferin - whom I sat next to and found a good 
person to have as a dinner-table neighbor. I am fond 
of those brief prandial intimacies with the better sort 
of people, used to society, maniable, malleable, plastic, 
receptive, " simpatico " (choose your adjective - the 
last is your own) on the one hand, and suggestive and 
communicative on the other. I am afraid the M. P. 
is, as a general thing, better company than the M. C., 
who calls one " Sir " when he addresses him, and 
scorns any form of adjective below its superlative. 
My English visitants, at any rate, and most, not all, 
of those I have met at the Club, have been lighter in 
hand than my own average beloved countrymen. I 
always tell you about the Club, but I have nothing 
special to say about it now, that I can think of. I 
dined with our country's friend, Mr. Forster, at Mr. 
Adams's a fortnight or thereabouts ago. I could not 
do much with him, and I did not try to, for he - as 
Mrs. Adams told me [he] was- seemed more like an 
uncouth, strong-bodied, strong-minded American than 214 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
like my typical Englishman. I think it very likely 
that Judge Hoar, who sat next him at table, got on 
with him well enough - there is something of the 
plain Saxon in both of them, which each would soon 
find out. . . . 
I have another little matter to mention, which re- 
lates to you personally. Last Tuesday evening the 
present publishers of The Atlantic, Messrs. Houghton 
& Co., gave a very handsome dinner at Parker's to 
the contributors, etc., to the magazine. Emerson was 
not there, nor Longfellow, whose oldest son is ill with 
pneumonia, nor Lowell, whose wife's sister is very ill. 
But it was a pleasant gathering, though the DU mino- 
rum gentium were the chief part of the company. I 
was asked, among other things, to speak of the dead 
and absent contributors. When I came to your name, 
and alluded to the way in which you had been treated 
by the government, the response was so universal and 
energetic that it showed the very strong feeling for 
you entertained by the assemblage, and would have 
done your heart good to hear. . . . Wishing you all 
a happy Christmas, I am with all kind remembrances, 
Faithfully yours. 
April 18, 1875. 
My dear Motley, - I read your letter with feel- 
ings I could not restrain - how could I read such a 
letter unmoved ? I feel too strongly now, as when 
writing to you before, that there is nothing I can put 
down in words beyond a few imperfect expressions of 
tender sympathy and the assurance that you are con- 
stantly in my remembrance. Every word you say 
goes to my heart as to that of a friend who knows 215 
better than most can know what She was who was 
the life of your life. I keep picturing you to myself 
alone- in one sense alone in spite of dear compan- 
ionships - with your memories. Henceforth I know 
how largely, how intimately, you must live in these. 
If your own health is confirmed, as we all trust that 
it will be, I cannot help hoping that the poignancy 
of grief will, by the kindly and at last perhaps cheer- 
ing influences that surround you, soften gradually into 
a sweet remembrance of the many happy years that 
have gone before. But I dare not attempt to console 
a grief like yours. It must have its own way, and 
hush itself to the repose of exhaustion - " lie down 
like a tired child," as Shelley says in those sad and 
beautiful lines written near Naples. 
If you were here I might sit by you in silence, just 
to give you the feeling that some one was with you in 
the shadow for a moment. I should listen to you, 
and you would not fear to speak freely with me from 
the fulness of your heart, for you know how every 
word would fall upon my ear. I feel now as if all I 
could do would be to listen, but no doubt after a little 
time we could exchange many thoughts and feelings 
and recollections, which it might not be ungrateful to 
you to give an hour to from time to time. 
I speak as if I were claiming more share in your 
sorrow than perhaps I ought to - for I remember 
that there are those who will come very near to you in 
their affectionate intercourse, and I hope that their 
presence will prove soothing and comforting to your 
wounded spirit. Something, too, I hope from change 
of climate and of scene, if you find yourself at all 
equal to the voyage, as I trust you may. If you 
should be at Nahant, during a part of the time at 
TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 216 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
least, I hope to be your neighbor and to see you fre- 
quently, if you should find it agreeable to have me 
visit you. ... You see why I do not trust myself to 
write more largely - so much can be said that it is 
hard to set down on paper. Take these few words 
kindly, with love and best wishes for you and all 
yours. My wife wishes me to add her little message 
of kindest remembrance. 
February 18, 1876. 
My dear Motley, - If I have not written for a 
long time, it is because my life has been so monoto- 
nous and mechanical that I had next to nothing to 
tell. The pendulum in my old hall clock can hardly 
move more regularly and rigidly back and forward 
than I do to and from the college, where for seven 
months I am a plodding lecturer. I do not complain 
of this, - if I could get a salary of twenty or thirty 
thousand dollars for it - or such a one as some of our 
factory agents get for losing our money for us - I 
could almost be content to lecture until I came to the 
last of the seven ages, if I held out so long. But ex- 
cept that I am galvanized by a dinner-party, now and 
then, or meet an old .friend and call up spirits from 
the vasty deep, my life is almost void of incident 
beyond its every-day routine. I have nobody to visit, 
as I could visit you last summer, - nobody to talk 
with, as I could with you, and am not like to have 
until you come back, as I trust you will one of these 
days. One friend I do indeed go to see weekly,- 
Dr. Edward Clarke, who is confined mostly to his bed 
by a disease of the intestines, with regard to which 
very grave fears are entertained. It is very hard for 
a man like him, unquestionably at the head of his 217 
profession in Boston, in the full tide of business, to 
be chained as it would be thought cruel to chain a 
felon, and tortured, from time to time, with wearing 
pains. I do not know whether it is the recollection 
of the many hours I passed with you, so full of the 
deepest and tenderest interest to me, and in which I 
could not help feeling and knowing that my sympathy, 
at least, made me a welcome visitor, - I do not know, 
I say, whether it is that which has given me the feel- 
ing which has come over me, that " it is better to go 
to the house of mourning than to the house of feast- 
ing," and that " sorrow is better than laughter." We 
never know each other until we have come together 
in the hour of trial. I have said many things to you 
that I could not write, and I hardly expect to have 
such intimate confidences with any other friend under 
any circumstances; but I have learned that I can at 
least do something to lighten the weary hours of suf- 
fering, sometimes by a pleasant look, or a lively half- 
hour's talk about the outside world, but far better 
than that, at the proper moment leaving all these 
lesser thoughts, and going down into those depths of 
consciousness where all of us bury out of sight our 
hopes, our fears, our memories, our dreams, - that 
pale and shadowy world of ours, into which it is the 
supreme privilege of friendship to be admitted. No, 
- not pale or shadowy to men of strong natures and 
quick sensibilities. The world of imagination and 
recollection, which makes the past like the present, 
never seemed so real to me as it [did] during the 
period of my frequent companionship with you last 
summer. I cannot tell you all that I feel I owe to 
you for making life more real, more sincere, more pro- 
found in its significance, during those hours I spent 
TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 218 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
with you. To be told, as I have been, that they were 
comforting to you is a great happiness to me. . . . 
The Centennial people are worrying my life out of 
me, almost. The number of letters I have had to 
answer, declining to do this and that, of late, seems to 
me enormous - is really considerable. 
Any time when one of your daughters writes, will 
you ask her to add, in a postscript, that you got my 
letter of February 18th - this present letter. That is 
all - I wish to make sure you got it. 
May 8, 1876. 
My dear Motley, - I am most devoutly thank- 
ful that my seven months' lectures are at last over, 
and I am gradually beginning to come to myself, like 
one awakening from a trance or a fit of intoxication. 
You know that the steady tramp of a regiment would 
rock the Menai bridge from its fastenings, and so all 
military bodies break their step in crossing it. This 
reiteration of lectures in even march, month after 
month, produces some such oscillations in one's mind, 
and he longs, after a certain time, to break up their 
uniformity. If they kept on long enough, Harvard 
would move over to Somerville. 
Your letter of 26th March gave me great pleasure. 
It relieved me from the fear that you were condemned 
to the disease of your eyes, which had seemed to me, 
under the circumstances, a trial too hard to think of. 
I am rejoiced to find that you can read, even though 
you have to use glasses (as I have had to do these 
sixteen years). I was pleased, too, to find that you 
were even thinking of a little possible work for the 
summer. If it is in place of another visit to America TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
219 
- Boston - Nahant - home - I should personally 
regret it more than I can tell you, for I count the 
hours I passed with you last summer among the 
sweetest, the holiest, the dearest, and in one sense 
the happiest, of all my social life. It seems strange 
to speak of their happiness, when I saw you so often 
with all the freshness of grief coming over you. But 
those are the hours when friendship means the most,- 
when we feel that we come nearer than at any other 
time to our intimates, and the sense that we are per- 
haps lightening another's burden makes even the com- 
monest intercourse a source of satisfaction. Besides 
this you must not forget that you, whose presence, 
from your natural gifts, was always so peculiarly 
agreeable to me, have known the world in such a way 
that your conversation cannot help being interesting 
to one who has lived so purely provincial a life as I 
have. So when your sorrow came over you, my heart 
was for the time full of it, and when you, for a little 
while, were beguiled into forgetfulness, and talked 
with the life of earlier times, I was sure of being 
pleased with hearing a hundred things nobody else 
could tell me. I have told you, and I must tell you 
again and again, that my life has run in a deeper 
channel since the hours I spent in your society last 
summer. They come back to me from time to time, 
like visitations from another and higher sphere. No, 
-- I never felt the depths and the heights of sorrow so 
before, and I count it as a rare privilege that I could 
be with you so often at one of those periods when the 
sharpest impressions are taken from the seal of 
friendship. 
You would miss one of your old friends, if you were 
to revisit Nahant this summer. I was visiting my 220 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
poor friend Dr. Clarke, eight or ten days ago, when 
he said to me, "Dr. 's father is dead." "Dr. 
's father " was our old friend . Whether 
he left any intimates outside of his family to mourn 
for him I do not know. H I said he should 
miss him much. I had a certain pleasure in contact 
with his hard, recalcitrant intelligence. His mind 
grew tough and knobby, like an oak that did not know 
how to stretch up and spread out kindly, broadly, 
straight-grained. I asked your dear Mary once why 
T D was not more of a general favorite, 
having so many things to recommend him, and I have 
always thought her answer, that it was because he 
had no abandon, was the truth of the matter. I hope 
his better qualities - for he had sterling ones - will 
germinate in the heavenly latitudes like those grains of 
Egyptian wheat which were buried with the Pharaohs 
and bear their fruit for the Khedive. 
You may be sure that I copied every word you said 
about Dana and sent it to him. He was greatly 
pleased with your remembrance, and with what you 
had said. Dick stands it well - in fact it made quite 
a great man of him. He has gone off at the head of 
our delegation, and makes a fine figure in his halo of 
martyrdom. 
I am glad you breathed a little life into my waning 
patriotism. I have got so sickened with this tearing 
down of political caterpillars' nests that if I did not 
know that there are worse social contrivances, and that 
this is a more or less wicked world wherever one goes, 
I should be in danger of becoming half a traitor to 
the theory of self-government. Corruption, incendi- 
arism, and child-murder and torture have been the 
staple of our newspapers since the Brooklyn scandal TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 
221 
has ceased to darken the horizon for a while. This 
morning we had a great dynamite explosion at Jersey 
City, close to New York. That is the Devil's last in- 
vention, and I have a shuddering fear, which I keep 
to myself, that it is to be*-with the torch - the 
great ally of communism. But we grow timid as we 
grow older, and the young generation is not to be 
scared with our bugbears. 
We have had three new Boston books, since I have 
written, I think. Ticknor's Life, and Letters, emi- 
nently readable, much sought for; a new life of Hamil- 
ton by my wife's nephew, J. T. Morse, Jr.; and within 
a few days Tom Appleton's Nile Journal, which I 
find very pleasant and lively, much more like his talk 
than the other little book. I dined with Longfellow 
at Mr. Fields's the other evening. He seemed pretty 
well, but still complains somewhat. Lowell was at 
my house the other day - he has been complaining, 
but is now better. 
Do not forget my kind remembrances to your chil- 
dren. My wife will not let me close this letter with- 
out her postscript of kind remembrance. 
March 14, 1877. 
My dear Motley, - I should have acknowledged 
and thanked you for your letter of the 30th of Janu- 
ary but for many unusual distractions. I cannot and 
I need not tell you what singular enjoyment I had 
in reading that letter. It is too good a letter - too 
striking a one, for any particulier to receive and ap- 
propriate. The account of your daughter's wedding 
was like a passage from a stately drama. It was - 
is, I ought to say - enough to thrill any American 222 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
to his marrow to read of those whom he has known so 
long and well among the common scenes of our not 
over-poetical existence enacting one of the great scenes 
of this mortal life in the midst of such shadows, tread- 
ing over such dust, in an atmosphere of historic im- 
mortality. I lived the scene all over, and I do 
sincerely pity the New England Major or the Western 
Congressman who has not enough of imagination and 
reverence for the past to be kindled into something 
like poetical enthusiasm, as much as Johnson would 
pity the man whose patriotism did not grow strong at 
Marathon, or whose piety did not warm among the 
ruins of Iona. Oh, this shallow soil of memory, on 
which we live ! We scratch it, and we find - what ? 
the Indian's shell-heaps and stone arrow-heads, over- 
laid by a couple of centuries of half-starved civilization. 
Don't be disgusted and outraged, as a patriotic Ameri- 
can. I am patriotic and provincial to my fingers' 
ends, - but I do sometimes feel that, aesthetically 
speaking, America is after all a penal colony. It 
would be worth a year of my life (if I had a good 
many to spare one from) to walk once more under 
the high, groined arches of Westminster Abbey. I 
never expect to see England or Europe again, but it 
is something to say I have lived and looked upon 
Alps, cathedrals, and the greatest works of the great- 
est artists. . . . IV. TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
November 17, 1867. 
My dear Mrs. Stowe, - I cannot thank you too 
heartily for your very kind and frank letter. Do you 
know how much I value youi' opinion, and your good 
opinion ? I will answer my question and say that you 
do not, and cannot, know; for it is not only in virtue 
of natural gifts that it means so much to me, but 
because you have had some of those experiences which 
perhaps too often betray themselves in my writings, 
that I always feel that you understand as very few 
can. 
Your kind womanly words affect me more grate- 
fully perhaps on account of the stinging phrases 
which have been made for me by a writer in The 
Nation, whose aim from the first seems to have been 
to wound if possible, to injure at any rate. I suppose 
I know who he is, and only wonder how he came to 
take me for his soiiffre-douleur ; but I suppose he must 
have somebody to show his smartness on, and I may 
have directly or indirectly offended him. I would 
give five cents to know how, for his accidental posi- 
tion enables him to reach many of my friends. He 
has done his best to anticipate my story, to cheapen 
me, and make me of no account, - and if I cannot 
endure it I deserve it all. 
But, my dear lady, I listen to all you say with such 
confidence in your tenderness, your truthfulness, your 
judgment, that I have hardly any word to reply, ex- 224 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
cept to thank you with all my heart for the interest 
you show in me and what I write. 
Yes, I must say one or two things. First, I have 
no doubt that I show the effects of a training often at 
variance with all my human instincts, - not so much 
from the lips of my dear parents, in both of whom 
nature never allowed " Grace " to lead them to any 
inhuman conclusions, - but from outside influences, 
against which my immature intelligence had to protest, 
with more or less injury to its balance, very probably, 
always after. I suppose all I write may show some- 
thing of this, as the lame child limps at every step, as 
the crooked back shows through every garment. My 
nature is not embittered against my fellow-creatures 
- on the contrary, I find it hard to hate those who 
entreat me despitefully - for any length of time, cer- 
tainly. But I am subject to strong fits of antagonism 
whenever I come across that spirit of unbelief in God 
and strong faith in the Devil which seems to me not 
extinct among us. I know this will keep repeating 
itself in my writings. Some say it is wicked, for 
[that] it is true that there is to be a great atheistic 
world over which the Devil is to rule forever, and 
where mankind (a few people who understood " the 
scheme " - see N. Adams's sermon on Choate - ex- 
cepted) are to live always hereafter. Some say it is 
foolish, for these notions are obsolete. But, wicked or 
foolish, that is my limp. The wound heals, the scar 
is left. But do you know (how much it means !) even 
scars tend to grow less and less with the lapse of 
time ? So I think the stain of my boyhood may wear 
off in some degree by intercourse with sweet and 
straight and wholesome natures, whose nurses never 
let them fall, as they are wont to say of the poor 
hunchbacks. TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
225 
I bow meekly to all your criticisms except the 
Dante paragraph. I believe I did not go to one of 
the " Inferno " seances, one or two of " Purgatorio," 
the others all " Paradiso." How often I have said, 
talking with Lowell, almost the same things you say 
about the hideousness, the savagery, of that mediae- 
val nightmare ! Theodore of Abyssinia ought to sleep 
with it under his pillow, as Alexander slept with the 
Iliad. You cannot use too strong language. What 
could be expected of a Christianity that has filtered 
through such a mass of cruel and wicked human con- 
ceptions, but the barbarisms which hanged our grand- 
mothers in 1692, and which to-day-? 
Just where I made that mark my son came in with 
a message from Mrs. Gibbons (Mr. Hopper's daugh- 
ter, the Quaker, you know her), thanking me espe- 
cially for my story, most particularly for Rev. J. B. S., 
and offering her testimony to the truthfulness of the 
character. Pardon me the freedom of this letter, - 
you have a master-key that opens so many hearts ! 
Don't think that I do not love dear old Dr. Watts 
with his tender songs that lulled me when I was a 
baby (how exquisite that " Peace, my darling, here's 
no danger! "), and will mingle I doubt not with my 
last wandering thoughts. But how utterly good men 
and women have sometimes lost their human bearings 
on that cold and cruel sea, the floor of which is strewed 
with dead theologies 1 
vol. n. 226 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
May 29, 1869. 
My dear Mrs. Stowe, - 
They plunge a chronometer into a steam-boiler and 
an ice-chest, they turn it this way and that way, and 
in time they get its balance-wheel to run true in alJ 
temperatures and positions. I think one of your un- 
counted experiences I have shared with you. I have 
been in the doctrinal boiler at Andover, and the ra- 
tional ice-chest at Cambridge. I have been hung with 
my head downwards, from the hook of a theological 
dogma, and set on my feet again by the hand of unin- 
spired common-sense. - I have found myself like a 
nursery-tree, growing up with labels of this and that 
article of faith wired to my limbs. The labels have 
dropped off, but the wires are only buried in my flesh, 
which has grown over them. The curse of ages of 
incompetent, nay, inhuman thinking, filtered through 
the brains of holy men and the blood of tender-hearted 
women, but still acting like a poison to minds of a cer- 
tain quality and temper, fell upon me when only the 
most thoroughly human influences should have helped 
me to bud and flower. 1 do not say you have been 
through all this, - I do not want you to say you have, 
- you are my confessor, but I am not yours, except 
so far as with all the world I listen to your voluntary 
revelations and guess the history that lies beneath 
them. 
Yet, I say we have had some experiences in com- 
mon, and however imperfectly I express myself by 
word or by letter, now or at any time, there are mental 
and emotional states which you can understand as none 
can do who have not been through the chronometer 
experience. TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
227 
I am getting tired of words, - which makes me 
feel sure there must be a future in which states or 
conditions will be immediately, intuitively, communi- 
cable. Indeed, is there not something like it now? 
When I write to you, I know I shall not say what I 
want to; but I shall signify it, and I shall not take 
the trouble to look over what I said, just as it came, 
trusting to your interpretation. 
What higher compliment can I pay to the story 
that has so profoundly interested Mrs. Holmes and 
myself, than by throwing open the folding-doors of 
my heart in this careless way to you, as I am doing ■ 
It is your own fault. You have yourself become an 
intimate through these fictitious realities you have 
made a part of our consciousness. It is no longer a 
question of exact agreement in this or that belief. I 
may not accept next year the article of faith which I 
hold to-day. My belief in health may be one thing, 
and in sickness another; in one mood I may be all 
belief and trust, in another, all doubt and despond- 
ency, - I say, may be, - not that I am much given 
to these alternations. But I know that you will re- 
main always thoroughly and entirely womanly, chari- 
table, hopeful; and what a preacher you have been 
and are of the real good tidings which have been 
so often misinterpreted! 
I read your story not only for its narrative, its 
characters, and its thought, but with my critical eye 
open, and noticed a point or two which may possibly 
be worth looking at. 
Your books, being immortal, must be purged from 
every earthly stain. So you will pardon my minute 
criticisms. 228 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
With the warmest thanks from Mrs. Holmes and 
myself, to both of whom you have endeared yourself 
by your noble writings, 
I am always your friend. 
September 25, I860. 
My dear Mrs. Stowe, - I have been meaning 
to write to you for some time, but in the midst of all 
the wild and irrelevant talk about the article in The 
Atlantic, I felt as if there was little to say until the 
first fury of the storm had blown over. I think we 
all perceive now that the battle is not to be fought 
here, but in England. I have listened to a good 
deal of talk, always taking your side in a quiet way, 
backed very heartily on one occasion by Mr. Henry 
James, Senior, - reading all that came in my way, 
and watching the course of opinion. And first it was 
to be expected that the Guiccioli [family?], and the 
model-artists, and the cancan dancers would resent 
any attack on Lord Byron, and would highly relish 
the opportunity of abusing one who, like [you], had 
long been identified with all those moral enterprises 
which, by elevating the standard of humanity at large 
and of womanhood in particular, tend to render their 
callings unprofitable and their tastes unpopular. 
After this scum had worked itself off, must almost 
necessarily follow a controversy, more or less sharp 
and bitter, but not depending essentially on abuse. 
The first point the recusants got hold of was the error 
of the two years, which contrived to run the gauntlet 
of so many pairs of eyes. Some of them were made 
happy by mouthing and shaking this between their 
teeth, as a poodle tears round with a glove. This did 229 
not last long, - no sensible person could believe for a 
moment you were mistaken in the essential character 
of a statement, every word of which would fall on the 
ear of a listening friend like a drop of melted lead, 
and burn its scar deep into the memory. That Lady 
Byron believed, and told you, the story will not be 
questioned by any but fools and malignants. Whether 
her belief was well founded, there may be positive evi- 
dence in existence to show affirmatively. The fact 
that her statement is not peremptorily contradicted 
by those most likely to be acquainted with the facts 
of the case is the one result, so far, which is forcing 
itself into unwilling recognition. I have seen nothing 
in the various hypotheses brought forward which did 
not to me involve a greater improbability than the 
presumption of guilt. Take that, for instance, that 
Byron accused himself, through a spirit of perverse 
vanity, of crimes he had not committed. How pre- 
posterous [that] he would stain the name of a sister 
whom, on the supposition of his innocence, he loved 
with angelic ardor as well as purity, by associating it 
with such an infandous accusation ! 
Suppose there are some anomalies hard to explain 
in Lady Byron's conduct; could a young and guileless 
Woman, in the hands of such a man, be expected to 
act in any given way, or would she not be like to 
waver, to doubt, to hope, to contradict herself in the 
anomalous position in which, without experience, she 
found herself ? As to the intrinsic evidence contained 
in the poem, I think it confirms rather than contra- 
dicts the hypotheses of guilt. I do not think that 
Butler's argument, and all the other attempts at in- 
validation of the story, avail much in the face of the 
acknowledged fact that it was told to various compe- 
TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 230 
tent and honest witnesses, and remains without a satis- 
factory answer from those most interested. 
I know your firm self-reliance and your courage to 
proclaim the truth, when any good end is to be served 
by it. It is to be expected that public opinion will 
be more or less divided as to the expediency of this 
revelation. There is one argument which will come 
forward more and more as tempers cool down; 
namely, that the true character of a man, who has 
diabolized the literature of his century and hung his 
pure and injured wife in chains to dangle before all 
the unborn ribalds of coming generations, ought to be 
known in his true character to posterity. 
Hoping that you have recovered from your indis- 
position, 
Faithfully yours. 
September 25, 1871. 
My dear Mrs. Stowe, - I occupied a great part 
of my Sunday (yesterday) in reading your story, 
which I had just received with the author's compli- 
ments. Let me thank you first for the book, and 
secondly for the great pleasure I have had from it. 
Would you believe that to this day I do not read 
novels on Sunday, at least until " after sundown " ? 
And this not as a matter of duty or religion, - for I 
hold the sabbatical view of the first day of the week 
as a pious fraud of the most transparent description, 
- but as a tribute to the holy superstitions of more 
innocent years, before I began to ask my dear good 
father those enfant terrible questions which were so 
much harder to answer than anything he found in 
St. Cyprian and Turretin and the other old books I 
knew the smell of so well, and can see now, standing 
in their old places. 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
231 
Well, I cannot feel as if I were wicked to read one 
of your books, no matter what, on a Sunday. Be- 
sides, you promised this was not to be a novel, in your 
preface. To be honest, that was the last page of the 
book I read, but on general principles I should read 
anything of yours, a farce even, if you should write 
one, " between meetings," - (not that I go afternoons, 
but I do go mornings). 
Who knows the New England man and woman as 
you do? Who writes to their needs and to their 
hearts as you have written and write ? You have 
belief enough for the Christian world, and charity 
enough for that great and growing class who await 
the future with their hands folded on their breasts 
and their lips closed, caught as they are at the turn- 
ing of the tide, when many old beliefs are impossible 
and the new faith is but half formed. 
This new story of yours is very keen - some will 
say cruelly sharp, perhaps - but I am afraid it tells 
the truth. I think we had more than one " Lillie 
Ellis " even among those " who, born in Boston, need 
no second birth." I got to hate her so, I wished she 
would die, and thought she would, and that John 
would marry Rose ; but you have a woman's heart and 
could not give up the poor sinner. 
Do you know that when I see the tenderness of 
you sweet kind women, I can understand Theodore 
Parker's insisting on the maternal element in the 
Divine Being? I think the most encouraging hint 
with reference to the future of these helpless infants, 
whom we call men and women, is that He who made 
the heart of a mother would find it hard to quite give 
up a child. You see, now, I should have smitten 
Lillie and her offspring and have done with the bad 
lot. You women are all Universalists. 232 
I will tell you here what I was told the other day 
of my own dearest mother - wife of the Reverend, 
etc., member of a good Orthodox church, who taught 
me the Assembly's Catechism : " Well, Mary [to an 
old friend and servant], I don't know but I am as 
good an Universalist as any of you." This is only 
for you, - I never told it before. 
There is nothing in this note I have not said to you 
before about the hold you have on my feelings - 
most peculiar and exceptional, really perhaps shared 
to the same extent in the same way by no other per- 
son. I read all your books with tears in my eyes. 
" She, too, is the New England elm with the iron 
band welded round it when it was a sapling! But 
how she has grown in spite of it! " 
March 31,1872. 
My dear Mrs. Stowe, - 
Well, I have myself comforted a good many people 
in my time. I have not been a great moral reformer, 
like yourself. My readers have been units where yours 
have been hundreds if not thousands. But I have 
stuck by humanity after my poor fashion, and have 
been told by a great many people in a great many 
places that they were better and happier for my hav- 
ing lived. That helps me to bear the hard words, 
which may be as necessary to help us digest our moral 
food as stones and gravel are to some birds with their 
other nourishment. 
Lastly, I thank you for your frank criticism and 
advice, against which - for a wonder, now, is n't 
it ? - I have not a single word of any kind to say, 
either of denial, or of justification, or of palliation. 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
233 
I don't doubt you are quite right, and that I have 
fallen too much into the way of thinking and feeling 
which you so fairly called my attention to as partial 
and one-sided, and becoming false in virtue of new 
conditions. I shall not forget your criticisms. I 
have my doubts, as I look at what I have written, 
whether I should have offended you in the sequel of 
my story, if story you can call it, even if you had 
not written ; but I am very thankful to you for your 
delicate and sufficiently distinct hint. 
I wonder how you can write so much as you do. I 
don't know how it would be if I had not something 
more than a hundred lectures to give every year; but 
I often feel ashamed when I see what others can ac- 
complish. Bigger brains, and more blood in them, 
I suspect. Anything but utter self-condemnation, 
organization, old age, stupidity. What a blessing if 
one could be told in the next world: " Mortal, you 
thought you had five talents; you had but one, my 
poor child I " But what an immense capacity for 
work there is in your family! I believe you could 
have run Noah's ark - which must have been a hard 
hotel to keep - among you. Pardon me for my 
vivacity - of a Sunday, too ! - but I have been to 
" meeting." 
February 19, 1875. 
My dear Mrs. Stowe, - " Better late than 
never," say you. " Better half a loaf than no bread," 
said I, when I got the first instalment of your most 
welcome letter. By and by came the other half, - as 
I felt sure it would, and so possessed my soul in 
patience. In the mean time, it was not very hard to 
guess whence it came, for I had the handwriting to 234 
guide me, and I out with my little pocket-lens, and 
identified yourself and Dr. Stowe in less than no 
time. The photograph was pasted over the name of 
the place and the date, but I managed just now to get 
the corners up, and found that the letter was dated 
January 26th. 
It gave me real pleasure. It is so hard to make it 
palpable to one's self that he is remembered by any who 
have lost sight of him for any time, and especially that 
any words one has written have still a value! I have 
been losing so many friends lately that I prize more 
and more every day the tokens of kind feelings from 
those who are left. Agassiz, with whom I have been so 
long intimate, Sumner, of whom I have seen a good deal 
in these last years, Wyman, whom I greatly delighted 
in, though I did not meet him very often, and recently 
my dear and early friend, Mrs. Lothrop Motley, - 
these losses have sadly impoverished my outer life. 
You are of a far more expansive nature than I am, 
I suspect, and can make new friends more easily 
than I do. Women glide into each other's confidence 
and assimilate to each other, I think, more easily than 
men, a great deal. Men are out-of-door and office 
animals; women are indoor creatures essentially, and 
so come together more naturally and entirely than 
their husbands and others of the male sort. I make 
a new acquaintance not rarely, but as for new friends 
in the full sense of the word, after a certain age it 
seems almost like these stories one reads of octogena- 
rians cutting a third set of teeth, and I hardly think 
of such a thing. 
After all, if a man will look into the circumstances 
that make him what he is, or help to, he will be able 
to account for himself much more nearly than he 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
235 
might at first have thought possible. You think I 
am wedded to the pavement. True, but I am also 
passionately fond of the country, only I am so liable 
to suffer from asthma when I get off the brick side- 
walk that I am virtually imprisoned, except when I 
can arrange my conditions in the most favorable way, 
in a place that happens to agree with me; and of the 
various places where I have been of late years in 
summer - Newport, Nahant, Princeton, only one, Mr. 
Brewer's house at Newport, has agreed with me. So 
about visiting: I find that a cold draught of air, a 
late supper, bad air, and perhaps I might add any- 
thing of any kind that fatigues - say rather bores me, 
sets me all wrong, and wastes health and spirits for 
nothing. Few people enjoy better health than I do 
just so long as I am let alone and regulate my own 
habits; but when others want me to wear their shoes, 
how they do chafe and pinch! I think, if I am unso- 
cial, it is quite as much by constitution as it is by 
any want of the social instinct, and I have learned 
to judge others very charitably in the study of my 
own weakness. 
One pleasure I have enjoyed largely, not nearly - 
not a tenth part - as largely as you must have enjoyed 
it - but still more than I ever expected to. It is the 
words of commendation, of confidence, of affection 
and gratitude even, that I receive from many whom I 
have never seen and never expect to see. I did not 
mean to speak of your letter in this connection, but 
do let me say how it touched me to think of my poor 
dead Elsie living her shadowy life over again in your 
consciousness. I have received some very interesting 
letters lately from young persons, men and women, 
single and married, in this country and in England, 236 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
that spoke out so naturally and simply what was in 
their hearts, that I felt so pleased and so humble - 
for what humbles one like the praise which makes 
him think what he might perhaps have been and 
done ? at any rate, what others have been and done 
- that I loved myself for my humility, until all at 
once I found I was getting vain beyond endurance on 
the strength' of it. I think we could compare many 
experiences of correspondence with unknown friends. 
I feel as if you must have been the depositary of an 
infinite number of confidences, and even I myself have 
had so many that I have been amazed, and almost 
overwhelmed sometimes, at finding what a web of fine 
filaments I had spun from my thinking glands, that 
radiated all round me like the spokes of a spider's 
wheel. 
Some of these correspondents have literary aspira- 
tions, and these very soon betray themselves, generally 
before they get to the fatal postscript informing you 
that they have a manuscript novel, or that they wish 
to send you some unpublished poem - lucky if they 
do not enclose a few specimens! Some have troubles, 
and want sympathy; some have perplexities, and 
want advice ; some ask strange questions about their 
love-affairs (as, May I marry an own cousin? etc.). 
Some have religious doubts and questions. Some 
have the oddest requests. I answered one this week 
from Texas from a young lady who wanted to come 
North and defray her expenses by selling mocking- 
birds and other cage-birds. Many - poor things I -• 
want to get money for translations or literary work 
of some kind for the magazines. But of late my let- 
ters have been mostly simple expressions of interest 
in various writings of mine, especially the Breakfast- TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
237 
Table Series. I always answer all of them, which 
shows that, after all, their number must be limited; 
but it takes a good deal of time, as it is. Nobody's 
autographs will, I think, be cheaper than mine, if 
anybody should ever want such, by and by, for I am 
very good-natured about sending them even to the 
wretches that do not enclose a stamped envelope with 
the blank for my name. 
You are pleased to ask me two or three questions, 
which I am more pleased to answer. The " experi- 
ments at Greylock," about which you inquire, were 
not related to me by a Cambridge Professor, but 
by Professor Alonzo Clark, of New York, who was at 
Williams College close by the mountain, as you know. 
He it was who told me of the woman bringing the 
" rattlers " to him in her apron, which story you find 
transferred to my true narrative. As for the experi- 
ments of Dr. Hering at Surinam, I only remember 
vaguely some notice of them in one of the journals, 
but I am wholly unable at the present moment to give 
an exact reference to them. 
I have just written, to come out, probably, in the 
April Atlantic, a long article, which I want to call 
" Moral Automatism," and may call so, although taken 
strictly, the two words contradict each other. In this 
I notice at some [length] an extraordinary work pub- 
lished a few years ago, M. Prosper Despine's Psy- 
chologic Naturelle. You do not know what a favor 
you have just done me. For, taking down my story 
from the shelves to look out the points you refer to, I 
read the Doctor's letter in reply to Bernard Lang- 
don's inquiries, and I confess I was astonished to 
see how far I had anticipated the general aim of M. 
Despine's book, and in fact much that I have said 
in another form on the subject fifteen years ago. 238 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
The more I study the facts of life, the more I am 
convinced that the Oriental anthropology, which we 
have so long accepted, as we once did the Oriental 
cosmogony, does not correspond with the realities of 
human nature. I am contented still with my old 
image, which Dr. B 1 mildly attacked me for, if 
I remember right, of the drop of water in the crystal, 
as representing will imprisoned in personal conditions 
and outward circumstance; the farther removed I am 
from the possibility of entertaining for a moment the 
idea that Man is responsible for the disorders of the 
world in which he finds himself, the more I pity him 
for his suffering, the less I wonder at his " sin." 
This I suppose is an organic heresy running in my 
maternal blood, and driving my inherited Connecticut 
theology out of me at every pore. But it is a heresy 
which I believe will in due time supersede that con- 
fused system of half-beliefs, which calls itself Ortho- 
doxy, - a bird of sable aspect, which is constantly 
smoothing its oily plumage, but which has lost more 
feathers than it can spare of late years. (You will 
not mind this, will you? I think you have a very 
large heart for all honest confessions of faith.) . . . 
What sweet visions your Florida picture raises ; 
oh, had I the wings of a dove! Well, I enjoyed your 
letter almost like a visit. With kindest remem- 
brances to you all, 
I am always truly yours. 
March 3, 1876. 
My dear Mrs. Stowe, - How could you have 
given me greater pleasure than by asking me to copy 
the verses which I enclose ? I shall set this request 
by the side of a reminiscence very dear to me. A 
1 Apparently Bushnell. TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
239 
cousin of my wife - Miss Sally Gardiner, - older 
than myself, unmarried, fastidious, a lover of Emer- 
son's writings, a good and delicately organized woman, 
on whose gravestone I read " She loved much," once 
said to me or one of my friends that there was a poem 
of mine she often read the last thing at night, - as 
children say " Now I lay me." This was " The Cham- 
bered Nautilus." You have given me the one memory 
to store with that. How grateful we ought to be for 
our better moments, that lift infirmer natures, for the 
time at least, to the level of those whom they admire 
and reverence ! 
Your letters always touch me, but I hardly know 
how to answer them without following their own sug- 
gestions. And this last falls in remarkably with many 
of my own thoughts during the past year. Out of 
our Saturday Club we have lost Sumner and Howe. 
I paid my small tribute to both, - that to Howe will 
be in the April Atlantic. Last summer, as I may 
have told you, I was in daily relations for some weeks 
with Motley, who is still in the valley of the shadow 
of death, the death of one whose life was dearer to 
him than his own. He himself was in shattered and 
precarious health, and to be with him was to read 
very deep into the human soul in its sincerest reali- 
ties. What yearning there is in tender natures, knit- 
ted in with the life of others, often nobler and purer 
than themselves, for that unquestioning child-like be- 
lief which is so largely a divine gift, and for which 
many pray without ever reaching it! If God will 
make such good women as he does every day, he must 
not quarrel with his poor creatures for making too much 
of his earthly manifestations. The Catholics idealize 
and idolize a bambino, a virgin, a saint; and is not 240 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
a living fellow-creature, full of all that we conceive 
makes an angelic, one might say divine, character, 
more naturally and easily made an idol - eidolon - 
image, to a common imagination, than a stuffed doll, 
or a picture, or an abstraction ? Father, mother, wife, 
sister, daughter, - if these do not furnish me the ele- 
ments out of which I put together my poor limited 
working conception of the Divine, I know not where 
to look for them. It is not by a parcel of adjectives 
without nouns, multiplied by the sign of infinity, that 
I can get at the conception, for which I am to keep 
all my respect and affection. 
I have only stammered out in my own way what 
you have said in simpler phrase in your letter. All 
that you say of the Infinite love and pity is the very 
substance of such belief as I cherish in the midst of 
the doubts and difficulties around us, all which imper- 
atively demand new forms for that universal and 
undying sentiment, without which life is the pitiful 
melodrama which would make us ashamed of its au- 
thor for making anything above a vegetable, - any- 
thing with possibilities of suffering. To you, I sup- 
pose, sin is the mystery, - to me suffering is. I trust 
Love will prove the solution of both. At any rate 
no atomic philosophy can prevent my hoping that it 
will prove so. 
I have another friend, whom I visit weekly, struck 
down by chronic disease which threatens a fatal issue, 
and confined for many months to his bed. What ser- 
mons his bedside preaches ! Pity 1 I feel as if that 
would be all that would be left of me, if I live but 
a few years longer. Here is a man at the very head 
of his profession, Dr. [Edward H.] Clarke, in full 
business, trusted, looked up to, depended upon in an 
extraordinary degree, and all at once a most painful, TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
241 
mysterious, and threatening internal disease seizes 
upon him as the fox gnawed into the vitals of the 
Spartan boy. From the very height of active, useful, 
happy occupation, he is thrust into miserable inaction, 
imprisoned in his chamber, fettered to his bed, with 
nothing but paroxysms of bodily anguish to give vari- 
ety to his existence. Oh, if there were but one walk- 
ing our streets to-day, who could say to him, " Take 
up thy bed," and lift his infirmity from him with a 
look or a word I Perhaps he might lose a lesson he 
may yet learn the meaning of, - certainly I should 
lose a lesson which is good for me in many ways to 
learn. But it does seem very hard to see such a man, 
who has healed so many by his skill and soothed so 
many by his presence, tortured in this way by a disease 
as cruel as a ravenous beast, and that gives so much 
cause for fear of its issue. I ought to say that he takes 
it all very calmly and sweetly, and that my regular 
visit to him is one that I look forward to with much 
interest. I sometimes think I might almost have a 
vocation to visit the sick and suffering, were I self- 
denying enough, which I fear I am not. But I do 
have the satisfaction of knowing that I have done 
something of late to lighten the burden of others in 
their sorrow,-not much - very little compared with 
what hundreds of women are doing all the time. I 
go and sit now and then with Dr. [Jacob] Bigelow, 
Senior, now close upon ninety years old, stone-blind, 
utterly helpless, and bedridden. Would you believe 
it ? He is one of the most cheerful, lively, and seem- 
ingly happy, or at least serenely tranquil, persons I 
ever met. If all suffering and privation were borne 
as he and Dr. Clarke bear theirs, it would be easier to 
contemplate human existence. 
vol. n. 242 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Educational suffering I can to a certain extent un- 
derstand. But the great solid mass of daily anguish 
which the sun looks upon - and looks away from, as 
if he could not bear it, - antedating man, including 
everything that has a nerve in it, - that I can do 
nothing with. " Sin," or the failure of an imperfectly 
made and imperfectly guided being to keep a perfect 
law, seems to me to be given in the mere statement 
of the conditions of humanity, and could not be a sur- 
prise or a disappointment to a Creator with reasoning 
powers no greater than those of a human being of 
ordinary wisdom. But I must not weary, perhaps 
worry, you with my theological or anti-theological 
notions - say rather, convictions. Some time I may 
have the chance to talk about these with you. 
I wish I could take the wings of the morning and 
fly to the shade of your orange-trees, for a few hours at 
least. But I am a fowl that keeps his roost, and my 
wings are more like those of a penguin than of an eagle. 
Do you want me to send you any of my books ? If 
you do, and will tell me what you should like, 1 will 
get Osgood to forward copies of them to you. 
I am afraid of the great book you mentioned just 
now, for I am overrun with books I must read. 
Besides, I lecture steadily four times a week, and my 
correspondence, chiefly with people I do not know, 
has become very burdensome, - I suppose because I 
am too good-natured and give everybody advice, and 
thank everybody who says a pleasant word to me. 
You will read this letter charitably, I know; it is 
carelessly worded, and only hints many things I could 
talk better. I rarely have the patience to write so much 
as this, and it takes a woman to write a real letter. 
Remember me very kindly to Mr. Stowe. TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
243 
May 8,1876. 
Mt dear Mrs. Stowe, - An " autograph letter," 
just received, inquires of your whereabouts, which I 
have given as Hartford, where I hope this scanty 
scroll may find you. It is the third time your name 
has been on my inner lips, - those silent but never 
resting ones, - this morning. First, having got through 
my seven months' lectures, and a week of deferred 
urgencies which followed, I was thinking that I would 
write and ask about you and your husband, and so 
perhaps get another of your real letters, which always 
make me think more deeply and feel more warmly. 
Secondly, I was writing this morning to an unknown 
English correspondent, a lady, who has twice written 
me very interesting letters, not the commonplace ones 
of mere expressions of liking and all that, but serious, 
though most kindly questionings, whether I had not 
been sometimes too sharp in speaking of unmarried 
women, - all which I took to heart, as I hope I do 
every well-intended criticism, especially if I think 
it may be just. I told her, what is true, that I like 
to face the accusing angel. The accusing and fault- 
finding devil is another matter; but what is there we 
cannot bear if the spirit of love is in it? Thirdly, 
this " autograph letter," with its questions, has given 
the slight tap which has set me going with this little 
scrap of a letter. 
I feel like one awakening from a long trance, now 
that I have got through my lectures at the college. 
It seems as if it would take me some weeks to stretch 
my limbs and get them back to their natural supple- 
ness. I suppose I have lectured about long enough, 
- twenty-nine years here at our college, besides two 
years at Dartmouth. The young generation is on our 244 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
shoulders looking beyond our horizon. Fortunately 
for me, there has been no change in human anatomy 
since Adam lost the rib from his side, and somehow 
or other I always find a full dozen on both sides in 
his male descendants. But when I say there has been 
no change, I am thinking of the grosser facts which 
the unaided eye can detect. I have seen grow up, 
under my own view, a universe of the lesser world 
as wonderful as that which the telescope has revealed 
in the infinite spaces. What a quaint comment one 
might make on that expression of the Apostle's, " see- 
ing through a glass darkly ! " So we did fifty years 
ago, but since that we have put two pieces of glass 
together, - a piece of flint-glass and a piece of crown- 
glass, and now we see through our double glass 
clearly - how amazingly clearly I 
How could I have written so far without recurring 
to your letter of March 8th? It touched me very 
deeply when I read it, and it has troubled my eyes a 
good deal in re-reading. As for Sir Robert Grant's 
hymn, I agree with you that it is altogether lovely, 
and I feel greatly obliged to you for taking the 
trouble to make me acquainted with it, especially in 
your own handwriting. Let me at this time, instead 
of trying to answer your letter as it deserves, with the 
best I could find in the depths of my heart, thank you 
for all its sweet and strengthening influences, of which 
I could not say more than I feel. 
With kind remembrances to Mr. Stowe, 
Always faithfully yours. TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
245 
No date. 
At the end of this letter - and of every human life 
•- write in large capitals, as the merchants do at the 
foot of their accounts, - EE. [Note at the head of 
the letter, by the Doctor.] 
My dear Mrs. Stowe, - Here lie three, different 
letters begun in answer to your own, and left off as 
unsatisfactory, as leaving loopholes for new ques- 
tions, as failing to express that which I feel to be the 
root of the matter in my own convictions. I begin to 
doubt whether I can convey my thoughts in a letter 
as I could in conversation, - no, not in one conversa- 
tion, but in repeated talks, such as gradually shape 
out the conceptions and feelings of two friends, until 
they come to a perfect understanding at last of their 
bearings to each other in certain regions of thought. 
How well I know all the working and thinking for- 
mulae of this good companion of mine, from whom I 
have learned so much more than she is conscious of 
having ever taught me ! how well she knows all my 
mental movements, - how each of us can read life, as 
it looks to the other's eyes ! I am afraid it is impos- 
sible fully to present the intricate conditions of an 
inward life, our sense of the relations we sustain to 
the Infinite, except through the inflections of speech 
and those sudden surprises of our own thought, which 
the immediate contact of another intelligence so often 
forces upon us. 
I must try to say a few words, or I fear you would 
misinterpret my silence. 
My creed, as I said in my book of ten years ago, is 
to be found in the first two words of the Pater Noster. 
I know there is a great deal to shake it in the natural 246 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
order of things, but my faith is strong enough to stand 
against all the untowardness of the blind elements 
amidst which we are placed here, and out of which 
our earthly tabernacles are shaped. 
I see no corner of the Universe which the Father 
has wholly deserted. The forces of Nature bruise 
and wound our bodies, but an artery no sooner bleeds 
than the Divine hand is placed upon it to stay the 
flow. A wound is no sooner made than the healing 
process is set on foot. Pain reaches a certain point, 
and insensibility comes on, - for fainting is the nat- 
ural anodyne of curable griefs, as death is the remedy 
of those which are intolerable. 
Never, until the idea of a world without hope and 
without God - a world where wounds did not try to 
heal, where habit did not dull the sense of torture - 
was introduced among men by men, as you well know, 
was there any impossibility of recognizing the fatherly 
character of the Creator. If the Christian religion 
is in any degree responsible for this, you and I must 
change our natures before we can call it "good ti- 
dings." We cannot conceive of a Father's allowing 
so limited a being as his human child to utterly ruin 
himself. I see the perplexed condition (will you for- 
give me ?) into which this dogma has thrown your 
brother Edward, who had to shape a past destiny for 
the race to make it tolerable, and another brother of 
yours whose inward conflicts I suspect to have been 
more severe than most of those who know him would 
believe. I do not believe you or I can ever get the 
iron of Calvinism out of our souls, - but see a woman 
bred as this companion of mine was, by a gentle- 
hearted father to whom all such ideas were simply 
shocking, inadmissible on any legendary evidence, TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
247 
unworthy alike of God and man, and you will find in 
such a woman that the great obstacle to the belief 
in God as a father has never existed. To this utter 
rejection of a godless universe, which is to run par- 
allel forever with a happy world of dehumanized in- 
telligences, I believe the leading souls of this century 
are pointing the belief of our whole race. I say dehu- 
manized intelligences, for if there is anything human 
left about the spirits of just men made perfect and 
tender women turned to angels, they can never be 
quiet until they have got a drop of cold water to the 
tongue of Dives, and colonized those children who, 
according to our old friend Michael Wigglesworth, 
were assigned to " the easiest room in Hell." (How 
strange to think of! I knew here and in Paris a 
great-great-grandson of old Michael, yellow-haired, 
light-eyed, with the oddest of squints, whose face used 
to turn to a flame over the Burgundy, whose muscles 
were those of a prize-fighter, and whose worship of 
more than one of the heathen divinities in the days 
of his lusty youth was devout beyond all common 
measure. Peace to the dust of poor ! He lies 
for many a year under the green sod at Mount Au- 
burn. Long sickness sobered if it did not change 
him, and a saintly woman, herself struck with blind- 
ness, became his wife. But in what room of the Eter- 
nal Holy Inquisition Mansion would old Michael have 
placed his great-great-grandchild ?) (Old Michael's 
descendants are generally excellent people.) 
To me the Deity exists simply in his human rela- 
tions. He is a mere extension of what I know in 
humanity. So he must be to every human being, it 
seems to me; at least all communicable ideas of him, 
- all but the ineffable contemplations, which vision- 248 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
aries, as we call them, and some others, claim - are 
obviously human. For no term is applied to him 
which has not shaped itself out of human experience. 
What does " good " mean but what " Uncle Cook " 
who takes care of the poor children, and certain 
women I know, show me in their lives ? What does 
" Father " mean but somebody who is bound to take 
care of you in the exact ratio of his power and know- 
ledge to your weakness and ignorance, and who will 
do it, whether you know enough to understand all he 
does, or have sense enough to trust him implicitly, or 
not ? Every man makes his God, - the South-Sea 
islander makes him of wood, the Christian New Eng- 
lander of ideas. - " No! the Bible makes him I " But 
a thousand different Gods have been made out of the 
Bible ; you might as well say the quarry makes the 
temple. - Michael Wigglesworth made his frightful 
Deity out of the Bible. Cotton Mather made his, - 
and would have hanged my mother and yours to 
please him. The God of the Romanist and the God 
of the Quaker both are got out of the Bible. I have 
got just as far in my creed as I had ten years ago,- 
namely, as far as those first two words of the Pater 
Noster. There are difficulties, I know ; but it appears 
to me on the whole : - 
1. That the Deity must be as good as the best 
conscious being he makes. 
2. That it is more consonant with our ideas of what 
is best, to suppose that suffering, which is often obvi- 
ously disciplinary and benevolent in its aim, is to be 
temporary rather than eternal. 
3. That if the Deity expects the genuine love and 
respect of independent, thinking creatures, he must in 
the long run treat them as a good father would treat 
them. TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
249 
4. That to suppose this world a mere trap, baited 
with temptations of sense, which only Divine ingenuity 
could have imagined, with the certainty that the larger 
part of the race would fall into it, and that to the 
tortures of a very helpless, ignorant, ill-educated being 
is to be added the cruellest sting of all, that he brought 
it on himself, does not seem a probable course of action 
on the part of " Our Father." 
5. When I, as an erring mortal, am confronted with 
Infinite purity, it appears to me an absurdity to talk 
of judging me by that standard. 
God made the sun too strong for my eyes - but he 
took care to give me eyelids. He let the burning, all- 
devouring oxygen into my system, but he took care to 
dilute it with of nitrogen. 
And a fellow-creature tells me that after this world, 
where all these provisions are made, where all acci- 
dents are repaired, or attempted, at least, to be 
repaired, there is to be another, where there are eyes 
without lids, flame to breathe instead of air, wounds 
that never heal, and an army of experts in torture in 
the place of that ever-present God whom I used to call 
" My Father! " 
I only say it does not seem probable to me. Nehe- 
miah Adams seems to feel sure of it, - but, thank 
God, I can read history, and when I remember that 
to doubt the horrid legendary doctrines of witchcraft 
a century and a half ago was to be a' Sadducee, I must 
think that in a century and a half from now, I hope 
a good deal sooner, his writings, if read at all, will 
be read with the same feelings we entertain to the 
witchcraft ravings of Cotton Mather. 
6. Either my moral nature will remain human in 
another life, or it will be changed to something not 
human. 250 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Edwards and others have supposed it would b© 
changed to something not human, for they have 
thought one of the delights of the blessed would be 
to witness the just vengeance of the Almighty on 
their late friends and neighbors, - to say nothing of 
relatives. Why not a pleasure to accompany the 
Arch-tormentor himself on his clinical visits to the 
tormented ? Why not love lies instead of truth - 
hatred instead of love - devils instead of angels - if 
our human qualities are to belong to us no more after 
the great change ? I cannot accept this supposition. 
I am obliged to think that I shall love the same qual- 
ities in another state that I love in this. Can I love 
a father who lets me ruin myself ? 
What if I happen to love another as well as myself ? 
Can I love a being who lets that other ruin himself 
- (I mean go to everlasting torment) ? 
What if I happen to be so human that I love and 
pity all my race, and cannot be happy if they are to 
be writhing in agony forever, and nobody suffered to 
go near them to help or pity ? Can I love the being 
who has arranged the universe so that they shall come 
to this ? 
But I must love my Creator, for he is as kind as 
my father was, and as tender as my mother was. 
Otherwise he has made a creature better than himself, 
according to our human definition of better, - which 
is contrary to all reason, as it seems to me. How 
absurd to declaim against the lawless passions of 
Jupiter, or the jealous rages of Juno, as sufficiently 
disproving their Divinity, and then call on mankind 
to believe in a being who has established an almost 
infinite laboratory, where the vivisections and vivi- 
ustions of sensitive organisms are to set forth his glory TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
251 
forever to creatures that were once men and women 
-- men with tears in their eyes - women with milk 
in their breasts ! 
I grant all that can fairly be said about the suffer- 
ing we see here on earth. I should not have expected 
to find so much. But I see compensation in some form 
trying to restore the balance; I see apparent misery 
solacing itself in unforeseen ways; I see habit render- 
ing tolerable what seemed too much to be borne; I 
see sleep with its sweet oblivion, and death with its 
certain release from the unfit tenement and its at 
least possible solution of every doubt and cure for 
every ill. In all this I see nothing like Hell. I 
see ignorance and ill-training make men act like de- 
mons ; to me they are as the insane and the idiots are. 
Mary Lamb was in deed a murderess, - but she 
might, after stabbing her mother, have plunged her 
bloody knife into her own heart, and yet have been 
carried straight by pitying angels to the company of 
the blessed. 
Was there ever such a prayer as that one: - 
" Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
they do !" 
Your little Iroquois knows not what he does. No 
sinner truly knows what he does. 
We do not "come into the world with a bias to 
vice," except relatively to society. Any bias we bring 
into the world comes, mediately it is true but just as 
really, from the Creator. A clear intelligence, a just 
balance of bodily, mental, and moral instincts, a wise 
training, are a complete human outfit. Withhold any 
one or more of these conditions, and it shows itself in 
a man's life, in error, in excess, in sin, in vice. Who 
withheld it? 252 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
I believe much, I dare not say how much, of what 
we call " sin " has no moral character whatever in the 
sight of the great Judge. I believe much of what we 
call " vice " is not only an object of the profoundest 
compassion to good men and women, but that the 
tenderest of God's mercies are in store for many whom 
the so-called justice of the world condemns. 
More and more I feel that God is all in all, that 
the pride of man has shown itself more fearfully in 
his over-estimate of his own capacity for sin than in 
any other way. Do not mistake me for what is popu- 
larly meant by an " antinomian." " For every idle 
word " - yes, I am ready to adopt that too. God lets 
me move my limbs - these he would trust me with. 
But he shut my heart and my breathing organs and 
all the wondrous mechanism by which I live, in a cas- 
ket beyond my rash meddling, of which he keeps the 
key. So I know that he has entrusted me with many 
precious interests which I can use well or ill; but I 
will not believe that he has ever trusted the immortal 
destiny of my soul out of his own hands. 
If the doctrine of a world of endless torture had 
come in with the Christian religion, it might have 
been very differently received. But men's minds 
were familiar with it through the fables of a cruel 
mythology. Prometheus and Tantalus and Sisyphus, 
the lower world with its river of fire, came out of 
the same imaginations that contrived the heathenisms 
we are in the habit of denouncing as baseless super- 
stitions. 
I am satisfied that we shall never properly under- 
stand Christianity until we take the exact inventory of 
what was in the world when it came. I hope you have 
read the famous article on the Talmud in the last Lon TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
253 
don Quarterly. We must remember that our sacred 
writings are simply legends, - that is, written from 
memory after the events occurred, sometimes long 
afterwards. If - and I am afraid it is so - Christ 
is said to have taught, as the heathen taught before 
him, that there is a universe of torture to match the 
universe of bliss, with a sovereign and an aristocracy 
of " his angels ; " if he is said to have taught that the 
greater part of our race were to become the subjects 
of this potentate and exposed forever to the brutalities 
of himself and his crew,-then how thankful we 
should be to Strauss, to Renan, to anybody, who will 
add to our doubts as to the exactness, the authenticity, 
the authority of the legends on which this belief re- 
poses ! That is the reason why such a quiet statement 
as that of M. Sainte-Beuve, quoted in one of the last 
Literary Gazettes, brings with it a feeling, not of 
simple horror that the world is doubting its old be- 
liefs, but of inward question whether the total over- 
throw of the Godless Universe, as a counterpart of 
Heaven in the belief of mankind, would not be as 
great a blessing to the race as the rooting out of the 
scriptural doctrine of witchcraft was to the trembling 
old women of Essex County a hundred and fifty years 
ago. 
I do not think Nehemiah Adams's Universe is any- 
thing to be grateful for. I do not think his gospel 
is " good tidings." I believe his belief to be a lurid 
reflection of old heathenisms. Romanism is to me 
infinitely more human than Calvinism - which when 
I once spoke of as " heart-rending " to a high-souled 
and long-suffering Christian woman, she said " heart- 
withering ! " 
Faith ! faith ! faith 1 In what ? In the character 254 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
of my Maker. I cannot see the great church of Chris- 
tendom as so many holy people do, - I cannot worship 
the Virgin Mary; I cannot see " the scheme " as 
Nehemiah Adams does, - seeming to think Mr. Choate 
was safe, if he only comprehended that. But I do be- 
lieve that good people, kind fathers, kind mothers, are 
the type of the Creator, and not cruel, jealous, vindic- 
tive ones. You remember what Father Taylor said to 
one of the sterner sort, - " Oh, I see! your God is 
my Devil! ' ' 
I will send this note or letter - it is not what I 
want to send, but it may give a hint here and there. 
Do I not ask for light ? God knows I do. 
May 17, 1880. 
My dear Mrs. Stowe, - A thousand thanks for 
all the trouble you have taken to copy the poem. It 
is a beautiful poem and a precious autograph. In an 
article published many years ago in the Foreign 
Quarterly Review, I think, - its title was " Hymn- 
nology," - " Rock of Ages " was set down as the best 
hymn in the English language. I recognize its won- 
derful power and solemnity. If you asked me what 
is the secret of it, I should say that of all the Pro- 
testant hymns I remember it is richest in material 
imagery. We think in getting free of Romanism we 
have lost our love of image-worship, but I do not 
think so myself. Thirty years ago I remember seeing 
a great gilt cross put on top of the steeple of a Baptist 
meeting-house in Pittsfield, and since that time you 
know how symbolism has come into the Episcopal 
Church and overflowed it into the Congregational and 
other denominations. TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
255 
The imagination wants help, and if it cannot get it 
in pictures, statues, crucifixes, etc., it will find it in 
words. That, I believe, is the reason why " Rock of 
Ages " impresses us more than any other hymn,- for 
I think it does. It is the Protestant " Dies Irae "! 
" Quid sum miser tunc dicturus " - 
" Could my tears forever flow " - 
the utter helplessness of the soul and its passionate 
appeal are common to both. Our hymn has more of 
hope and less of terror, but it is perfectly solid with 
material imagery, and that is what most of us must 
have to kindle our spiritual exaltation to its highest 
point. V. TO ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD 
Beverly Farms, July 6, 1879. 
My dear Miss Phelps,- I was very glad to hear 
that you reached youi- little resting-place comfortably, 
and I hope rest of body and mind will restore you 
soon. I trust you will not busy yourself just now 
with the problem of human existence. Be a vege- 
table, - a flower, I mean, of course, - taking nourish- 
ment from the earth via its most nourishing products, 
and looking into the sleepy and contented eyes of the 
cattle and all creatures that live without worded 
thought, - not into those of the worrying stars which 
have no eyelids, and stare you into asking questions 
they will not answer. 
I am getting to believe that your first title is quite 
as good as any that has been since suggested. I don't 
quite like the " Mustered In." In the first place my 
impression is that Captains of war-ships carry out 
" sealed orders," while land-troops are said to be 
" mustered in." In the second place I have no great 
liking for fancy titles unless they are specially ap- 
propriate, as was most certainly the title " Gates 
Ajar." So, as at present advised, I should say 
Sealed Orders and Stray Stories, 
or 
Sealed Orders and Other Stories, 
which last is at least inoffensive. 
I suppose you must have found the change of 
weather very trying. I never experienced anything Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward 257 
like it in my protracted existence - so far as my feel- 
ings were concerned. I may have known more 
change in the thermometer, possibly, but here on the 
4th the heat was almost intolerable, and yesterday, the 
5th, we were thankful to have a good winter fire. 
I never feel well for some little time after coming 
to the country, and I am staying at home from 
" meet'n," - where I like to go and hear worthy Mr. 
Redding, the " Babtist " (Novanglice) preacher, - it 
does me some kind of good, I think. There is a little 
plant called Reverence in the corner of my Soul's 
garden, which I love to have watered about once a 
week. 
Hoping that I shall have the pleasure of seeing 
you some time during the season, I am, dear Miss 
Phelps, 
Faithfully yours. 
Beverly Farms, August 31,1879. 
My dear Miss Phelps, - It is my turn now to 
send you my kindest regards and remembrances on 
your reaching what you call " the half-way house," 
but which I think of as one of those " arbors " where 
Christiana rested - at least Christian did, as I re- 
member ; and I am sure the trees would stretch their 
branches over your head if you sat down near them, 
as they did over Buddha. And this reminds me that 
I have been reading and writing a long review of one 
of the divinest poems I ever read, The Light of Asia, 
by Mr. Edwin Arnold. It embodies the legends of 
that wonderful personage whose religion is the most 
prevalent of any on the face of the earth - so we 
are told. You may look for my review in the next 
TO ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD 
VOL. II. 258 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
number of the International, and I hope it will make 
you wish to read the poem. 
I had a great many visitors on my birthday and 
many letters; I wrote twenty-two letters in reply 
yesterday. My house was turned into a bower of 
roses, and everybody looked as pleased as possible to 
recognize the fact that I had at least reached the 
natural limit of human existence. Threescore and 
ten is a different matter, however, since the invention 
of spectacles and various other contrivances, which 
in many cases take away the meaning of the words 
"I have no pleasure in them." 
I thank you most cordially for your kind remem- 
brance. I hope life will grow easier and sweeter to 
you as you go on your way, softening, sweetening, 
illuminating it for others. 
Believe me, dear Miss Phelps, 
Faithfully yours. 
Beverly Farms, September 27, 1879. 
My dear Miss Phelps, - I must say a word 
before pulling up my tent-pegs and pitching my tent 
once more on the shore of the Charles. I should 
have liked to pass an hour or two with you before 
going, but I have done almost no visiting out of our 
immediate neighborhood. Yesterday, as a final ex- 
cursion, we went to Gloucester, - I did not think of 
it when we started, - drove round the town, looked 
at the fire, or tried to, - turned round and came 
home. 
My vacation is over, and I only regret that it has 
not been as idle as it ought to have been. I have 
done a good deal of reading, some studying, and TO ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD 
259 
struggled with a correspondence which is growing 
almost too much for me. Among other things I have 
sat in judgment on an epic written by a celebrated 
professional man and sent me by his nephew. It 
came pretty near going over the ground that the old 
school-master, Mr. J. Milton, treated in a poem you 
may have heard of. I had to say to his relative, who 
wished to know whether this posthumous work should 
be published or not, that he had better keep the repu- 
tation he had honestly got in another line of labor, 
and not enter into competition with J. M. Another 
experience was with a Western "poet," who sent me 
a duodecimo of some hundred pages of verse, and re- 
quested my opinion. I gave it - not very flattering, 
but civil and honest, as I supposed he wanted it to 
be. In due time I received the most impertinent, in 
fact, insolent letter I ever got, - with one exception, 
many years ago, - a similar return for an honest criti- 
cism from another Western bard. And Horace was 
a heathen sinner - was he ? - for saying - 
" Odi ignobile vulgus." 
But my summer has been placid, on the whole, and 
if my duties did not call me back, I might perhaps 
stay until the leaves had fallen. 
I am really sorry you should be turned out of your 
sea-shell. There was so much good sense and good 
taste in your little arrangements for summer rest, 
that it seems a pity you should be disturbed. You 
have seen our little place. It serves our turn well 
enough, and we are going to keep it at present, per- 
haps for years. 
If I could make you well, I believe I would turn 
doctor again. I hope that dear, good old physician 260 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
who cures more patients than all the M. D.'s - I 
mean Time - will make you strong and hearty again, 
or at least will lighten that burden which makes 
life hard to bear for you. At least you can look 
back and think of all you have done for others. I 
believe if He who made His home with the good 
women of Bethany were walking our highways, yours 
would be one of the doors where He would knock for 
entrance. Would not that be enough? 
Boston, October 29, 1879. 
My dear Miss Phelps, - Many thanks for the 
story-book, the title of which you did me the honor of 
discussing with me. I have read eleven of the seven- 
teen stories, and shall read the others very soon; but 
I cannot wait any longer before acknowledging your 
kindness. Besides, this is an off day - no lecture 
- and I have a little leisure for my distant friends. 
The stories I have read, I have read carefully. 
They all come out of your true woman's heart, and 
some of them have brought the tears out of my eyes 
- not the tears of weakness, for the wheel is not yet 
broken at the cistern, or the pitcher broken at the 
fountain. 
Do you ask me which I like best of those I have 
read? Perhaps I should say "Doherty," - a very 
simple story, shame, misery, ruin, - as it seems, - 
but at the last a ray of Divine love, and a feeling in 
the reader [such] as he remembers in " Margaret " 
(Faust's): " She is saved! " 
The stories of emotional complications between 
lovers, and between married people, like " Running 
the Risk," will passionately interest many women. I TO ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD 
261 
do not think men ever come to understand all the 
hair-springs, the oscillating machinery, the compen- 
sation balances of a woman's nature in a state of 
unstable equilibrium. There is a kind of music - 
sometimes it is a strange discord- which can be rej 
solved to a woman's ear, but not to a man. Indeed, 
there are single tones a woman hears too acute for 
the masculine organ of hearing. (You know many 
persons cannot hear the bat's squeak.) 
I know life shows itself to you in some of its most 
saddening aspects, but though I am commonly busy 
and cheerful, I like to sit down in silence with you at 
times, and lose myself in tender sympathies. I wish 
that, with twice your length of days, I had done half 
as much to lighten the world's burdens I 
Boston, December 10, 1879. 
My dear Miss Phelps, - Your few words are 
more than eloquent - they are precious. If the In- 
finite Love needs to be pleaded with in behalf of its 
own children, it will be the voice of a woman - a 
true woman - a tender-hearted woman - that reaches 
it and is listened to. Need I say more than that I 
thank you and bless you for your kind and sweet 
remembrance ? 
Boston, May 4, 1888. 
My dear Miss Phelps, - I have just received 
your kind letter, and I must write you a few words 
about myself, knowing that you will be pleased to 
hear from me under my new conditions. 
All was gradual and gentle in the passing away of 
my dear wife. The last sad stage, which I feared, was 262 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
spared her and us. There was no paralysis, no help- 
lessness, no painful mental disturbance ; that is, she 
remained quiet, amiable, docile, tractable, comely in 
aspect, gracious in manner, cheerful, easily pleased, 
until within a few days of the end, when she grew 
weaker very rapidly, and presently left us with that 
sweet smile on her face which the parting soul some- 
times leaves on the features. To the few who looked 
upon it, it was like a celestial vision. 
Forty-five years we lived most happily together. 
Then came the cloud, - not a sullen storm-cloud, but 
a silvery one. Hei' illusions were pleasant ones, - 
she enjoyed living, was interested in all around her, 
and oftentimes seemed to be with the dead whom she 
had loved just as if they were living, in the most nat- 
ural and simple way. 
We were fortunate in finding a companion for her, 
- a widow lady of intelligence and amiable disposi- 
tion, to whom she soon became attached. If you had 
happened to call at almost any time before the last 
week, I should have carried you into the parlor and 
said, " Amelia, here is our friend Miss Phelps," and 
you would have left her after a few moments, hardly 
realizing that she was the subject of any mental in- 
firmity, she looked and spoke and smiled so like her- 
self as you must remember her. 
I have every cause to be grateful that, after so 
many happy years, when the inevitable came, it was 
so mercifully ordered. 
My daughter, Mrs. Turner Sargent, has come to 
live with me, and we are necessarily hard at work 
arranging our new household. It was her own pro- 
posal to come, and she lets her own beautiful house 
(59 Beacon Street), to which she was greatly at- TO ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD 
263 
tached. But she is a very cheerful woman, and 
accommodates herself admirably to our new condi- 
tions. We keep the place at Beverly Farms which 
we had last year, and where I hope I shall see you. 
I am glad my little book pleased you. 
This letter is all about my own experiences. I 
hope when you write you will fill your letter with 
yours. I have never got over your story of " Jack." 
It is a great story. 
Boston, April 13, 1889. 
My dear Mrs. Ward, - I thank you for your 
very kind and sympathetic letter. The loss of my 
daughter is a heavy blow and a great disappointment. 
We had made out a very pleasant programme for our 
joint lives, had learned to know, to love, and to justly 
value each other in the relation of father and daugh- 
ter, and were full of hope, when her summons came. 
It came as did that of her mother, very gently. Some 
weeks of suffering there were, made almost happy to 
her by the kindness of more friends than she could 
have believed would have so tenderly remembered her. 
Then came a change, which looked like an approach 
to recovery. Bodily ease, restored appetite, improve- 
ment in pulse, easy respiration, the delight of return- 
ing life, rekindled hope; she and all of us cotdd not 
help hoping and almost believing that she was to be 
with us again, active, joyous, giving and receiving 
pleasure among her numerous friends. 
Dis aliter visum. In the midst of this apparent 
improvement she had a sudden convulsion, followed 
by insensibility and coma, in the deep slumber of 
which she breathed her life peacefully away. 
I am not left alone. My daughter-in-law, a very 264 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
helpful, hopeful, powerful as well as brilliant woman, 
is with me, and my household goes on smoothly, and 
not without a cheerful aspect. Her husband the 
Judge will soon be established in the house, and I 
trust we shall live as happily as we ought to, if my 
large allowance of years should be a little farther ex- 
tended. 
Pray come and see me, and bring Mr. Ward with 
you, the next time you are in town. We shall, both 
Mrs. Holmes and myself, - for the Judge is a good 
deal away from home, - be most happy to see you. 
With kindest regards to Mr. Ward, I am, dear 
Mrs. Ward, 
Affectionately yours. 
Sunday Afternoon, May 31, 1891. 
My dear Mrs. Ward, - One who is very dear to 
me said to me yesterday: " I want you to read Mrs. 
Ward's story, ' The Bell of St. Basil.' " And so I 
have just been reading it. Not for the first time, 
though. I remember well that I read it in a previous 
volume, and that it produced a deep impression on me. 
But how deep it would be on this second reading I 
did not suspect. I may as well confess that the pathos 
of your story quite overcame me. I did not know I 
had so many tears in my emotional fountains. Either 
I have come to the " streams of dotage," or that is 
one of the most touching stories that even your tear- 
compelling imagination ever gave birth to. - No mat- 
ter ! Marlborough was ten years younger than I am 
when he died; and Swift died four years younger than 
I now am, after having been " a driveller and a show " 
for I don't remember how many years. So I think it TO ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD 
265 
is not my imbecility, but your command of the springs 
of sensibility, which is to blame for my exhibition 
of weakness. Of course the "exhibition" was all to 
myself, thank heaven, for I would not show myself in 
such a moment of weakness if every tear were to be 
turned into a pearl. 
It did me good to have a good, long cry. I was 
happy to find myself, as old books have it, " dissolved 
in floods of tears." When we ought to cry, we don't. 
When we want to cry, we can't. In the mean time 
the internal cisterns are filling up ready to burst. 
What a relief when - from an apparently totally in- 
sufficient cause - a woman's fanciful relation of some- 
thing that never happened; a picture of some people 
that never lived, in a place not to be found in the 
Gazetteer - all at once something gives way, and 
down comes the freshet, with such a sense of sweet, 
delicious, stingless sorrow and sympathy, and withal 
of our own loveableness for being so tender-hearted, 
that it seems as if 
"Angels alone that soar above " 
were fit company for such amiable creatures as we 
feel ourselves. 
I could not help writing on the spot, while the im- 
pression of your story was still tingling all through 
me. The ink on the first page of this note and the 
tears on my cheeks dried at the same moment. 
I thank you, then, for all these most welcome and 
most wholesome tears, and for all the sweet and en- 
nobling influences which I, with so many others, have 
felt from your admirable writings. 
With kindest regards to Mr. Ward and yourself, 
I am 
Always faithfully yours. 266 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Beverly Farms, July 5, 1893. 
My dear Mrs. Ward, - I am glad that any sea- 
son can induce you to let me have a letter from you, 
- a luxury I have not had for a good while. As for 
me, you see I have come to a card and a ready-stamped 
envelope. My secretary is among the mountains. 
My eyes are getting dimmer, and my fingers have 
taken to cramps, so I am making everything as simple 
as possible. 
Nothing would delight me more than to talk over 
time and eternity with you and your husband, but as 
to saying anything on these subjects to be reported, I 
would as soon send a piece of my spinal marrow to 
one of those omnivorous editors. I may very possibly 
dictate to my secretary some of my notions on such 
matters, but I am disposed to keep out of the market- 
place and bide my time for talking. Perhaps I may 
not think it worth while to express myself with abso- 
lute freedom on the deepest question. It is obvious 
to me that the order of things is adjusted on a basis 
which is to last for a good while, and afford a staging 
for good men and women, and even for some whom 
we might call great men and women, to be useful in 
their day and generation. You may find my philo- 
sophy in this regard in a poem of mine called " The 
Organ - Blower." Wherever you are, you see the 
handle of the organ-bellows ; take hold and blow - 
the Lord will play the tune as He pleases. 
So you see I am quite obstinate, not to be lured, or 
A/aclured. But I want to see you and talk with you, 
and, above all, listen to you and know how you feel 
with reference to certain great problems. I would be 
at home almost any afternoon that you and your 
husband would honor me with a call. A Morning Walk, November, 1893 TO ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD 
267 
Boston, September 29, 1893. 
My dear Mrs. Ward, - My visit to Gloucester 
was the most delightful incident of my summer. The 
weather was perfect, and I enjoyed the long drive very 
much. When I got to your new place and looked 
around me, I was enchanted. It is a most remarkable 
and a most lovely prospect you have before you and 
all round you. Your home is an ideal, so truly real- 
ized that I had to rub my eyes to know whether I was 
dreaming or awake, - looking at a true landscape or 
reading a story-book. The hour I was with you 
passed so quickly that I was taken by surprise when 
I was told that my driver was at the door. There 
are many things I should like to have said, many 
questions I should like to have asked; but they will 
keep, and you will drop in on me some day, and we 
will finish - or rather continue - our talk. 
I am glad to be back, for I find myself much better 
in town than in the harsh Beverly winds. I come 
back, however, to all sorts of lesser cares and bothers, 
- letters, letters, letters, callers who do not know 
when to go, books asking to be read and criticised, 
and the accumulation of literary stuff of all sorts that 
has piled itself up during my absence from town. 
However, I can see tolerably, and I have a new gas 
illuminating contrivance which gives me a wonderful 
bright and steady light to read and write by. The 
" writer's cramp," which troubles me from time to 
time, does not affect me at all to-day, as my hand- 
writing shows you. 
I am interested in many things, - most of all in the 
Congress of all Religions. I want to get the full 
record of that - not that I think it will amount to 
much directly; but in its indirect influence upon the 268 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Christian Church, which has attempted to confiscate 
every advance of humanity to be its own private 
property, it may be useful. I am sure such an influ- 
ence is needed. The hideous inhumanity which prac- 
tically takes away all hope for the great majority of 
the human race may find itself put to shame by the 
gentle faiths of more enlightened, less brutally the- 
ologized-ecclesiastized peoples. I really look on that 
Congress as the longest stride towards the Millennium 
that I have seen, or am like to see if I last till the 
[illegible]. 
You and your husband look very happy, and no 
doubt are so, now that the yacht is laid up. But 
what a romance it is ! You looking out for the 
returning sail - he driving in before the blast - two 
hearts, one leaping landward, one seaward! Long 
may peace and happiness be with you both. 
Always affectionately yours, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes. VI. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. 
May 11, 1836. 
Dear James, - Since I have been home, I have 
repeatedly inquired after you, and heard of you at 
other times without asking. Everything which I 
heard was exceedingly gratifying to me, - not merely 
because you were my classmate and friend, but be- 
cause in your success I saw my own prophecies ful- 
filled, and because the favorable opinion which you 
always seemed to entertain of myself carried with it 
a value in proportion somewhat to the rate at wdiich 
I found your own abilities were estimated by others. 
But although I have never forgotten the praises and 
encouragements you sometimes used to give me, and 
which, with their very words and circumstances, I 
believe I have recalled more often and more faithfully 
than any others I have received, I should have been 
by no means certain that all these little recollections 
had not passed from your mind, as the opera airs 
which we hear for a week or two give place to some 
other novelty. I was surprised and delighted to find 
that, after an absence and silence of nearly three 
years, you could still recognize and be pleased with a 
little sketch which I claim as mine with far greater 
pleasure than I ever expected to, when I gave 
the poor " Grisette " to the pages of the American 
Monthly. Like everything tolerable I ever wrote, it 270 
was conceived in exultation and brought forth with 
pain and labor. The time at which any new thought 
strikes me is my Sibylline moment, but the act of 
composition, so exciting and so easy to some people, 
is a wearing business, attended with a dull, disagree- 
able sensation about the forehead, - only from time 
to time it is interrupted by the simultaneous descent 
of some group of words or some unexpected image, 
which produces a burst of the most insane enthusiasm 
and self-gratulation, during which I commit puerile 
excesses of language and action. As I am determined 
to make you understand this, I will give you an in- 
stance or two, - marking the lines which came in this 
sudden way and occasioned a paroxysm, - in a little 
piece called " The Last Reader," one of four which I 
have published since my return : - 
They lie upon my pathway bleak, 
Those flowers that once ran wild, 
As on a father's careworn cheek 
The ringlets of his child. 
And in another part of the same: - 
What care I though the dust is spread 
Around these yellow leaves, 
Or o'er them his sarcastic thread 
Oblivion's insect weaves. 
The little piece from which I take these lines did 
not seem to be as popular as the " Grisette," though 
more elaborate and, as I supposed at the time, better. 
My pet expression in the two last quoted lines was 
changed by the New York editor on his own responsi- 
bility into: - 
Or o'er them his corroding thread - 
which occasioned immense indignation on my part, 
and a refusal to write until he would promise to keep 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 271 
hands off. The four things which I said I had written 
were all published in the American Monthly, and 
were as follows : some " Lines written at Sea " (a 
Smith-like title for one's verses), beginning, - 
If sometimes in the dark blue eye 
Or in the deep red wine. 
After this a patriotic affair, called " Our Yankee 
Girls ; " then " The Last Reader," and last of all 
the one which pleased you, " La Grisette." I had 
not written a stanza while abroad, and I felt on first 
sitting down as if the power of writing had passed 
away as completely as poor Zerah Colburn's talent for 
calculation, and left me high and dry upon the sand, 
my sails and pennons all flapping in the wind - my 
keel wedged into the solid shore of fact - and with 
no hope of ever bounding again over the billows of 
poetry. So it was, however, that, after writing one or 
two of these pieces, particularly " Our Yankee Girls " 
and " The Last Reader," I thought them remarkably 
good - at least for me, and was in hopes other people 
would think so. But several of my friends seemed 
to think I had fallen off, - and one in particular, 
who always professed a great liking for my verses, 
stopped me one day to tell me that the " Grisette" 
was poor stuff, - namby-pamby, " such as young Buck- 
ingham used to write." This troubled me somewhat 
- I supposed I was running to seed - and when I 
found one of my offspring altered and mutilated in 
the magazine, where it was published, it settled the 
matter, and I determined not to write any more at 
present. Some time since I was appointed $ B K poet 
for the coming anniversary, and, as I accepted, this 
occupation will be enough to keep me quiet. You 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 272 
would suppose from what I have said that I have 
been thinking a great deal about poetry; it is not 
true, - perhaps there is no one among the young men 
who has been more ardently engaged in medicine than 
I have for the last three years. And on this account 
I determined to publish whatever I did anonymously, 
that nobody might suppose I was ambitious of being 
considered a regular scribbler. If you ask me then 
what I am thinking about, I will answer you - Medi- 
cine - which finds me regular occupation - which 
can support me and give me a hold on the community 
in which I live, and which my love of observation and 
the habits which I have formed for the last few years 
have rendered to me the most delightful of employ- 
ments. Thus I have answered one or two of your 
questions, and prattled something too wildly about 
myself. But your very kind letter so soothed and 
pleased my perturbed spirit that I could not help fall- 
ing into this ecstasy of egotism. Write again, and 
give me an account of yourself and your situation, 
and the next time I send a letter to Louisville it shall 
be filled with something else besides my own insignifi- 
cant history. 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.1 
March 17, 1838. 
My dear James, - The fates have sent a triple- 
headed Cerberus, or hydra, this week in the shape of 
three special requests for verses. I have seriously 
1 Mr. Clarke had requested Dr. Holmes to give him something 
to print in The Western Messenger, a monthly magazine of which 
he was editor. This poem (The Parting Word) was printed iu 
the May number, 1838. 273 
reflected on each and all, and come to the conclusion 
to repel two of my petitioners, - one by a churlish 
silence and the other by an unctuous or rather sapo- 
naceous refusal, and to dispose of the third - that is 
yourself - by sending such a specimen of fancy work 
as shall prevent you from too rashly repeating the re 
quest. If it were necessary now to sit down and card 
and spin and weave a brand-new lyric, I should plead 
utter incapacity. In my humble notion poetry is to 
one's mind what inflorescence is to plants - a sudden 
and occasional manifestation of bright colors - the 
exhalation of an unwonted sweetness - which require 
certain influences and naturally appear only at cer- 
tain intervals. I am sure that three or four days 
ago, when the air suddenly put on its summer soft- 
ness and clearness, I felt that my buds began to ex- 
pand, and I believe I should have leaved out charm- 
ingly, had not the nipping frost of two or three 
habitual bores fallen upon the embryo petals and 
corollas. Dis aliter visum. The week which is just 
extricating its caudal extremity from the narrow 
crack which we call the present - (here intervened a 
visit to Salem to see a nephew, very ill - and I re- 
sume) - has been full of troubles and trials. Three 
several times I have been remorselessly and relentlessly 
victimized to the extent of six consecutive hours, at 
the maximum, either by individuals who were over- 
fascinated by my social attractions and particularly 
convenient sofa, or by express combinations got to- 
gether for amusement, into which my weakness suf- 
fered me to be wheedled. Such martyrdoms have a 
most mildewing effect upon my faculties. The self- 
exhausting process which takes place in the mind 
and body of a man stretched hour after hour upon 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
VOL. II. 274 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
the rack of conversational torture by he or she in- 
quisitors leaves him - at least it does me - as lifeless 
and spiritless as a clod. Adrift, for instance, in the 
middle of a long evening, with a single heavy-witted 
companion, of known and tried tenacity, whose ideas 
I have many years since inventoried, whose faculties 
I have weighed with unnecessary minuteness, whose 
ultimate capabilities I perfectly realize, whose most 
elaborate conclusions I assume as axioms, in short 
with an individual all whose mental laws I have ana- 
lyzed, and therefore with the right materials could 
make just such another man or machine, - what has 
life more unendurable I At ten o'clock to feel, like 
the shipwrecked sailor on a raft, that as far as you 
have floated from eight, so far must you toss and 
hitch and worry without sail or oar, until you strike 
upon the dark and distant shore of twelveI My week 
receives a temper from a succession of such trials, and 
though habitually very cheerful and I believe even 
good-natured, my philosophy has shaken a little be- 
neath an accidental series of such afflictions. Conse- 
quently it was the worst moment for your little 
request, and indeed, from almost any other source 
I should have rejected it with indignation as part of 
a systematic plan of imposition, which the world had 
got up to annoy me. 
If I would fulfil my promise on this page, I must 
condense both my meaning and my forms. First as 
to myself, the cause of this vexation which I have 
referred to is a want of synchronism in some of my 
old friends and myself. Many of them have remained 
idle while I have grown industrious; have held on 
to prejudices I have outgrown ; have given out all 
the gas my agency is capable of extracting. I have 275 
passed through the condition of college idler, and an 
apprentice in general society, and now for the first 
time in my life I find the true desire of knowledge 
growing up in my mind, and my instincts turning 
from the pleasures of conversation to those of books. 
Ten years have probably carried me once round my 
own intellectual orbit; I must drink in light from 
other sources. No graduate of Harvard - or at least 
very few - had ever read less at my age than my- 
self. My ignorance one year since would have as- 
phyxiated a legion of cherubim. In consequence of 
this feeling I have been secretly throwing in know- 
ledge ; and, having confidence enough in my own 
powers of apprehension and diligence, shall probably 
be a pretty well-informed man some time or other. 
When I have ploughed and sowed my little intellect- 
ual territory, if there spring up any Arethusa from 
the ancient fountains, well and good; if not, - the 
most important transactions of life, fortunately, are 
carried on in prose. 
Now as to yourself, - you must judge by the man- 
ner in which I have always spoken to you about my- 
self that I cannot rank you among those common 
companions or friends who judge of one by looking to 
see how the hour and minute hands of fortune and 
favor stand, but neither care to look into the inward 
machinery nor are worthy of such confidence. I have 
always placed the highest value on your good opinion. 
Many years since, when you among the very first 
praised one of my earliest efforts, it gave me more 
sincere pleasure than all the other little flatteries I 
received ; for, although scarcely known beyond one or 
two small coteries, I have been directly and indirectly 
flattered by men, and especially by women. But I 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 276 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
felt certain you knew and meant what you said. I am 
going to make one or two criticisms on the pretty 
verses you sent me, supposing that you kept a copy, 
and that the stanzas are numbered in the same order. 
The first two are neat and epigrammatical, and would 
indeed make a clever epigram, taken alone. Is the 
train of sad feeling expressed in the next four verses 
true ? Or is it in an imaginary character, and under 
the influence of the sentimental feeling rhyme is apt 
to bring on, that it was written ? The illusions of 
poetical feeling so often lead us away that I cannot but 
hope you have exaggerated the desolation of your own 
condition. In the seventh verse I don't like the idea 
of a soul's " glittering," - the image of a soul looking 
down upon us suggests a resemblance to the pure, 
pale, and steady light of a planet, if you please, but no 
such notion as glittering or twinkling, or indeed any 
of the more ostentatious forms of effulgence. Nor 
do I like the word " wiselier " in the last verse, if 
there be indeed such an English word. I cut up a 
poem, which a young gentleman is going to deliver on 
a public occasion, at his special request and in his 
presence last evening, so that I am critical to canni- 
balism this morning. 
The verses, which you have asked and I have prom- 
ised, must come, I see, upon another piece of paper, 
and, I fear, make you pay too dear for the whistle. 
Single postage, like the common atmospheric pressure, 
keeps up the just balance between the centrifugal 
force of friendship and the centripetal one of interest, 
- remove it, and our affections would ooze out like 
the traveller's blood at the summit of Mont Blanc, - 
but double it, and the warmest current of sympathy 
stiffens, curdles, and is arrested in its channels. I MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
277 
have by me one or two, especially one crack piece of 
poetry. You shall not have it; I will not give it 
away or sell it at present, because I can make it better 
if I keep it. I shall snub you with an insignificant 
little affair, to be called "The Parting Word," or 
some such name, and which, if you are ashamed of, 
you need not print. It is no great things, but for all 
that I am not run out nor used up, nor in a state of 
senility or caducity. I can write twice as well as I 
ever did before, but I will not write at present, - and, 
without looking your gift horse in the mouth, make 
the most of him, for I shall not have either colt or 
pony to spare for a year to come. 
P. S. If you print-print correctly. 
TO GEORGE TICKNOR. 
December 19th. 
My dear Sir, - I thank you very heartily in my 
turn for the beautiful and interesting volume of 
Calderon you have kindly sent me. I am much inter- 
ested in the study of " assonants," being well aware 
that the form of verse has much to do with the effect 
of the sentiment. I was never so much struck with 
this until I read Tennyson's " In Memoriam." It is 
truly extraordinary what freshness is given to a most 
commonplace rhythm by a return to that exceptional 
arrangement of the rhymes occasionally employed by 
earlier writers. If I mistake not, " Hiawatha " has 
borrowed something of its movement from Calderon, 
or some original of similar construction. I am im- 
pressed with this fact about all the exceptional meas- 
ures : that though they please for once in our own 
dialect, they do not bear repetition. If you will par- 278 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
don me for referring to the volume I sent you, I 
should like to have you notice the rhythm of one poem 
in it, " The Chambered Nautilus." I am as willing 
to submit this to criticism as any I have written, in 
form as well as in substance, and I have not seen any 
English verse of just the same pattern. 
Lieutenant Holmes, of the 20th M. V., will feel 
honored to present himself at the headquarters of 
scholarship and hospitality in Park Street. 
Very truly and respectfully yours. 
TO JAMES T. FIELDS.1 
Pittsfield, June 13, 1852. 
My dear Mr. Fields, - I have just received your 
very interesting note, and the proof which accompanied 
it. I don't know when I ever read anything about 
myself that struck me so piquantly as that story about 
the old gentleman. It is almost too good to be true, 
but you are not in the habit of quizzing. The trait 
is so nature-like and Dickens-like, no American - no 
living soul but a peppery, crotchety, good-hearted, 
mellow old John Bull - could have done such a thing. 
God bless him! Perhaps the verses are not much, 
and perhaps he is no great judge whether they are or 
not; but what a pleasant thing it is to win the hearty 
liking of any honest creature, who is neither your rela- 
tion nor compatriot, and who must fancy what pleases 
him for itself and nothing else I 
I will not say what pleasure I have received from 
Miss Mitford's kind words. I am going to sit down, 
and write her a letter with a good deal of myself in it, 
which I am quite sure she will read with indulgence, 
1 Reprinted from The Century Magazine, February, 1895. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
279 
if not with gratification. If you see her, or write 
to her, be sure to let her know that she must make 
up her mind to such a letter as she will have to sit 
down to. 
I am afraid I have not much of interest for you. 
It is a fine thing to see one's trees and things growing, 
but not so much to tell of. I have been a week in the 
country now, and am writing at this moment amidst 
such a scintillation of fireflies and chorus of frogs as 
a cockney would cross the Atlantic to enjoy. During 
the past winter I have done nothing but lecture, hav- 
ing delivered between seventy and eighty all round 
the country from Maine to western New York, and 
even confronted the critical terrors of the great city 
that holds half a million and P II . All this 
spring I have been working on microscopes, so that it 
is only within a few days I have really got hold of any- 
thing to read - to say nothing of writing, except for 
my lyceum audiences. I had a literary rencontre just 
before I came away, however, in the shape of a din- 
ner at the Revere House, with Griswold and Epes 
Sargent. What a curious creature Griswold is 1 He 
seems to me a kind of naturalist whose subjects are 
authors, whose memory is a perfect fauna of all flying, 
running, and creeping things that feed on ink. Epes 
has done mighty well with his red-edged school-book,1 
which is a very creditable-looking volume, to say the 
least. 
It would be hard to tell how much you are missed 
among us. I really do not know who would make a 
greater blank, if he were abstracted. As for myself, I 
have been all lost since you have been away, in all 
that relates to literary matters, to say nothing of the 
1 Sargent's Standard Speaker. 280 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
almost daily aid, comfort, and refreshment I imbibed 
from your luminous presence. Do come among us as 
soon as you can; and having come, stay among your 
devoted friends, of whom count 
O. W. Holmes. 
TO MRS. ABIEL HOLMES. 
Pittsfield, June 11,1854. 
My dear Mother, - I received Ann's letter a few 
days ago, and would answer it direct to her but for 
two reasons - first, that writing to you is the same 
thing; second, that Amelia is actually writing at this 
moment to Ann herself. Two letters, from husband 
and wife, would be too much for a person confined to 
her bed. - And first, I hope you will stay at Salem as 
long as Ann can keep you ; that is, until you feel ready 
to come to Pittsfield, if, as is likely, you make up your 
mind to give us that delight. At any rate, I hope you 
will make a good long stay in Salem ; it must be one 
of the curative means that can be most relied upon to 
keep the mind cheerful and bright. I would give 
more for your being with Ann than for all the salves 
and 'intments that were ever stirred up. - Please read 
this sentence over twice, and believe it. Healing is a 
living process, greatly under the influence of mental 
conditions. It has often been found that the same 
wound received in battle will do well in the soldiers 
that have beaten, that would prove fatal in those that 
have just been defeated. 
We are going on as pleasantly as ever. I did not 
tell you that I had been at work with electricity as a 
part of my summer plan of instructive amusements. 
The old machine is mounted on its ancient footing, or MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
281 
rather, with new splendor, and gives sparks an inch 
long. I have been making various kinds of apparatus, 
and really reminded myself of my young days more 
than by anything I have done for a long time. I find 
that many of my old tastes return upon me whenever 
they get a chance ; chemistry will have its turn by and 
by, perhaps mineralogy, and the rest of them. I 
learn something new, and often learn things I can 
make useful in instruction. But perhaps the pleasant- 
est thing about it is that I can do so easily what I 
used to find so difficult, - realize my ideas with my 
hands with so much comfort and satisfaction. 
But in the mean time the garden has been growing 
into beauty in the most magical way under the hands 
principally of great A and little a. I am fairly as- 
tonished at the way in which they work. Would you 
believe it, - I was stopping to rest with a tolerably 
heavy wheelbarrow of gravel yesterday, when Amelia 
took hold of it and trundled it along as if she had 
been a Paddy. 
Went to meet'n to-day - or rather to church - 
heard Mr. P . Saw Mr. and Mrs. Newton, Judge 
Curtis, and others whom we have not met. Very glad 
to see the Newtons always - gentleman and ladies 
- scarce articles in republican America. We always 
keep dark and lie low for the first week or two, be- 
fore beginning to visit and be visited. When we 
begin that series of operations you shall hear of the 
result. Infinitely pleased and delighted with Ann's 
letter - don't let her tire herself - John must write. 
I enclose a kiss to be fairly divided. 
Your aff. son & bro. 282 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
TO JAMES T. FIELDS.1 
8 Montgomery Place, July 24, 1857. 
My dear Mr. Fields, - I return the three poems 
you sent me, having read them with much gratifica- 
tion. Each of them has its peculiar merits and 
defects, as it seems to me, but all show poetical feel- 
ing and artistic skill. 
" Sleep On ! " is the freshest and most individual 
in its character. You will see my pencil comment at 
the end of it. " Inkerman " is comparatively slipshod 
and careless, though not without lyric fire and vivid 
force of description. " Raphael Sanzio " would de- 
serve higher praise if it were not so closely imitative. 
In truth, all these poems have a genuine sound ; 
they are full of poetical thought, and breathed out in 
softly modulated words. The music of " Sleep On ! " 
is very sweet, and I have never seen heroic verse in 
which the rhyme was less obtrusive, or the rhythm 
more diffluent. Still it would not be fair to speak in 
these terms of praise without pointing out the trans- 
parent imitativeness which is common to all these 
poems. 
" Inkerman " is a poetical Macaulay stewed. The 
whole flow of its verse and resonant passion of its 
narrative are borrowed from the Lays of Ancient 
Rome. There are many crashing lines in it, and 
the story is rather dashingly told ; but it is very in- 
ferior in polish, and even correctness, to both the 
other poems. I have marked some of its errata. 
" Raphael," good as it is, is nothing more than 
Browning browned over. Every turn of expression, 
and the whole animus, so to speak, is taken from 
1 Reprinted from The Century Magazine, February, 1895. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
283 
those poetical monologues of his. Call it an imita- 
tion, and it is excellent. 
The best of the three poems, then, is " Sleep On ! " 
I see Keats in it, and one or both of the Brownings ; 
but though the form is borrowed, the passion is genu- 
ine, - the fire has passed along there, and the verse 
has followed before the ashes were quite cool. 
Talent, certainly; taste very fine for the melodies 
of language; deep, quiet sentiment. Genius? If 
beardless, yea ; if in sable silvered, - and I think this 
cannot be a very young hand, - why, then ... we 
will suspend our opinion. 
Boston, August 12, 1859. 
My dear Charles, - I must write a line at least 
to thank you for my kind welcome and most delight- 
ful visit. Nothing but my own capricious infirmity 1 
prevented it from being a week of unmingled pleasure. 
I begin to think I must have fed on (atmospheric) 
poisons, like Mithridates, so that the blessed air of 
Newport is to my perverted organs as chlorine to rea- 
sonable ones. All my troubles wear off in a few days 
after my return. This morning I am very nearly 
right. Did you ever think what a striking illustration 
such cases - which I think are not uncommon - 
afford of the relation of the sinful soul to the holy 
state of here and hereafter ? " Carry me back ! Oh, 
carry me back ! " the sinner would cry by the waves of 
the River of Life or in the streets of the New Jeru- 
salem ; " I shall suffocate in this celestial air, - I am 
poisoned by these limpid waters ! " 
TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. 
1 The asthma. 284 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
But though my body suffered somewhat for its 
sinful second nature, my mind and heart were more 
refreshed than I can tell you. I had been stationary 
too long, - I wanted a brief change of some kind, and 
those few days in your bright home were like the 
drops of water dashed on the forehead of one whose 
eyes are just beginning to see twilight and his lips 
whitening. 
Let me be just too to my own home-loving dispo- 
sition - this brief absence made all around me fresher 
and happier than when I left it. I came back as the 
sick man to his chamber, to find that the windows 
have been opened and the bed has been shaken up, 
and he is a new creation in a new world. Such a 
week irons a year's creases out of one's forehead. 
Remember me in all honor and love to your mother 
and sisters, and tell Miss Grace that I don't know 
whether to call her a diamond set in pearls or a pearl 
set in diamonds. 
Your grateful and affectionate cousin. 
TO JAMES T. FIELDS.1 
My dear Sir, - The above is an argument of 
great weight to all those who, like the late John 
Kogers, are surrounded by a numerous family. 
1 will incubate this golden egg two days, and pre- 
sent you with the resulting chicken upon the third. 
Yours very truly. 
P. S. You will perceive that the last sentence is 
figurative, and implies that I shall watch and fast 
over your proposition for forty-eight hours. But I 
1 Reprinted from The Century Magazine, February, 1895. 
$100.00. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
285 
could n't on any account be so sneaky as to get up 
and recite poor old " Hanover " over again. Oh, no! 
If anything, it must be of the paullo majora. 
" Silvae sint consule dignae." Let us have a brand- 
new poem or none. 
Yours as on the preceding page. 
TO JAMES T. FIELDS.1 
21 Charles Street, July 6, 8.33 A. m. 
Barometer at 30^. 
My dear Friend and Neighbor: Your most 
unexpected gift, which is not a mere token of remem- 
brance, but a permanently valuable present, is making 
me happier every moment I look at it. It is so pleas- 
ant to be thought of by our friends when they have 
so much to draw their thoughts away from us ; it is so 
pleasant, too, to find that they have cared enough 
about us to study our special tastes, - that you can 
see why your beautiful gift has a growing charm for 
me. Only Mrs. Holmes thinks it ought to be in the 
parlor among the things for show, and I think it 
ought to be in the study, where I can look at it at 
least once an hour every day of my life. 
I have observed some extraordinary movements of 
the index of the barometer during the discussions that 
ensued, which you may be interested to see my notes 
of: - 
Barometer. 
Mrs. H. 
My dear, we shall of course keep this beautiful 
barometer in the parlor. Fair. 
Dr. H. 
Why, no, my dear ; the study is the place. Dry. 
1 Reprinted from The Century Magazine, February, 1895. 286 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Mrs. H. 
I'm sure it ought to go in the parlor. It's too 
handsome for your old den. Change. 
Dr. H. 
I shall keep it in the study. Very dry. 
Mrs. H. 
I don't think that's fair. Rain. 
Dr. H. 
I'm sorry. Can't help it. Very dry. 
Mrs. H. 
It's - too - too - ba-a-ad. Much rain. 
Dr. H. 
(Music omitted.) 
'Mid pleas-ures and paaal-a-a-c-es. Set Fair. 
Mrs. H. 
I will have it! You horrid- Stormy. 
You see what a wonderful instrument this is that 
you have given me. But, my dear Mr. Fields, while 
I watch its changes it will be a constant memorial 
of unchanging friendship; and while the dark hand 
of fate is traversing the whole range of mortal vicis- 
situdes, the golden index of the kind affections shall 
stand always at set fair. 
TO JAMES T. FIELDS.1 
296 Beacon Street, February 11, 1862. 
My dear Mr. Fields,-On Friday evening last 
I white-cravated myself, took a carriage, and found 
myself at your door at eight of the clock p. m. 
A cautious female responded to my ring, and opened 
the chained portal about as far as a clam opens his 
shell to see what is going on in Cambridge Street, 
where he is waiting for a customer. 
Iler first glance impressed her with the convict 
1 Reprinted from The Century Magazine, February, 1895. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
287 
tion that I was a burglar. The mild address with 
which I accosted her removed that impression, and I 
rose in the moral scale to the comparatively elevated 
position of what the unfeeling world calls a " sneak- 
thief." 
By dint, however, of soft words, and that look of 
ingenuous simplicity by which I am so well known to 
you and all my friends, I coaxed her into the belief 
that I was nothing worse than a rejected contributor, 
an autograph collector, an author with a volume of 
poems to dispose of, or other disagreeable but not 
dangerous character. 
She unfastened the chain, and I stood before her. 
I calmed her fears, and she was calm 
And told 
me how you and Mrs. F. had gone to New York, and 
how she knew nothing of any literary debauch that 
was to come off under your roof, but would go and 
call another unprotected female who knew the past, 
present, and future, and could tell me why this was 
thus, that I had been lured from my fireside by the 
ignis fatuus of a deceptive invitation. 
It was my turn to be afraid, alone in the house with 
two of the stronger sex; and I retired. 
On reaching home, I read my note and found it was 
Friday the 16th, not the 9th, I was invited for. . . . 
Dear Mr. Fields, I shall be very happy to come to 
your home on Friday evening, the 16th February, at 
eight o'clock, to meet yourself and Mrs. Fields, and 
hear Mr. James read his paper on Emerson. 288 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.1 
June 28, 1864. 
Ex dono auctoris. Thank you, my dear friend, 
for the volume you have kindly sent me, recalling 
many profitable hours - I think I am safe in saying 
many - which I have spent in listening to some 
among the discourses it contains. 
I have been feeling your texts (which as you know 
are the pulses of sermons), and from these I have 
stolen my way along until I got my hand on the hearts 
of a good number of them. I think you and I are 
not ardent admirers of sermons in general. They 
are last year's bird's-nests, for the most part, - dried 
apples in loaded orchards, - the empty phials that 
sick men have drained, and died notwithstanding, - 
the skins of the wise serpents, out of which they have 
crept, carrying their brains with them. Nothing but 
a pile of old prescriptions is worse reading. If I did 
not feel very sure you agree with me, I should apolo- 
gize for my prelude. 
Now the beauty of your sermons is, that they have 
eggs in them, fragrant juices in them, strengthening 
cordials in them, sound brains in them, - and there- 
fore you and I are logically bound to approve, to 
admire, and to applaud them. I have always done my 
part in the way of approbation, admiration, and ap- 
plause ; but as authors are apt sometimes to undervalue 
themselves, I want you to take my word for it that 
your discourses, read or heard, are the aurum potabile 
of spiritual medicine. Less fancifully, they are first 
perfectly human (which theology has not commonly 
1 In response to the gift of a volume of sermons, The Hour 
which Cometh. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
289 
been at all - still less divine) ; full of faith, full of 
courage, full of kindness and large charity ; tender, 
yet searching the realities of things with true manly 
thought; poetical, yet with a great deal of plain com- 
mon sense, - sermons that will always be good reading, 
because they reach down even below Christianity to 
that plutonic core of nature over which all revelations 
must stratify their doctrines. 
Thank you for being good, for being brave, true, 
tender, brotherly to all mankind, sinners included, for 
thinking such good thoughts, for preaching them, for 
printing them, and once more for sending them to 
your loving friend and classmate. 
TO JAMES T. FIELDS.1 
21 Charles Street, July 17, 1864. 
My dear Mr. Fields, - Can you tell me any- 
thing that will get this horrible old woman of the 
C California off from my shoulders? Do you 
know anything about this pestilent manuscript she 
raves about? This continent is not big enough for 
me and her together, and if she doesn't jump into the 
Pacific I shall have to leap into the Atlantic, - I mean 
the original damp spot so called. 
P. S. To avoid the necessity of the latter, I have 
written to her, cordially recommending suicide as 
adapted to her case. 
1 Reprinted from The Century Magazine, February, 1895. 
VOL. II. 290 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.1 
January 25 (1865 ?). 
My dear Friend and Classmate, - I have not 
read the "Address" which you have kindly sent me, 
though I have taken a clairvoyant look through [it] 
and seen how greatly I shall delight to read it. 
I know your fine critical sense, the many facets of 
your nature, which press, each in turn, so squarely 
against every side of human nature itself, living or 
reproduced in literature. 
Therefore your talk about that rose diamond, who 
reflected everything, is of very great interest to me. 
The criticism of different minds is like the astrono- 
mer's parallax, - nay, it is the photographer's por- 
traits. Did we not think our friend had one face, and 
has not the photographer taught us he has a hundred, 
a million - that he is all the time shedding faces, of 
which these artists catch a dozen or two, but which 
are in number as the sands of the seashore ? So there 
are innumerous Shakespeares, and among them all 
there is none I want to know more than yours. 
Thank you again for the great pleasure you promise 
me. 
TO WILLIAM AMORY. 
21 Charles Street, April 22, 1865. 
Dear Mr. Amory, - I am promised my Rebel- 
lion Record next week, Monday, 1 think, and I will 
look it over for poems. 
All I will mention now are these: - 
1 Acknowledging receipt of a printed copy of an address by 
Dr. Clarke before the Historic Genealogical Society of Boston, 
in 1864, on the tercentenary of Shakespeare's birth. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
291 
" The River Fight," 
" The Bay Fight," 
both by Henry Howard Brownell, of East Hartford, 
Conn., who was with Farragut in his battles. 
" The Old Sergeant," 
by Forceythe Willson, a wonderful poem for direct- 
ness and literalness of narrative, combined with an 
imaginative grandeur which makes it one of the most 
impressive poems in our literature, - I should be 
inclined to say in any literature. 
" Sheridan's Ride," by T. B. Read, I suppose you 
know. It is very spirited, but imperfect in execution. 
Of the Rebel songs, the best I know are " Mary- 
land " and " That's Stonewall Jackson's way." 
There are some verses beginning 
" Whoop ! the Doodles are broken loose," 
which are very lively and stinging. 
I take it for granted that you know the poems of 
Longfellow, Lowell, Mrs. Howe, and the rest of your 
neighbors, who have written more or less about the 
war. 
The, Song of the war is, after all, the John Brown 
song. To be sure some of the verses are nonsense or 
worse, but the first stanza and one at least of the 
others, with the tune, closing with Hallelujah, come 
nearest to the " Marseillaise," in effect and as an ex- 
pression of the feeling of the time, of all that the war 
has produced. Mrs. Howe has written some good 
words to the tune, beginning, - 
" Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." 
Mr. Brownell has also written some good verses to 
the same tune. 
If you get his volume, be sure that it is the second 292 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
edition, 1864. The first has not " The Bay Fight " or 
"The River Fight." 
I have just copied off the Agassiz poem for you, - 
I am afraid you will be frightened when you see how 
long it is. 
Very truly yours. 
TO JAMES T. FIELDS.1 
Montreal, October 23, 1867. 
Dear Mr. Fields,- ... 1 am as comfortable here 
as I can be, but I have earned my money, for I have 
had a full share of my old trouble.1 Last night was 
better, and to-day I am going about the town. Miss 
Frothingham sent me a basket of black Hamburg 
grapes to-day, which were very grateful after the hotel 
tea and coffee and other 'pothecary's stuff. 
Don't talk to me about taverns! There is just one 
genuine, clean, decent, palatable thing occasionally to 
be had in them - namely, a boiled egg. The soups 
taste pretty good sometimes, but their sources are in- 
volved in a darker mystery than that of the Nile. 
Omelettes taste as if they had been carried in the 
waiter's hat, or fried in an old boot. I ordered scram- 
bled eggs one day. It must be that they had been 
scrambled for by somebody, but who - who in the 
possession of a sound reason could have scrambled for 
what I had set before me under that name ? Butter I 
I am thinking just now of those exquisite little pellets 
I have so often seen at your table, and wondering why 
the taverns always keep it until it is old. Fool that 
1 Reprinted from The Century Magazine, February, 1895. 
2 Asthma. 
VOL. II. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
293 
I am ! As if the taverns did not know that if it was 
good it would be eaten, which is not what they want. 
Then the waiters with their napkins - what don't 
they do with those napkins! Mention any one thing 
of which you think you can say with truth, " That 
they do not do." . . . 
I have a really fine parlor, but every time I enter 
it I perceive that 
Still, sad " odor " of humanity 
which clings to it from my predecessor. Mr. Hogan 
got home yesterday, I believe. I saw him for the first 
time to-day. He was civil - they all are civil. I 
have no fault to find except with taverns here and 
pretty much everywhere. 
Every six months a tavern should burn to the 
ground, with all its traps, its " properties," its beds 
and pots and kettles, and start afresh from its ashes 
like John Phoenix-Squibob! 
No; give me home, or a home like mine, where 
all is clean and sweet, where coffee has preexisted in 
the berry, and tea has still faint recollections of the 
pigtails that dangled about the plant from which it 
was picked, where butter has not the prevailing charac- 
ter which Pope assigned to Denham, where soup could 
look you in the face if it had " eyes " (which it has not), 
and where the comely Anne or the gracious Margaret 
takes the place of these napkin-bearing animals. 
Enough! But I have been forlorn and ailing and 
fastidious - but I am feeling a little better, and can 
talk about it. I had some ugly nights, I tell you; 
but I am writing in good spirits, as you see. I have 
written once before to Low, as I think I told you, and 
on the 25th mean to go to a notary with Mr. Dawson, 
as he tells me it is the right thing to do. 294 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
P. S. Made a pretty good dinner, after all; but 
better a hash at home than a roast with strangers. 
TO JAMES T. FIELDS. 
Boston, July 10, 1869. 
My dear Fields, - I got your charming letter 
yesterday, with all its pleasant things, - who ever 
knew like you to find something to cheer and encour- 
age everybody that he thinks will feel better for a 
kind word ! And the daisy from Alloway Kirkyard 
too, - I think I see the very hillock it grew on in my 
stereograph. We are getting flowers from you at 
home meantime very often, for one comes with bou- 
quets gathered from your Charles Street garden and 
leaves them for Mrs. H. every few days. Yet we 
miss you, be very sure ; indeed, we could hardly pass 
your house for the first weeks of your absence without 
a turn of that form of homesickness one feels when 
others, whom he depends upon to make home what it 
is, are away. Very few friends can be so ill spared; 
believe me when I say it to you, for I have said it a 
hundred times to others. 
You know what we have been doing about here, no 
doubt. How we have had a great Jubilee, the funny 
effect of which was the acute paroxysm of jealousy it 
excited in some of our neighbors. I don't know that 
anything better was said about it than that of the 
Daily, - viz., that New York had the Big Elephant 
(there is a monster one there just now) and the 
Green-Eyed Monster, - the latter the biggest in the 
World (which was specially malicious). 
The "Peace Jubilee" was a mighty success, - a 
sensation of a lifetime. It subdued everybody to it- MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
295 
self except the Great Pedlington malignants. They 
are beginning to talk about getting up one themselves, 
after having abused ours until the country laughed 
at them. The two worst papers were the Tribune 
and the World ; some of the others - the Herald and 
Frank Leslie's among the rest - were all right. 
I have been in correspondence with Mrs. Stowe 
about her Byron article coming out in the September 
Atlantic. She asked me to look over her proofs, 
which I did very diligently, and made various lesser 
suggestions, which she received very kindly and 
adopted. It will be more widely read, of course, than 
any paper which has been written for a long time. 
You ask me about my new " venture." I wrote a 
good deal this spring, but of late I have not written, 
waiting until various matters were off my mind, and 
perhaps until the heats of summer are over. I cannot 
promise anything positively as yet, but as you know 
my habits and dispositions you can guess that there is 
a fair chance, and that I shall probably let you know 
in season. 
I enclose you two copies of verses, as my friend of 
The Nation calls my versified misfortunes. The first 
consists of only four stanzas, read as a sequel to a 
longer poem written for our last class meeting, in 
which the " Boatswain of '29 " gives advice to younger 
craft how to keep their crews and avoid shipwreck. 
The other verses will explain themselves. They were 
" written by request " of the committee. 
With our best love, my own and my wife's, to both 
of you, and longing wishes for your safe and speedy 
return, I am 
Always yours. 296 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
TO FREDERIC H. HEDGE. 
December 8, 1869. 
My dear Dr. Hedge, - You told me that I need 
not read the book which you have sent me, and for 
which I cordially thank you ; but you did not tell me 
I must not read it. Now I have read it, every word of 
it, and I wish to say to you that I have had too much 
pleasure in reading it to be denied the privilege of 
telling you how I have enjoyed it. I am struck with 
the union of free thought and reverential feeling, - 
with the ingenuity of many of your comments and 
explanations, which yet commend themselves as hav- 
ing at least a reasonable degree of probability. Cain 
and Abel, for instance, became so naturally represent- 
atives of the nomadic herdsman and the tiller of the 
ground, with his fences and actions of trespass, that 
I have quite forgotten my primitive picture of the two 
men with rugs round their middles, one of whom is 
trying the then new experiment of hitting the other 
on the head, to see what effect it would have on their 
fraternal and celestial relations. It is strange how 
we read these stories, like children, until some wiser 
teacher shows us the full-grown meaning they hide 
under their beautiful simple forms. I will not say pos- 
itively that I should agree with all your glosses; but 
they are incomparable in contrast with any others I 
have read. The truth is staring the Christian world in 
the face, that the stories of the old Hebrew books can- 
not be taken as literal statements of fact. But the 
property of the church is so large and so mixed up with 
its vested beliefs, that it is hopeless to expect anything 
like honest avowal of the convictions which there can 
be little doubt intelligent churchmen of many denom- MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
297 
inations, if not of all, entertain. It is best, I sup- 
pose, it should be so, for take idolatry and bibliolatry 
out of the world all at once, as the magnetic mountain 
drew the nails and bolts of Sindbad's ship, and the 
vessel that floats much of the best of our humanity 
would resolve itself in a floating ruin of planks and 
timbers. 
I am struck, too, with the poetical style of many 
of your discourses. In truth, you have written more 
verses than you may perhaps be aware of. Here are 
some of them : - 
" Our characters alone are truly ours," p. 20. " Not 
years but centuries chronicle its ebb," p. 64. " Mar- 
ble and brass have crumbled into dust," p. 123. " As 
slow as that which shaped the solid earth by long ac- 
cretion from the fiery deep," p. 144. 
" Both are births of one creative word, 
Both agencies of one Almighty Power," p. 142. 
"Are inconsistent with the crowded life 
Which such longevity must needs engender," p. 148. 
. . . " A veritable piece of history," 
" Embracing centuries in its term and scope," 
" That wondrous tower of Babel is a fact," 
p. 220. 
" Still serves a landmark to the nomad tribes " (!). 
Pray tell me if you knew you were writing verse, 
or were you in the case of M. Jourdain? In the 
mean time, thanking you for your charming and noble 
commentaries on the grand old book, 
I am always gratefully yours. 298 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
TO JAMES EREEMAN CLARKE. 
April 14, 1872. 
My dear Friend and Classmate, - A large part 
of my Sunday has been passed with you, - for I have 
been reading in the Ten Great Religions most of the 
afternoon (instead of going to church, sinner that I 
am (or not)), and I have just finished the Address 
at the Dedication, which I had not read until this 
evening. 
I am not going to pay you cheap compliments about 
a work which embodies the studies and thoughts of 
so many years, but I am going to thank you for writ- 
ing it. You could not have chosen any task which 
I should have been so grateful for, and you have per- 
formed it in a way which, if I can judge by my own 
impressions, must be in the highest degree acceptable 
to that very large class of readers who wish to have 
some clear idea of the comparative anatomy (to steal 
one of my own terms) of religion. 
The book is full of interest, and ought to be read 
by all the millions of rural and metropolitan and cos- 
mopolitan provincials, who think the Almighty never 
cared a shekel for any of his children except a pack 
of rebellious Jews and some fifty or sixty generations 
of squabbling and fighting Christians. 
The Address is in the best taste, and made the water 
stand in my eyes, as Christiana had it stand in hers, 
you will remember. But I said I would not trouble 
you with praise, - only this I must say: I don't 
know anybody whose brain and heart have grown 
quite so steadily together as yours, - and if I could 
look back on such a record as you can, I should feel 
that I ought to be very thankful for having always MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
299 
been guided to the right side, and having always done 
good service to the noblest causes - truth, freedom, 
charity, human brotherhood. 
I am very glad my lecture amused you. 
TO MRS. CAROLINE L. KELLOGG. 
Boston, October 27, 1872. 
My dear Mrs. Kellogg, - I was greatly obliged 
to you for the picture of the old Puritan Colonel, who 
got into the pulpit mistaking it for the saddle. Ue 
ought to have led a charge of dragoons shouting forth, 
" The sword of the Lord and of Gideon," and had 
that knotty old frontispiece of his ornamented with 
half-a-dozen good sabre-cuts. There are a good many 
soldiers who had better have preached, but it is only 
now and then that one sees a preacher who was clearly 
meant for a trooper. However, I don't doubt that he 
has charged on the hosts of Satan as lustily as he 
would have pitched into the ranks of the Southern 
fire-eaters. 
I was not a little pleased too that you and Mrs. 
Stowe agreed in a charitable opinion about such a 
heretic as I am. The real truth is, these Beechers are 
so chock-full of .good, sound, square-stepping, strong- 
hearted humanity that they cannot shut the doors 
of their sympathies against Jew or Gentile. I find 
everywhere, except among the older sort of people - 
(you and I must be old too, in time, but even I am 
not old yet) - and the smaller kind of human pota- 
toes, there is much more real " Catholicism," much 
more feeling that we are all in the same boat and 
the boat in a fog, than there was when I was study-, 
ing Calvin's essence of Christianity in the Assembly's 300 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Catechism. So I can understand how a couple of 
good-hearted and large-souled women manage to tol- 
erate the existence of such a person as I am. But to 
be spoken of so very kindly as you say Mrs. Stowe 
spoke of me made me color up so that I thought at 
first you had written on pink paper, - it was the 
reflection of my blushes. 
You had a good time at your celebration, as I knew 
you would, without getting me up there to tag rhymes 
together after the eloquent and elegant George had 
exhausted all your sensibilities. Spunky town, Pitts- 
field ! Jubilees and celebrations are sure to go off 
well there. How I sometimes long for a sight of 
Saddle Mountain ! But then I should have to go 
down to our old place, and I could not make up my 
mind to do it. I should (want to) cry so as to make 
Sackett's Brook run over its banks, and there would 
be danger of a freshet in the Housatonic. A thousand 
thanks again, and remember me to your husband and 
children, and to Mrs. Newton when you see her. 
December 6, 1879. 
My dear Bishop-Schoolmate-Friend, - I was 
more pleased - I am more pleased, I should say, for 
I have just read your letter - at receiving your kind 
message of remembrance than I can tell in the few 
words to which my tired right hand restricts me. I 
cannot forget the interest you showed in my early 
papers in The Atlantic, or the friendly admonition, 
not unwelcome, sweet and gracious as it was, that I 
should be careful in dealing with the great subjects 
on which I had sometimes ventured. I think you will 
TO BISHOP LEE. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
301 
agree with me that since that time a remarkable 
change has taken place in the attitude of men towards 
each other in all that relates to spiritual matters, es- 
pecially in this respect: that Protestantism is more 
respectful in its treatment of Romanism, Orthodoxy 
in its treatment of Heterodoxy, supernaturalism in its 
treatment of naturalism, Christianity in its handling 
of humanity. The limitations of men are better 
realized, the impossibility of their thinking alike more 
fully recognized, the virtue of humility found to 
include many things which have often been con- 
sidered outside of its province, - among others the 
conviction of the infallibility of our own special con- 
victions in matters of belief, which appeal differently 
to different minds. I have tried to do my share in 
enlarging the spiritual charity of mankind, and 
though it is delicate, perhaps dangerous work, as our 
well-being in this and all other worlds rests in faith 
and obedience, I hope, if I have done anything, it 
has been useful, not harmful. It was well, I think, 
that you and others should have given me affectionate 
cautions, and I love you all the better for having 
done it. 
Believe me, my dear old friend, sincerely and affec- 
tionately yours. 
TO JOHN O. SARGENT. 
June 8, 1877. 
My dear John, - It sounded so good - or looked 
so good - to be addressed as Wendell! Few, few 
are there who call me by that name. Herman Inches, 
James Russell Lowell, - who else besides these and 
yourself ? I got your letter two or three days ago, 302 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
and read it at once. Now I have just read it again, 
aloud to my wife, and the whole poem too, which I 
find mighty pleasant, really Horatian in its whole tone 
and spirit. You write better than you did in the days 
of The, Collegian, - you wrote remarkably well then, 
but there is an ease about this version which only 
a somewhat mellow stage of life can give to prose or 
verse. Those graceful adaptations of Roman life to 
New York scenes and persons are very taking. I 
shall go to bed and dream that 
" On terrapin and Clos Vougeot 
I'm lunching with Delmonico." 
I return Barnes's letter to you, - it is full of good 
feeling, - its only fault is that it is hard to read. I 
did n't know that men ever criss-crossed their letters, 
- don't I know that women do! I have had fifty 
bushels (more or less) of letters from women, since I 
have been somewhat known as an author. If I had 
been as good-looking as you, I suppose I should have 
been made a fool of, but I am 'umble about personal 
advantages. Besides, I remember Alexandre Dumas 
or some other Frenchman says that the women who 
write to authors are for the most part " laides pour 
faire fuir Farmee Russe." But as 1 said before, they 
do criss-cross their letters in such a way that I feel in 
looking at them that the age of miracles is not past 
after all. 
Do you know why I write in this flippant way ? I 
will tell you : this is the eleventh letter I am writing 
without stopping to take breath between them, and 
my hand has got going like planchette. I am sure, but 
for that, I should have written in a different vein, for 
I have had enough to sadden me within the past few 
months. The death of , to whom I was really MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
303 
attached, and whose most pleasant companionship I 
miss very much, was soon followed by that of my 
sister, Mrs. Upham. Edmund Quincy was not so 
much an intimate with me, though an agreeable ac- 
quaintance. But Motley I have been in the closest 
relation with, and especially of late since his wife's 
death. Two years ago he spent the summer, or a large 
part of it, at Nahant, and I passed generally two 
hours or thereabouts with him every day for weeks. 
I have also been in constant correspondence with him 
for many years. It is a large gap he leaves in my 
friendships, for one makes few new friends in the 
later decades of life, and the tap-root of early inti- 
macy reaches deeper down than the looser fibres of 
later growth. Constant occupation leaves none too 
much of leisure for mourning over our losses when 
they do not invade the circle of daily life. Perhaps 
it is best it should be so, but I sometimes feel as if 
I had not waked up to all that I have lost. 
I enclose the account of our Unitarian festival, or 
rather of my own part in it, - also a copy of " The 
First Fan," which you were good enough to speak 
well of. 
TO JOHN G. WHITTIER.1 
June 19, 1878. 
My dear Whittier, - It was very kind in you 
to tell me that my Andover poem pleased you. I 
wrote the poem rather as a duty than as a pleasure, 
and yet here and there I found myself taken off my 
feet by that sudden influx of a tide that comes from 
we know not whence, but which makes being, and 
1 This letter has been already printed in Pickard's Life and 
Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier. 304 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
especially internal vision, so intense and real. You, 
as a poet, know so well what that means ! But I will 
give a trivial illustration, which to my mind is much 
better than a grander one. In the intensified state of 
retrospection which came over me, a fact reproduced 
itself, which I do not believe had come up before for 
fifty years. It was " the upward-slanting floor " of 
the school-room at the Academy. Not a poetical fact, 
- and all the better for that, - not an important 
one, but still a fact which had its place in the old 
fresco that seemed to have utterly faded from the 
wall of memory. What an exalted state of vitality 
that is which thus reproduces obsolete trivialities as 
a part of its vivid picture, - flashes, - just as in 
the experience a hundred times recorded of drowning 
persons who have been rescued! We may become 
intensely conscious of existence through pleasure or 
through pain, but we never know ourselves until we 
have tried both experiences ; and I think that some 
of the most real moments of life are those in which 
we are seized upon by that higher power, which takes 
the rudder out of the hands of will, as the pilot takes 
the place of the captain in entering some strange har- 
bor ; and I am sure I never know where I am going 
to be landed from the moment I find myself in the 
strange hands of the unknown power that has taken 
control of me. Not that there is much, if any, of 
what is called " inspiration " in the particular poem 
that pleases you, - but there are passages, for all 
that, which I could not write except in the clairvoyant 
condition. To cover my egotisms, let me say to you 
unhesitatingly that you have written the most beauti- 
ful school-boy poem in the English language. I just 
this moment read it, because I was writing to you, MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
305 
and before I had got through " In School-Days " the 
tears were rolling out of my eyes. Yes, I need not 
have said all this to you, as if you did not know it all, 
- perhaps I said it because you know it so well. 
I am very glad you are interested in Dr. Clarke's 
book. I watched him during its preparation, and 
discussed many points with him. To me the book is 
in every way full of interest, - and it will always be 
memorable as having been written in the valley of the 
shadow of death. I have left no room for all the feel- 
ings I wish to express to you; perhaps they are better 
imagined. 
TO JOHN G. WHITTIER.1 
Boston, October 10, 1878. 
My dear Whittier, - I know how to thank you 
for the poems, but I do not know how to thank you 
for the more than kind words which make the little 
volume precious. I never was so busy, it seems to 
me, what with daily lectures and literary tasks on 
hand, and all the interruptions which you know about 
so well. But I would not thank you for your sweet 
and most cheering remembrance before reading every 
poem over, whether I remembered it well or not. 
And this has been a great pleasure to me, for you 
write from your heart and reach all hearts. My wife 
wanted me to read one, - a special favorite of my 
own, " The Witch of Wenham," but I told her " No," 
- I knew I should break down before I got through 
with it, for it made me tearful again, as it did the first 
time I read it. 
I was going to say: I thank you; but I would say, 
1 This letter has been already printed in Pickard's Life and 
Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier. 
VOL. IL 306 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
rather, _ thank God that He has given you the thoughts 
and feelings which sing themselves as naturally as the 
wood-thrush rings his silver bell, - to steal your own 
exquisitely descriptive line. Who has preached the 
gospel of love to such a mighty congregation as you 
have preached it ? Who has done so much to sweeten 
the soul of Calvinistic New England? You have your 
reward here in the affection with which all our people, 
who are capable of loving anybody, regard you. I 
trust you will find a still higher in that world the 
harmonies of which find an echo in so many of your 
songs. 
296 Beacon Street, December 26, 1879. 
My dear George, - We - for we do not know 
each other apart very well - are greatly obliged by 
your kind remembrance, and mightily pleased with the 
Royal token of it. Louis Philippe, " le Roi Citoyen," 
was my monarch for nearly three years. I remember 
visiting his palace at Fontainebleau, but he did not ask 
me to stay, - not being there, probably, at the time. 
I cannot help recalling a French lesson I got apropos 
of that visit. 
With two other students - Sam Wigglesworth was 
one of them - I was seated in front of the Dili- 
gence on the imperial, if I remember the name cor- 
rectly. The great vehicle entered a courtyard at 
Fontainebleau, making a sudden turn, and if we had 
not bobbed our heads very quickly and very humbly, 
there would have been three letters with black seals 
sent to America by the next sailing-vessel. As soon 
as we were inside the courtyard I exclaimed in loud 
tones to the driver : " Vous avez manque de tuer trois 
TO GEORGE ABBOT JAMES. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
307 
gentilshommesy I got consumedly laughed at for 
using the word I have underscored, - noblemen, they 
said it meant - when speaking of trois etudiants. 
See, now, how your beautiful gift wakes up old recol- 
lections - the stately palace, the noble park-forest; 
rather, the great trees, - I remember one in particular, 
le bouquet du Hoi, - the weeping rock (la roche qui 
pleure), and the pale woman with her sick child, 
catching the drops to give him ; Ga donne de la force, 
she said. All these, and many another recollection, 
are summoned as I read the word "Fontainebleau" 
on the exquisite Sevres porcelain. 
But better than all this is the feeling that the cup, 
which held - or may have held - the coffee for a 
king's breakfast, comes holding what kings cannot 
always command, the kind wishes of one whose friend- 
ship we are sure of. 
With our love to yourself and Lily, from both of 
us, for both of us. 
TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.1 
March 6, 1881. 
I have sweetened this Sunday afternoon by reading 
the poems in the precious little volume you sent me a 
few days ago. Some were new to me ; others, as you 
ought to know, are well known. I have not forgotten 
your kind words for my evening breakfast. If you 
happen to have seen an article in the March - or was 
it February ? - North American, you will have 
noticed, it may be, my reference to " The Minister's 
Daughter," and to yourself as preaching the Gospel 
1 Reproduced from Pickard's Life of John Greenleaf Whittier, 
ii. 667. 308 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
of Love to a larger congregation than any minister 
addresses. I never rise from any of your poems with- 
out feeling the refreshment of their free and sweet 
atmosphere. I may find more perfume in one than in 
another, - as one does in passing from one flowery 
field into the next. I may find more careful planting 
in this or in that, as in different garden-beds, but 
there is always the morning air of a soul that breathes 
freely, and always the fragrance of a loving spirit. 
Again that sweetest " Minister's Daughter " brought 
the tears into my eyes - and out of them. Again I 
read with emotion that generous tribute [" The Lost 
Occasion"] to the man whom, living, we so longed to 
admire without a reservation; of whom, dead, you 
write with such a noble humanity. I must not speak 
too warmly of the lines whose kindness I feel so 
deeply, only wishing I had deserved such a tribute 
better. But of the poem which comes next, " Garri- 
son," I can speak; and I will say that it has the 
strenuous tone, the grave music, of your highest mood, 
- which, I believe, is the truest and best expression 
of the New England inner life which it has ever found, 
at least in versified utterance. I have forgotten to 
thank you for remembering me, and especially for the 
way in which you remember me, for I did not miss 
the words which made my blood warm, as I read them 
on the fly-leaf. Let me say - for it means more than 
you can know - that no written or printed words 
come into our household on which my wife, a very 
true-hearted woman, looks with so much interest as 
on yours. 
VOL. IL MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
309 
TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.1 
April 6, 1881. 
My dear James, - Many thanks for your book, 
in which I have read a good deal, selecting the parts 
which most interested me, and have found them full 
of interest, carefully studied and vividly presented. 
I should think this book must have a wider circu- 
lation than anything you have written, and though 
many readers will say they accept more of the Chris- 
tian story as fact, and others less, than you do, yet 
all will agree that the narrative is admirable, the 
sweet reasonableness that runs through it all enough 
to disarm all angry criticisms. There is only one 
grave objection to so wise and good a teacher as you 
are, - it is, that he renders the supernatural less prob- 
able by showing us what excellence a man may reach 
without being born out of the natural order or en- 
dowed with more than the human divine attributes. 
TO BISHOP LEE. 
January 25, 1883. 
My dear Bishop, - I am sorry that you should 
have been put to the trouble to answer a letter about 
me. I know nothing of the writer except that he 
applied to me for my experiences of life. I offered 
him the same outline of its chief epochs as I do to 
others who are curious about my personality, and told 
him that another gentleman, a man of some literary 
standing, was beforehand with him, and that I had 
promised him the incidents to help out his narrative. 
1 Acknowledging the receipt of The Legend of Thomas Didy- 
mus. 310 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
This pursuit of the biographers is like the poor young 
prince's " baptism of fire," - a kind of necessity to 
authors who reach a certain amount of publicity. To 
shield myself from the fusillade I had some copies of 
the main facts of my life made, and I dodge behind 
these when they open fire. 
There is one pleasant thing about it, - it brought 
me a letter from an honored and beloved old school- 
mate of my tender years. I am very glad to hear 
that you are well and happy, as you ought to be, with 
a long, diligent, useful, and dignified career to look 
back upon. 
I did not give up my professorship from any kind 
of infirmity, mental or bodily, but because my ser- 
vices in literature were called for on such terms that 
I could not resist the advantages they offered. Like 
all the rest of us, I feel the effects of age; but I 
enjoy life and work, and may possibly do a good deal 
of writing before I am done with. I have become 
quite attached to this particular planet, with which I 
have been so long acquainted. I wish I could believe 
that we may be able to take a peep at it now and then 
from the height of a future existence. I can hardly 
conceive of its losing its interest for those who have 
been cradled on it. I do not know whether this is 
quite Orthodox, but it is mighty human. 
I hope I may some time have the pleasure of meet- 
ing you at one of our Harvard Commencements, but 
I suppose you find, as I do, that every year makes it 
harder and harder to get away from the fireside. 
Wishing you, in return for your kind expressions, 
all the blessings that the evening of life can bring, 
I am 
Your once little schoolmate, now your old friend. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
311 
TO JOHN O. SARGENT. 
May 15, 1887. 
My dear John, - Is n't it a comfort to be called by 
your Chris'n name by one to whom it "comes natural " 
to do so? Yes, you are John and I am Wendell till 
the stars are opposite our names in the Quinquennial. 
I delight in finding that [you] are as much alive 
as ever. If there are two of you, so much the better ; 
- we can't have too many John O.'s. I did not see 
your double at the Governor's, and I never saw Wade 
Hampton ; so whether he has the honor of looking 
like you I cannot say. 
"Cope could not cope, nor Wade wade through the snow, 
Nor Hawley haul his cannon to the foe." 
Wade would have liked to wade through the blood 
of our soldiers, I suppose, as far as Bunker Hill, - 
but he did n't. No, my dear John, look like yourself, 
- you were never an unhandsome-looking fellow. 
I am so glad to see that you stick to your Horace. 
I read your translations with great delight as soon as 
they came, and have them lying by me to read again. 
I found them admirable. The fact is, you have lived 
in Horace so intimately and so long that you have got 
his flavor into your very marrow, and feel and talk 
just as that grand Roman gentleman did. You would 
have been good company for Maecenas. I wish I had 
become as familiar with some classic author as you are 
with Horace. There is nothing like one of those pe- 
rennial old fellows for good old gentlemanly reading ; 
and for wit and wisdom, what is there to compare with 
the writings of Horace ? You make me envious, - 
I vow I shall have to get up Juvenal or Catullus, 312 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
naughty but nice, or somebody that nobody else knows 
about - Silius Italicus - or mediaeval Vida " on whose 
classic brow," etc., etc., or George Buchanan. I get 
so tired of the damp sheets of all sorts of literati just 
out of the press, - of screeching rhymesters (worse 
than the " screeching women of Marblehead and 
clamorous essayists, that I want something always by 
me, calm, settled beyond cavilling criticism, - a cool, 
clear draught of Falernian that has been somewhere 
near two thousand years in the cellar. 
I hope you will go on and translate all the Odes 
and as much else of Horace's as you have the courage 
to attack. 
TO JOHN O. SARGENT. 
November 16, 1888. 
Dear John, - Next to a good poem is a good 
criticism on it. I have been reading the Ode " Jus- 
tum et tenacem " carefully, and your translation and 
commentary. I feel as if I had never taken the noble 
poem in before. How brave a scholiast was in Sar- 
gent - no, not lost by ever so much, for you will live 
to print that volume of " Translations " with notes 
critical and explanatory, and I hope I shall live to 
receive a presentation copy. 
I find the translation and the elucidation of the 
poem admirable. I shall catch your Horatio-mania, I 
am afraid, for I have so many irons in the fire that 
I dread a new temptation. 
" Si fractus illabatur orbis 
Impavidum ferient ruinae." 
I remember contrasting that magnificent utterance 
of old Pagan manhood with the abject terrors of the John O. Sargent MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
313 
Dies irce. Which is the nobler attitude for one of 
God's human creatures ? 
It seems to me that we are both pretty bright for 
old friends that can begin their old stories with the 
second title of Waverley, " 'T is sixty years since." 
TO JOHN G. WHITTIER.1 
September 2, 1889. 
Here I am at your side among the octogenarians. 
You know all about it. You know why I have not 
thanked you before this for your beautiful and pre- 
cious tribute, which would make any birthday mem- 
orable. I remember how you were overwhelmed with 
tributes on the occasion of your own eightieth birth- 
day, and you can understand the impossibility I find 
before me of responding in any fitting shape to all 
the tokens of friendship which I receive. ... I hope, 
dear Whittier, that you find much to enjoy in the 
midst of all the lesser trials which old age must bring 
with it. You have kind friends all around you, and 
the love and homage of your fellow-countrymen as 
few have enjoyed them, with the deep satisfaction of 
knowing that you have earned them, not merely by 
the gifts of your genius, but by a noble life which has 
ripened without a flaw into a grand and serene old 
age. I never see my name coupled with yours, as it 
often is nowadays, without feeling honored by finding 
myself in such company, and wishing that I were 
more worthy of it. ... I am living here with my 
daughter-in-law, and just as I turned this leaf I heard 
1 Reproduced from Pickard's Life of John Greenleaf Whittier, 
u. 741. 314 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
wheels at the door, and she got out, leading in in 
triumph her husband, His Honor, Judge Holmes of 
the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, just arrived 
from Europe by the Scythia. I look up to him as 
my magistrate, and he knows me as his father, but 
my arms are around his neck and his moustache is 
sweeping my cheek, - I feel young again at four- 
score. 
TO JOHN C. TRAUTWINE, JR. 
Boston, April 29, 1891. 
My dear Sir, - Your letter was--.is, I should 
say - in many respects very gratifying to me. I try 
to remember Bacon's precept always, and I apply it 
specially to this letter of yours ; - it is well worn, but 
you will let me repeat it: - 
" Read not to contradict and refute; not to believe 
and take for granted ; not to find talk and discourse ; 
but to weigh and consider." 
I notice that you are J. C. T. Junior. Do you 
suppose I want you, a young man, to take the severe 
views of the future that I, a confirmed octogenarian, 
do ? No, I am very willing to see you and other young 
persons more sanguine than myself in their views of 
a possible condition of humanity which I cannot be- 
lieve in as they do, but towards which, as an unat- 
tainable ideal, many practical measures may be insti- 
tuted which will prove serviceable. The best examples 
I can find of a truly realized communistic society are 
to be looked for among the Shakers, who have no 
wives nor children, and the ants, who have no brains. 
But I would get a lesson from both, - adopt some 
things from the Shaker communities and some from 
the excellently ordered and thoroughly socialistic ant- 
villages. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
315 
I do not pretend to answer all the letters I receive 
with my own hand, as it would take all my time to 
do it, but I was unwilling to hand your letter over 
to my secretary, and I thank you personally for your 
friendly way of [showing me] what you think is my 
error, - an error, if it be one, of no great consequence 
in a writer who has survived his generation, and can 
hardly be expected to see the future with the eyes of 
his children and grandchildren. 
TO JOHN G. WHITTIER.1 
[1891.] 
I congratulate you upon having climbed another 
glacier and crossed another crevasse in your ascent of 
the white summit which already begins to see the 
morning twilight of the coming century. A life so 
well filled as yours has been cannot be too long for 
your fellow-men. In their.affections you are secure, 
whether you are with them here, or near them in some 
higher life than theirs. I hope your years have not 
become a burden, so that you are tired of living. At 
our age we must live chiefly in the past: happy is he 
who has a past like yours to look back upon. It is 
one of the felicitous incidents - I will not say acci- 
dents - of my life, that the lapse of time has brought 
us very near together, so that I frequently find myself 
honored by seeing my name mentioned in near con- 
nection with your own. We are lonely, very lonely, 
in these last years. The image which I have used 
before this in writing to you recurs once more to my 
thought. We were on deck together as we began the 
1 Reproduced from Pickard's Life of John Greenleaf Whit- 
tier, ii. 755. 316 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
voyage of life two generations ago. A whole genera- 
tion passed, and the succeeding one found us in the 
cabin with a goodly number of coevals. Then the 
craft which held us began going to pieces, until a few 
of us were left on the raft pieced together of its frag- 
ments. And now the raft has at last parted, and you 
and I are left clinging to the solitary spar, which is 
all that still remains afloat of the sunken vessel. 
I have just been looking over the headstones in Mr. 
Griswold's cemetery, entitled The Poets and Poetry 
of America. In that venerable receptacle, just com- 
pleting its half century of existence - for the date of 
the edition before me is 1842 - I find the names of 
John Greenleaf Whittier and Oliver Wendell Holmes 
next each other, in their due order, as they should be. 
All around are the names of the dead - too often of 
forgotten dead. Three which I see there are still 
living: Mr. John Osborne Sargent, who makes Horace 
his own by faithful study, and ours by scholarly trans- 
lation; Isaac McLellan, who was writing in 1830, 
and whose last work is dated 1886; and Christopher 
P. Cranch, whose poetical gift has too rarely found 
expression. Of these many dead, you are the most 
venerated, revered, and beloved survivor; of these 
few living, the most honored representative. Long 
may it be before you leave a world where your influ- 
ence has been so beneficent, where your example has 
been such inspiration, where you are so truly loved, 
and where your presence is a perpetual benediction. 
TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. 
296 Beacon Street, October 17, 1891. 
My dear Friend,- You must feel the meaning 
of that word more and more, as I do certainly, as, one 317 
after another, those whose friendship means most for 
me are taken away. I think I know what this last 
supreme loss1 must be to you, and I assure you I have 
thought a great deal of your bereavement, and felt a 
sympathy for you which I have rarely known for any 
one out of my own family circle. I am sure that his 
intimacy must have made a large part of your interest 
in life. During the delivery of his noble poem, read 
under the Washington elm, I could not keep my eyes 
from following the expression of your countenance. No 
Dante in the presence of Beatrice could have shown 
more truthfully in his features the delight with which 
he looked at her and listened to her. It impressed me 
more than all else on that occasion, and I never think 
of you without seeing your portrait in that exalted 
state of feeling - I will not say 
" breathless with adoration," 
for the phrase might not please you, - but entirely 
absorbed in the delight which you were experiencing. 
I could claim no such intimacy as yours with James, 
and yet I feel his loss very deeply. He always showed 
a very kindly feeling towards me, and I owe to him 
more than to almost any other friend. He early tried 
to interest me in some of those larger movements in 
which he was himself active. I recognized the gener- 
ous aim of his effort, and received his communication 
not ungraciously. But the little fruit on my poorly 
built espalier was very slow in ripening, and after that 
first attempt of his he left me for a long interval to 
ripen as I might. It was not until 1857 that he 
appealed to me again, not so much trying to change 
my ways of thinking and acting as to stimulate me to 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
1 The death of James Russell Lowell. 318 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
use certain gifts, which he believed I had from nature, 
for the use of the public. Though almost a decade 
younger than myself, I recognized his literary experi- 
ence and wisdom, and began to believe in myself 
because he thought so well of me. From the impulse 
he gave me I date my best efforts and my nearest 
approach to success in literary pursuits. His praise I 
always felt to be one of my best rewards. 
I am rejoiced to know that you are to write the 
Memoir, for which the world of letters will be impa- 
tiently waiting. No one else could have been thought 
of, and I hope most sincerely that I may live to see 
it finished. But I am lagging beyond my time. I 
looked forward to having a few kind words said for 
me, when I should be gone, by him for whom I have 
lived to write a requiem such as it was given me to 
put in words, inadequate, but not falsely colored. 
Perhaps I should not have written at this particular 
moment had I not found on my table your Translation 
of the first Part of the Divine Comedy. You must 
finish your work without his eye to review its closing 
portions. But his presence will be with you still, as 
in some degree it is with us all who knew and loved 
him, luminous, benign, helpful, and rich in thought 
and learning beyond all others in our circle of know- 
ledge. I sent you my In Memoriam lines, directed 
to Ashfield, where I hope they reached you. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
319 
TO MRS. JAMES T. FIELDS.1 
Where this will find you, in a geographical point of 
view, I do not know; but I know your heart will be in 
its right place, and accept kindly the few barren words 
this sheet holds for you. Yes; barren of incident, of 
news of all sorts, but yet having a certain flavor of 
Boston, of Cape Ann, and, above all, of dear old re- 
membrances, the suggestion of any one of which is as 
good as a page of any common letter. So, whatever 
I write will carry the fragrance of home with it, and 
pay you for the three minutes it costs you to read it. 
... I find great delight in talking over cathedrals 
and pictures and English scenery, and all the sights 
my travelling friends have been looking at, with Mrs. 
Bell. It seems to me that she knew them all before- 
hand, so that she was journeying all the time among 
reminiscences which were hardly distinguishable from 
realities. 
My recollections are to those of other people around 
me who call themselves old - the sexagenarians, for 
instance - something like what a cellar is to the 
ground-floor of a house. The young people in the 
upper stories (American spelling, story') go down to 
the basement in their inquiries, and think they have 
got to the bottom ; but I go down another flight of 
steps, and find myself below the surface of the earth, 
as are the bodies of most of my contemporaries. As 
to health, I am doing tolerably well. I have just 
come in from a moderate walk in which I acquitted 
myself creditably. I take two-hour drives in the after- 
1 Mrs. Fields prints this in her article in The Century Maga- 
zine, February, 1895, explaining that it was written to her by 
the Doctor when he was eighty-three years old. 320 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
noon, in the open or close carriage, according to the 
weather; but I do not pretend to do much visiting, 
and I avoid all excursions when people go to have 
what they call a " good time." 
I am reading right and left - whatever turns up, 
but especially re-reading old books. Two new vol- 
umes of Dr. Johnson's letters have furnished me part 
of my reading. As for writing, when my secretary 
comes back, I shall resume my dictation. No literary 
work ever seemed to me easier or more agreeable than 
living over my past life, and putting it on record as 
well as I could. If anybody should ever care to write 
a sketch or memoir of my life, these notes would help 
him mightily. My friends, too, might enjoy them, - 
if I do not have the misfortune to outlive them all. 
With affectionate regards and all sweet messages to 
Miss Jewett. 
Always your friend, 
O. W. Holmes. INDEX 
Abbott, Holker ; letter to, about 
Pittsfield, i. 197* 
Adams, Charles Francis, the elder; 
predictions in 1861, ii. 155. 
Adams, Charles Francis, the 
younger ; anecdote, ii. 28. 
Adams, John; principal of Phil- 
lips Academy, i. 23, 58. 
Adams, John Quincy; i. 53. 
Adams, Rev. Nehemiah; remarks 
on his religious tenets, ii. 224, 
253. 
Advertiser. See Boston Daily Ad- 
vertiser. 
Agassiz, Prof. Louis; ii. 189 ; jest 
about " Liebig's Extract," i. 249; 
death, ii. 51; at Humboldt cel- 
ebration, 184 ; his wife, 205. 
Agassiz, Mrs. Louis; ii. 205. 
Aldrich, Thomas B.; speech at 
the Atlantic Breakfast, i. 318. 
Alexander, Emperor of Russia, i. 
139. 
Alexis, Grand Duke of Russia; 
visit to Boston, ii. 191. 
Amory, William ; note to, i. 233 ; 
mentioned, ii. 81, 205 ; letter to, 
about poems of the Rebellion, 
290. 
Anderson, General Robert ; Dr. 
Holmes's remarks about him, ii. 
176. 
Andral, Gabriel; i. 91. 
Andrew, John A.; i. 326. 
Angell, F. A.; letter to, ii. 26. 
Angier, Rev. Joseph ; i. 77. 
Appleton, Nathan; note to, i. 323. 
Appleton, Thomas G.; i. 83, 94, 
104, ii. 36, 185 ; lines in his al- 
bum, 232; note to him, 246; 
dedicates book to Dr. Holmes, 
322 ; letter to, 323 ; Nile Jour- 
nal, 221. 
Arnold, Sir Edwin. See Light of 
Asia. 
Arthur, Chester A.; i. 234. 
Ashmun, J. H.; i. 80. 
Atlantic Breakfast; Mr. Aldrich's 
speech, i. 318; Mark Twain's, 
ii. 22; account of, 43 ; men- 
tioned in letter to J. R. Lowell, 
123. 
" Atlantic Club ; " was there one ? 
i. 241, 242. 
Atlantic Monthly; founded and 
named, i. 204 ; Dr. Holmes's 
loyalty to, 219; he solicits J. 
R. Lowell to contribute to it, 
221; its connection with " At- 
lantic " or "Saturday" Club, 
242 ; its career, ii. 155, 156. 
Austen, Jane ; i. 266. 
Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table ; 
quoted, i. 192, 197, 203, 215, 
292; ii. 5, 6, 8, 36, 40; begun, 
205; comments on, 206 et seq. ; 
criticisms on, 207; condemned 
as irreligious, 268. 
Ball's Bluff; engagement of, ii. 
157-159. 
Banks, Nathaniel P.; predictions 
in 1861, ii. 155 ; and later, 166; 
follows Sumner, 194. 
Barker, Dr. Fordyce; notes to, i. 
247, ii. 47,82, 101. 
Barlow, Joel, i. 343. 
Barnes, Phineas ; the Doctor's 
friend at school, i. 23; letters 
to, 24, 52-75, 168, 193, 283. 322 
INDEX 
Bartlett, Francis; note to, i. 354. 
Barton, ; quarrel at a ball in 
Paris, i. 128. 
Bayard, Thomas F.; i. 308. 
Beecher, Henry Ward ; i. 38; the 
"Beecher-Tilton scandal," ii. 
209, 210. 
" Bell of St.Basil, The ; " letter to 
Mrs. Ward about, ii. 264 
Bellows, John; in Gloucestershire 
Chronicle, i. 4; note to, about 
Over the Teacups, ii. 69. 
Beverly Farms ; summer resi- 
dence at, ii. 74, 75. 
Bigelow, Dr. Henry J. ; i. 185, 
307, 324, ii. 25. 
Bigelow, Dr. Jacob; i. 83, ii. 205, 
241. 
Bigelow, George T.; i. 77, ii. 
121. 
Biglow Papers; reference to, ii. 
8 ; letter about, 112. 
Biglow, William ; i. 33. 
Bishop, John ; i. 6. 
Bishop, Temperance ; i. 6. 
Bizot, ; i. 151. 
Bohemian Club of San Francisco; 
the rhymed telegram to, i. 249. 
Bonaparte, Napoleon; i. 92, 109. 
Book-Buyer, The; i. 335. 
Bordeaux, Duke of; i. 111. 
Boston Daily Advertiser; vexes 
the Doctor by misprint, ii. 124. 
Boston Medical Library ; Dr. 
Holmes's presidency, services, 
and gift of books, i. 184; ad- 
dress at opening of, quoted, 
ii. 7. 
Bowditch, Dr. Henry I.; i. 126, 
151. 
Boyer, Alexis ; i. 93. 
Boylston prizes ; taken by Dr. 
Holmes, i. 161, 162. 
Bradstreet, Ann ; i. 14. 
Bradstreet, Mercy; i. 14. 
Bradstreet, Simon; i. 14. 
Bresehet, ; i. 102. 
Bright, John ; ii. 67, 159. 
Broek; village described, i. 138, 
139. 
Brooks, Henry ; book about great 
trees, ii. 135, 137. 
Brooks, Phillips; letter to, i. 280; 
mentioned, ii. 121 ; at dinner 
to Grand Duke Alexis, 192. 
"Broomstick Train," the poem; 
ii. 70. 
Broussais, Fr. Jos. Victor; i. 91. 
Brownell, Henry Howard; his war 
lyrics, ii. 291. 
Bruce, Sir Frederick; ii. 174; 
about China, 177. 
Bugeaud da la Piconerie; duel, i. 
128. 
Bunn, Alfred ; i. 189. 
Burnett, Waldo ; i. 182. 
Burlingame, Anson; concerning 
China, ii. 177. 
Burns, Robert; the Doctor's mot 
about, i. 356. 
Burns and the Kirk; i. 356. 
Burnside, Gen. Ambrose E.; ii. 
171. 
Butler, Benjamin F.; ii. 132. 
Byron, Lord; Mrs. H. B. Stowe's 
article in Atlantic Monthly 
charging incest, ii. 179, 183, 
209, 228. 
Cabot, Dr. Samuel; ii. 79. 
Calderon; remarks about his ver- 
sification, ii. 277. 
Cambridge (England) University; 
confers degree of Doctor of Let- 
ters on Dr. Holmes, ii. 66. 
Canoe Meadow ; i. 197, 199, 201. 
Carlyle, Thomas; i. 2. 
Carpenter, Dr. ; i. 247. 
Cattle-show ; letter declining invi- 
tation to, ii. 114. 
Century Dictionary ; Dr. Holmes's 
pun, ii. 28. 
"Chambered Nautilus, The;" i. 
225-227, ii. 239, 278. 
Charles River; i. 195, 196, ii. 190. 
Charles Street house; i. 195. 
Charles X.; i. 111. 
Cheever, Dr. David W.; his arti- 
cle on Dr. Holmes as a medical 
instructor, quoted, i. 174-177; 
Dr. Holmes's humanity, 180; 
concerning the Doctor's love of 
old medical books, and the med- 
ical library, 184; as to Dr. 
Holmes's ideas about women- 
physicians. 185. INDEX 
323 
Childs, George W.; i. 260. 
Clarke, Prof. Alonzo ; rattlesnake 
story, ii. 237. 
Clarke, Dr. Edward H.: methods 
of work, ii. 13; Dr. Holmes's 
visits to him in his illness, 216, 
240, 241. 
Clarke, Rev. James Freeman, D. 
D.; i. 63,77, ii. 83; " humanizing 
theology," i. 271; letter to him, 
wherein Dr. Holmes declines to 
take part in some association, 
305; letter to, about life of 
Emerson, ii. 59; his death, 71, 
72, 81; writes verses to Dr. 
Holmes, which the Doctor re- 
quests may be printed as his 
.Envoi, 104; letters to, 269,272, 
290, 309; letter to, thanking for 
volume of sermons, 288 ; about 
Ten Great Religions, etc., 298. 
Class of '29 ; i. 76-78, ii. 137. 
Clemens, S. L. ; anecdote of his 
dedication of The Innocents 
Abroad, ii. 22. 
Clement, ; tutor at Phillips 
Academy, i. 58. 
Cleveland, Grover; Dr. Holmes 
writes to him about J. R. Low- 
ell, i. 308. 
Cloquet, Jules; i. 128. 
"Coliseum," the, at Boston; ii. 
179. 
Collegian, The; i. 68, 79, 237, ii. 
82, 302. 
" Contagiousness of Puerperal 
Fever; " the Doctor's essay, 
i. 164-167, 225. 
Conway, Moncure D. ; talk about 
affairs in 1862, ii. 162, 163. 
Cranch, Christopher P. ; ii. 316. 
Crocker, F. W.; i. 53. 
Crowninshield, George; i. 117, 
118. 
Cunningham, Dr. George ; i. 337. 
Curtis, George William; ii. 51, 55, 
76; concerning The Autocrat, 
i. 206; concerning Dr. Holmes, 
214, ii. 32 ; concerning the Doc- 
tor's colloquial style, 256. 
Curtis, Benjamin R.; i. 63, 77. 
Dana Richard H., senior; i. 15. 
Dana, Richard H., -junior; ii. 177, 
220. 
Dartmouth College ; appoints Dr. 
Holmes lecturer on anatomy, i. 
161. 
Davis, George T.; i. 77. 
Dejazet, Pauline Virginie ; the ac- 
tress ; i. 88. 
Dental Faculty (and School) ; Dr. 
Holmes's letters about their 
dinners, i. 336-338. 
Despine, Prosper ; remarks on his 
book, Psychologic Naturelle, ii. 
237. 
Devereux, George H.; class-ora- 
tor, 1829, i. 63. 
Dies Irce; remarks on, ii. 255, 
313. 
" Dorothy Q.; " i. 14 ; pendent to, 
231. 
Dorr, Mrs. Julia C. R.; letters to, 
on death of her husband, i. 
286 ; about letter-writing, 321; 
thanks for a plant, 355; about 
Over the Teacups, ii. 69, 70. 
Dudley, Gov. Thomas; i. 14. 
Dulong, ; duel, i. 128. 
Dupuytren, Baron Guillaume ; i. 
92. 
Dwight, Prof. Thomas ; his ar- 
ticle on Dr. Holmes as a pro- 
fessor, quoted, i. 174, 177-180, 
182; concerning Dr. Holmes's 
feeling about dissection, etc., 
180, 181; concerning Dr. 
Holmes's position on the ques- 
tion of women as physicians, 
186 ; note to, ii. 80. 
Dwight, Timothy; i. 343. 
Edinburgh, University of ; con- 
fers degree of LL. D. on Dr. 
Holmes, ii. 66. 
Edwards, Prof. Arthur M. ; Dr. 
Holmes's letter to, about wo- 
men-physicians, i. 187. 
Edwards, Jonathan; i. 38, 269, 
271; Dr. Holmes's article on 
him, ii. 11. 
Eliot, Charles W.; President of 
Harvard University, i. 234, 239, 
338 ; his innovations in Univer- 
sity affairs, ii. 187, 188, 190. 324 
INDEX 
Elms : the Boston Elm, Johnston 
Elm, Washington Elm, etc., ii. 5. 
Elsie Venner; quoted, i. 197, 274, 
277, 289; comments on, 211, 
256-266; published, 256; at- 
tempt to dramatize, 257 ; real 
eases similar to that of the story, 
262 ; a " medicated novel, " 263 ; 
Dr. Holmes writes to Mrs. Stowe 
about it, 263 ; regarded as irre- 
ligious, 268, 274 ; anecdote 
about the " twenty-seventh let- 
ter," 355, 356 ; apropos of rat- 
tlesnakes, ii. 237. 
Emerson, Ellen; letter to, ii. 60, 
129. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo; i. 104, 
333, 341; on Montaigne, 213; 
and the Saturday Club, 241; 
death, ii. 51; his life written 
by Dr. Holmes, 55-64, 132; in 
his declining years, 122, 127, 
129 ; his fine selection of words, 
188, 189. 
Evarts, William M.; ii. 51. 
Everett, Edward ; verbal criticism 
of Dr. Holmes's poem, ii. 18 ; 
anecdote, ii. 130. 
Examiner (London) ; praises The 
Poet at the Breakfast-Table, i. 
254. 
Fable for Critics, A ; letter about, 
ii. 107. 
Farragut, Admiral David S.; Dr. 
Holmes's sketch of, ii. 176. 
Fay House ; i. 50. 
Fechter, Carl; ii. 186, 187. 
Fields, Annie (Mrs. James T.); 
article in Century Magazine, i. 
201; letter to, ii. 319. 
Fields, James T.; the Doctor's 
publisher, friend, and neighbor, 
i. 219; letters to, 219, 220, ii. 
278, 289, 294; letters to, about 
some poetical effusions, 282; 
" $100," 284; thanks for a bar- 
ometer, 285 ; mistake about din- 
ner-party, 286 ; about tavern 
at Montreal, 292. 
Field, Kate ; anecdote of Dr. 
Holmes, i. 355. 
Flynt, Henry; old-time tutor at 
Harvard College ; his silver 
cup, ii. 50. 
Forbes, John M.; notes to, i. 244, 
355. 
Forster, John ; Dr. Holmes meets 
him, ii. 213. 
Foster, Mrs. Abby Kelly ; i. 304. 
Fremont, John C.; ii. 167. 
Froude, James A.; lectures in 
Boston, ii. 198. 
Gaffield, Thomas ; notes to, in re- 
sponse to invitations, i. 325,326. 
" Gambrel-roofed house ; " the 
Doctor's birthplace, i. 21, 22, 
218. 
Gardiner, Miss S.; anecdote, ii. 
239. 
Gardner, George ; i. 117, 118,120, 
ii. 197. 
Garrison, F. J.; letter of Rev. 
Samuel May to, about Dr. 
Holmes's class poems, i. 78. 
Garrison, William Lloyd, i. 303. 
Gasparin, Count; ii. 162, 166. 
Gettysburg; the Doctor declines 
to write poem for celebration, i. 
338. 
Gloucestershire Chronicle; quoted, 
i. 4. 
Gosse, Edmund; quoted, i. 247, 
251. 
Grant, Sir Robert; hymn, ii. 244. 
Grant, Gen. U. S; the Doctor's 
talk with him, ii. 174-176; C. 
Sumner's hostility to, 193. 
Gray, Prof. Asa; letter to, i. 347 ; 
letter to Mrs. Gray, ii. 4; men- 
tioned, 81. 
Gray, John C.; i. 83. 
Gray, William; ii. 161. 
Greenwood, Rev. Francis; i. 281. 
" Grisette, La; " ii. 269, 271. 
Guardian Angel, The; i. 211, 292, 
316; published, 265, 266. 
Guiney, Louise Imogen; punning 
note to her, ii. 27. 
Hale. Rev. Edward Everett, D. D.; 
letters to. as to contributions to 
Old and New, i. 328, 329. 
Hall, Dr. Marshall; i. 149, 276. 
Hallowell, N. P.; i. 63. INDEX 
325 
Harcourt, Lady Vernon; letter to, 
ii. 53. 
Harte, Bret ; anecdote of Dr. 
Holmes's advice to, i. 318. 
Harvard Club; story of the son- 
nets written for its dinner, i. 
233-240. 
Harvard University; appoints Dr. 
Holmes professor of anatomy, i. 
173; discussion about its seal, i. 
233-240; confers degree of LL. 
D. on Dr. Holmes, ii. 66. Also 
see Eliot, Charles. 
Hayden, Mrs. H. J.; lines sent to 
her by Dr. Holmes, i. 202. 
Hayne, Paul H.; letters to, i. 312, 
313, 329, ii. 102. 
" Heart of the Golden Roan; " 
poem criticised, i. 340. 
Hedge, Rev. Frederic H., D. D.; 
letters to, ii. 79; about one of 
his books, 296. 
Hewet, "Grandmother;" i. 8-10. 
Hiawatha ; its metre, ii. 277. 
Higginson, Col. T. Wentworth; 
reminiscences of Abiel Holmes, 
i. 15-17; letter to, 16; a popu- 
lar writer, ii. 156; remarks 
about Dr. Holmes's talk, 248. 
Hillard. George S.; ii. 205. 
Hoar, Ebenezer Rockwood ; letter 
to Dr. Holmes about Life of 
Emerson, ii. 63. 
Hoar, Richard; i. 4. 
Hoar, Sheriff; i. 4. 
Hodge, Professor; i. 164. 
Holmes, Rev. Abiel; the Doctor's 
father; i. 5-7, 97; marriages, 
6; extracts from his diary, 8- 
12; characteristics, 15 ; engage- 
ment, 16; records birth of son, 
20; letter to son, 25 ; Dr. 
Holmes's reminiscences of him, 
37, 38; at the South, 303. 
Holmes, Mrs. Abiel; the Doctor's 
mother; i. 6, 15; her engage- 
ment, 16; her education of her 
children, 37, 38; her dowry, 83 ; 
the Doctor's letters to her, from 
Pittsfield, i. 198, ii. 280; her 
death, 164; anecdote of her, 
232. 
Holmes, Amelia J.; the Doctor's 
daughter. See Sargent, Mrs. 
Turner. 
Holmes, Charles; an English ad- 
miral, i. 4, 134. 
Holmes, David; ancestor of the 
Doctor, i. 5-7. 
Holmes, Edward Jackson ; son of 
the Doctor, i. 172, 181; refer- 
ences to his death, 287, ii. 71, 78. 
Holmes, Emra; letter to, i. 4. 
Holmes, John ; i. 5. 
Holmes, John ; the Doctor's bro- 
ther ; i. 127, 198, ii. 164 ; his re- 
marks about the Life of Emerson, 
ii. 63. 
Holmes, Lathrop ; i. 8. 
Holmes, Leonard; i. 8. 
Holmes, Mary; i. 13. 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell; his re-, 
marks concerning biographies, 
i. 1 ; indifferent to his geneal- 
ogy, 3 ; English ancestors, 4 ; 
genealogical notes taken at 
Woodstock, 6-8; his remarks as 
to his maternal ancestors, 12, 
13 ; more as to maternal ances- 
try, 14-17 ; his aristocratic tend- 
encies, 17, 19 ; note to Mrs. 
Kellogg, quoted, 18; born, 19- 
21; talks of his birthplace, 21- 
23 ; friendship with P. Barnes, 
23 ; schooling, 23-25 ; youthful 
experiences with clergymen, 27, 
35, 38; autobiographic reminis- 
cences, 28 et seq.; reminiscences 
of boyhood, 30-33; of school- 
days, 33-37; religious and lit- 
erary education, 37-47; reading 
habits, 40; remarks, in remi- 
niscences, concerning planet 
Venus and the Earth, 45 ; first 
influences in direction of poetry, 
47-50; his own description of 
himself in college, 56; class poet, 
63; does not take degree of 
A. M., 64 ; writes for The Col- 
legian, 68, 79; a medical student, 
70-75, 80-82; enters Harvard 
College, 76; class feeling, and 
songs for his class meetings after 
graduation, 77, 78; as a law stu- 
dent, 78-81; early poetry, - 
" The Spectre Pig," " Old Iron- 326 
INDEX 
sides," etc., 79,80; Farewell Ad- 
dress to Medical School, quoted, 
80; his first attack of " lead- 
poisoning," 81; sails for Eu- 
rope, 83 ; a few days in England, 
after arrival, 84; quotations 
from letters from Paris and 
elsewhere, 84-90, 94, 97; sketch 
of his life in Paris, 86-97 ; of 
his French instructors, 90-94; 
travels on the Continent, and in 
England and Scotland, 94, 95, 
130-139; in 1835 goes to Italy, 
97, 152-156; returns home, 97, 
156 ; group of letters from Eu- 
rope, 98-156; describes Palais 
Royal, Louvre, etc., 98-100; 
describes ways of life, 107, 109, 
114,130,146,148-152; describes 
advantages of study in Paris, 
108, 130 ; after great delay and 
trouble he gets his letters from 
home, 114-116 ; money matters, 
122-124; in London, 132-136; 
description of sights there, - 
Westminster Abbey, Mr. Irving, 
the Royal Family, etc., 134-136; 
journey by rail in England, 140; 
from England back to Paris, via 
Dover, 139-142 ; arrives in New 
York, 156; begins to practise 
medicine, 157; measure of his 
success as a practitioner, 157- 
161; joins Massachusetts Medi- 
cal Society, 157 ; publishes his 
first volume, containing 4> B K 
poem and lyrics, 160; physician 
at Massachusetts General Hos- 
pital, 161 ; appointed lecturer 
on Anatomy at Dartmouth Col- 
lege, 161; wins Boylston prizes, 
161,162; his volume of Medi- 
ical Essays, 162; hatred of ho- 
moeopathy, 162-164; his essay 
on Contagiousness of Puerperal 
Fever, 164-167 ; logical habit of 
mind, 166, 167; marriage, 168, 
170 ; letters to Phineas Barnes, 
24, 52-75, 168, 193; his chil- 
dren, 171,172 ; appointed Park- 
man Professor of Anatomy, etc., 
in Harvard University, 173; his 
remarks concerning office of 
professor, 173,174; character- 
istics as a medical instructor, 
174-183 ; his dislike of imper- 
fect knowledge, 183; as a mi- 
croscopist, 183; a lover of old 
medical books, 184; his gift to 
the medical library, 184; be- 
friends new ideas in medical 
school moderately, 185; his opin- 
ion as to women as medical prac- 
titioners, 185-187; sundry offices 
held by him, 188; his career and 
labors as a popular lecturer, 
190-193 ; his various residences: 
Montgomery Place and Charles 
Street, 195, Beacon Street, 196; 
at Pittsfield, 196-202; engaged 
for the new Atlantic Monthly 
magazine, and names it, 204; 
contributes The Autocrat of the 
Breakfast - Table, 205; was he 
provincial ? 209-212; his lit- 
erary individuality, 212, 214 ; 
list of persons to whom he has 
been compared, 212, 213; his 
affection for Boston, and use of 
the place in his writings, 214, 
215; desire to travel and see 
more of the world, 217, 218; 
contributions to International 
Review, 219 ; faithful adherence 
to Atlantic Monthly, 219; rela- 
tions with his publishers, 219, 
221, 223; with Mr. James T. 
Fields, 219 ; letters to Mr. Fields 
as to writing, 219, 220 (and see 
further on); his business ca- 
pacity, 223 ; his poetry after the 
beginning of The Autocrat, 225 
et seq.; letter in which he com- 
pares his interest in " The Cham- 
bered Nautilus " and the " Essay 
on Puerperal Fever," 225 ; re- 
marks on him as a poet, 226- 
229 ; as a " singer," 228 ; as a 
writer of " occasional " poetry, 
229-231 ; his pendent to " Dor- 
othy Q.," 231; lines in Mr. Ap- 
pleton's album, 232 ; would not 
write criticisms, 207; sonnets 
and correspondence about Har- 
vard University seal, 233-240; 
readings in public from his 327 
works, 240; connection with the 
Saturday Club and love for it, 
241-245 (see Saturday Club) ; 
his table-talk, 245-252 ; a few 
of his sayings, 249,250 ; writes 
The Professor at the Breakfast- 
Table, 252; The Poet at the 
Breakfast-Table, 253-255; com- 
ments on sundry symptoms of 
the times, 255 ; publishes Elsie 
Venner, 256; objects to drama- 
tization of it, 257 ;. corresponds 
with Dr. Weir Mitchell about 
snakes and their venom, 259- 
262 ; receives from him a pres- 
ent of a rattlesnake's skin, 260 ; 
letter to Mrs. Stowe about the 
motif of Elsie Venner, 263; 
publishes The Guardian Angel, 
265 ; A Mortal Antipathy, 266; 
letter to Mr. Ireland about the 
latter, 267; his relations with 
religion and the religious world, 
267 ; interest in theology, 268; 
his humanity, 269; " American- 
izing religion," 273; the making 
of gods, 273; duties of the Cre- 
ator, 274 ; kindly to the " crip- 
pled souls," 277; sets Science 
against Free-will, 278; never 
formulated his own faith, 278, 
279; repudiates the " Deity of 
ecclesiastical commerce," 279; 
a church-goer, 280 ; apropos of 
this, his letter to Bishop Phil- 
lips Brooks, 280 ; would like to 
have written enduring hymns, 
281; remarks about ghosts and 
psychology, 281; about the or- 
thodox hell, 282 ; his letters to 
persons in affliction: to P. 
Barnes, 283; to W. R. Sturte- 
vant, 284; to Mrs. Dorr, 286; 
striking letter on immortality to 
John Lindley, 288; more on 
same topic, 289-291; his influ- 
ence in bringing about tolera- 
tion of varying opinions, 292; 
letter to J. R. Lowell, de- 
fending his abstention from 
" causes," reforms, etc., 295, and 
see 326 ; attitude towards slav- 
ery, 296, 300, 303, 304; effect 
INDEX 
of the war on his opinions, 305; 
but he continues to refuse to 
join associations, apropos of 
which his letter to Dr. J. F. 
Clarke, 305; his Fourth of July 
oration, 1863, 307 ; efforts with 
President Cleveland on behalf 
of James Russell Lowell, 308; 
feelings towards the South after 
the war, 309-313; apropos of 
which are his letters to Alex. P. 
Morse, 310; and to Paul H. 
Hayne, 312,313 ; demands upon 
his time by correspondents and 
others, 313 et seq. ; conscientious 
accuracy in giving advice and 
praise, 316-319; anecdote about 
his advice to Bret Harte, 318; 
and to T. B. Aldrich, 318; his 
liking for simple language, 319; 
an indifferent writer of letters, 
319-321; but a prolific writer of 
short notes, 321 ; specimens of 
short letters and notes, of re- 
plies to requests, etc., 322-357 ; 
announces birth of son, 322; 
recipe for the contributor of a 
rejected article for the Atlantic, 
325; refuses to appear at a 
public meeting, 326; describes 
composition of a lyric as " hav- 
ing a fit," 327; to Dr. E. E. 
Hale, about the " great unwrit- 
ten article," 328; recommenda- 
tions to editors, 329; to Mrs. 
Kellogg, who asked him to take 
part on a public occasion, 330 ; 
to Miss Sherwood, ditto, 331 ; 
about the " Old South," 332 ; 
does not wish reelection as 
President of Alumni Associa- 
tion, 333 ; notes concerning writ- 
ings sent to him for criticism, 
334, 339-344; notes about the 
dinners of the Dental Faculty, 
or Association, 336-338; de- 
clines to write a Gettysburg 
poem, 338; opinion about edi- 
torial right to alter contribu- 
tor's language, 340; efforts to 
get the use of his name, 346; 
his position as to the expulsion 
of homoeopathists from Massa- 328 
INDEX 
chusetts Medical Society, 349; 
note of thanks for Roman wine- 
glass, 351; the " Portuguese 
grammar " note, 351; thanks 
for the ivory scimetar paper- 
cutter, 352; note explaining 
" twenty-seventh letter " in El- 
sie Venner, 356; sundry jests 
and sayings, 356-358; invents 
the hand stereoscope, ii. 1 ; note 
to G. A. James about Charles 
Sumner and book-binding, 2; 
efforts to play on the violin, 3 ; 
an amateur photographer, 3; 
passion for great trees, 3-5 (see 
Brooks, Henry) ; his tree-sec- 
tion, showing dates, 5; a lover 
of books, 6; his remarks about 
books, 6, 7 ; his taste for horses, 
7-9 ; for the prize-fighters, etc., 
9 ; also a boating-man, 9, 10 ; 
always a hard worker, 10; his 
methods and characteristics as 
a writer, 10-17; letters to Dr. 
Mitchell on this subject, 12, 14; 
to James Freeman Clarke on 
same, 269-271; his literary con- 
servatism and purity of style, 
16; letters to Richard Grant 
White on certain points of Eng- 
lish, 17, 19; another letter on 
the like matter, 20; reluctant 
to accept suggestions for altera- 
tion of what he had written, 21; 
dread of plagiarism, 21; but 
willing to repeat himself, 21; 
his well-prepared manuscripts, 
22 ; but sometimes he suffers by 
misprinting, 23, 124; careful 
not to waste his good thoughts, 
23; his puns, 24-28; punning 
letters, - to Dr. Hunt, 24 ; to 
Mr. Angell, 26 ; to Miss Guiney, 
27; his medical training as in- 
fluencing his literary work, 28, 
29; his seriousness and con- 
scientiousness in his literary 
work, 29-32; his personality 
pervades his writings, 32, 33; 
egotism, 33-39 ; flatterers, 34 ; 
not often severely handled by 
the critics, 39-41; letter on the 
subject, 40; but severely han- 
died by The Nation, 40, 223; 
growing- old, 42 et seq. ; letters 
to Howells about the Atlantic 
Breakfast, 43,123; keeps a care- 
ful watch on himself, 45 ; speaks 
of his own cheerful tempera- 
ment, 46 ; resigns professorship 
in Harvard Medical School, 47- 
51; dinner at Delmonico's in 
his honor, 51; remarks on death 
of Longfellow, 51; writes life 
of J. L. Motley, 52-54; letters 
about it to Lady Harcourt, 53 ; 
and to John O. Sargent, 54; 
writes the life of Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, 55-64, 132; receives 
letter from Judge Hoar about 
it, 63; trip (the Hundred Days) 
to Europe, 65; doctorates con- 
ferred upon him by the univer- 
sities of Harvard, Cambridge 
(England), Edinburgh, and Ox- 
ford, 66-68; his remarks about 
continuing his literary work 
after giving up his professor- 
ship, 68; writes Over the Tea- 
cups, 69, 89; and " The Broom- 
stick Train," 70 ; loses his son, 
then his wife, and then his 
daughter, 71; letter about death 
of his wife, 261; of his daughter, 
263; concerning death of James 
Freeman Clarke, 71, 72 ; threat- 
ened with loss of eyesight, 73, 
74, 90; his summer residence 
at Beverly Farms, 74 ; his birth- 
day celebrations, 75-77; the 
correspondence of his old age," 
viz., letters to Whittier, 77, 82, 
87; J. R. Lowell, 78; Rev. F. 
H. Hedge, D. D., 79; Prof. 
Thomas Dwight. 80; John O. 
Sargent, 80, 82; Elizabeth Stu- 
art Phelps Ward, 84; Mrs. Car- 
oline L. Kellogg, 86, 90; Mrs. 
Priestley, 88; Dr. S. Weir 
Mitchell, 89; Charles Dudley 
Warner, 91; his death, 92; no- 
tices by the press, 92, 95; by 
clergymen, 94; by the English 
press, 95; Punch's lines, 96; 
extracts from the French press, 
97 ; likenesses of him, 100; his INDEX 
329 
own remarks about his personal 
appearance, 100-103; Vanity 
Fair's caricature of him, 303 ; 
his letter to James Freeman 
Clarke about the Envoi, 104; 
group of letters to James Rus- 
sell Lowell, 107-138; about 
A Fable for Critics, 107; about 
The Vision, 109; about The 
Biglow Papers, 112; declin- 
ing invitation to cattle-show, 
114; he is chosen president of 
the Phi Beta Kappa, 119, 123 ; 
his life at Beverly Farms, 131 ; 
teeth, 135 ; group of letters to 
James William Kimball, on 
sundry tenets of religion, 139- 
152 ; group of letters to John 
Lothrop Motley, 153-222 (re- 
marks on the war and public 
affairs, passim, through these 
letters); about his son's wound, 
and Ball's Bluff, 157-159; about 
relations of United States with 
England, 159; remarks on death 
of his mother, 164 ; remarks on 
Grant, Stanton, Farragut, and 
others, 174-177; about Mrs. 
Stowe's article charging Lord 
Byron with incest, 179, 183, 
209, 228, 295 ; about the " Col- 
iseum," 179; about President 
Eliot and his innovations in 
Harvard University, 187, 188, 
190; political predictions in 
1872, 194, 195; description of 
the " Great Fire " in Boston, 
November, 1872, 196-198; at 
Nahant, 200-202; about the 
Beecher - Tilton scandal, 209, 
210; about the manners of Eng- 
lishmen, 212-214; group of let- 
ters to Harriet Beecher Stowe, 
223-255 ; remarks about corre- 
spondents, 236, 259; article on 
" Moral Automatism," 237; 
group of letters to Elizabeth 
Stuart Phelps Ward, 256-268; 
early letter to James Freeman 
Clarke about some lyrics, and 
about his methods of work, 
269; to same, replying to re- 
quest for some verses, 272; to 
same, about bores, 273; to same, 
thanking for The Hour which 
Cometh, 288; to same, 290 ; to 
same, about Ten Great Reli- 
gions, 298; to same, 309; to 
George Ticknor, 277; to James 
T. Fields, 278; to his mother 
(about Pittsfield), 280; to Mr. 
Fields, about some poetical effu- 
sions, 282 ; to Charles Eliot Nor- 
ton, about visit to Newport, 283; 
to same, about death of James 
Russell Lowell, 316; to Mr. 
Fields, 284, 289, 294; to same, 
thanking for a barometer, 285 ; 
to same, about mistaken date 
for dinner-party, 286 ; to same, 
about tavern at Montreal, 292; 
to William Amory, about war- 
poems, 290; to Rev. Frederic 
H. Hedge, D. D., 296; to Mrs. 
Kellogg, 299; to Bishop Lee, 
300, 309; to John O. Sargent, 
301, 311, 312; remarks on his 
friendship with Motley, 303 ; to 
G. A. James, thanking for Sevres 
cup, 306; to J. G. Whittier, 303, 
305, 313, 315; to J. C. Traut- 
wine, Jr., 314; to Mrs. James 
T. Fields, 319. 
Holmes, Mrs., the Doctor's wife 
(Amelia Lee Jackson); de- 
scended from Dorothy Quincy 
("Dorothy Q."), i. 14; mar- 
riage, 170, 171; mentioned by 
him, 194, 198; remarks about 
his letter-writing, 319; her 
death, ii. 71; the Doctor's let- 
ter about her death, 261. 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, the 
younger; i. 5; class poet, class 
of 1861, Harvard University, 
63; wounded, 170, 311, ii. 24, 
157; his career, i. 171; his birth 
announced by his father, 322; 
a judge of Supreme Court, Mas- 
sachusetts, 322; comes to live 
with his father, ii. 71, 263; ill, 
in the army, 172; visit to Eu- 
rope, introductions, 177. 
Holmes, Mrs. Oliver Wendell; the 
younger, ii. 71, 86, 263. 
Holmes, Sir Robert; i. 4, 5. 330 
Holmes, Temperance; i. 9-11. 
Holmes, Thomas ; i. 4. 
Homoeopathists; expelled from 
Massachusetts Medical Society, 
348; and Dr. Holmes's letter 
thereon, 349. 
Homoeopathy; Dr. Holmes's rela- 
tion to, i. 162-164. 
Homoeopathy and its Kindred De- 
lusions; i. 162-164, 350. 
Hooper, Robert W.; i. 83, 87, 
104, 110, 117, 130, 142; death, 
ii. 79. 
Horace; ii. 311; compared with 
Dr. Holmes, i. 230; one of his 
odes compared with Dies Tree, 
ii. 312. 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. ; ii. 214; 
relations with Dr. Holmes, i. 
221-224. 
Houghton, H. 0.; the publisher ; 
remarks about Dr. Holmes's 
" copy,' ' ii. 22. 
Howe, Mrs. Julia Ward; her war- 
lyrics, ii. 291. 
Howe, Dr. Samuel G.; i. 144. 
Howe, M. A. De W., junior; let- 
ter to, declining request, i. 335. 
Howells, William D.; ii. 182; of 
Dr. Holmes and The Atlantic 
Monthly, i. 205; his introduc- 
tion to Dr. Holmes, 358; at 
the Atlantic Breakfast, ii. 43; 
praised by Dr. Holmes in 1865, 
177. 
Hughes, Thomas; i. 244. 
Humboldt Celebration; ii. 184, 
185. 
Hundred Days in Europe; quoted, 
i. 90, ii. 103; written, 66. 
Hunt, Dr. William ; letter to, ii. 
24. 
Hunt, William M.; ii. 211. 
Hutchinson, Ellen M.; ii. 135. 
Inches, Herman; ii. 81. 
In Memoriam ; its metre, ii. 277. 
Innocents Abroad, The; anecdote 
about dedication, ii. 22. 
"Institute of 1770; " i. 306. 
Intermittent Fever, Essay on; 
takes prize, i. 162, 168. 
International Review, The; Dr. 
INDEX 
Holmes's contributions to, i. 
219 ; review of Light of Asia, 
ii. 257, 258. 
Ireland, Alexander; letter to, 
about A Mortal Antipathy, i. 
267; letters to, about life of 
Emerson, ii. 58, 62. 
Irving', Rev. Edward; described 
by Dr. Holmes, i. 134. 
Jackson, Amelia Lee, wife of 
Dr. Holmes. See Holmes, Mrs. 
Jackson, Andrew ; i. 96. 
Jackson, Judge Charles; Dr. 
Holmes's father-in-law, i. 171. 
Jackson, Edward; i. 14. 
Jackson, Dr. James, senior; i. 82, 
168; Dr. Holmes's esteem for 
143. 
Jackson, James, junior; i. 98,104, 
107, 110, 120, 123, 142, 143, 
151; illness and death, 122, 
143. 
Jackson, Dr. John B. S.; i. 324. 
Jackson, Jonathan; i. 14. 
Jackson, Mary; i. 14, 16. 
James, George Abbot; note to, 
thanking for Roman wine-glass, 
i. 351; note to, about book- 
binding and C. Sumner, ii. 2; 
note to, thanking for Sevres 
cup, 306. 
James, Henry, senior; approves 
Mrs. Stowe's Byron article, ii. 
228. 
Johnson, Samuel; chronological 
parallel, i. 20. 
Kane, Dr. E. K.; i. 189. 
Kellogg, Caroline L.; letters to, i. 
18, 195, 197, 201, 320, 322, 330, 
ii. 68,86, 90. 
Kemble, Charles ; i. 83. 
Kemble, Fanny; i. 83. 
Kemper, G. W.; note to, i. 326. 
Kimball, James William ; i. 279; 
letter to, quoted, 281; series of 
letters to, on religious topics, ii. 
139-152. 
King, Rev. Thomas Starr; ii. 170. 
King's Chapel; i. 280, 281; Dr. 
Holmes's funeral, ii. 92. 
Kirkland, John Thornton; i. 39. INDEX 
331 
Knapp, ; assistant editor of 
The Liberator, i. 303. 
Knights of the Square Table, i. 
50. 
Lafayette, George Washington; i. 
128. 
Lafayette, Marquis de ; i. 105. 
La Marek, General; i. 119, 128. 
Lancet, The; article about Dr. 
Holmes, quoted, ii. 28, 30. 
Larrey, Baron Felix Hippolyte ; 
i. 92. 
" Last Leaf, The ; " i. 227, 229; 
verbal improvement suggested, 
ii. 23 ; French translation of, 98. 
Lee, Col. Henry; quoted, ii. 29, 
35. 
Leland, Charles G.; ii. 125, 135. 
Leopold, king of Belgium; i. 118. 
Liberator, The; i. 303. 
Library of American Literature; 
ii. 135. 
Light of Asia, The; reviewed by 
Dr. Holmes, i. 207, ii. 257. 
Lincoln, Abraham; fondness for 
"The Last Leaf," i. 227; M. 
D. Conway's opinion of, 163. 
Lindley, John; letter to, on im- 
mortality, i. 288. 
Lisfranc, Jacques, i. 92 (bis). 
Lodge, Henry Cabot; i. 219. 
Longfellow, Henry W.; i. 75; ii. 
122, 128, 185, 189, 203; death, 
and Dr. Holmes's remarks, ii. 51, 
52; at the Saturday Club, 193. 
Louis Philippe; feeling towards 
him in France, i. 106, 111, 127. 
Louis, Pierre C. A.; i. 86, 90, 91, 
107, 142, 143, 150; his motto, 
167. 
Louvre ; described, i. 99. 
Lowell, James Russell; i. 320, ii. 
66, 189, 192, 211; concerning 
the "Holmes house," 22; let- 
ter from Dr. Holmes to him, 
63; lectures, 189; description 
of a lecture tour, 191; editor of 
Atlantic Monthly, and secures 
Dr. Holmes for it, 204; Dr. 
Holmes urges him to continue 
contributing to it, 221; letter 
of Dr. Holmes to him about the 
Doctor's " occasional " poetry, 
230; public readings from his 
works, 240 ; letter to him about 
Saturday Club, 244; his talk, 
■with an anecdote, 249 ; his 
remarks concerning The Pro- 
fessor at the Breakfast-Table, 
253; letter to him, in which 
Dr. Holmes defends himself 
against Mr. Lowell's strictures, 
295 ; Dr. Holmes seeks to have 
him retained as minister to 
England, 308; with the auto- 
graph-hunters, 315; letter to, 
at request of a young lady, 
324; letter, with contribution 
for The Atlantic, and recipe, 
325 ; introduces Howells to the 
Doctor, 358 ; Dr. Holmes writes 
to him about Life of Emerson, 
ii. 58; as to Dr. Holmes in 
Europe, 65 ; note to, about 
birthday, 76; letters to, 78,102, 
107-138; about A Fable for 
Critics, 107; about The Vision, 
109; about The Biglow Papers, 
112 ; declining invitation to cat- 
tle-show, 114; as to appoint- 
ment as minister to England, 
125; letter to Charles Eliot 
Norton, about his death, 316. 
Lowell, John A.; ii. 198. 
Lyman, Daniel; i. 7. 
Lyman, Eliphalet; i. 7. 
Lyon, Jacob, i. 6. 
Lyons, Lord; ii. 174. 
" Mark Twain." See Clemens, S. L. 
Mars, Mdlle.; the actress, i. 119, 
129. 
Massachusetts General Hospital, i. 
161. 
Massachusetts Historical Society, 
ii. 51, 52, 57, 59, 72, 198. 
Massachusetts Medical Society ; 
Holmes joins it, 157; its expul- 
sion of the homceopathists, 348. 
Mather, Cotton ; i. 162. 
May, Rev. Samuel; i. 77, ii. 36 ; 
letters by him about Dr. 
Holmes's class poems, i. 77, 78; 
note to him (on slavery), 304; 
Dr. Holmes's letter to him 332 
about death of Rev. James 
Freeman Clarke, ii. 71. 
McClellan, George B.; ii. 161, 
168. 
McKean, Joseph ; i. 50. 
McLellan, Isaac ; ii. 83, 316. 
Med. Fac. (a College society, so- 
called) ; i. 52, 60. 
Medical Essays: the volume, 
quoted, i. 82, 91, 92; remarks 
on, 162 et seq. 
Medical Library. See Boston 
Medical Library. 
Medical School; Dr. Holmes ap- 
pointed professor of anatomy 
in, i. 173 ; farewell address to, 
quoted, i. 80; Dr. Holmes's res- 
ignation of professorship, 47- 
51. 
Meigs, Professor; i. 164. 
Meriam, Dr. H. C.; i. 337. 
Mitchell, Dr. John K.; ii. 49. 
Mitchell, Dr. S. Weir; ii. 49; 
letters to, 90, 102 ; correspond- 
ence with Dr. Holmes about 
snakes and their venom, i. 259- 
262; present of snake skin to 
Dr. Holmes, 260, 261; mot as 
to Dr. Holmes's letter-writing, 
321 ; the " Portuguese gram- 
mar " note to him, 351; note of 
thanks for the paper-cutter, 
also the riddle thereon, 352; 
Dr. Holmes's letters to him 
about his own methods of work, 
ii. 12, 14; extracts from letters 
to, 47, 73. 
Mitford, Mary Russell; ii. 278. 
Montaigne; likeness of Dr. 
Holmes to, i. 213. 
Montgomery Place; house in, i. 
195. 
" Moral Automatism ; " the Doc- 
tor's article, ii. 237. 
Morse, Alexander Porter ; i. 310. 
Morse, Isaac Edward; i. 107,110, 
311. 
Mortal Antipathy; quoted, i. 187 ; 
published, 266, ii. 69 ; letters to 
Mr. Ireland about, i. 267 ; quoted 
as to Life of Emerson, ii. 61. 
Motley, John Lothrop; i. 320; ex- 
tracts from Dr. Holmes's let- 
INDEX 
ters to, 12, 196, 217, 254, 338, 
ii. 46; Dr. Holmes's life of him, 
i. 242, ii. 52-54,122; praises Dr. 
Holmes's Fourth of July ora- 
tion, i. 308; death, ii. 51; spoken 
of, with J. R. Lowell, 121 ; 
group of Dr. Holmes's letters 
to him, 153-222; the Doctor's 
letter to him, after death of 
Mrs. Motley, 214 (and see, also, 
219); remarks on friendship 
with him, 303. 
Nation, The ; criticises Dr. Holmes, 
ii. 40 ; his remarks thereon, 223 ; 
reference to, 295. 
Naushon, invitation to, i. 355. 
Negro plot, the; i. 304. 
North American Review; i. 340. 
Norton, Prof. Charles Eliot; ii. 
122 ; letter to, as to presidency 
of Alumni Association, i. 333 ; 
note to, about birthday, ii. 76; 
letter to, about Newport, 283; 
about death of James Russell 
Lowell, 316. 
Old and New, the magazine; i. 
328, 329. 
" Old Corner Bookstore; " i. 219. 
" Old Ironsides ; " the lyric of, i. 
79. 
" Old South ; " the church in Bos- 
ton, i. 332. 
Oliver, James ; i. 14. 
Oliver, Sarah ; i. 14. 
Osler, Professor William ; quoted, 
i. 164; 188. 
Over the Teacups; i. 78, 314, 317; 
the writing, publication, and 
reception of, ii. 69-71, 89. 
Oxford University; makes Dr. 
Holmes D. C. L., ii. 66-68. 
Pages from an Old Volume of 
Life; i. 307. 
Palais Royal described, i. 98. 
Pall Nall Gazette (London); 
quoted, as to dramatization of 
Elsie Venner, i. 257. 
Palmerston, Lord; anecdote, ii. 
130. 
Parker, Theodore; i. 189; the INDEX 
333 
maternal element in God, ii. 
231. 
Parmelee, Dr. Eleazar ; i. 338. 
Parsons, Dr.; i. 102,117,125-127, 
133, 143, 145, 149, ii. 5. 
Peabody, Rev. Ephraim; i. 281. 
Peabody, George; his celebration 
at the town of Peabody, ii. 180. 
Peirce, Professor Benjamin; i. 77. 
Peter "the Great," of Russia, i. 
139. 
Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart. See 
Ward, E. S. P. 
Phillips, Wendell; i. 189. 
Pilgrim's Progress ; comments on, 
i. 39, 42. 
Pittsfield; Dr. Holmes's residence 
there, and affection for the 
place, i. 196-202, 300; letter 
from there, about daily life, ii. 
280. 
Poe, Edgar Allan; fondness for 
" The Last Leaf," i. 227. 
Poet at the Breakfast - Table; 
quoted, i. 316, ii. 32, 37, 100; 
publication of, i. 253-255. 
Poreellian Club ; i. 50, 297. 
Porter, Dr. C. B.; his anecdote of 
Dr. Holmes, i. 357. 
Potter, Dr. William H.; letter to, 
declining invitation to dinner of 
Harvard Dental Association, i. 
336. 
Priestley, Mrs.; letters to, about 
eyesight, ii. 73, 74, 88. 
Professor at the Breakfast-Table, 
quoted, i. 166, 216, 248, 279, 
280, 292, ii. 8, 19; publication 
of, i. 252, 253. 
Professor's Story, The. See Elsie 
Venner. 
Puerperal Fever. See Contagious- 
ness, etc. 
Punch; lines on death of Dr. 
Holmes, ii. 96. 
Putnam, Miss Harriet; lines sent 
to her by Dr. Holmes, i. 202. 
Putnam's Magazine; i. 204. 
Quarterly Review; article in, 
quoted, i. 304; as to Holmes's 
conservatism and purity in his 
literary style, ii. 16. 
Quincy, Dorothy; i. 14; ii. 50. 
See " Dorothy Q." 
Quincy, Edmund; i. 300, 304, ii. 
303. 
Quincy, Josiah; President of Har- 
vard University, i. 53, 54. 
Radcliffe College; i. 50. 
Rantoul, Robert; i. 306. 
Read, T. Buchanan; war-lyrics, 
ii. 291. 
Recorder ; i. 54. 
Reid, Whitelaw; ii. 51. 
Ricord, Philippe ; i. 93. 
Robins, Miss Julia; anecdote, and 
extract from letter to her, i. 
218. 
" Rock of Ages; " comments on 
the hymn, ii. 254. 
Rogers, John; i. 47, 48. 
Ropes, John C.; letter to, about 
Gettysburg poem, i. 338. 
Russell, James; i. 101, 104, 105, 
116. 
Sainte-Beuve; quoted, i. 227; re- 
ferred to, 253. 
Sargent, Dr. ; letter to, about 
an apparently fraudulent occur- 
rence, i. 346. 
Sargent, John O.; edits The Col- 
legian, i. 79, 144; letter to him 
from Paris, 145 ; letter to, from 
Pittsfield, 200; letters in re Har- 
vard Club dinner and University 
Seal, 233-240; letter to, about 
Life of Motley, ii. 54; letter to, 
about Life of Emerson, 57; let- 
ters to, 80, 82, 301, 311, 312. 
Sargent, Turner; son-in-law of 
Dr. Holmes; i. 172. 
Sargent, Mrs. Turner, the Doc- 
tor's daughter; goes to Europe 
with her father, ii. 65; living 
with her father, 262; dies, 71; 
letter as to her death, 263. 
Saturday Club, The ; its origin, its 
membership, and Dr. Holmes's 
love for it, i. 241-245; other 
important references to it, ii. 
38, 83, 155, 174, 188, 189, 193, 
211; thinning of its ranks, 51, 
122, 127, 130. 334 
INDEX 
Savage, Edward; his portrait of 
Rev. Abiel Holmes, i. 15. 
Scott, General Winfield; ii. 168. 
Sentimental Journey; references 
to, i. 140. 
Seward, William H.; ii. 160. 
Shattuck, Dr. George C.; note to, 
about medical student, i. 353. 
SheaJ of Papers; T. G. Appleton's 
book, dedicated to Dr. Holmes, 
i. 322. 
Sherwood, Miss J.; letter to, de- 
clining request, i. 331. 
Siclen, George W. van; letters to, 
i. 13. 
Siddons, Mrs.; Doctor's mot about 
marrying, i. 358. 
Simmons, George W.; note and 
lines, thanking for pears, i. 353. 
Sinclair, Mrs. E. S.; letter to, 
about her grandson's poetry, i. 
341; note to her, ii. 103. 
Slavery; Dr. Holmes's attitude 
towards, i. 296, 300, 303, 304. 
Smith, S. F.; i. 77, 78. 
Songs in Many Keys; anecdote 
about dedication, ii. 22. 
Spectator (London); quoted, as to 
The Autocrat, i. 209; as to The 
Poet, 254; as to the Doctor's 
personality in his writings, ii. 
32. 
Stackpole, J. Lewis, Jr.; ii. 194. 
Stackpole, Mrs. Lewis; ii. 194. 
Stanley, Dean; ii. 121. 
Stanton, Edwin M.; Dr. Holmes's 
talk with, ii. 176. 
Stereoscope; for hand use, in- 
vented by Dr. Holmes, ii. 1. 
Sterne, Laurence ; Sentimental 
Journey referred to, i. 140. 
Stewardson, ; i. 107,110,123. 
Stiles, Ezra; President of Yale 
University ; i. 6, 37. 
Stiles, Mary; i. 6. 
" Stone Chapel." See " King's 
Chapel." 
Story, Joseph; i. 80. 
Stow, Rev. Baron; anecdote, ii. 18. 
Stowe, Harriet Beecher; i. 279, 
320; anecdote of, 249; Dr. 
Holmes's letter to her about 
Elsie Venner, 263; her article 
charging Lord Byron with in- 
cest, ii. 179, 183, 295; letter to 
her about it, 228; group of 
letters to her, 223-255; her 
" charitable opinion " about Dr. 
Holmes, 299. 
St. Paul's; Dr. Holmes's descrip- 
tion of it in 1834, i. 136. 
Sturtevant, W. R.; letter to, on 
death of a child, i. 284. 
Sumner, Charles; i. 296; his 
screed about book-binding, ii. 
2 ; suggestion to public readers, 
184; attitude towards General 
Grant, 193 ; political prophecies 
in 1872, 194 ; and his political 
associates, 194, 195; his chat, 
201, 202. 
Swain, W.; " Governor " of Nau- 
shon, i. 354. 
Sweetser, Moses; letter to, reply- 
ing to request for poetry, i. 
327. 
Symonds, John Addington ; Life 
and Letters of, quoted, i. 282, 
291. 
Talma, Frangois Joseph, the ac- 
tor ; i. 119, 129. 
Thackeray, W. M.; i. 77, 189, ii. 
16,113. 
Ticknor & Fields; i. 219. 
Ticknor, George; letter to, ii. 
277. 
Tilton. Mrs. D. D.; i. 327. 
Trautwine, J. C., junior; letter to, 
ii. 314. 
Trees; Dr. Holmes's passion for 
large, ii. 3-5, 135,137. 
Underwood, Francis H. ; i. 207; 
remarks about The Saturday 
Club and The Atlantic Club, 
241; memoir of Lowell, ii. 103. 
Upham, Ann (Mrs. Charles W.); 
sister of Dr. Holmes, i. 6, 117, 
145 ; letter to, from Pittsfield, 
199; her granddaughter Doro- 
thy, 231; letter to, 322 ; death, 
ii. 303. 
Upham, Charles W.; i. 6, 117, 
142, 143, 145; letter to, 161; 
telegram to, 162. INDEX 
335 
Upham, Oliver Wendell Holmes; 
the Doctor's nephew, i. 231. 
Vanity Fair (London); publishes 
caricature of Dr. Holmes, ii. 
104. 
Velpeau; French physician, i. 93. 
Victoria, Queen ; Dr. Holmes sees 
her when a princess, i. 135. 
Vision, The ; letter to J. R. Low- 
ell about it, ii. 109. 
Walker, Rev. James, D. D.; i. 
281, ii. 81. 
Ward, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps; 
letter to, ii. 84; group of let- 
ters to her, 256-268. 
Ware, Henry, D. D.; i. 53, 59, 
60. 
Warner, Charles Dudley; letter 
to, about Life of Emerson, ii. 
60; about " The Broomstick 
Train," 70; birthday letter to, 
91. 
Warren, Dr. John Collins; letter 
to, about the " Old South," i. 
332; about the homceopathists, 
349. 
Warren, Mason; i. 104, 117, 130, 
142, 150. 
Warren, Sullivan; i. 87, 100, 110. 
Washington, George ; the eques- 
trian statue of, ii. 181. 
Welles, Benjamin, the banker ; i. 
115, 142. 
Wendell, Evert Jansen; i. 12, 13. 
Wendell, Jacob; i. 14, 197. 
Wendell, Oliver; i. 6, 14. 
Wendell, Sarah; wife of Rev. 
Abiel Holmes. See Holmes, 
Mrs. Abiel. 
Westminster Abbey; Dr. Holmes's 
impressions of, in 1834, i. 134. 
White, Richard Grant; two let- 
ters to him on points of Eng- 
lish, ii. 17, 19. 
Whittier, John Greenleaf; remark 
on " The Chambered Nautilus," 
i. 225; on the "occasional" 
poems of Dr. Holmes, 229 ; let- 
ters to him, ii. 77, 82, 87, 303, 
305, 307, 313, 315; seventieth 
birthday, 117, 118. 
Wigglesworth, Michael; ii. 247. 
Wilks, Dr. Samuel; letter to, ii. 
37. 
William IV.; described by Dr. 
Holmes, i. 135. 
Willson, Forceythe; war-lyrics, ii. 
291. 
Wilson, Mrs. Helen Hopekirk; 
note to her quoted, i. 320. 
Winslow, William 0.; note to, 
about excavations at Zoan, i. 
354. 
Winthrop, Hon. Robert C., ii. 192, 
198. 
Wyman, Dr. Morrill; i. 16. 
Yankee, The ; i. 53, 54, 60. 
Zoan, excavations at; i. 353.