OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
POET, LITTERATEUR, 
SCIENTIST 
WILLIAM SLOaNE KENNEDY 
AUTHOR OF A “ LIFE OF HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW,” ETC. 
m. 
“Two Single Get tiemen roll’d into One.” 
i George Coiman, the Younger, 
NEW YORK 
HURST & COMPANY, Publishers 
134-136 Grand Street Oopwigto. 
MY a. M rasSltro 6 c*> PREFATORY NOTE. 
The following work does not profess to 
be a biography in the strictly technical 
sense (may the proper time for such an 
undertaking be long deferred !); but it is 
designed to serve as a treasury of infor- 
mation concerning the ancestry, childhood, 
college life, professional and literary career, 
and social surroundings of him of whom it 
treats, as well as to furnish a careful critical 
study of his works. I have also added a 
full bibliography of the writings of Dr. 
Holmes to date, including his contributions 
to periodical literature. 
W. S. K 
Old Cambridge, Mass., 
New Year’s Daj, 1883. CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER PAGE 
I. The Triple-Branched Tree . . 11 
II. Cambridge 46 
III. Harvard 77 
IV. Physician and Professor . . . 103 
V. The Autocrat of the Breakfast- 
Table 128 
VI. Novels and Essays 150 
VII. Beacon Street 201 
VIII. Characteristics 234 
IX. Poetry 267 
X. The Scientist 292 
XI. Autocratiana 316 
Appendix I. The Palanquin Bearers . 330 
II. Bibliography 334 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
CHAPTER I. 
THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE. 
The twenty-ninth day of August, in the 
year eighteen hundred and nine, was Com- 
mencement Day in a double sense in the 
town of Cambridge, Massachusetts; for on 
that day of smiles and greetings, — the mer- 
riest of all the year, the day of the gradu- 
ating festival of Harvard College, — the Rev. 
Dr. Abiel Holmes entered in his little al- 
manac the memorandum, “Son b.,” at the 
same time sprinkling over the writing a few 
grains of sand, which still glisten upon the 
page just as they did when he closed the 
book, seventy-four years ago. 
It was commencement in a double sense, 
and it was commencement in a triple sense; 
since, in addition to the beginnings that have 
II OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
12 
already been mentioned, there was in the 
nerves that feeling of new vigor, in the land- 
scape that touch of garnet and crimson, in 
the air that tinge of coolness, and in all nature 
that strange stillness, that kind of dead-point 
in the revolving wheel of the seasons, which, 
combined with the chirping of the black-coat 
crickets, and the first goldening of the golden- 
rods, formed unmistakable premonitions of 
the approach of the autumnal season, the 
pleasantest time of the year in New Eng- 
land. It was under cheerful auspices, then, 
that the laughing philosopher (at that time, 
however, the little crying philosopher) of SE 
Botolph’s town took his first degree, and made 
his first public speech, graduating summa 
cum laude from the dormitory of his alma 
mater, i In the country at large, however, 
there happened to be great depression of 
spirits and flagging of business interests, 
owing to the embargo, or non-intercoHrse 
policy, enacted and enforced by the American 
government against the then warring Euro- 
pean powers. There was in Boston at that 
time an almost total cessation of commerce ; 
her merchant ships lay rotting at the wharves, THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE. 
or were drawn up on the beach and dis- 
mantled ; and the sound of the busy ham- 
mer was unheard in her ship-yards. But all 
this was to be changed in a few years (after 
the war of 1812) by international adjustment 
and proclamation of peace. 
( The ancestral tree of Oliver Wendell 
V* 
Holmes, whose birth we have just been re- 
lating, is a triple-branched one, and the three 
branches are memorized in his own name. 
By way of sportive symbol, we might hang 
upon the Oliver branch a loaf of brown bread 
(“rye ’n’ injun”) and a pot of baked beans; 
upon the Wendell branch a doughnut, or 
Dutch olykoek ; and upon the Holmes branch 
a wooden nutmeg. We will begin with the 
olykoek branch. 
The mother of our poet was Sarah Wen- 
dell, daughter of the Hon. Oliver Wendell of 
Boston. The Wendells are a Dutch family 
who came to Boston from Albany in the 
-eighteenth century, and it is doubtless largely 
from them that Dr. Holmes has inherited the 
solid practical qualities — thrift, industry, cau- 
tion, — which have made him successful as a 
physician and professor. Perhaps his humor, 14 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
too, came in with that Dutch strain of blood. 
In his poem on “The Hudson” the Autocrat 
says that his mother used often to sing in 
soft lullaby the story of his descent from the 
Albany Wendells : — 
“ ‘ There flows a fair stream by the hills of the 
West/ — 
She sang to her boy as he lay on her breast; 
* Along its smooth margin thy fathers have 
played; 
Beside its deep waters their ashes are laid.’ ” 
The original settler in Albany was Evert 
Jansen Wendell, who, about the year 1645, 
came from Embden, in East Friesland, a town 
just on the border-line between Germany 
and the Netherlands. We know that in 1656 
Evert was the Regerendo Dijaken of the 
Dutch church in Albany, but details of the 
lives of the early ancestors are very scarce. * 
Other early members of the church were 
Evert Wendell, his wife Merritje, and his 
sons John and Evert. Two of the family 
* To get an idea of Dutch life in America one should 
study Irving’s “Knickerbocker” (with caution and 
abatements), as well as the numerous early annals of 
New York and Albany. THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE. 
15 
were shoemakers ; some were fur-traders ; and 
the family is still a wealthy and powerful one 
in Albany. The old square Dutch church 
(1715-1806) was extremely quaint, resembling 
a good deal, one would judge, the present 
Swedes’ church in Philadelphia. The walls 
were perforated near the top with loop-holes, 
and when there was danger of an invasion 
the stout burghers sat through the service 
with their guns beside them, smoking their 
pipes and wearing their hats and muffs. The 
stoves were placed on posts in the air, and 
were against and on a level with the galleries. 
The hats of the men were ordinarily hung on 
rows of nails placed along the front of the 
galleries. There was an hour-glass on the 
pulpit for the guidance of the preacher. The 
window-panes were five inches square, and 
upon them were emblazoned the names and 
family arms of some of the church-members. 
The arms of the Wendells (a ship riding at 
two anchors) were stained on some panes 
of the east window.* Other quaint mansions 
* It is a pity that none of these old stained window- 
panes survive. The arms of the Wendells are, how- 
ever, given in Thomas Bridgman’s “ Memorials of the 16 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
of the old patrons, or Knickerbockers, were 
the Koeymans’ mansion, the houses of the 
Verplancks, and the residence of the fur- 
trader, Harman Wendell, a cut of which is 
given in Harpers Monthly Magazine for 
April, 1857.* (See also “ Collections of the 
History of Albany.”) 
It would need a Van Ostade or a Teniers 
to paint the domestic life of these high-stom- 
ached, home-loving, portly old Hollanders of 
Albany, — these old Walter the Doubters, 
and Peter the Headstrongs, sitting by their 
firesides with their pipes, and pondering their 
unutterable ponderings. But come, Mr. Artist, 
you can at least paint us, if you please, the 
typical Dutch mansion, with its low-sweeping 
eaves, glazed windows, tiled roof, and gable of 
small, imported black and yellow bricks, the 
narrow windows, the grotesque face of the well- 
burnished knocker, the date of erection in 
figures of iron on the door, and the absurd 
Dead in Boston” (King’s Chapel Burying Ground), 
Boston, 1853. 
* A good example of a reproduction of the general 
features of the antique Dutch gable of these old Albany 
houses may be seen in the brick residence built a few 
years ago by Mr. F. B. Sanborn, of Concord, Mass. THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE. 
17 
painted weather-cock on the roof. And paint 
us, too, the well-scrubbed the sanded 
floors, the spare-room hung round with many- 
colored petticoats, the huge kitchen with its 
flaming side-board, its festoons of dried apples 
and ears of Indian corn, the fireplace, thextea- 
table with its elephantine delftware tea-pot 
(richly painted), its great dish of brown pork- 
scraps, huge apple-pie, and dish of olykoeks„ 
And, finally, let us see at her household tasks 
the good wife, with her neatly-braided hair 
and high-heeled shoes ; and by the fireside 
show us the worthy burgomaster with his 
homespun coat, his ten or twenty (or such a 
matter) pairs of breeches, his huge shoe- 
buckles, eel-skin queue, broad-brimmed hat, 
and long, painted, delftware pipe. Some such 
picture as this (only somewhat toned down) 
we should have to present to our minds if we 
would know how the early Wendells lived. 
Two of the Albany Dutchmen — the bro- 
thers, Abraham and Jacob — came to Boston 
early in the eighteenth century, as has been 
stated. Of these, Jacob was the great-grand- 
father of Oliver Wendell Holmes. He was 
one of the wealthiest merchants of Boston, 18 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
was colonel of the Boston regiment, and mem- 
ber of the city council, resided in a brick 
mansion on the southwest corner of Tremont 
and School Streets. He married Sarah, 
daughter of Dr. James Oliver. Tradition 
says that Jacob caught his first glimpse of 
his future wife as he was one day passing by 
her father’s house, and when she was only 
nine years old ; and that he was so much 
struck with her beauty that he purposed then 
and there in his heart to wait for her to grow 
up that he might make her his wife. Jacob 
had twelve children who married into the Oli- 
ver, the Sewall, and the Phillips families. The 
youngest daughter married William Phillips, 
the first mayor of Boston, whose son, Wendell 
Phillips, has rendered the name familiar to 
the present generation.* The distant rela- 
tionship between Wendell Phillips and Oliver 
Wendell Holmes was humorously alluded to 
by the poet in his “ Post-Prandial,” Phi Beta 
Kappa poem of 1881 : — 
“ Fair cousin Wendell P., 
Our ancestors were dwellers beside the Zuyder Zee; 
Both Grotius and Erasmus were countrymen of we, 
And Vondel was our namesake, though he spelt it with 
a V.” 
* Heraldic Journal, April, 1865 THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE. 
19 
Jacob Wendell died in 1761. His son 
Oliver (the grandfather of Dr. Holmes), born 
in 1733, and graduated at Harvard College in 
1753, entered into the mercantile business 
with his father in Boston. He became Judge 
of Probate for Suffolk County, was a member 
of the Corporation of Harvard College from 
1778 to 1812, was a selectman during the siege 
of Boston, and joined in the congratulatory 
address to Washington upon its termination ; 
he was, moreover, employed by Major-Gen- 
eral Greene, upon an order of Washington, 
to procure men to watch the British by land 
and sea after the evacuation, in order that no 
spies might convey intelligence to the British 
commanders of the movements of the Ameri- 
can troops. (See Drake's “ Old Landmarks 
of Boston,” pp. 65, 66). Judge Wendell 
tnarried Mary, daughter of Edward and Dor- 
othy (Quincy) Jackson. The judge’s daugh- 
ter Sarah married the Rev. Abiel Holmes, 
and became the mother of Oliver Wendell 
Holmes. Judge Wendell passed his last years 
in quiet retirement in the old Holmes man- 
sion in Cambridge. In the latter part of his 
life he was burdened with lameness and other 20 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
infirmities of age. He died in 1818 at the 
age of eighty-four, bequeathing the Holmes 
estate to his daughter. He was distinguished, 
says his friend, President Quincy, for uncom- 
mon urbanity of manners, and unimpeachable 
integrity of conduct. The punctuality with 
which he performed the duties of office were 
highly exemplary. 
We shall now say good-by to the worthy 
Wendell burghers, and pay our respects to 
the brown loaf (or Boston) branch of Dr. 
Holmes’ ancestral tree. 
The Dorothy Quincy, who was the wife of 
Edward Jackson, and the mother-in-law of 
Judge Oliver Wendell, is the great-grand- 
mother of the poet, and is the one whose 
portrait is celebrated by him in his well- 
known poem, “Dorothy Q.” : — 
u Hold up the canvas full in view, — 
Look! there’s a rent the light shines through. 
Dark with a century’s fringe of dust, — 
That was a Red-Coat’s rapier-thrust! 
Such is the tale the lady old, 
Dorothy’s daughter’s daughter told.” 
The first Quincy was Edmund. He was THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE. 
21 
one of the first settlers of Boston, and lived 
•in Wollaston, now Quincy. It is unnecessary 
So do more than refer to the members of this 
iamily, whose name and works are familiar to 
students of American history. The first 
Josiah Quincy, distinguished as a patriot, died 
•young and greatly lamented; the second of 
±hat name, statesman and scholar, President 
-of Harvard University, and author of a his- 
tory of that institution, was one of the first 
to denounce the slaveholding tyranny in 
America ; the third of the same name, ex- 
mayor of Boston, has long been identified 
with, the municipal interests of the city. The 
estate of the family was on the site of the 
present Quincy Block. The house was a 
stately pilastered structure, with honey- 
suckles and high damask rose-bushes twining 
about its porch, — its lawn a glacis adorned 
with tall robin-and-oriole-haunted elms. There 
were three Dorothy Quincys in the family. 
The Dorothy who was the niece of Dr. 
Holmes’ great-grandmother was the wife of 
John Hancock, one of the signers of the 
Declaration of Independence. She was a 
noble, strong-willed woman of the old heroic 22 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
type. It is related of her that at one period 
of her life she was accustomed to invite ail 
classes to her Saturday salt-fish dinners at 
the well-known mansion fronting Boston 
Common. On one occasion, when Admiral 
d’Estaing and his three hundred officers had 
been invited to breakfast with Mr. Hancock* 
and sufficient milk could not be procured, 
she sent out her servants with orders to milk 
sans cerfononie all the cows they could find on 
the Common, and to send to her any one who 
complained. It is said that the owners of 
the cows took the jest in the best of humor, 
laughing heartily at her free and unconven- 
tional procedure.* 
* For the genealogy of the Quincys, see the “ New 
England Historical and Genealogical Register” for 
1857, p. 2. In the same journal for 1881, p. 39, s 
writer gets his “ Dorothy Q.’s” pretty badly mixed. Andt 
the subject is still further confused in the minds of 
others. At a breakfast given to Dr. Holmes, in 1879, by 
the Rev. Dr. Henry C. Potter, in the rooms of the 
Century Club, New York, Chief Justice Daly is re- 
ported by a newspaper to have made the following neat 
repartee apropos of “ Dorothy Q. ”: — 
“ ' I was present ’ (Judge Daly is speaking) ‘ last 
Thursday evening when Mr. Holmes read to a highijr- 
gratified circle several of his poems, with an account of 
how they came to be written. The one that especially THE TRIPLE-BRA ACHED TREE. 
23 
To turn now to the Olivers. This strain 
ef blood came in with Jacob Wendell, who 
married Sarah Oliver, daughter of Dr. James 
Oliver. The first Oliver was Thomas, who 
came to Boston from London in 1632. Dan- 
iel Oliver, father of Lieutenant-Governor An- 
drew Oliver, was for many years a councillor 
in Boston, and died in 1732. His will con- 
tained the following provision : — 
“Imprimis, I give and bequeath my house 
adjoining to Barton’s Rope-Walk, called Spin- 
ning House, with the lands as now fenced 
fixed my attention was “ Dorothy especially when 
fee informed us that that lady was his great-grand- 
mother.’ 
tl Mr. Holmes. — ‘ My grandmother, Judge ?’ 
Judge Daly. — ‘ I apologize to your grandmother 
lor depriving her memory of the nearer share she had 
in. your creation. ’ ” 
Now, unfortunately for this reported repartee, the 
poem itself shows (if the genealogies did not do so) 
4hat “ Dorothy was the great-grandmother of the 
poet. The opening words of the poem tell us that the 
■verses are about “ grandmother’s mother,” and in the 
.■second stanza it is written, 
“ Such is the tale the lady old, 
Dorothy's daughter's daughter told." 
The “daughter’s daughter” here refers to Dr. 
ifolmes’ mother. 24 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
in, — about fifty feet square, — with all the- 
profits and incomes of it, as it now stands i» 
my books (since built), forever to be improved 
for learning poor children of the town of Bos- 
ton to read the word of God, and to write, if 
need be, or any other work of charity for the 
public good.” (Mem. Hist. Boston, II. 539* 
note.) 
Lieutenant-Governor Andrew Oliver, the 
obnoxious stamp distributor who was burned 
in effigy, was one of the most affluent of the 
old Bostonians, and had a private establish- 
ment equal to that of any in the province. 
Coaches, chariot, negro slaves, and good 
sterling plate in abundance bore witness to 
his wealth. 
In his paper on “ The Medical Profession 
in Massachusetts,” published in a volume of 
Lowell Institute Lectures, by the Massachu- 
setts Historical Society, in 1869, Dr. Holmes 
has a few characteristic remarks about his 
great-great-grandfather, Dr. James Oliver* 
who died in 1703. He says: “When I was 
yet of trivial age, and suffered occasionally* 
as many children do, from what one of my 
Cambridgeport schoolmates used to call THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE. 
25 
‘ ager,’ — meaning thereby toothache, or 
faceache, — I used to get relief from a cer- 
tain plaster which never went by any other 
name than ‘Dr. Oliver.’” Dr. Oliver prac- 
tised in Cambridge, and his descendant 
found among some old books a small manu- 
script account-book of his, by which it ap- 
pears that other remedies used by him in that 
day were the usual simples, elder, parsley, 
fennel, saffron, snake-root, and the Elixir 
Proprietatis, with other elixirs and cordials, 
as if he rather fancied warming medicines. 
One of the items in the account-book is a bill 
against the estate of Samuel Pason, of Rox- 
bury, for services rendered during his last ill- 
ness. Says Dr. Holmes, “ It is a source of 
honest pride to his descendant that his bill, 
which was honestly paid, as it seems to have 
been honorably earned, amounted to the 
handsome sum of seven pounds and two 
shillings. Let me add that he repeatedly 
prescribes plasters, one of which was very 
probably the ‘ Dr. Oliver ’ that soothed mj 
infant griefs, and for which, I blush to say, 
that my venerated ancestor received from 
Goodman Hancock the painfully exiguous 26 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
sum of no pounds, no shillings, and six- 
pence.” * 
We come now to the Bradstreets. Sarah 
Oliver (wife of Jacob Wendell) was the 
daughter of Mercy Bradstreet, who was the 
daughter of Dr. Samuel Bradstreet, son of 
Governor Simon Bradstreet and Anne Dudley. 
Simon Bradstreet was Governor of the Mas- 
sachusetts Colony in 1689. He was educated 
at Emanuel College, Cambridge, and came to 
America with Winthrop. The Labadist mis- 
sionaries f described him as an old man, quiet 
and grave, dressed in black silk, but not 
sumptuously. The arms of the Bradstreets 
are impressed on the seal attached to Gov- 
ernor Bradstreet’s will, which is on file at the 
Suffolk Probate Office in Boston. The crest 
is also found on a piece of embroidery pre- 
served in the family. Burke gives the arms 
of one of the English Bradstreets as follows, 
and they are substantially those of Governor 
Bradstreet : — 
Ar. a greyhound, pas. gu., on a chief, sa., three 
crescents or. 
* For the Oliver Genealogy, see “ New England His- 
torical and Genealogical Register,” 1865, p. ioi. 
fi ***-* **r-rg Island Hist. Soc. Coll., I. THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE. 
27 
Mrs. Anne Dudley Bradstreet was, as is 
well known to students of American litera- 
ture, the first poet of the New World, — her 
book, “ The Tenth Muse lately sprung up in 
America ” (London, 1650), being the first vol- 
ume of original verse by an American. She 
was the daughter of Governor Thomas Dud- 
ley, to whom Mather applies this epitaph ; —- 
“In books a prodigal they say ; 
A living cyclopaedia; 
Of histories of church and priest, 
A full compendium, at least; 
A table-talker, rich in sense, 
And witty without wit’s pretence.” 
Mrs. Bradstreet’s poems went through 
eight editions. The Harvard College library 
possesses a copy (presented by James Russell 
Lowell) of the small-sized second edition. It 
is a pretty damaged article of book, and seems 
to have been in its day a vade-mecum of va- 
rious lovers of poesy. Readers of this day, 
however, will scarcely welter in delight over 
it, as President John Rogers of Harvard Col- 
lege said he did. In that day, the fact of a 
woman being able to write anything of merit 28 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
was regarded as almost miraculous, and ex- 
cited in some quarters adverse criticism. 
Ward, author of the “ Simple Cobbler,” in 
his adulatory verses prefixed to Mrs. Brad- 
street’s poems, puts this sentiment into the 
mouth of Apollo : — 
It half revives my chil frost-bitten blood, 
To see a Woman once, do aught that’s good.” 
The title of her book will indicate the 
nature of its contents: “ Several Poems 
compiled with great variety of Wit and 
Learning, full of Delight; Wherein especially 
is contained a compleat Discourse, and De- 
scription of the Four Elements, Constitutions, 
Ages of Man, Seasons of the Year, together 
with an exact Epitome of the three first 
Monarchyes, viz., The Assyrian, Persian, 
Grecian, And beginning of the Romane Com- 
monweal to the end of their last King : With 
diverse other pleasant and serious Poems. 
By a Gentlewoman in New-England. The 
second Edition, Corrected by the Author, and 
enlarged by an Addition of several Poems 
found amongst her Papers after her Death. 
Boston, Printed by John Foster, 1678." THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE. 
29 
There are a few enjoyable passages in the 
poems. In the piece on “ Summer ” we 
read,— 
“ Now go those frolick Swains, the Shepherd Lads- 
To wash the thick cloth’d flocks with pipes full 
glad, 
In the cool streams they labor with delight, 
Rubbing their dirty coats till they look white. 
“ This moneth the Roses are distil’d in glasses, 
Whose fragrant smel all made perfumes 
The Cherry, Gooseberry are now in th’ prime, 
And for all sorts of Pease, this is the time. 
“ I heard the merry grasshopper then sing, 
The black clad Cricket, bear a second part, 
They kept one tune, and plaid on the same string. 
Seeming to glory in their little Art.” 
In the Epilogue, entitled “ The Author to 
her Book,” she says : — 
“ Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain, 
Who after birth did’st by my side remain, 
Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than 
true, 
Who thee abroad, expos’d to publick view, 30 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Made thee in raggs, halting to th’ press to trudg, 
Where errors were not lessened (all may judg). 
At thy return my blushing was not small 
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call, 
I cast thee by as one unfit for light, 
Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight; 
Yet being mine own, at length affection would 
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could,” etc. 
Among the descendants of Mrs. Bradstreet 
we may enumerate, besides the poet Holmes, 
Dr. William Ellery Channing, the Rev. Joseph 
Buckminster Lee, the two Richard Henry 
Danas, and Wendell Phillips. Mrs. Brad- 
street’s complete works have been sumptu- 
ously edited in a single quarto volume by 
John Harvard Ellis (Charlestown: Abram 
E. Cutter, 1867). 
Let us now turn our attention to the Holmes 
family, which we have jestingly styled the 
wooden-nutmeg branch, the original seat 
of the family being at Woodstock, called 
the best and fairest of all the agricultural 
towns of Connecticut. Lower, in his “ Eng- 
lish Surnames” (3d ed. vol. i., p. 74), says 
that the surname Holm, or Holmes, is classed 
among those local names which describe the THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE. 
31 
nature or situation of the original bearer’s 
residence, such as Hill, Dale, Wood. He 
defines it as follows : “ Holm, Holmes, flat 
land, a meadow surrounded with water.” 
In E. Holmes Bugbee’s “ Genealogy of the 
Holmes Family of Woodstock” (Killingly, 
Conn., 1877; printed on the type-writer), in- 
teresting details relating to the various ances- 
tors are given. The first Holmes of this 
branch of the family was Thomas Holmes of 
London, a lawyer of Gray’s Inn, who was 
killed during the Civil War at the siege of 
Oxford (1646). It seems that Woodstock 
was settled in 1686 by a colony from Rox- 
bury, Mass., and that John Holmes was one 
of the colony and one of the first proprietors 
in the new town. John was born about the 
year 1664, near Boston, and married Hannah, 
daughter of Isaac Newell, of Roxbury, Mass. 
He was a prominent man in the new colony 
and was elected to many important positions 
in the town. Frequent grants of land were 
made to him for services rendered to the 
settlement. His son David, called “Deacon 
David,” was a prominent man in the First 
Thurch of Woodstock. His widow Bathsheba 32 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
(maiden surname unknown) married as her 
second husband Joseph Edmunds. (By her 
first husband she had a son David, who 
became the father of Abiel Holmes, who in 
turn was the father of Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
the poet.) Grandmother Edmunds, as she 
was called by her descendants, lived to an 
advanced age, and was always spoken of by 
them as “ a remarkable woman, and of recog- 
nized authority in all matters of housewifery.” 
She had a wide reputation as a doctress and 
midwife. It is recorded of her that at the 
time of the great snow-storm of 1717, when 
the snow almost buried the houses, she got 
out of the upper window of her residence in 
Woodstock, and travelled on snow-shoes over 
hill and dale to Dudley, Mass., to attend a 
sick woman. She was accompanied by two 
men who had hold of the ends of a long pole, 
■she holding on by the middle thereof. The 
genealogist records the following tradition of 
this same brave ancestress of our poet: — 
“ During the Indian troubles in the early part 
of the eighteenth century there was consid- 
erable alarm in all the isolated settlements, 
and garrison-houses, or forts, were erected, in THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE. 
33 
which to place the women and children while 
£he men were away at work in the fields. 
On one of these occasions of general alarm, 
when the women and children were alone in 
the fort, it was proposed that some one of 
their number should go to the garden, which 
was some way off, and gather vegetables for 
dinner. Volunteers were called for, and of 
them all in the fort that day Bathsheba 
Holmes alone dared to go. Nothing daunted 
at the thought that Indians might be lurking 
about,—and they were frequently seen,— 
she bravely sallied forth, and with her capa- 
cious basket wended her way through a long, 
narrow, winding path to the garden, and there 
gathered of beans and various vegetables a 
heaped basketful, and safely returned to the 
garrison, where the viands, fresh grown on 
virgin soil, and fit food for royal tables, were 
skilfully cooked and eaten with thankful 
hearts. Many years afterward, — the Indians 
.almost all gone to other hunting-grounds, and 
■grandmother Edmunds now an old woman, — 
a. solitary Indian, decrepit and broken in 
spirit, called at her door begging, as was ever 
i£he custom of the red men, for cider, promis- 34 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
ing a story if the favor were granted. The 
cider was drawn and proffered and the story 
told. It was this : On asking her if she re- 
membered going to the garden with her 
basket long years ago, when the women and 
children were alone in the fort, and on being 
answered in the affirmative, he said he saw 
her when she left the fort, and determined 
to have her life before she returned. He 
secreted himself in the thick brushwood by 
the side of the path she would travel, and 
when she had approached sufficiently neap, 
he stoutly bent his bow, and was about to let 
the well-aimed arrow fly, when suddenly a. 
mysterious power forbade him, and stayed his 
arm. When she had gone he upbraided him- 
self for being a cowardly Indian, and redeter- 
mined to have her life when she returned. 
But the same power stayed his arm again, 
and he went his way wondering greatly at his 
inability to kill a squaw. All the years since 
then, he said, he had been watching her as 
one who was under the protecting care cff 
the Indians’ God. He thought it was the 
Great Spirit that held his arm and saved 
her life.” THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE. 
35 
Well for us that Indian’s superstition! for 
if that arrow had been sped it is probable that 
the world would have had no Oliver Wendell 
Holmes. 
David (2) the paternal grandfather of 
our poet, married for his first wife Mehita- 
ble, daughter of Ephraim Mayhew ; his second 
wife was Mrs. Temperance Bishop, by whom 
he had Abiel Holmes. David served in the 
French and Indian wars as Captain of Colonel 
Fitch’s regiment, through three campaigns — 
the last terminating with the conquest of 
Canada. On the first intelligence of the 
battle of Lexington he joined the army in 
his professional character of surgeon, and con- 
tinued in the service till the fourth year of 
the war, when, worn out with the fatigues of 
the camp, he returned home, and soon after 
died, March 19, 1779. Besides Abiel, David 
had seven other children, brothers and sis- 
ters; one of them (named Lathrop) who was, 
like his father, a physician, went to Midway, 
Georgia, and married there, but perished by 
shipwreck with his wife on the return voyage. 
In his poem, “A Family Record,” read, in 
1877, at the Fourth of July Celebration in 36 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Roseland Park, Woodstock, Dr. Holmes thus 
alludes to a visit made by him to the home of 
his ancestors : — 
“ In days gone by I sought the hallowed ground* 
Climbed yon long slope; the sacred spot I found 
Where all unsullied lies the winter snow, 
Where all ungathered Spring’s pale violets blow, 
And tracked from stone to stone the Saxon name 
That marks the blood I need not blush to claim,— 
Blood such as warmed the Pilgrim sons of toil. 
Who held from God the charter of the soil-”' 
There is a large Holmes family at East 
Haddam, Conn., but it is not connected with 
the Woodstock family by any known link in 
this country. In sly satire upon the folly of 
American coat-of-arms hunters, Mr. D. Wil- 
liams Patterson, in his sumptuously printed 
genealogy of the East Haddam family, offers 
as a substitute for the ordinary European' 
imitation a bit of Yankee Heraldry, or kind 
of Indian totemism, in the shape of the fol 
'owing mark of a certain John Holmes (the 
mark recorded in the Proprietors’ book of the 
town) : “john holmes his marke for his Cre- 
turs is two slits one ye top of ye off eare and THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE. 
a half peny one ye under side of y® neare 
eare. Apriell y® 17th 1716.” Mr. Patterson 
also gives a representation, or cut, which he 
offers as a substitute for the usual emblazon- 
ments )f the heraldry books. His “repre- 
sentation ” consists of a very creditable 
picture of the head of a belled heifer with 
her ears cropped. There is good grim 
humor about this Patterson. How Carlyle 
or Thoreau would have liked to expatiate on 
the sincerity, the eternal veracity, etc., of the 
heifer’s-head coat-of-arms! One is reminded 
of Sydney Smith, who said that his ancestors 
never had any arms, and invariably sealed 
their letters with their thumbs. 
We have now swept the wide circuit of the 
genealogical outskirts of our subject, and are 
nearly ready to enter the charmed circle of 
the poet’s boyhood, described by himself with 
such tender and lingering fondness in so 
many parts of his writings. But first we 
must present a picture of his father, Abiel 
Holmes. 
Born in Woodstock in 1763, his father 
David, the surgeon-physician, sent him in 
1779, at the age of sixteen, to Yale College. 38 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
We are told that young Abiel rode all the 
way to New Haven on horseback. At col- 
lege he was considered one of the most ac- 
complished scholars of his class.* 
He graduated in 1783 ; was for a time tutor 
in the college under President Ezra Stiles ; 
preached for some years in Midway, Georgia ; 
in 1790 married Mary, daughter of President 
Stiles; in 1791 removed to Cambridge for his 
health ; was installed as pastor of the First 
Congregational Church in that town (then 
having about two thousand inhabitants), and 
remained pastor of the church for forty years. 
In 1795 his wife died, leaving no children. 
In 1800 he married Sarah Wendell, by whom 
he had five children, namely : Mary Jacksan, 
born in 1802, married Dr. Usher Parsons, of 
Providence; Ann Susan, born in 1804, mar- 
ried Charles W. Upham, who was successively 
a clergyman, mayor of Salem, State Senator, 
and Congressman ; Sarah Lathrop, born in 
1805, died in 1812 ; Oliver Wendell, born 
* Many of the details immediately following are 
taken from the eighth Volume of the Mass. Hist. Soc. 
Collections, and from Dr. Alex. McKenzie’s Lectures 
•a the History of the First Church in Cambridge. THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE. 
39 
August 29, 1809; John, born 1812. Sarah 
(Wendell) Holmes, the mother of these chil- 
dren, died August 19, 1862, in the ninety- 
third year of her age. She was a bright, 
keen-witted, vivacious woman, much beloved 
by her neighbors and by her husband’s parish- 
ioners. Her son, the poet, has dedicated to 
her one of his books. 
In 1807 Dr. Abiel Holmes moved into the 
famous Gambrel-Roofed House near the Col- 
lege; in 1817 he delivered a course of lec- 
tures on Ecclesiastical History in Harvard 
College ; in 1831 he asked a release from his 
pastoral duties, which was granted, with noble 
testimonials to his character and learning. 
He died June 12, 1837, at the age of seventy- 
four. 
The words which Dr. O. W. Holmes ap- 
plies to the Rev. Pitt Clarke, father of Dr. 
Edward Hammond Clarke, of Boston, may 
be u$ed of his own father : “ He was one 
of those excellent New England clergymen 
whose blood seems to carry the scholarly and 
personal virtues with it to their descendants, 
oftentimes for successive generations.” He 
was pre-eminently a scholar and antiquarian, 40 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
and loved to buy rare old editions of classic 
works. His contributions to the Massachu- 
setts Historical Society are very numerous, 
.and he was for more than twenty years its 
corresponding secretary ; his handwriting 
was nearly as plain as print. It was he who, 
in 1816, discovered in the Prince Library the 
third manuscript volume of the invaluable 
Winthrop Journals, which was deciphered 
and published. Dr. O. W. Holmes once re- 
marked to the writer that he thought his 
father should have been an historian and 
antiquarian solely; he said that he himself 
inherited from him a love of books and 
an antiquarian taste — a thing that his 
readers do not need to be told. During 
the conversation just alluded to Dr. Holmes 
remarked that it was a curious fact that years 
before Tennyson made the “In Memoriam ” 
stanza famous, his own father had written 
verses in that style, which were published by 
the Stiles family in their “ Family Tablet.” 
The personal appearance of Abiel Holmes 
was most genial and pleasant, as indeed his 
portrait, preserved in the rooms of the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society, witnesses. This THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE 
small oil-portrait shows asymmetrical, massive 
head, reminding one a good deal of the son's,, 
especially in the unusual height of the cere- 
bral portion, or the part above the ears. The 
lips are full, showing a rich nature; the nose 
ample, the face possessing in general a good 
deal of feature; the expression somewhat 
professionally clerical, but very kindly and 
sweet. The artist has painted the good doc- 
tor in his surplice and gown, and, although 
not yet old, he shows signs, as to his head, 
that he may yet reach the “hairless and 
cappy ” condition. There are those living in 
Cambridge who remember his pleasant and 
kindly manners, and tell how as he walked 
the streets he would often stop to talk with 
little children, and make them presents of 
confectionery. 
At the Holmes Breakfast in 1879 Colonel 
T. W. Higginson spoke of him as that most 
delightful of sunny old men. Colonel Hig- 
ginson passed his boyhood in Cambridge in 
roomy old mansion, which was at that time 
t:he very next door to the Gambrel-Roofed 
■House. He relates that one evening when he 
•and some other boys at the house were playing 42 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
in the library the gray-haired, gentle old 
divine, who had been taking an interest in 
their sports,— never complaining of their 
loudest noise,— went to the frost-covered 
window, and sketched with his penknife what 
seemed a clump of bushes and a galaxy of 
glittering stars, and above it he wrote the in- 
scription, Per aspera ad astra, — through; 
difficulties to the stars, — at the same time 
explaining to the boys what the words meant 
Of a sermon preached by Abiel Holmes, 
and afterwards printed, a contemporary said i 
“ It reads as placid as he looked: it is 
another instance of that now lost art of 
felicitously weaving in Scripture language 
with the texture of every sentence and the 
expression of every thought, which gave such 
peculiar unction to the most common utter- 
ances of the elder divines.” 
The severe Calvinistic faith in which he 
was bred did not chill his genial social na- 
ture. Nor was he in any respect bigoted7.. 
His position at Cambridge was a peculiarly 
delicate one, the Unitarian faith prevailing ire 
the University, and the Unitarian spirit being, 
very strong in the whole community. But THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE. 
43 
ibis charitable and liberal nature led him to 
fraternize cordially with all good men, and 
for years he was in the habit of exchanging 
pulpits with the Unitarian clergymen of 
Cambridge and Boston. 
Dr. Holmes was one of the founders of the 
'Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, 
and also of the American Education Society. 
He was a member of the American Academy 
of Arts and Sciences, Overseer of Harvard 
University, and a trustee of the Institution 
at Andover. He received in 1805 the degree 
of Doctor of Divinity from the University 
of Edinburgh, and was made LL.D. by 
Alleghany College in 1822. In 1801 he 
published a “History of Cambridge” — a 
.sort of handbook of the town. His life of 
President Ezra Stiles is clear, lucid, and 
manly in style, and is excellent reading to 
this day. Take, for example, this description 
of the personal appearance and habits of the 
subject of his memoir : — 
4‘ President Stiles was a man of low and 
small stature ; of a very delicate structure; 
and of a well-proportioned form. His eyes 
were of a dark gray color; and, in the OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
moment of contemplation, singularly pene- 
trating. His voice was clear and energetic. 
His countenance, especially in conversation, 
was expressive of mildness and benignity;; 
but, if occasion required, it became the index 
of majesty and authority. . . . 
“He always carried a pencil in his pocket,, 
and a small quarto sheet of blank paper,- 
doubled lengthwise, on which he minuted 
every noticeable occurrence and useful infor- 
mation. When he travelled he carried several: 
blank sheets, folded in the same manner, and 
applied them to the same purpose. When 
these memoranda formed materials sufficient 
for a volume he had them bound ; and they, 
collectively, compose four curious volumes of 
Itineraries, preserved in his cabinet of manu- 
scripts.” * 
* At the rooms of the Rhode Island Historical 
Society in Providence they show you a little vest- 
pocket almanac and note-book of President Stiles, some 
of the memoranda in which are in English and some 
in Hebrew characters. One of the entries consists of 
the following quaint and pithy line: “ Col. Ethan 
Allen of Vermont died and went to Hell this day!”' 
Whole volumes of divinity could not better embody the 
spirit of Connecticut Puritanism,,— as it was and as it 
is. THE TRIPLE-BRANCHED TREE. 
45 
Jared Sparks spoke of Dr. Holmes’ Ameri* 
can Annals as among the most valuable pro* 
ductions of the American press. It is a 
book that fetches a high price to this day. CHAPTER II. 
CAMBRIDGE. 
“ Know old Cambridge? Hope you do.— 
Born there ? Don't say so / / was, too.” — Holmes. 
Topographically speaking, the city of 
Cambridge at the present day is like a vast 
spider’s web with nine main radii, compacted 
with numerous circular and cross lines, 
which, as well as along the chief radii, the 
houses are strung like beads of dew. At the 
centre of the web stands the old Gambrel- 
Roofed House, and close by are the buildings 
of Harvard University; on the south of the 
city glides the silent Charles River through 
its salt marshes, — 
“ Full without noise, and whispers in his reeds/’ 
Over all the houses, the old gardens, the aca- 
demic quiet, the culture, soars the gargoyled 
tower of Memorial Hall, seen from far off as 
the most conspicuous feature in the landscape.. 
There is a particular charm in the rural en~ CAMBRIDGE. 
47 
virons of Cambridge, — its invigorating air, 
charged full of ozone, iodine, oxygen, its wide 
prospects, and its beautiful surburban villas. 
The Belmont and Arlington region is especially 
beautiful; the hills thrown up against the sky 
like an embroidered curtain, netted with old 
winding lanes, and dreamy at dusk with dim 
indigo and violet tints; at sunset enormous 
spokes diverging from the sunken orb through 
gold-smoke and rift and cumulus cloud ; in 
the summer the trees of greenest emerald; in 
autumn chromatized with red and yellow ; the 
ash trees a cool and delicate purple ; the oaks 
and birches by the pond sides glowing with a 
subdued glory (garnet and pale lemon) ; and in 
sequestered woodland walks no sound to break 
the silence save the rustle of the footsteps 
through thick rugs of colored leaves. It was 
impossible that leafy, blossoming old Cam- 
bridge, with her population of literary people, 
should not produce poets. She has had not 
only three or four eminent bards, but a great 
many minor ones, as well as a goodly number 
of writers of poetical prose. Cambridge society 
is distinguished for a temperate elegance and 
refinement of life somehow reconciled and 48 
OLIVER WENDELL hOLMES. 
harmonized with a most plentiful lack of 
money. United with the quiet urbanity and 
reserve which always accompany the finer 
nervous organizations, there is also the cos- 
mopolitanism of culture and travel, and the 
timidity of scholarly conservatism ; in religion 
the polite silence of minds cheerfully resigned 
to philosophical nescience ; in political mat- 
ters a subdued cynicism, capable of bursting 
forth, however, into the fiercest patriotism 
when stung into activity; and finally, in the 
matter of family traditions and caste, a pretty 
generous democratic indifference, —intellect, 
personal bravery, and choice manners open- 
ing every door, except in the case of a very 
few idiotic old families. As a matter of course, 
there are in Cambridge, as in every other 
college town, two other classes besides that 
which gives the town its distinctive social 
complexion, — namely, the tradespeople and 
the transient student class. Each of these 
groups keeps up an independent life. Topo- 
graphically viewed, the arrangement is like 
that of the Chinese ivory thimble; the first 
compartment, ring, or layer on the outside is 
that of “the people,” monotonously common* CAMBRIDGE. 
49 
place and alike in every city, and only in spots 
original and picturesque ; drawing the circle 
still closer, you include the old families and 
the professors’ families (culture, pride, limited 
incomes, charming society, comfortable resi- 
dences, with here and there a quaint heavy- 
beamed, ancestral house, occupied by nice 
old-fashioned people, as snugly ensconced for 
life with their books and flowers as your heart 
could wish); and, finally, in the centre comes 
the student-class with its Bohemian life apart, 
and glad to be apart. 
At the time our poet was born the city had 
a population of three thousand five hundred 
souls. Listen to a description of some of its 
local grandeurs, taken from Dr. Abiel Holmes’ 
“ History of Cambridge.” He says that 
“ West Boston Bridge, connecting Cambridge 
with Boston, is a magnificent structure ” ! — 
“ There are five (!) college edifices belonging 
to Harvard University.” — “The gardens of 
Thomas Brattle are universally admired.” — 
“ It is generally conceded that this town emi- 
nently combines the tranquillity of philosophic 
solitude with the choicest pleasures and ad- 
vantages of refined society.” That last sen- 50 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
tence is as true to-day as it was nearly a hun- 
dred years ago ; but how changed is almost 
everything else ! Cambridge has now some 
fifty-eight thousand inhabitants, a quarter of 
a hundred college buildings ; and the gardens 
of Thomas Brattle, where are they ? 
Of the appearance of Cambridge in the early 
part of this century Lowell has something 
to say in his delightful “Fireside Travels.' 
He tells of the noisy belfry of the college, the 
square, brown tower of the little Episcopal 
church (still in existence), the slim, yellow 
spire of the parish meeting-house, the few 
old houses that stood around the bare Com- 
mon, the half-dozen stately old Georgian 
houses fronting southward on the “ Old 
Road,” — now Mt. Auburn Street, — along 
which the Charles slipped quietly through 
green and purple salt-meadows darkened 
in patches with the “ blossoming black grass.” 
Then there was the snowy-gleaming, vine- 
covered cottage of the old whitewasher, who 
had bestowed the candent baptism of his lime 
upon his house, the stems of his trees, and 
his fence, and would tolerate, we are told, 
only whitest fowls and whitest china-asters in CAMBRIDGE. 
his dooryard. There was but one brewer in 
the town, a certain venerable Ethiopian named 
Lewis, who manufactured the village beer, 
both spruce and ginger. His whole stock he 
carried in a roofed hand-cart, “ on whose 
front a sign-board presented at either end an 
insurrectionary bottle.” The barber’s-shop. 
was a sunny little room fronting on the com- 
mon, — the proverbial loquacity of the place 
made still more lively by the sweet jangle of 
birds — canaries, Java sparrows, robin, thrush, 
and bobolink, and a white cockatoo that, as 
the barber averred, spoke in the Hottentot 
language. 
The home of a poet’s childhood, if a 
pleasant one, is to him always the most beauti- 
ful and poetical spot on earth. There he 
first dreamed those unutterable dreams of an 
ideal realm ; there life unfolded its rosy petals 
noiselessly around his wondering mind, and 
the crumbling maroon and red-gold cloud- 
bars of dawn hung trembling over an en- 
chanted land of dreams. How keen the 
senses! — that first sniff of fresh cracker- 
fragrance in a baker’s shop ; the scent of that 
jessamine that clung by grandmother’s win- OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
52 
dow; those bees in the gigantic, sunshine- 
drunken, red hollyhocks; those wonderful 
great horses in the barn, and those gliding, 
epicurean old loafers — the frogs in the pond, 
— but once in our life are we permitted such 
enjoyment as we took in these things, and 
that is in the period of childhood, when the 
universe stretches in soft illusion about us, 
infinite in mystery and infinite in poetical 
beauty. 
None more fortunate in his childhood than 
our young Oliver, and no wonder that he has 
never tired of talking and writing about it. 
For a poet to have lived until adolescence 
in the soothing scholastic quiet of a quaint 
rural town is something enviable. But if, in 
addition, he chance to be the son of one of 
the most influential and beloved citizens of 
the place, connected with the noblest families 
in the community, and living in a spacious 
old mansion consecrated by historical mem- 
ories, and surrounded by flowers and trees 
and gardens — breathed over twice a day by 
the sweet breath of the sea, — then we may 
count his childhood as almost an ideally perfect 
one. And such a happiness as this fell to the CAMBRIDGE. 
53 
lot of Oliver Wendell Holmes. The old 
yellow hip-roofed house in which he was born 
is now, alas! fairly over-crowed and out- 
shone by the two large and elegant buildings 
erected immediately at its side? and rear, 
namely, the Harvard College Gymnasium (of 
brick) and the new brown-stone Law School 
Building. * The old house now seems to wear 
almost a shamefaced look, like an old lady 
in mits and calash bonnet in the midst of an 
audience of fashionable young people. In 
Dr. Holmes’ youth there stood in the imme- 
diate neighborhood of the old manse the Red 
Lion Tavern, the quaint barber-shop described 
by Lowell in his “Fireside Travels,” and the 
house of Royal Morse, of college fame, resi- 
dent here from 1809 to 1872. Somewhere 
about the place there was a honeysuckle 
vine, with its pink and white perfumed 
blossoms, and on the western side of the 
house stood a row of tall Lombardy poplars: 
a row of elms still leads up to the west- 
ern entrance. The house is now about 
one hundred and sixty years old, and with 
proper care is good for another cen- 
tury. It was built in the old massive, 54 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
beamy fashion, wrought-iron nails being used 
throughout. A large barn was formerly con- 
nected with the premises, as well as a four- 
acre lot in the rear, now used as a playground 
by the students of Harvard University, and 
known as Holmes’ Field. The successive 
owners of the estate have been : Barnabie 
Lamson, 1683 ; Nathaniel Sparhawk; a “Mr. 
ffox,” 1707, probably the Rev. Jabez Fox 
of Woburn; Jonathan Hastings (“Yankee 
Jont.”); Jonathan Hastings, Jr., for nearly 
thirty years steward of the college ; Eliphalet 
Pearson, Professor of Oriental Literature; 
Judge Oliver Wendell; Rev. Abiel Holmes ; 
and finally Harvard University, to which cor- 
poration the estate was sold in 1871 for 
fifty-five thousand dollars. Oliver Wendell 
had paid seven thousand dollars for it in 
1807. Occupants of the house since the 
death of Abiel Holmes, have been Pro- 
fessor William Everett and Professor James 
Bradley Thayer. 
Every New Englander knows, or ought to 
know, the following historical facts: That 
immediately after the battle of Lexington the 
neighboring population rallied to Cambridge CAMBRIDGE. 
55 
by thousands; that what is now known as 
the Holmes House was selected by General- 
in-Chief Artemas Ward as his headquarters; 
that here was planned the occupation of 
Bunker Hill; that in the long, low dining- 
room, looking out through its heavily sashed 
windows on the Common, General Ward 
entertained Washington and his staff, the 
banquet being enlivened by patriotic songs ; 
and finally that in this house the lamented 
General Warren rested on his way to Bunker 
Hill, and that here Benedict Arnold received 
his first commission. In “The Poet at the 
Breakfast-table ” Dr. Holmes speaks of the 
tall mirror in which the British officers used 
to look at their red coats; and the deep, 
cunningly wrought arm-chair in which Lord 
Percy used to sit while his hair was dressing, 
and which he considerately protected with a 
cloth to save the silk covering embroidered 
by the poet’s grandmother. 
The study was, of course, a place of great 
attraction for young Oliver and his brother 
John. It was in that heavy-beamed room 
(the southeast ground-floor apartment), lined 
utterly, as to its walls, with books, that they 56 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
played and tumbled about among the 
coated folios and other o’s, the like of which 
in after years they would both learn to love 
with the enthusiasm of the scholar and the 
antiquary. There is a tradition that the 
many dints to be seen upon the floor of the 
study were- made by the butts of muskets 
belonging to British soldiers; but of the 
truth of this surmise no man for certain 
knoweth. The old house had its nooks and 
crannies, and its mysteries. In the “Auto- 
crat ” we learn of a certain odorous closet on 
whose shelves used to lie bundles of sweet- 
marjoram, and pennyroyal, and lavender, and 
mint, and catnip, and where apples and 
peaches were stored away to ripen. Else- 
where we are told of wainscoats behind 
which the mice were always scampering and 
squeaking and rattling down the plaster; of 
the cellar where the cold slug clung to the 
walls, and the long white potato-shoots went 
groping along the floor toward the light; and 
finally of the garret with its flooring of lath 
with ridges of mortar bulging out between 
them (“ which if you tread on you will go to 
—the Lord have mercy on you! where will CAMBRIDGE. 
57 
you go to ?”), its old beams with the marks of 
the axe plainly visible, and its old decaying 
furniture — arm-chair, churn, spinning-wheel, 
andirons, cradle, and leather portmanteaus 
“like stranded porpoises, their mouths gaping 
in gaunt hunger for the food with which they 
used to be gorged to bulging repletion.” 
Just under the old garret are chambers, 
on the windows of which names had been 
scratched, some of them with romantic asso- 
ciations. The southeast chamber was used 
as a library-hospital, or museum, where disa- 
bled and veteran books were placed to end 
their days in dusty peace. Young Holmes 
seems to have spent some rainy days to good 
purpose in this book-infirmary. He says a 
work he found there on the “Negro Plot” in 
New York helped to implant a feeling of 
dislike of the negroes which it took Mr. 
Garrison a good many years to root out. 
Another book he found here was the novel 
“Thinks I To Myself,” as well as an old 
work on alchemy, in which he sought in vain 
for information which'would enable him ta 
convert his lead-sinkers and the weights of 
’’he kitchen clock into good yellow gold. 58 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
In the Atlantic Almanac for 1868 Dr. 
Holmes writes in a charmingly colloquial and 
confidential style of the old garden and his 
experiences therein. Such delightful egotism 
and naivete disarm criticism and win our 
sympathy: — 
“ How long ago was it — Consule Jacobo 
Monrovio, — nay even more desperate than 
that, Consule Jacobo Madisonio — that I used 
to stray along the gravel walks of The Gar- 
den ? It was a stately pleasure-place to me 
in those days. Since then my pupils have 
been stretched, like old India-rubber rings 
which have been used to hold one’s female 
correspondence. It turns out by adult meas- 
urement to be an oblong square of moderate 
dimensions, say a hundred by two hundred 
feet. There were old lilac bushes at the 
right of the entrance, and in the corner at 
the left that remarkable moral pear-tree 
which gave me one of my first lessons in life. 
Its fruit never ripened, but always rotted at 
the core just before it began to grow mellow. 
It was a vulgar, plebeian specimen at best, 
and was set there no doubt only to preach its 
annual sermon, a sort of * Dudleian Lecture,' CAMBRIDGE. 
by a country preacher of small parts. But in 
the northern border was a high-bred Saint 
Michael pear-tree, which taught a lesson that 
all of gentle blood might take to heart; for 
its fruit used to get hard and dark, and break 
into unseemly cracks, so that when the lord 
of the harvest came for it it was like those 
rich men’s sons we see too often, who have 
never ripened, but only rusted, hardened, and 
shrunken. We had peaches, lovely nectar- 
ines, and sweet white grapes, growing and 
coming to kindly maturity in those days ; we 
should hardly expect them now, and yet there 
is no obvious change of climate. As for the 
garden-beds they were cared for by the Jon- 
athan or Ephraim of the household, some- 
times assisted by one Rule, a little old Scotch 
gardener, with a stippled face and a lively tem- 
per. Nothing but old-fashioned flowers in 
them, — hyacinths, pushing their green beaks 
through as soon as the snow was gone, or 
earlier; tulips, coming up in the shape of 
sugar ‘ cockles,’ or cornucopiae, — one was al- 
most tempted to look to see whether nature 
had not packed one of those two-line ‘ senti- 
ments ’ we remember so well in each of them ; OL1VER WENDELL HOLMES. 
peonies, butting their way bluntly through 
the loosened earth ; flower-de-luces (so I will 
call them, not otherwise) ; lilies, roses, dam- 
ask, white, blush, cinnamon (these names 
served us then) ; larkspurs, lupines, and gor- 
geous hollyhocks. With these upper-class 
plants were blended, in republican fellowship, 
the useful vegetables of the working sort, — 
beets, handsome with dark red leaves ; car- 
rots, with their elegant filigree foliage ; pars- 
nips that clung to the earth like mandrakes; 
radishes, illustrations of total depravity, a 
prey to every evil underground emissary of 
the powers of darkness ; onions, never easy 
until they are out of bed, so to speak, a com- 
municative and companionable vegetable, 
with real genius for soups ; squash-vines with 
their generous fruits, the winter ones that will 
hang up ‘ agin the chimbly ’ by-and-by, the 
summer ones, vase-like, as Hawthorne de- 
scribed them, with skins so white and delicate, 
when they are yet new-born, that one thinks 
of little sucking-pigs turned vegetables, like 
Daphne into a laurel, and then of tender hu- 
man infancy, which Charles Lamb’s favorite 
so calls to mind; these, with melons, promis- CAMBRIDGE. 
61 
ing as ‘ first scholars,’ but apt to put off ripen- 
ing until the frost came and blasted their 
vines and leaves, as if it had been a shower' 
of boiling water, were among the customary 
growths of the garden. 
“ But Consuls Madisonius and Munrovius- 
left the seat of office, and Consuls Johannes- 
and Quincius, and Andreas, and Martinus, 
and the rest, followed in their turn, until the 
good Abraham sat in the curule chair. In 
the meantime changes had been going on 
under our old gambrel-roof, and The Garden 
had been suffered to relapse slowly into a 
state of wild nature. The haughty flower- 
de-luces, the curled hyacinths, the perfumed 
roses, had yielded their place to suckers from 
locust-trees, to milkweed, burdock, plantain,, 
sorrel, purslain; the gravel walks, which 
were to Nature as rents in her green gar- 
ments, had been gradually darned over with 
the million-threaded needles of her grasses, 
until nothing was left to show that a garden 
had been there. 
“ But the garden still existed in my mem- 
ory ; the walks were all mapped out there, 
and the place of every herb and flower was 
laid down as if on a chart. 62 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
“ By that pattern I reconstructed The 
Garden, lost for a whole generation as much 
as Pompeii was lost ; and in the consulate 
of our good Abraham, it was once more as 
it had been in the days of my childhood. 
It was not much to look upon for a stranger; 
but when the flowers came up in their old 
places the effect on me was something like 
what the widow of Nain may have felt when 
her dead son rose on the bier and smiled 
upon her. 
“ Nature behaved admirably, and sent me 
back all the little tokens of her affection she 
had kept so long. The same delegates from 
the underground fauna ate up my early rad- 
ishes ; I think I should have been disappointed 
if they had not. The same buff-colored bugs 
devoured my roses that I remembered of old. 
The aphis and the caterpillar and the squash- 
bug were cordial as ever, just as if nothing 
had happened to produce a coolness or an 
entire forgetfulness between us. But the 
butterflies came back too, and the bees and 
the birds. 
“ The yellow-birds used to be very fond of 
some sunflowers that grew close to the pear- C A MB RI DO I. 
63 
tree with a moral. I remember their flitting 
about, golden in the golden light, over the 
golden flowers, as if they were flakes of 
curdled sunshine. Let us plant sunflowers, 
I said, and see whether the yellow-birds will 
not come back to them. Sure enough, the 
sunflowers had no sooner spread their disks, 
and begun to ripen their seeds, than the yel- 
low-birds were once more twittering and flut- 
tering around them.” 
The references to the sandy sterility of the 
soil of the old garden remind one of a passage 
in “The Poet at the Breakfast Table,” wherein 
Dr. Holmes facetiously says that he might, 
if he chose, find an excuse for his moral short- 
comings and peccadillos in the characteristics 
of this region. He says that the pests of the 
soil induced in him Manichaean ways of think- 
ing. 
Never were there two boys who drank 
in enjoyment at every pore more incessantly 
than did young Oliver and John Holmes. 
The latter has as gay and effervescent a 
spirit as his more widely-known brother. 
The larks they engaged in as boys were 
undoubtedly numerous and racy. There are 64 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
some hints of these in the writings of Dr. 
Oliver W. Holmes. The following lines from 
a college poem * of his, entitled “ Scenes from 
an Unpublished Play,” have about them an 
aroma of “ high old times ” : — 
“ Back-room at Porter's, — Dick, solus. 
“ I’m not well to-night — methinks the fumes 
Of overheated punch have something dimmed 
The cerebellum or pineal gland, 
Or where the soul sits regent.” 
There are a good many glimpses, too, of 
first school-days in the poet’s writings. His 
first school-teacher was Ma’am Hancock, 
whose cottage (called the “ten-footer”) stood 
close by the district school-house. Another 
school-mistress of his was Dame Prentiss, in 
whose low-studded room stood, we are told, a 
pail full of drinking water, flavored with the 
white pine of which the pail was made, and a 
brown mug “ out of which one Edmund, a 
red-faced and curly-haired boy, was averred to 
have bitten a fragment in his haste to drink.” 
The old lady had a long willow stick with 
which she could reach refractory pupils. We 
* Published in the Collegian, and not reprinted. CAMBRIDGE. 
65 
further learn that there were certain infantine 
love-makings going on beneath the good 
dame’s nose, but of which she was, of course, 
entirely oblivious. 
Holmes says that as a child he was afraid 
of the tall masts of ships and schooners, and 
used to hide his eyes from them. Another 
source of terror to him was a great wooden 
hand, the sign of a glove-maker who lived a 
mile or two from Cambridge. One of the 
luxuries of the boy was to lie in bed in the 
early morning and listen to the creaking of 
the heavily-loaded wood-sleds drawn slowly 
over the shrieking snow by the large, patient 
oxen. It was the custom in those days for 
the Sabbath to begin with Saturday'night, 
and on such occasions playthings must be 
put away and work cease, while a solemn 
hush and awe fell upon the household — a 
silence only broken by the continuous chirp- 
ing of the evening crickets mingled with 
the batrachian hymns from the neighboring 
swamp. 
One of the great holidays for boys was the 
College Commencement, which will be de- 
scribed in the next chapter. Moreover, about 66 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
the time of the college vacation in May came 
two Boston holidays, styled “Nigger 'lection” 
and “Artillery Election,” — the former so 
called because on that day (the last Wednes- 
day in May) the colored people were allowed 
to engage in the festivities on the Common, 
the occasion being the assembling of the Leg- 
islature. Both days somewhat resembled 
country fairs. The Tremont Street mall was 
then (as it still is to-day) appropriated by 
penny refreshment venders and small won- 
der-workers. It was lilac time, and every- 
body carried huge bunches of the delicious 
blossoms, “with heart-shaped leaves of rich 
green,” and overmastering odor. The Cam- 
bridge boys had grand fun on these occasions. 
“ A bunch of ‘ laylocks ’ and a 'lection burr 
used to make us happy in old times,” wrote 
Dr. Holmes once, as he called up the happy 
days of his boyhood. And there was some- 
thing stronger than water drank on the occa- 
sion ; the rummy perfume of egg-pop and 
“ black joke,” mingled with whiffs of pepper- 
mint and checkerberry from the candy stalls, 
and the floating fragrance of the omnipresent 
lilacs. CA if BRIDGE. 
Of the books read by the toys in Abiel 
Holmes’ household his son Oliver has enu- 
merated Miss Edgeworth’s “ Frank,” and 
'“Parents’ Assistant,” “Original Poems,” 
“ Evenings at Home,” and “ Cheap Reposi- 
tory Tracts.” A book whose moral made 
a great impression on his mind was a pleas- 
ant story called “ Eyes and No Eyes,” which 
tells of a certain discontented boy who thought 
that he could have improved on the arrange- 
ment of the seasons, but finally discovered 
that he had an equal love for each of them. 
But to return to school experiences. In 
the brief description which the poet has given 
of Dame Prentiss’ school, he mentions the 
existence of “ a great forfeit-basket filled with 
its miscellaneous waifs and deodands.” This 
last word is one of the few in Dr. Holmes’ 
writings which seem to show traces of his 
legal studies. In legal language a deodand 
was a personal chattel (a cart or a horse, eg.) 
which had occasioned the death of a rational 
creature, and been forfeited to the crown. 
The deodands, or forfeits, of Dame Prentiss’ 
school were probably instruments designed 
lor the capture and imprisonment, or torture, 68 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
of those wonderful little creatures which so 
attract the school-boy’s itching palm, and so 
allure his fancy,—i. e. flies! After leaving 
this school young Holmes became a pupil of 
Master William Biglow, mentioned by Duyc* 
kinck as a writer of considerable merit. 
From a paper by Dr. Holmes in the Pro- 
ceedings of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society for September, 1865, and from an 
article by him entitled “ Cinders from the 
Ashes,” published in the Atlantic Monthly 
for January, 1869, the following facts con- 
cerning his experiences at the Cambridge- 
port school have been culled : — 
This school was established in 1819 by the 
efforts of Dr. James P. Chaplin and others. 
It was about a mile from the Holmes man- 
sion to the school, and the way led through 
that thinly-inhabited, woody, marshy, huckle- 
berryish tract which many citizens of Cam- 
bridge, not yet very old, are fond of telling 
you about, — doubtless because it was the 
scene of so many of their childish adventures 
and sports. There were very few houses 
then between Old Cambridge and “ The 
Port.” The school was limited to thirty CAMBRIDGE. 
69 
students, was sometimes called the Academy, 
and was considered to offer much better ad- 
vantages than other schools of the time. It 
stood, during most of the period when it was 
attended by young Holmes, on the left hand 
side of Prospect Street as you turn down 
from Main Street. Holmes was ten years 
old when he began to attend the school, and 
he remained there for about five years, leav- 
ing it in 1824, to go to the Andover Phillips 
Academy. The first instructor at the Port 
School was Edward S. Dickinson, a graduate 
of Harvard College, and at that time a Stu- 
dent of medicine. Other instructors when 
Holmes attended were the Rev. Samuel 
Barrett, the Rev. Ezra Stiles Gannett, Mr, 
John Frost, Mr. Edward . Frost, the Rev. 
Nathaniel Gage, and Mr. Thaddeus Bowman 
Bigelow. The boys of the school were a 
good deal given to fighting. Their cham- 
pion, a nephew of Washington Allston, had 
at least two combats with outside boys, who 
were styled Port-chucks in the parlance of 
the Academy boys. One of the poet’s school- 
mates at the “ Port ” was Richard Henry 
Dana, Jr., and another was — the poet him- 70 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
self shall tell who. (See his magazine article, 
“ Cinders from the Ashes.”) 
“Sitting on the girls’ benches, conspicuous 
among the school-girls of unlettered origin 
by that look which rarely fails to betray 
hereditary and congenital culture, was a 
young person of very nearly my own age. 
She came with the reputation of being 
* smart,’ as we should have called it, ‘ clever ’ 
as we say nowadays. This was Margaret 
Fuller, the only one among us who, like Jean 
Paul, like the Duke, like Bettina, has slipped 
the cable of the more distinctive name to 
which she was anchored, and floats on the 
waves of speech as Margaret. Her air to 
her schoolmates was marked by a certain 
stateliness and distance, as if she had other 
thoughts than theirs and was not of them. 
She was a great student and a great reader 
of what she used to call ‘naw-vels.’ I remem- 
ber her so well as she appeared at school and 
later, that I regret that she had not been 
faithfully given to canvas or marble in the 
day of her best looks. None know her aspect 
who have not seen her living. Margaret, as 
I remember her at school and afterwards, was CAMBRIDGE. 
71 
tall, fair-complexioned, with a watery, aqua- 
marine lustre in her light eyes, which she 
used to make small, as one does who looks at 
the sunshine. A remarkable point about 
her was that long flexile neck, arching and 
undulating in scrange sinuous movements, 
which one who loved her would compare to 
those of a swan, and one who loved her not 
to those of the ophidian who tempted our 
common mother. Her talk was affluent, 
magisterial, de haut en bas, some would say 
euphuistic, but surpassing the talk of women 
in breadth and audacity. Her face kindled, 
and reddened, and dilated in every feature as 
she spoke, and, as I once saw her in a fine 
storm of indignation at the supposed ill- 
treatment of a relative, showed itself capable 
of something resembling what Milton calls 
the viraginian aspect.” 
A school essay of Margaret’s was brought 
to the poet’s father for examination. When 
young Oliver took it up he found that it 
began thus: “It is a trite remark.” Alas! 
he did not know the meaning of this word. 
It was, he says, a crushing discovery of her 
superiority. 72 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
After five years’ study at the Cambridge- 
port school, Holmes was taken to Andover 
to study a year in Phillips Academy as a 
preparation for college. At this time he was 
an energetic and vivacious youngster, full of 
all sorts of fun and mischief, with “ ten' 
dencies in the way of flageolets and flutes,” 
and a weakness for pistols and guns and 
cigars, which latter he would hide in the 
barrel of his pistol, where maternal eyes 
would never dare to look for them. 
In due time parents and “ slightly nostal- 
gic boy ” jogged away in the old carriage for 
Andover, up the old West Cambridge road, 
now North Avenue, past the powder-house, 
and on through country lanes and roads till 
their destination was reached. They stopped, 
just at the entrance of the central village, at 
a low two-story white house, the residence 
of one of the theological professors. The 
carriage and his fond parents left him at 
last, and he watched the retreating vehicle 
rising and sinking along the road until at 
length it entirely disappeared. He was the 
most homesick boy that ever lived. His case 
excited sympathy. “ There was an ancient, CAMBRIDGE. 
faded old lady in the house,” he says, “ very 
kindly but very deaf, rustling about in dark 
autumnal foliage of silk or other murmurous 
fabric, somewhat given to snuff, but a very 
worthy gentlewoman of the poor-relation 
variety. She comforted me, I well remem- 
ber, but not with apples, and stayed me, but 
not with flagons. She went in her benevo- 
lence, and taking a blue and white soda- 
powder, mingled the same in water, and 
encouraged me to drink the result. It might 
be a specific for sea-sickness, but it was not 
for home-sickness. The fizz was a mockery, 
and the saline refrigerant struck a colder chill 
to my heart. I did not disgrace myself, how- 
ever, and a few days cured me,' as a week on 
the water often cures sea-sickness.” 
One of the masters who sat in the dreary 
old academy building was the Rev. Samuel 
Horatio Stearns, an excellent and kindly man 
who won the little Cambridge boy’s heart. 
On the side of the long school-room was a 
large clock-dial, bearing these words : — 
Youth is the Seed-Time of Life. 
Mr. Holmes gives us some account of his OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
74 
schoolmates at Andover. One of them “with 
a fuliginous complexion, a dilating and 
whitening nostril, and a singularly malignant 
scowl,” years afterwards committed some act 
of murderous violence, and ended his days in 
a madhouse. The delight of this ferocious 
youngster was to kick our Oliver’s shins 
under the bench. Another little fellow, upon 
whom young Holmes’ eye was riveted from the 
moment of his entrance, had black hair and 
very black eyes, and his gaze was fastened 
to his book as if he had been reading a will 
that made him heir to a million. This was 
the future distinguished Greek scholar and 
Bible commentator, Prof. Horatio Balch 
Hackett. Another classmate was the well- 
known Phineas Barnes, of Portland, Maine. 
Among the professors were Dr. Porter, 
Dr. Woods, and the well-known Prof. Moses 
Stuart, — the latter tall, lean, Roman-faced, 
impressive, the very incarnation of a noble 
Roman orator, carrying his broadcloth cloak 
over his arm like a toga, and looking more 
like a walking statue than a man. 
The boys had their sports, visits to Indian 
Ridge, climbing the hills, swimming in the CAMBRIDGE. 
75 
dark and rapid Shawsheen or in the not very 
distant Merrimack, etc. One of young 
Holmes’ exercises was a very creditable 
translation from Virgil. It is preserved in 
his complete poetical works. 
Then there was a visit with a classmate to 
Haverhill, where our Cambridge lad saw the 
door of the ancient parsonage with the bullet- 
hole in it, through which Benjamin Rolfe, the 
minister, was shot by the Indians on the 29th 
of August, 1703. 
An absorbing occupation of the boys was 
watching one of the tutors who had had a 
dream that he would fall dead while he was 
praying. He regarded it as a warning, and 
asked the boys to come to see him in turn 
before he died. “ More than one boy kept 
his eye on him during his public devotions, 
possessed by the same feeling the man had 
that followed Van Amburgh about with the 
expectation, let us not say hope, of seeing the 
lion bite his head off sooner or later.” 
Years afterward, in 1867, Dr. Holmes re- 
visited the scene of his year’s schooling, and 
gives us, in the same article from which we 
have quoted, a pleasant account of his ex- 76 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
periences. He says the ghost of a boy was 
at his side as he wandered among the places 
he knew so well: “‘Two tickets to Boston/ 
I said to the man at the station. 
“ But the little ghost whispered, ‘ When 
you leave this place you leave me behind you* 
“ ‘ One ticket to Boston, if you please. 
Good-by, little ghost.’ ” CHAPTER III. 
HARVARD. 
In this country of monotonous uniformity 
of social classes there is a tendency to make 
the most of such exclusive associations as 
are not obnoxious to the spirit of democracy. 
Probably in no other country in the world do 
college men cling to each other through life 
with such tenacity as they do here ; and col- 
lege men know that there is no other social 
relation in life so purely enjoyable and valu- 
able to them as is the gentle free-masonry of 
the college class, both in undergraduate and 
postgraduate life. The Harvard College 
class of 1829 has been fortunate in possess- 
ing a poet (Dr. Holmes) who is an enthu- 
siastic college man, and has made his class 
unique by his poems in its honor. “The 
Boys of ’29” he delights to call them ; and 
he is the greatest boy of them all. His 
whole life is pervaded by college associations. 
How delightful to perpetuate through a life- OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
time those first fresh and indefinable feel- 
ings of our college life, — days of divine 
leisure when we drank deep, unquenchable 
draughts from the fountains of the wisdom of 
the ages, and heard afar off the indistinguish- 
able roar of life, content, as we thought, to 
eat of that sweet lotus fruit of knowledge for- 
ever ! 
In 1825, immediately after his return home 
from Phillips Academy, young Holmes entered 
Harvard, the class containing the then un- 
usually large number of seventy-one freshmen, 
fifty-eight of whom graduated. Among the 
professors whose names appear on the pages 
of the four little college catalogues issued 
from 1826 to 1829, inclusive, there is the 
name of only one man now living, and that is 
Dr. Oliver Stearns, of the class of 1826. In 
his class poem of 1879, “Vestigia Quinque 
Retrorsum,” Dr. Holmes has given a pleasing 
sketch of President Kirkland and the college 
professors of his day : — 
“ Look back, O comrades, with your faded eyes, 
And see the phantoms as I bid them rise. 
Whose smile is that? Its pattern Nature gave, 
A sunbeam dancing in a dimpled wave; HARVARD. 
Kirkland alone such grace from Heaven could 
win, 
His features radiant as the soul within; 
That smile would let him through Saint Peter’s 
gate 
While sad-eyed martyrs had to stand and wait. 
Here flits mercurial Farrar; standing there, 
See mild, benignant, cautious, learned Ware, 
And sturdy, patient, faithful, honest Hedge, 
Whose grinding logic gave our wits their edge; 
Ticknor, with honeyed voice and courtly grace; 
And Willard larynxed like a double bass ; 
And Channing with his bland superior look, 
Cool as a moonbeam on a frozen brook, 
While the pale student, shivering in his shoes, 
Sees from his theme the turgid rhetoric ooze; 
And the born soldier, fate decreed to wreak 
His martial manhood on a class in Greek, 
Popkin ! How that explosive name recalls 
The grand old Busby of our ancient halls ! 
Such faces looked from Skippon’s grim platoons, 
Such figures rode with Ireton’s stout dragoons ; 
He gave his strength to learning’s gentle charms, 
But every accent sounded ‘ Shoulder arms ! ’ ” 
At the time Holmes entered college the 
spirit of the age was already setting against 
ministers and “orthodoxy.” In 1826 Am- 80 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
herst College was founded for the express 
purpose of counteracting the liberal tenden- 
cies of Harvard, and Henry Ware was severely 
denounced for not preaching eternal punish- 
ment to the students. It is well to remember 
these facts when we would seek the causes of 
the life-long warfare against the bigotries of 
“ orthodoxy ” which has been waged by Dr. 
Holmes. 
At college he delivered the poem before 
the Hasty Pudding Club, had the poem at 
Exhibition, also one at Commencement, and 
was chosen as the class poet. Among the 
classmates of Holmes were Professor Ben- 
jamin Peirce, the eminent mathematician and 
astronomer (who, by the way, was born in the 
same year with Holmes, i. e., 1809); Judge 
Benjamin R. Curtis of the United States 
Supreme Court; Rev. Dr. James Freeman 
Clarke, author and clergyman (the “ good 
Saint James”); Judge George T. Bigelow 
of the Massachusetts Supreme Court ; the 
Hon. George T. Davies; the Rev. Dr. 
Chandler Robbins; the Rev. William H. 
Channing; and the Rev. Samuel Francis 
Smith, author of “My Country, ’tis of HARVARD. 
81 
Thee,” and the hymn, “ The Morning Light 
is Breaking.” Dr. Holmes has thus wittily 
spoken of his classmate, Smith : — 
“ And there’s a nice youngster of excellent pith, — 
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith; 
But he shouted a song for the brave and the 
free, — 
Just read on his medal, ‘ My country,’ ‘ of 
thee!”’ 
Charles Sumner was a member of the 
class of 1830, and the historian Motley be- 
longed to the class of 1831. Motley roomed 
at the historical Brattle House, amid elegant 
surroundings. Dr. Holmes has said of him 
that he was probably the youngest student 
in college. An unusual affection and inti- 
macy between Holmes and Motley continued 
through life, and the former has written the 
life of his historian friend. In a communica- 
tion addressed to the Massachusetts Histori- 
cal Society, Dr. Holmes said : — 
“ Motley was more nearly the ideal of a 
young poet than any boy — for he was only 
a boy as yet—who sat on the benches of 
the college chapel. His finely shaped and 82 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
expressive features, his large, luminous eyes, 
his dark waving hair, the singularly spirited 
set of his head, which was most worthy of 
note for its shapely form and poise, his well- 
outlined figure, gave promise of his manly 
beauty, and commended him even to those 
who could not fully appreciate the richer 
endowments of which they were only the 
outward signature.” 
Of another of his college-mates, Charles 
Chauncy Emerson, Dr. Holmes has thus 
spoken: “ A beautiful, high-souled, pure, 
exquisitely delicate nature in a slight but 
finely wrought mortal frame, he was for me 
the very ideal of an embodied celestial intelli- 
gence. I may venture to mention a trivial 
circumstance because it points to the char- 
acter of his favorite reading, which was likely 
to be guided by the same tastes as his 
brother’s, and may have been specially di- 
rected by him. Coming into my room one 
day, he took up a copy of Hazlitt’s British 
Poets. He opened it at the poem of Andrew 
Marvell’s, entitled “The Nymph Complain- 
ing for the Death of her Fawn,” which he 
read to me with delight irradiating his ex- HARVARD. 
83 
pressive features. The lines remained with 
me, or many of them, from- that hour : — 
‘ Had it lived long, it would have been 
Lilies without, roses within.’ 
I felt as many have felt after being with his 
brother, Ralph Waldo, that I had entertained 
an angel visitant. The Fawn of Marvell’s 
imagination survives in my memory as the 
fitting image to recall this beautiful youth; 
a soul glowing like the rose of morning with 
enthusiasm, a character white as the lilies in 
its purity.” 
It is, of course, impossible now to produce a 
complete picture of the undergraduate life of 
Harvard College as it was when Holmes was a 
student. But that excellent journal, The Har- 
vard Register, (meteoric in its brilliancy), 
brought to light many invaluable reminis- 
cences of life at Harvard fifty years ago, 
and we shall thankfully avail ourselves of 
them here. And first a word about college 
societies. One of these, to which Motley 
and John Osborne Sargent belonged, was 
called “The Knights of the Square Table.” 
In 1829 Holmes was Curator “ Medicati OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Apparatus,” in the waggish club called the 
“Med. Facs.” There were some twenty 
burlesque professors; Cornelius C. Felton 
being Bugologiae et Cornucopialogiae Pro- 
fessor ; Ezra Stiles Gannett, Craniologiae 
Professor, etc. 
The first meeting of the year was held in 
an upper room in Hollis, which, as we are 
informed by Mr. Henry Winthrop Sargent, 
was, draped in black cotton, and decorated 
with death’s-heads and cross-bones in chalk : 
a table also hung with black extended length- 
wise through the room. In the centre on a 
raised seat sat the Praeses, and on either side 
of him various Professores and Professores 
Adjuncti, clad in black, and wearing the flat 
Oxford cap. Near at hand stood two gens- 
d’armes, usually the two strongest men in the 
class, entirely clothed in flesh-colored tights, 
the oldest holding the celebrated club, “ In- 
tonitans Bolus,” and the younger the smaller 
Bolus. Upon the stairs were crowds of 
Juniors, from whom some twenty or thirty 
were to be initiated into the society. The 
initiation consisted either in answering disa- 
greeable questions put by the Professores, or HARVARD. 
85 
In doing such things as standing on your head, 
erawling about the floor with the collar-bone 
of an ass over your neck, singing Mother 
Goose melodies, or making an oration in one 
*of the dead languages. 
Holmes belonged while in college to an- 
other small temporary association called the 
or Notables. (See the Life of 
Benjamin R. Curtis, by George T. Curtis.) 
Another member of this little debating 
society was William Henry Channing. 
According to the Rev. Cazneau Palfrey, 
the Hasty Pudding Club then met at the 
rooms of its members. Chairs were obtained 
from neighboring rooms, and the pudding 
ma.s prepared by a worthy matron of the 
’tillage, who was familiarly spoken of in the 
dub as Sister Stimson, and was regarded as 
a. quasi member of the society. 
The “providers” of the evening slung 
their two huge pots of boiling mush, or 
porridge, upon a stout pole, and resting the 
ends thereof upon their shoulders mounted 
gallantly to the room where the members 
were assembled, — often in the third or 
fourth story. Strange to say there is no OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
tradition of anybody having been scalded 
to death while engaged in this perilous feat- 
A bowl of pudding was always carried as sl 
propitiatory offering to the officer of the 
entry in which the meeting was held, and 
after adjournment the occupants of neigh- 
boring rooms were invited to partake of the 
generous abundance of pudding that still 
remained.* 
Of course there were the usual practical 
jokes and students’ pranks. Hazing in a mild 
form was in vogue, and that there were noc- 
turnal deciperes goes without saying. Gen- 
eral H. K. Oliver, in his hilarious and inimi- 
table style, tells of “ the raiding-for, the 
slaying, the unfeathering (we did not pause 
to eviscerate), the roasting, — tied to a string, 
and twirled before an open fire, at No. 19 
Hollis Hall,—and the festal surfeit over the 
well-cooked corpus mortuum of a proud bird 
known to naturalists as the Meleagris Gal- 
lopavo, — Anglicl, Gobbler! All the need- 
* For further particulars of the Club 6ee “The Har- 
vard Book,” and an article by the author on “Under- 
graduate Life in Harvard,” published in The Continent 
for January 10, 1883. HARVARD. 
87 
fuls for the due spread of the table, and all 
fitting condiments were ensconced in a trap- 
door-covered box beneath the floor, the artil- 
lery of prying eyes of proctors wise being 
foiled by a barricade of blankets so effectual 
that total darkness seemed to reign within.” 
It was justly considered a great affliction 
to be obliged to attend prayers before day- 
light in winter in a bitterly cold room, and 
many tricks were played by the students to 
testify their repugnance. 
On one occasion the candles were slyly cut 
and pieces of lead inserted and covered over 
•with tallow : of course the lights went out 
when the lead was reached. On another 
occasion “pull-crackers” were fastened to 
the lids of the Bible, and when the book was 
opened they exploded with loud reports. 
One day a hog’s head appeared on the Bible, 
to the astonishment and horror of the offici- 
ating clergyman. 
In further illustration of the college life of 
those days, Dr. A. P. Peabody tells us of the 
Spartan simplicity of the college rooms, ten 
dollars being a fair auction price for the fur- 
niture of the carpetless studies. The fires 88 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
were of wood, and were lighted by flint, steely 
and tinder-box. “Almost every room had. 
too, among its transmittenda a cannon-balL 
supposed to have been derived from the 
arsenal, which on very cold days was heated 
to a red heat, and placed as a calorific radiant 
on some extemporized metallic stand; while 
at other seasons it was often utilized by being: 
rolled down-stairs at such time as might most 
nearly bisect a proctor’s night-sleep.” The 
only conveyance to Boston was a two-horse 
stage-coach, which ran twice each day. 
A great institution in those days was the 
Harvard Washington Corps, or college mili- 
tary company, for which the State lent arms- 
and equipments. There were so few college 
sports then — no base-ball, no cricket, ms 
boating, ‘no gymnasium — that the corps 
attracted great attention. The brigade baud 
contained twenty-eight pieces. The uni- 
form consisted of the prescribed college 
dress, which was dark Oxford mixed-gray 
single-breasted coats, with three crow’s feet 
on the sleeve to distinguish a Senior, two far 
a Junior, one for a Sophomore, and none far 
a Freshman; the skirts of the coat wene HARVARD. 
89 
cut away like those of our present dress- 
coats, White cross-belts were worn ; and 
the officers had felt caps with black leather 
visors and black fountain plumes: they also 
wore gilt buttons, gold epaulets, white trou- 
sers, white sword-belt, and scarlet silk sash. 
The motto of the corps was, “ Tam Marti 
quam Mercurio.” 
One of the dormitories of the days we are 
speaking of was an old three-story wooden 
building called the Devil’s Den, which stood 
just south of the spot where is now the Uni- 
tarian Church. Flutes and other worldly 
musical instruments were generally repro- 
bated by orthodox clergymen, and General 
Henry Kemble Oliver tells us that he used 
to conceal his flute beneath his feather-bed, 
his father having forbidden him to play upon 
the heathen instrument. The Pierian Sodal- 
ity was in existence, and there was excellent 
singing by the college choir. Prayers twice 
a day, — in winter by candle-light in a cold 
room; two services on Sunday; commons 
eaten in University Hall, which then had a 
broad piazza in front, with wide steps at each 
end. The curriculum and ars docendi were OLIVER WENDELL HOLME a. 
90 
similar to the same in an old-fashioned West- 
ern college at the present day, and the feeling 
between students and professors was one of 
antagonism. 
A good recitation story is told by General 
Oliver of Professor Popkin (“ old Pop ”). He 
was accustomed to call up the lads in alpha- 
betical order. “ But somebody had amazed 
1dm by hinting that the innocents with whom 
he had to deal might possibly be in the habit 
of counting noses, and preparing accordingly, 
as was the lamentable fact. He had, on a 
certain day, closed recitation with the W's, 
and it was expected that he would next begin 
with the A’s ; and therefore some twenty A’s, 
JB’s, and C’s,—but very few else,— got 
* booked/ the fellows at the tail taking it 
easy. In due time we gathered together : 
the good man came in, and taking his seat, 
earnestly gazed awhile (his right foot over 
his left knee, and his right shin rejoicing 
under its customary manipulation) at Todd 
Adams. Then whisking round with a sudden 
jerk, he shrieked out, with a grim and mis- 
chievous chuckle, ‘ Williams, now I've got 
you! * and so he had. A roar of laughter rent HARVARD. 
91 
the room ; and Williams, with sundry other 
bankrupts at the tail end of the division, took 
the * deadest of screws.’ ” 
In the year 1827, while in college, Holmes 
became joint author with John Osborne Sar- 
gent and Park Benjamin of a little 
entitled “ Poetical Illustrations of the Athe- 
naeum Gallery of Paintings.” The poems are 
chiefly satirical in cast. In the copy owned 
by the Athenaeum Library in Boston, the 
poem called “The Boy with the Golden 
Locks ” is marked in pencil with the name 
O. W. Holmes ; the boy of the painting was 
Samuel Eliot, and the artist R. Peale. It is 
stated in the “Memorial History of Boston”* 
that the first attempt at an art gallery in 
Boston was made in 1826, when a collection 
of casts from the antique, the gift of Augustus- 
Thorndike, together with one or two portraits 
of benefactors of the Athenaeum, were exhib- 
ited by that institution. The next year 
(1827) the first regular exhibition of paintings 
and sculpture was opened to the public. It 
curiously marks the advance made in enlight- 
ened views of women when we are told by 
Miss Sarah Freeman Clarke, that at the time 92 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
this exhibition was opened “ a joyous whisper 
went round that ladies might go to it unat- 
tended by gentlemen! ” 
The great event of college life was Com- 
mencement (Class Day as yet was not, that 
institution coming in with President Quincy). 
The festival of Commencement resembled a 
modern fair. Listen to this description of 
Dr. Holmes: — 
“ The fair plain (the Common), not then, as 
now, cut up into cattle-pens by the ugliest of 
known fences, swarmed with the j oyous crowds. 
The ginger-beer carts rang their bells and 
popped their bottles, the fiddlers played 
Money Musk over and over and over, the 
sailors danced the double-shuffle, the gentle- 
men of the city capered in lusty jigs, the town 
ladies even took a part in the graceful exer- 
cise, the confectioners rattled red and white 
sugar-plums, long sticks of candy, sugar and 
burnt almonds into their brass scales, the 
wedges of pie were driven into splitting 
mouths, the mountains of (clove-besprinkled) 
hams were cut down as Fort Hill is being 
sliced to-day ; the hungry feeders sat still and 
concentrated about the boards where the HARVARD. 
93 
grosser viands were served, while the milk 
flowed from cracking cocoanuts, the fragrant 
muskmelons were cloven into new-moon 
crescents, and the great watermelons showed 
their cool pulps sparkling and roseate as the 
dewy fingers of Aurora.” 
From a paper styled a “ Sketch in Senti- 
mental Antiquarianism ” (in “ The Harvard 
Book ”), written by our genial friend John 
Holmes, the brother of the poet, we obtain 
many pleasant glimpses of the informal and 
subordinate features of Commencement as it 
appeared fifty or sixty years ago. A day or 
two before the eventful occasion, spaces for 
tents were measured on the Common by the 
town agent, and the number of each marked 
in the sod. Everything was in a delightful 
tumult. Old friends and relatives returned. 
“On Tuesday, after the nearer relatives had 
arrived, there might drop in at evening a third 
cousin of a wife’s half-brother from Agawam, 
or an uncle of a brother-in-law’s step-sister 
from Contoocook, to reknit the family ties. 
The runaway apprentice, who was ready to 
condone offences and accept hospitality, was 
referred to the barn, as well as the Indian 94 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
from Mr. Wheelock’s Seminary, whose equip- 
ment was an Indian catechism and a bow and 
arrow, with which latter he expected to turn 
a fugitive penny by shooting at a mark on the 
morrow.” ... At night, “ if any villager 
awoke from troublous dreams of pillage, the 
sounds from the Common as of ‘armorers 
with busy hammers closing rivets up,’ in other 
words, the blows of shadowy tent-builders, 
refreshed his moral nature, and anon he sank 
pleasantly into festive visions. ... At Miss 
Chadbourne’s, the numerous lodgers in the 
garret pensively studied by the light of the 
lantern which served as police the antiquities 
suspended from the rafters, or stowed under 
the eaves. The disabled spinning wheel, the 
old bonnet that had attended Governor Bel- 
cher’s first Commencement, the screen with 
the figures of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- 
nego, that had been placed too near the fire, 
— these and other articles had been perused 
to the verge of desperation, when a sudden 
blank —and lo ! the great day had come.” 
The tents were upon the western side of 
the college yard, and, “having opposite them 
various stands and shows, made a street HARVARD . 
which, by nightfall, was paved with water- 
melon rinds, peach-stones, and various debris* 
on a ground of straw, — all flavored with rutm 
and tobacco-smoke. The atmosphere thus, 
created in the interests of literature was 
the true devotee of Commencement what the 
flavor of the holocaust was to the pious an- 
cient.” In the afternoon all was freedom and 
gayety. “The rough village doctor, though, 
witnessing the abominable breach of hygienic 
law everywhere, felt the cheering influence of 
the day, and his old mare with perplexity 
missed half her usual allowance of cowhide. 
The dry, sceptical village lawyer returned 
from dinner at Miss Chadbourne’s to his dusty 
office in his best mood, prepared to deny 
everything advanced by anybody, and demand 
proof. On the Common the Natick Indians, 
having made large gain by their bows and ar- 
rows, proceeded to a retired spot, and silently 
and successively achieved the process of ine- 
briation.” Such were some of the features of 
Commencement at Harvard sixty years ago, 
and such were probably the features of that 
particular Commencement Day of which the 
Autocrat has written the following: — 96 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
“ ’Tis the first year of stern ‘ Old Hickory’s’ rule, 
When our good Mother lets us out of school, 
Half glad, half sorrowing, it must be confessed, 
To leave her quiet lap, her bounteous breast, 
Armed with our dainty, ribbon-tied degrees, 
Pleased and yet pensive, exiles and A. B.’s.” 
For a year after leaving college Holmes 
studied law at Harvard under Judge Story 
and Mr. Ashmun (1830). At the end of that 
time he decided to abandon the study of 
Blackstone and Chitty for medicine, the pro- 
fession of his grandfather, David Holmes of 
Woodstock. He has remarked that he can 
hardly say what induced him to give up law 
for medicine, but that he had from the first 
regarded his legal studies as an experiment. 
He has also said, half jocosely, that but for 
the seductive attractions of college journal- 
ism, he might have applied himself with more 
diligence to his legal studies, and carried a 
green bag in place of a stethoscope and a 
thermometer to this day. 
It is said that it was at one time the hope 
of his father that he might study for the min- 
istry, and it is thought that one of the reasons 
why he was sent to school at Andover was HARVARD. 
97 
that he might acquire a liking for theology in 
the pious atmosphere of that place. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes in the pulpit! The 
xrery idea raises a merry laugh, and we seem 
to see a congregation of upturned faces, each 
irradiated by the broadest of grins. And 
yet there is a good deal of the preacher in 
Holmes : his essays are lay sermons. 
His first taste of types and proof-sheets 
attack of author’s lead-poisoning,” he calls 
it) he got while studying law. To the six 
months’ college periodical, called the Col* 
iegian, he contributed twenty-five poems, 
:smne of which are retained in his complete 
editions, and have not been surpassed by his 
later productions. Certainly he has written 
iso humorous poems more irresistibly droll 
than “The Dorchester Giant,” “Evening by 
;3L Tailor,” “The Spectre Pig,” and “The 
Height of the Ridiculous.” That the edi- 
tors and readers of the Collegian appreciated 
the unique merit of the verses is evident from 
the fact that in the index to the periodical all 
•of Holmes’ pieces are indicated by an asterisk. 
Perhaps they did not know that for clear and 
unstudied humor, a sense of which creeps 98 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
slowly and delightfully throughout the whole 
frame, the poems of their young contributor 
were superior to those of Hood, the great 
humorist of that day. But we know this 
now. The chief editor of the Collegian was 
the genial John Osborne Sargent, who wrote 
bright and vivacious prose and poetical pieces 
under the nom de plume of “ Charles Sperry/' 
William H. Simmons was “ Lockfast,” and 
Theodore W. Snow figured as “Geoffrey la 
Touche.” Assistant editors or regular con- 
tributors were Epes Sargent (brother of J. O, 
Sargent), Robert Habersham, Jr., of Boston, 
and Frederick W. Brune, of Baltimore. 
The first poem of Holmes in the collection, 
probably the first ever published by him 
(“ Runaway Ballads,” February, 1830), is a 
serio-comic piece in two parts, with just a 
spice of naughtiness in it, to be generously 
overlooked in a young man : — 
I. 
“ Wake from thy slumbers, Isabel, the stars are in 
the sky, 
And night has hung her silver lamp, to light our 
altar by; HARVARD. 
The flowers have closed their fading leaves, and 
droop upon the plain, 
O wake thee, and their dying hues shall blush to 
life again.” 
II. 
“Get up! get up ! Miss Polly Jones, the tandem’s 
at the door; 
Get up, and shake your lovely bones, it’s twelve 
o’clock and more ; 
The chaises they have rattled by, and nothing 
stirs around, 
•And all the world but you and me are snoring 
safe and sound. 
I’ve got my uncle’s bay, and trotting Peggy, too, 
I’ve lined their tripes with oats and hay, and now 
for love and you; 
The lash is curling in the air, and I am at your 
side, 
To-morrow you are Mrs. Snaggs, my bold and 
blooming bride.” 
Another poem (like the foregoing, never 
republished) bears the title “Romance”: — 
44 O ! she was a maid of a laughing eye, 
And she lived in a garret cold and high; 
And he was a threadbare whiskered beau, 
And he lived in a cellar damp and low.” OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
The Collegian had been preceded in the' 
year 1827 by The Harvard Register (the first 
of that name), which, although it had no genius 
like Holmes on its staff, was yet supported in 
a brilliant manner by a corps of 
many of whom afterwards became famous. 
Among these were C. C. Felton, Robert G, 
Winthrop, C. C. Emerson, Robert Rantonl, 
George S. Hillard, and James Freeman Clarke, 
— all undergraduates in the college. It is 
pleasant to see the Rev. James Freeman 
Clarke in the r61e of a humorous writer,— 
namely, in a piece entitled “ The Miseries of 
the Spectacle Family ; or, the Near-sightedLT'* 
The lurking humor which has always charac? 
terized him had, very appropriately, a livelier 
and more piquant spirit in that bright heyday 
of youth. 
It was about 1829 or 1830 that Holmes', 
wrote his stirring lyric, “ Old Ironsidfesi.”-— 
this term being the popular nickname for the 
battle-ship Constitution. The old war vessel 
appeared in Boston harbor on the Fourth of 
July, 1828, firing a salute in honor of the day, 
and also firing the popular heart with new en- 
thusiasm for herself. In turning over the files' HARVARD. 
of th« Boston Advertiser, the writer found the 
following sentence in an editorial of July 8, 
1828. It neatly sums up the popular senti- 
ment concerning the old ship: “ We may 
safely challenge the annals of the world to 
name the ship that has done so much to fill 
the measure of her country’s glory.” It 
was found that some of the timbers were so 
unsound that it was proposed by the govern- 
ment to break her up. Holmes voiced the 
protest of the whole land in his poem ; the 
verses ran through every newspaper in the 
Union, and were circulated on handbills in 
Washington, so that Mr. Secretary Branch, 
unwilling to incur the odium of carrying out 
his previous intentions, gave orders to have 
the ship overhauled and repaired, which was 
accordingly done. The curious will find much 
entertaining information about the Constitu~ 
tion in Drake’s “ Old Landmarks of Boston.” 
Dr. Holmes tells us elsewhere that he wrote 
the poem, “ Old Ironsides,” by a window in 
the white chamber of the Gambrel-roofed 
House, “ stans pede in uno, pretty nearly." 
But however hastily written, it is certainly 
one of the finest patriotic lyrics in the laiv 102 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
guage, and thrills the heart as only works of 
the highest genius can do. , Standing, as it 
does, at the portal of Dr. Holmes’ complete 
poetical works, it forms a most spirited in- 
troduction to these. The genius of Holmes, 
like that of Emerson, seems to have flowered 
out at once into vigorous poetical expression 
without the necessity of a long apprentice* 
ship to the art. CHAPTER IV. 
PHYSICIAN AND PROFESSOR. 
From the autumn of 1830 to the spring of 
1833 Holmes studied medicine in Boston, 
his instructors being Drs. Channing, Ware, 
Lewis, Otis, Jackson, and others. For Dr. 
James Jackson he always had a deep attach- 
ment, and has repeatedly written about him 
in terms of affection and reverence.* By his 
marriage, Dr. Holmes afterwards became the 
son-in-law of Dr. Jackson’s brother. The 
life of a young saw-bones is hardly compat- 
ible with the cultivation of poetry. There 
is unfortunately, but undeniably, something 
* He says of him that, “while he studied his patients 
with all the inquisitiveness which belongs to science, 
he cared for every individual among them as one who 
thought only of them and their welfare. Those who 
enjoyed the privilege of his teaching would bear testi- 
mony that no man more entirely forgot himself in his 
duties; that he taught them to rely on no oracular 
authority, but to look the facts before them in the face; 
that he educated them for knowledge beyond his own j 
and that, while they recognized in him a master of his OLIVES WENDELL HOLMES. 
hardening and materializing (almost animal- 
izing) in the first acquaintance of a medical 
student with dissections, and in the investi- 
gation of the repulsive diseases of the human 
body.* In the few literary productions of 
Holmes published from 1830-33 we seem to 
find traces of this influence. 
In the New England Magazine appeared 
about this time the poem, “ My Aunt,” as 
well as some boyish prose pieces, one de- 
scribing a little street flirtation, and another 
being a bit of antiquarian talk on books, — a 
topic on which Dr. Holmes always likes fondly 
to expatiate. He is a genuine bibliophile, and 
when in Europe as a student eagerly indulged 
the inherited passion. “ What a delight ” 
(he says in a little-known pamphlet) “in 
the pursuit of the rarities which the eager 
book-hunter follows with the scent of a 
trt, they left him with minds fully open to new convic- 
tions from fresh sources of truth.” 
* Dr. Holmes has said that he began the study of 
medicine as most young men do, — with a quickened 
pulse at sight of the grinning skeletons of the school, 
and with his cheeks reflecting the whiteness of the hos- 
pital sheets, — but that these sights soon became the 
merest commonplace to him. PHYSICIAN AND PROFESSOR. 
105 
beagle! Shall I ever forget that rainy day 
in Lyons, that dingy bookshop, where I found 
the Aetius, long missing from my Artis Me- 
dicae Principes, and where I bought for a 
small pecuniary consideration, though it was 
marked rare, and was really trte rare, the 
Aphorisms of Hippocrates, edited by and 
■with a preface from the hand of Francis 
Rabelais ? And the vellum-bound Tulpius, 
which I came upon in Venice, afterwards my 
only reading when imprisoned in quarantine 
at Marseilles, so that the two hundred and 
twenty-eight cases he has recorded are, many 
of them, to this day still fresh in my memory. 
And the Schenckius, — the folio filled with 
tasus rariores, which had strayed in among 
the rubbish of the book-stall on the boulevard, 
—and the noble old Vesalius, with its grand 
frontispiece not unworthy of Titian, and the 
fine old Ambroise Par6, long waited for even 
in Paris and long ago, and the colossal Spige- 
lius with his eviscerated beauties, and Dutch 
Bidloo with its miracles of fine engraving 
and bad dissection, and Italian Mascagni, the 
•despair of all would-be imitators, and pre~ 
Adamite John de Ketam, and antediluvian 106 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Berengarius Carpensis — but why multiply 
names, every one of which brings back the 
accession of a book which was an event 
almost like the birth of an infant ? ” 
In 1833, before sailing for Europe to pursue 
his medical studies at the schools and hos- 
pitals of Paris, Holmes, in company with John 
Osborne Sargent and Park Benjamin, put out 
a little volume called “The Harbinger — a 
May Gift, dedicated to the ladies who have 
so kindly aided the New England Institution 
for the Education of the Blind.” The collec- 
tion was made at the suggestion of Dr. 
Samuel G. Howe, and was for sale at the fair 
for the blind got up in Faneuil Hall under the 
auspices of Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis, one of 
the most brilliant leaders of society in her 
day. “The Harbinger” contains five or six 
of the poems of Holmes that had elsewhere 
been published, including “ The Ballad of the 
Oysterman.” 
From April, 1833, to October, 1835, Holmes, 
was in Europe, most of the time in Paris, fol- 
lowing various courses at the Ecole de Mede- 
cine, and at various hospitals, especially at 
La Piti6 with M. Louis. There are hints PHYSICIAN AND PROFESSOR. 
107 
here .and there in his writings of the two years 
an Europe, and of his gay but not dissipated 
life in Paris. He made le grand tour, but was 
too young to derive such benefit from the art 
and life of Europe as he would have received 
later in life, when more deeply versed in the 
history and literature of the Continent and of 
Great Britain. Boston is the most purely 
English of American cities, and Holmes, like 
a true Englishman, remained loyal, while 
abroad, to the kindred points of heaven and 
home. He has never taken so enthusias- 
tically to objective humanitarian culture (art, 
ethnology, history, etc.) as he has to technical 
science and to the study of the human mind 
and character at first hand. Boston is his 
idol, to Boston he has addressed all his writ- 
ings, and Boston it would seem he carried 
with him to Europe. 
In August, 1836, after his return from 
abroad, Holmes read before the Phi Beta 
Kappa Society his long poem in rhymed 
heroics, styled “Poetry, a Metrical Essay," 
and designed to express some general truths 
on the sources and the machinery of poetry. 
It was the first of many read before the same 
society: — 108 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
u Scenes of my youth ! awake its slumbering fire & 
Ye winds of Memory, sweep the silent lyre! 
Long have I wandered ; the returning tide 
Brought back an exile to his cradle’s side 
And as my bark her time-worn flag unrolled, 
To greet the land-breeze with its faded fold, 
So, in remembrance of my boyhood’s time, 
I lift these ensigns of neglected rhyme; 
O more than blest, that, all my wanderings 
through, 
My anchor falls where first my pennons flew ! 
Mr. George Ticknor Curtis has spoken of 
the delivery of the poem to this effect: — 
“ Dr. Holmes had then just returned from 
Europe. Extremely youthful in his appear- 
ance, bubbling over with the mingled humor 
and pathos that have always marked his 
poetry, and sparkling with coruscations of his 
peculiar genius, his Phi Beta Kappa poem of 
1836, delivered with a clear, ringing enuncia- 
tion, which imparted to the hearers his own 
enjoyment of his thoughts and expressions, 
delighted a cultivated audience to a very un- 
common degree.” 
A writer in the American Monthly Maga- PHYSICIAN AND PROFESSOR. 
109 
sine for 1837, p. 73 (probably Park Benjamin, 
one of the editors), also said : — 
“A brilliant, airy, and spirituelle manner, 
■varied with striking flexibility to the changing 
sentiment of the poem, — now deeply impas- 
sioned, now gayly joyous and nonchalant, and 
anon springing up almost into an actual flight 
*of rhapsody, — rendered the delivery of this 
poem a rich, nearly a dramatic, entertain- 
ment, such as we have rarely witnessed. A 
grave, learned, and most intellectual discourse 
By Dr. Wayland of Brown University formed 
the solid part of this feast; and when this 
had been finished, the cloth cleared, and the 
entremets of a little music had been discussed, 
•on came the mellow wine, the ingenious, 
(heterogeneous ‘Trifle,’ the fine-grained crys- 
tals of ‘ Ices,’ and the golden fruit of a 
Dessert, in the shape of this beautiful poem.” 
In the same year Holmes published the 
first collection of his poems (Boston : Otis, 
Broaders & Co., 1836). The book includes 
forty-five poems and a preface of seven pages. 
The preface contains a defence of the extrav- 
agant, or hyperbolical, in poetry : — 
u The extravagant is often condemned at OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
unnatural; as if a tendency of the mind, 
shown in all ages and forms, had not its foun- 
dation in nature. A series of hyperbolical 
images is considered beneath criticism by the 
same judges who would write treatises upon 
the sculptured satyrs and painted arabesques 
of antiquity, which are only hyperbole in 
stone and colors. As material objects in 
different lights repeat themselves in shadows 
variously elongated, contracted, or exagger- 
ated, so our solid and sober thoughts carica- 
ture themselves in fantastic shapes insepar 
able from their originals, and having a unity 
in their extravagance which proves them to 
have retained their proportions in certain 
respects, however differing in outline from 
their prototypes.” 
We shall consider the poems of the volume 
in another chapter. But a little well-known 
anecdote about one of them is in point here. 
Abraham Lincoln, in conversation with some 
one, once said: “ There are some quaint, 
queer verses, written, I think, by Oliver 
Wendell Holmes, entitled ‘ The Last Leaf/ 
one of which is to me inexpressibly touch- 
ing.” He then repeated the poem front PHYSICIAN AND PROFESSOE. 
memory, and as he finished this much ad- 
mired stanza, —■ 
“ The mossy marbles rest 
On the lips that he has prest 
In their bloom. 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 
On the tomb,” — 
he said: “ For pure pathos, in my judgment, 
there is nothing finer than those six lines in 
the English language.” (See Appendix to 
Lamon’s “ Lincoln.”) Poor Lincoln ! was he 
thinking of that lonely grave of his first love 
far away in Illinois ? “ Oh, I cannot endure 
the thought of her lying out there with the 
storms beating upon her,” he said. There is 
nothing more touching in the annals of the 
heart than the overwhelming despair and 
actual and long-continued insanity of that 
noble mind over the death of the first idol 
of his soul. 
It was in 1836 also that Holmes received 
his degree of M.D. from Harvard College, 
and we are therefore to think of him now as 
a young practising physician of Boston, his OLIVER WENDELL HOLME is. 
service in that capacity stretching over the 
years 1836-38 and 1840-47. It goes with- 
out saying that a young man with the finest 
medical education that the world could offer, 
related to “the first families” of Boston, en- 
gaging in manners, and popular with both 
sexes, would receive a warm welcome as a 
practitioner, and undoubtedly he could have 
built up a still gjeater practice than he did if 
he had not so soon entered upon the career 
of a college professor. As a practitioner he 
was, or eventually became, opposed to giving 
drugs in large quantities, unless in rare cases. 
His nature made it easy for him to enter a 
sick-room with a bright, cheerful countenance 
so as to inspire hope in the patient’s mind. 
In his writings we get hints, here and there, 
of his working maxims, one of which, for ex> 
ample, was this : “ When visiting a patient, 
enter the sick-room at once without keeping 
the patient in the torture of suspense by 
discussing the case with others in another 
room.” 
Boston, then a place of about sixty-five 
thousand inhabitants, had still somewhat of a 
semi-rural air with its quiet streets, old lawns PHYSICIAN AND PROFESSOR. 
and mansions, and stretches of green landscape 
westward from the city’s side. The literary 
centre was the Old Corner Bookstore on Wash- 
ington Street, and the young lions of the day 
were George Ticknor, Edward Everett, Daniel 
Webster, Sumner, Howe, Phillips, and others. 
Holmes met all these in society, as well as 
most of the Tories of Beacon Street, for 
whose company he has always had a fond- 
ness, or weakness. During the years 1835, 
1836, and 1837 he was in the habit of spend 
ing many pleasant hours with Motley at the 
house of Park Benjamin, No. 14 Temple Place. 
Benjamin had been an old college friend, and 
they were received with the greatest cor- 
diality. The curious antiquary who turns 
over the leaves of the old Knickerbocker 
magazines will find there many poems by 
Benjamin. His two sisters, at the time of 
which we are speaking, were in the bloom 
of young womanhood, and of course were the 
cynosure that had attracted the young men. 
Mary Benjamin became eventually the wife 
of Motley, and her sister married Motley’s 
intimate friend, Mr. J. L. Stackpole. 
In 1803 Ward Nicholas Boylston estab- 114 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
lished in Boston a fund, the income of which 
was to be expended in prizes for medical dis- 
sertations. In 1836-37 the prizes were two 
medals worth fifty dollars each. Dr. Holmes 
gained these and one more, making three out 
of the four offered in two successive years. 
These “Boylston Prize Dissertations,” which 
were published in book form in 1838, are fine 
scholarly essays, showing thoroughness of 
research on the inductive method. Their 
value is shown by the fact that in 1881, 
forty-three years after their publication, the 
editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical 
Journal advised his readers to peruse Dr. 
Holmes’ Boylston Prize Essay on Intermit- 
tent Fever, the disease having recently reap- 
peared. The essay is also very freely quoted 
in Dr. Adams’ paper on intermittent fever, 
published in the 1881 report of the Health 
Department of the Massachusetts Board of 
Health, Lunacy, and Charity. 
In 1838 Dr. Holmes was appointed Pro- 
fessor of Anatomy and Physiology in Dart- 
mouth College, New Hampshire. He filled 
this position for two years, having for asso- 
ciate professors in the Medical Faculty Elisha PHYSICIAN AND PROFESSOR. 
115 
Bartlett, John Delamater, Oliver P. Hubbard, 
Dixi Crosby, and Stephen W. Williams. 
After resigning his position at Dartmouth, 
Dr. Holmes returned to Boston, and on the. 
16th of June, 1840, was united in marriage to 
Miss Amelia Lee Jackson, daughter of the 
Hon. Charles Jackson, an eminent jurist and 
judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court 
from 1813 to 1824. Judge Charles Jackson 
was a brother of Dr. James Jackson, the 
eminent medical author, and professor in the 
Harvard Medical School for many years. 
The first residence of Holmes after his 
marriage was at No. 8 Montgomery Place, 
Boston, a little court leading out of Tremont 
Street, near Bromfield Street. In that house 
(at the left-hand side next the farther corner) 
he lived for nearly twenty years. “ When he 
entered that door, two shadows glided over 
the threshold; five lingered in the doorway 
when he passed through it for the last time, 
— and one of the shadows was claimed by its 
owner to be longer than his own. What 
changes he saw in that quiet place! Death 
rained through every roof but his; children 
came into life, grew into maturity, wedded, OLIVER WEE DELL HOLMES. 
faded away, threw themselves away; the 
whole drama of life was played in that stock- 
company’s theatre of a dozen houses, one of 
which was his, and no deep sorrow or severe 
calamity ever entered his dwelling. Peace 
be to those walls, forever, — the Professor 
said,—for the many pleasant years he has 
passed within them ! ” 
The three children born to Dr. Holmes 
in Montgomery Place were Oliver Wendell 
(born 1841), Amelia Jackson, and Edward. 
The daughter is now Mrs. John Turner Sar- 
gent, and it is at her house in Beverly Farms, 
near Boston, that Professor Holmes has passed 
his summers for a number of years. Mr. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and Mr. Edward 
Holmes are both lawyers, — the former well- 
known for his legal writings, and withal so 
much of a public character, and so beloved 
by a wide circle of friends for sterling quali- 
ties of mind and heart, that one may be par- 
doned a few references to his life and work. 
He studied as a boy in Boston at the 
school of Mr. E. S. Dixwell, whose daughter, 
Miss Fanny Dixwell, he afterwards married. 
In April, 1861, the year of his graduation PHYSICIAN AND PROFESSOR. 
from Harvard College, he joined the Fourth 
Battalion of Infantry, Major Thomas G. Ste- 
venson, then at Fort Independence, Boston 
Harbor, where he wrote the poem for Class 
Day. He was wounded in the breast in the 
battle of Ball’s Bluff,* and received a wound in 
the neck at Antietam, September 17, 1862, 
while acting as captain of Company G. In the 
Atlantic Monthly for 1862 (p. 738) Dr. Holmes 
has given a lively account of his “ Hunt after 
the Captain ” on this occasion, and of his 
journey to and from the battle-field. The 
piece is also included in Dr. Holmes’ “ Sound- 
ings from the Atlantic.” We could ill have 
spared such an artless and feeling chapter in 
the history of parental love as that paper 
forms. The yearning of parental affection, 
delicately revealed in those pages, is a better 
testimony to the tender and beautiful emo- 
tional nature of the poet than the encomiums 
of a thousand friends would be. On his re- 
covery Captain Holmes entered the service 
again, and received the commission of Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel, but was not mustered in (the 
• See T. W. Higginson’s Harvard Memorial Biogra- 
phies, Vel. II. p. 478. 118 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLME S. 
regiment being too much reduced), an 1 served 
as aide-de-camp to Brigadier-General H. G. 
Wright, during General Grant’s campaign of 
1864. In 1866 he received the degree of 
LL.B. from Harvard University, and became 
a practising lawyer in Boston. He has taught 
and lectured on Constitutional Law and Juris* 
prudence in Harvard College. He had at 
one time editorial charge of the America* 
Law Review. To the editing of Chancellor 
James Kent’s “Commentaries on American 
Law” (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1873, 
4 vols.), he devoted three years of steady 
labor, and produced an edition of Kent which 
was received with the highest praise by 
jurists and lawyers. He has also published 
“The Common Law,” and written, among 
other papers, the biography of A. Dehon in 
the Harvard Memorial Biographies. In 1882 
Mr. Holmes was appointed Professor in the 
Harvard Law School, and served in that 
capacity for some weeks, when he resigned 
to accept an appointment as Justice in the 
Supreme Court of Massachusetts. 
The career of Dr. Holmes as a practising 
physician drew to a close in the latter part of PHYSICIAN AND PROFESSOR. 
119 
1847» when he accepted an invitation to fill 
the chair of Anatomy and Physiology in the 
Harvard Medical School, a position which he 
held in unbroken continuity from that date 
up to the autumn of the year 1882, —a period 
of thirty-five years. He continued for two 
years after his appointment to act as a physi- 
cian, but in 1849 gave up general practice 
altogether. Of his introductory lecture, de- 
livered before the medical students, the Bos- 
ton Medical and Surgical Journal (December, 
1847) said : “ The high expectations in regard 
to the new Professor of Anatomy in Harvard 
University have not been disappointed. His 
introductory lecture is the best discourse 
ever delivered in the Medical School of Har- 
vard University.” It is a singular circum- 
stance, by the way, that only three persons 
in a century have held the chair recently 
vacated by Professor Holmes, — namely, Dr. 
John Warren, his son, John Collins Warren, 
and, lastly, Dr. Holmes. For many years 
Holmes delivered four lectures each week 
during the college year. Early in the admin- 
istration of President Eliot the system of 
instruction was expanded by the division of OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
120 
the Parkman professorship into the chair rt 
Anatomy and the chair of Physiology, Pro- 
fessor Holmes retaining the former. 
The Medical School was removed to its 
present site at the foot of North Grove Street 
in 1846. It is not an inviting locality, and 
the interior of the building has a dilapidated, 
neglected, “ old particular, brandy-punchy ” 
appearance. The anatomical lecture-room is 
a deep pit, looking something like a ship’s 
cabin (barring the amphitheatre of seats). 
There is a skylight, there are anatomical 
charts, and skeletons dangling from frames. 
The present writer attended one of the 
last recitations held by Professor Holmes in 
this room. As the instructor entered he was 
received with applause, — proof sufficient of 
his popularity. The tone of feeling mani- 
fested by the students was one of mingled 
respect, affection, and subdued gayety, — a 
state of titillation which might explode at 
any moment in a laugh ; and be sure that 
laughs were not infrequent at every lecture 
or recitation. After examining and testing 
two prepared specimens of nerve-fibre and 
nerve-cell, the Professor passed them around PHYSICIAN AND PROFESSOR. 
121 
for inspection, they having been mounted in 
two of the convenient microscopes (with 
lamp attachment) devised by himself for class 
use. While the microscopes are passing 
around, the human scapula, or shoulder-bone, 
is taken up and questions asked about it in 
quick, decisive tones. At the anatomical 
blunders of the young saw-bones a laugh goes 
round; the eyes of the doctor twinkle, and a 
kindly, mirth-provoking expression lights up 
his whole face while he looks not always at, 
but away from the student whom he is ques- 
tioning : — 
Professor. — “ Smith ! Here take the bone 1 
What is the reason that the thigh-socket is 
so much deeper than the arm-socket ? ” 
Student does not seem clear on the point. 
Professor.—“Because upon the leg rests 
the entire weight of the body, and it does not 
need much range of movement; but the arm 
requires to be moved in every direction, as, 
for example, in knocking a man down, thus, 
or in the oratorical gesture ” (both gestures 
being gracefully exemplified). 
A general and hearty laugh by the class 
ensues, and the bone is passed on to the next 
man. 122 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Dr. Holmes’ instruction was usually given 
in the shape of extemporaneous lectures, illus- 
trated by diagrams, microscopical preparations, 
models, etc. In some cases written lectures 
were prepared by him. For the purpose of 
making the young men acquainted with na- 
ture at first hand, he provided for them ten 
skeletons, each of which was divided into six 
parts, placed in boxes with handles and slid- 
ing covers. By taking these boxes to his 
room the student was enabled to study oste- 
ology to the best effect, i. e., by actual hand- 
ling of the objects studied. 
Speaking at a certain anniversary meeting 
of Dr. Holmes’ power as a specialist, Presi- 
dent Eliot, of Harvard, said: — 
“Most of you have perhaps the impression 
that Dr. Holmes chiefly enjoys a beautiful 
couplet, a beautiful verse, an elegant sen- 
tence. It has fallen to me to observe that he 
has other great enjoyments. I never heard 
any mortal exhibit such enthusiasm over an 
elegant dissection. ... It is his to know 
with absolute precision the form of every 
bone in this wonderful body of ours, the 
course of every artery and vein, of every PHYSICIAN AND PROFESSOR. 
123 
nerve, the form and function of every mus- 
cle, and not only to know it, but to describe 
it with a fascinating precision and enthu- 
siasm.” 
By way of pleasant relief and contrast to 
urban matters, we are now to turn our atten- 
tion to the enchanting Berkshire region, the 
“ Switzerland of New England,” where, in his 
Pittsfield residence of Canoe Place (so called 
by him in allusion to the mark on the ancient 
Indian deed of the estate), Dr. Holmes passed 
seven happy summer vacations, which, he 
says, stand in his memory like seven golden 
candlesticks seen in the beatific vision of the 
holy dreamer. His Pittsfield farm inured to> 
Dr. Holmes through his mother, whose grand- 
father, Jacob Wendell, bought, in 1735, the 
entire township of Pontoosuc, containing 
twenty-four thousand acres. From the house 
a noble prospect was to be seen, including 
the winding river below and the distant hills 
and mountains. Near neighbors of the poet 
were the traveller and novelist, Herman Mel- 
ville, and the novelist, G. P. R. James; not 
far to the south, in the Lenox region, were 
Miss Sedgwick and Miss Fanny Kemble, and 124 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
also, for a short time, Hawthorne. The praises 
of the Berkshire region have often been sung 
and spoken, and will be so spoken and sung 
as long as the sentiment of beauty exists in 
human minds : a height of twelve hundred 
feet above the sea; no mosquitoes; air pure 
and cool as “ frozen dew poured from a silver 
vase the sun-garden of the titanic azure 
hills, far billowing; the sod-plush of the 
mountains a tangle of hardy flowers and 
beautiful wayside weeds and crispy sedge and 
moss; the gold-vapor of sunset topping the 
soft, distant violet and indigo tints of the 
hills ; the wine-colored brooks humming old 
tunes and flashing white curls to the sun as 
they hurry down the mountain sides (Oh, the 
joyous Arcadian life of those pastoral moun- 
tains !); the huckleberry pastures, inter- 
sprinkled with sweet-scented bayberry and 
the high-bush blackberry; the barberries 
with their “ bright-red coral pendants ”; the 
steeple-top, pussy-willow, yarrow, tanzy, the 
white-flowered indian sage, the yellow ele- 
campane, mouse-ear, crane-bill, gentian, wild 
caraway, sw«et fern, mountain mint; and, 
in the woods, white scented violets, the PHYSICIAN AND PROFESSOR. 
dark-stemmed maiden-hair, the swamp cal> 
bage, birches, alders, hemlocks, and maples. 
A vast table-land of dim-blue hills, hung 
out in immensity like an exhalation or a 
dream, — this is the poetical view of it. A 
mighty fine milk country, — the practical 
view. By the way, we had almost forgotten 
to pay our respects to those arbutus flowers 
of Berkshire, — the Goodale sisters of South 
Egremont. Miss Elaine’s pretty “Journal 
of a Farmer’s Daughter” will help to fill out 
the picture of Berkshire scenery for those who 
are interested therein. 
In 1852 Dr. Holmes delivered, in various 
cities, a course of lectures on the “ English 
Poets of the Nineteenth Century,” — Words- 
worth, Moore, Keats, Shelley, and others. 
“ The style,” says Duyckinck, “ was precise 
and animated ; the illustrations sharp and 
cleanly cut. In the criticism there was a lean- 
ing rather to the bold and dashing bravura of 
Scott and Byron than to the calm, philo- 
sophical mood of Wordsworth. Where there 
was any game on the wing, when the * servile 
herd ’ of imitators and poetasters came in view, 
they were dropped at once by a felicitous 126 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
shot. Each lecture closed with a copy of 
verses, humorous or sentimental, growing, out 
of the prevalent mood of the hour’s discus- 
sion.” 
As a lecturer Holmes was much in demand, 
and for a half-dozen years or so he travelled a 
.great deal in this capacity. The reader will 
find some humorous remarks on the subject 
in the “Autocrat.” 
About the year 1856 Dr. Holmes thus 
'defined his lecturing terms in a letter to a 
certain official: — 
“ My terms for a lecture, when I stay over 
night, are fifteen dollars and expenses, a room 
with a fire in it, in a public house, and a mat- 
tress to sleep on, — not a feather-bed. As 
you write in your individual capacity, I tell 
you at once all my habitual exigencies. I am 
afraid to sleep in a cold room ; I can’t sleep 
on a feather-bed; I will not go to private 
houses; and I have fixed upon the sum men- 
tioned as what it is worth for me to go away 
for the night to places that cannot pay more.” 
Fifteen dollars ! 
The Autocrat’s landlady, too, delivers her- 
self as follows on this subject: — PHYSICIAN AND PROFESSOR. 
“ He was a man that loved to stick round 
home as much as any cat you ever see in your 
life. He used to say he’d as lief have a tooth 
pulled as go away anywheres. Always got 
sick, he said, when he went away, and never 
sick when he didn’t. Pretty nigh killed him- 
self goin’ about lecterin’ two or three winters,. 
— talkin’ in cold country lyceums,— as he used 
to say, — goin’ home to cold parlors and bein’ 
treated to cold apples and cold water; and then 
goin’ up into a cold bed in a cold chamber, and 
cornin’ home next mornin’ with a cold in his 
head as bad as the horse distemper. Then 
he’d look kind of sorry for havin’ said it, and 
tell how kind some of the good women was 
to him, — how one spread an edderdown com- 
forter for him, and another fixed up somethin” 
hot for him after the lecter, and another one 
said, ‘There now, you smoke that cigar of 
yours after the lecter just as if you was at 
home,’ — and if they’d all been like that, he’d 
have gone on lecterin’ forever, but as it was, 
he got pooty nigh enough of it, and preferred 
nateral death to puttin’ himself out of the 
world by such violent means as lecterin.” CHAPTER V. 
THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
Boston, — city of the brown loaf, and the 
marrow-searching icy winds ; city of the brave 
heart and powerful hand; city beloved of 
freedom, 
“ Hie illius arma, 
Hie currus; ” 
city whirling through space with bright golden 
dome and streaming starry flags ; 
" Peace, Freedom, Wealth! no fairer view, 
Though with the wild bird's restless wings 
We sailed beneath the noontide’s blue 
Or chased the moonlight’s endless rings! ” 
— Holmes 
What Addison and Steele were to the Lon- 
don of their day; what Lamb and Hazlitt 
were to the same city at a later date; what 
De Quincey, North, and Jeffrey were to dun 
Edin of Scotland, — that Holmes and the 
Atlantic Monthly coterie of a quarter of a cen- THE AUTOCRAT. 
129 
tury ago were to Boston. The streets of 
London were not more loved by Johnson 
and Lamb than those of Boston have been 
by Holmes. A perfect thing in its kind 
is always admirable. Hence to the au- 
tocrat and laureate of Boston, to Holmes 
the consummate, the most perfect and de- 
lightful oppidan, richest distillation of the old 
Puritan strain of blood, master at will of 
smiles or tears, — to him we are constrained 
t to yield our homage. He has only made 
short swallow-flights beyond the limits of his 
beloved city. If he goes to Paris, he carries 
Boston with him; if he goes to New York or 
Philadelphia, he only sighs and compares 
them with Boston to their disadvantage, and 
gets back as quick as he can to the hub of 
the solar system. A barnacle is not more 
closely identified with its rock, or a pearl with 
its oyster, than Holmes is with St. Botolph’s 
town. All his books might be labelled “ Talks 
with my Neighbors,” and this very provin- 
cialism, or urban patriotism, forms their chief 
charm. 
What then is Boston ? What is the typical 
New Englander ? He is above all things a 130 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
person of almost pure and unmixed- E nglish 
blood; he is a proud English squire, unmel- 
lowed, exacerbated, and aestheticized by- 
change of climate ; for juicy mutton, split 
codfish; for the delicate and soothing air of 
the Gulf Stream, the icy winds of Labrador ; 
for the sweet hawthorn hedge, the bouldor 
fence; for fat haunches of turf peppered 
with buttercups and daisies, a soil that 
scarcely hides the granite. The Bostonian is 
simply an Americanized Englishman. Hence 
his hauteur and gigantic egotism. As the 
Englishman is the physical bully of the world, 
so the Bostonian is the aesthetic and intellect- 
ual bully of America; underneath the high 
polish of consummate manners (the Pheidian 
faces finished with a hair-pencil, the animal 
faultlessly encased) there lurk the stony 
glare of self-aggrandizement, the icy compla- 
cency of ancestral pride {odiprofanum vulgus), 
the de hant cn has air of an intellectual and 
social aristocracy well ballasted by the 
weighty annals of the past. Boston idealizes 
itself in its artists’ ateliers, enjoys artificial 
aesthetic aspiration in its wealthy ecclesias- 
tical clubs, sublimates its emotions in Music THE AJJTOCRAT. 
131 
Hall, martyrs its comfort with the arid inani- 
ties of drawing-room receptions, speculates in 
its granite exchanges, intellectualizes New 
England with its pale cast of thought, and, in 
the intervals, subjects the universe in general 
to the remorseless inspection of its critical 
eye-glass. 
Ten years of refrigeration and camphora- 
tion, two lustrums of severe study, are hardly 
too much for you, O sunny-hearted child 
of the South or West, if you would hope to 
pass unscathed the gauntlet of eyes, and 
move unterrified in the social circles of the 
Puritan capital. But be sure to persevere ; 
beware of a precipitate judgment and flight; 
for you will soon find that “ the old red-running 
blood ” is in the arteries of the New Eng- 
lander too, the old warm human heart and 
tender compassion. Only wait, and you shall 
find yourself possessed of a warm affection for 
the gallant city, solidly seated there on its 
storied hill, — distinguished in its manners, 
profuse in its philanthropies, splendid in its 
patriotism, and a model of excellence in its 
highly organized corporate life. In what 
other American city as yet is materiality, the 132 
OLIVES WENDELL HOLMES. 
grossness of life, properly subordinated to the 
intellectual or ideal? Look, e.g., at these 
blooming young women and these silver-haired 
matrons coming out of one of their clubs on 
Park Street; observe the mingling of gracious- 
ness and French delicatesse of manners with 
austere sweetness, firm will, transparent inno- 
cence, and energetic carriage and action ; out- 
wardly, snow and roses on a porcelain vase; 
inwardly, aflame with ideal aspiration, and 
busied with noble charities and humanitarian 
reforms. There are plenty of European 
cities dominated even more than Boston by 
the spirit of idealism ; but there is no other 
spot on the globe where women hold so high 
a position ;—and the status of woman in a 
society is the most delicate test of its civili- 
zation. 
In the midst of this homogeneous and cul- 
tured community the Atlantic Monthly maga- 
zine one day, in November, 1857, spread out 
a literary feast,* and at the head of its table 
* In the same number of the magazine, and just pre- 
ceding the first instalment of the “ Autocrat,” appeared 
a cluster of Emerson’s philosophical poems, including 
the famous “ Brahma.” TEE AUTOCRiT. 
133 
appeared one of the mos-t brilliant and ver- 
satile conversationalists of modern times,— 
the Autocrat of th*? Breakfast-Table, one 
who “invented a new kind in literature,"—a 
combination of poe*/y. psychical introspection, 
and practical philosophy, irradiated by deli- 
cate wit, gay humor, and irresistible drollery. 
A periodical magazine is just the kind of 
medium suited to a conversationalist. He is 
sure of a wide group of sympathetic listeners, 
whom he can address in a familiar, colloquial 
style, and have his words reach them while 
still warm from h,is lips. The “ Autocrat ” 
papers created a lively sensation. “ The reader 
of the Atlantic,” says Mr. Francis H. Under- 
wood, “ always turned to the ‘Autocrat ’ nrst- 
This was proven afUr the first number by 
the notices of the press. Very odd most of 
the early notices were. The good, sedate 
critics did not know what to make of the- 
thing. Some thought it undignified. Others 
professed to be more confirmed in their opin- 
ion that Holmes was only an inordinate 
egotist. The suckling reviewer undertook to 
put the puns under his microscope for analy- 
sis. The solemn purist lamented the ten- 134 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
dency to slang; and while he admitted the 
brilliancy of the poems that were interspersed, 
he thought they showed as ill as diamonds 
among the spangles of the court fool.” 
But before discussing the “ Autocrat ” 
papers any further let us recall the circum- 
stances connected with the founding of the 
Atlantic Monthly. Its establishment was due 
to the then vigorous publishing firm of Phillips 
& Sampson. Mr. Phillips was especially active 
and sanguine in promoting the enterprise. 
One of the objects of the magazine was 
to give aid and countenance to the anti- 
slavery cause. The financial outlook at 
that time was hardly such as to promise 
success to the new enterprise, and the 
wiseacres shook their heads over it, fore- 
boding its early collapse. And in truth it 
did have a hard struggle for existence, 
and many thousand dollars of capital were 
thrown overboard in the effort to keep the 
ship afloat. It is thought that but for the 
prestige which the “Autocrat” papers gave, 
the concern would inevitably have gone to 
pieces. 
The first editor was James Russell Lowell, THE AUTOCRAT. 
135 
who was nominated by Mr. Francis H. Under- 
wood. Mr. Lowell thought that Dr. Holmes 
would have been the better choice, and ex- 
pressed the conviction that he (Holmes) 
would do great things, and make himself felt 
as a new force in literature. This well- 
fufilled prediction must have been chiefly 
based on Mr. Lowell’s acquaintance with the 
rich and brilliant conversation and poetry of 
Holmes, for he had as yet done nothing great 
in the way of prose, with the exception of his 
(still unpublished) Lectures on the “ English 
Poets of the Nineteenth Century,” which 
were first delivered before the Lowell Insti- 
tute in Boston in 1852. 
The name of the magazine was suggested 
by Dr. Holmes. The founders, or first corps 
of contributors, included Longfellow, Emer- 
son, Holmes, Motley, Charles Eliot Norton, 
Edmund Quincy, J. Elliot Cabot, Francis H. 
Underwood, and others,—fourteen in alL 
According to a statement of one of the found- 
ers, the magazine was born in Cambridge 
at Porter’s Tavern on North Avenue, an 
old inn famous for its cuisine and its punch 
since half a century. Not that our staid Puri- 136 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
tan divines, and essayists ever indulged in 
such drinking as did their predecessors at 
Ambrose’s in Gabriel’s Road. But be sure 
that “ the old man of the lion heart and the 
sceptre crutch ” (Kit North), supported by 
Ensign Odoherty and the Ettrick Shepherd, 
never delivered a steadier fire of crackling 
jests than shot back and forth over the glit- 
tering table at Porter’s or at Parker’s when 
such wits as Holmes and Lowell sat opposite 
to each other : — 
“ Such jests, that, drained of every joke, 
The very bank of language broke, — 
Such deeds that Laughter nearly died 
With stitches in his belted side; 
While Time, caught fast in pleasure’s chain, 
His double goblet snapped in twain, 
And stood with half in either hand, — 
Both brimming full, — but not of sand ! ” 
— Holmes. 
To Mr. F. H. Underwood in Scribner s Mag- 
azine we are indebted for the following bril- 
liant bit of reminiscence of these early Atlan- 
tic dinners, associated with the founding and 
first days of the magazine : “ The sparkle of 
the after-dinner talk was incommunicable, — THE AUTOCRAT. 
137 
not in the least studied, but natural and 
exuberant. The absolute loss of those con- 
versations and encounters of wit, when Em- 
erson, Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, and 
others sat about the board, is greatly to be 
regretted. Judge Hoar, who inherits the wit 
of Roger Sherman, bore his full part. Lowell 
probably uttered more elaborate sentences, 
— glowing with new-born images; Holmes 
made the simplest play and scored most 
points, both serious and comic. Meanwhile 
Emerson’s wise face was lighted by a mi- 
raculous smile that would have been the 
delight and despair of a painter; and in the 
end he took the thought which the others 
were playing hocky with, and calmly set it in 
an apothegm of crystal beauty. 
“The ‘Atlantic’ Club at times was ambu- 
latory, although it generally met at Parker’s. 
Once or twice it dined at Point Shirley with 
Taft, who is facile rex of our sea-board. Once 
it dined at a little restaurant in Winter Place, 
kept by a man of versatile genius, M. Fon- 
tarive, the first of the French cooks of the 
time. Once it met at Zach. Porter’s in North 
Cambridge, —not a hotel, but an old-fashioned 138 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
tavern. The cooking was marvellous, and was 
done under the landlord’s eye. His creed 
was that of Ezra Weeks of the Eagle Inn: — 
“ ‘ Nothin’ riles me, I pledge my fastin’ word, 
Like cookin’ out the natur’ of a bird.’ 
“ The ducks were brought in and carved by 
Porter himself, as a mark of consideration to 
the distinguished guests. The knife was 
keen, and was wielded by a deft hand ; the 
slices fell about the platter like a mower’s 
swath until the carcass was bare as a barrel. 
“ ‘ What do you do with the bird after that ? ’ 
Lowell asked of the landlord. 
“ * Wal,’ said Porter, with a curious twinkle 
in his eyes, ‘when I’ve sliced off the breast, 
an’ the wings, an’ legs like that’ (pointing to 
the shell), ‘ I gin’rally give the carkess to the 
poor.’ 
“Dr. Palmer, whose East Indian sketches 
had just been published and greatly admired, 
was a special guest on this occasion; and the 
fun of the chorus of palanquin bearers was as 
current about the table as ‘ Pinafore ’ phrases 
to-day. Holmes was in high spirits, and 
talked his best, mostly to Longfellow. It THE AUTOCRAT. 
139 
was almost like a veritable autocrat in full 
activity, coruscating, punning, and bearing 
all before him.’ 
“There were no horse-cars then, I think, 
"or it might have been late ; at all events, the 
whole party, including Emerson, Longfellow, 
and the other Olympians, walked down to 
Harvard Square through nearly a foot of new- 
fallen snow. The impression of this intellect- 
ual feast is ineffaceable, but it seems now as 
-far away as the Trojan war.” 
The Dr. Palmer alluded to by Mr. Under- 
wood was Dr. John Williamson Palmer, who 
in 1852-53 had served through the Burmese 
campaign as surgeon in one of the East India 
Company’s war steamers, and had travelled a 
good deal in India. His Oriental papers in 
the first numbers of the Atlantic are full of 
the most rollicking fun. (See Appendix I.) 
Another organization which brought to- 
gether many of the contributors to the Atlan- 
tic was the Saturday Club, which met, and 
still meets, every Saturday at two o’clock in 
the mirror-room at Parker’s. Members in 
the early days were Felton, Whipple, Judge 
Hoar, James Freeman Clarke, Agassiz, and 140 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
others. It has owed its longevity to its 
entire informality, and its freedom from 
speech-making. 
To return to the “ Autocrat of the Break- 
fast-Table.” The original, or prototypal, 
papers published under this title in Bucking- 
ham’s New England Magazine for 1831 and 
1832, were written by Holmes while a law- 
student in Cambridge, and are indeed boyish 
and uncombed literary productions, although 
the searching glance may detect in them the 
germ or crude hint of every characteristic of 
the “ Autocrat ” of 1857. They consist of 
detached paragraphs,—fragmentary and un- 
related aphoristic remarks on all manner of 
subjects. We must respect the wisdom that 
led their author to deprecate a resurrection of 
these early pieces. Their coarse slang, egot- 
ism, flippancy, and priggishness are scarcely 
redeemed by the few gems that glitter here 
and there, giving promise of the genial writer 
into which the boy of twenty-two was to 
develop in after years. Yet, in spite of the 
rawness and unabashed sophomorism of the 
style, one feels, in reading these early trial 
chapters, that pleasant excitation which de- THE AUTOCRAT. 
141 
cided originality always produces. In this 
respect, but in no other, they are supe. 
rior to Longfellow’s articles styled “The 
Schoolmaster,” published in the same num> 
bers of the magazine. The following whim> 
sical stanzas appear in Buckingham’s maga* 
zine, and have not been republished by Dr. 
Holmes; but they are so good that he will 
doubtless pardon their reproduction : — 
“ TO A LADY WITH HER BACK TO ME. 
(Written while sailing up the Delaware.) 
“ I know thy face is fresh and bright, 
Thou angel-moulded girl; 
I caught one glimpse of purest white, 
I saw one auburn curl. 
" O would the whispering ripples breathe 
The thoughts that vainly strive — 
She turns — she turns to look on me; 
Black ! cross-eyed ! seventy-five ! ” 
There are two or three prose bits in the 
first “Autocrat” papers worth quoting,—as 
these : — 
“There is a 'dilute atmosphere of learning 
which extends to some distance around a lit- 
erary institution, almost as bad as the vacuum 142 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
of ignorance. Within such precincts I would; 
look for the Flat in his most spiritless in- 
anity, and the Bore at the acme of intensity.’* 
“Drink as much as you please before your 
grandfather, but mind whom you kiss before 
your little brother.” 
Here is a powerful psychological delinea- 
tion of a murderer’s soul : — 
“ His eye, as nearly as I could tell of a 
misty-gray, was fixed and calm, but it seemed 
to convey no more perception to his mind 
than if he had been talking to a phantom. 
When the springs that supply the soul are all 
cut off, for a little while, her dark waters 
heave vainly against their barriers, and then 
hush themselves into stillness and blackness. 
A. few hidden fountains may break up and 
x>ur themselves into her bosom ; but day by 
day her circle is narrowing, and the depths, 
once covered, lie bare in their desolation.” 
It is hardly necessary to state that the early 
“ Autocrat ” papers gave only their title to the. 
later ones of 1857. In the twenty-five years 
that had passed, the entire diapason of man-. 
hood had been played over, and the most that 
life has to offer of joy or sorrow had been THE AUTOCRAT. 
143 
tasted. The pent-up thoughts of this long 
period — all its observations and experiences 
— are now (in 1857) flung out upon the page 
in the light and airy form of breakfast-table 
chat. The charm is in the spontaneity. 
“ Remembering,” says Holmes, “ some crude 
papers of mine in an old magazine, it occurred 
to me that their title might serve for some 
pert papers, and so I sat down and wrote off 
what came into my head under the title, * The 
Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.' This work 
was not the result of an express premedita- 
tion, but was, as I may say, dipped from the 
running stream of my thoughts.” 
As in actual life our pleasantest hours are 
those intensified periods passed at table in 
social converse, so in these papers we have a 
vigorous and sustained creation of thoughts 
and feelings and table-chat so true to the life 
(the conversational part of it) as to seem like 
an actual short-hand report. The “ Autocrat ” 
is packed full of sententious practical knowl- 
edge, nut-shell sayings, polished gems of 
thought, flashes of wit, and keen and sub- 
tle aperpis into the foibles and idiosyn- 
crasies of men and women. It is glowing OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
poetry in a prose dress (there are poems 
too) ; it is the rich liquor of experience 
decanted from its darkling receptacle into 
the sheen and sparkle of cut-glass. There 
is nothing in literature with which it can 
be compared unless it be the “ Noctes Am- 
brosianae ” of Professor Wilson ; and it has 
a clearer, more delicate ring than that work, 
although not so grand-hearted and tumultuous 
and self-forgetful. It is a book, said an Eng- 
lish critic,* “ to conjure up a cosey winter- 
picture, of a ruddy fire, and singing kettle, 
soft hearth-rug, warm slippers, and easy 
chair; a musical chime of cups and saucers, 
fragrance of tea and toast within : and those 
flowers of frost fading on the windows with- 
out, as though old winter just looked in, but 
his cold breath was melted, and so he passed 
by. A book to possess twro copies of ; one to 
be read and marked, thumbed and dog-eared ; 
and one'to stand up in its pride of place with 
the rest on the shelves, all ranged in shining 
rows, as dear old friends, and not merely as 
nodding acquaintances.” 
One of the features of the book is its ren- 
* In the North British Review for November, i860. THE AUTOCRAT. 
145 
dering of those subtle and elusive thoughts 
that are rarely put into words ; as that about 
the sensation we so often experience of hav- 
ing done or thought something similar or 
identical before, and in similar circumstances, 
and of having had this feeling in dreams also ; 
or that remark about the tendency we have to 
string adjectives or epithets in triads, and the 
explanation offered that “ it is an instinctive 
and involuntary effort of the mind to present 
a thought or image with the three dimensions 
that belong to every solid.” 
To all the pleasant interpretations of our 
unspoken thought in the “ Autocrat ” we 
keep saying, in the words of the old gentle- 
man who sat at the landlady’s table, “That’s 
it ! that’s it! ” as when we read that the thing 
that more than anything else spoils good con- 
versation consists of “long arguments on 
special points between people who differ on 
the fundamental principles on which these 
points depend or when the Autocrat an- 
nounces that he allows no bullying facts at 
this table, and remarks that the fluent har- 
monies of conversation may be spoiled by 
the intrusion of a single false note ; or when 146 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
he says that the work of logic is, generally 
speaking, to build a pons asinortim ovei 
chasms which shrewd people can bestride 
without such a structure; or when London 
on Derby day is likened to a shelled corn* 
cob, “and there is not a clerk who could 
raise the money to hire a saddle with an old 
hack under it that can sit down on his office' 
stool the next day without wincing.” 
There are one or two sayings in the “ Au- 
tocrat” that have become proverbial ; namely, 
the remark that the finest specimens of the 
New England character are raised under 
glass ; and the mot which gives to Boston the 
title “hub of the solar system” (not “hub of 
the universe,” as it is sometimes quoted).* 
The poems included in the volume are, as a 
body, the author’s very best,—“The Cham- 
bered Nautilus,” “ Latter-Day Warnings,” 
“.Estivation,” “The One-Hoss Shay,” “Ode 
* The Hon. George Folsom, in his Life of Sir Ferdi- 
nando Gorges, quotes a certain querulous agent of the 
Plymouth Colony to this effect. “All the frame of 
heaven moves upon one axis, and the whole of New 
England’s interest seems designed to be loaden on one 
bottom, and her particular motions to be concentric t« 
the Massachusetts tropic.” THE AUTOCRAT. 
147 
for a Social Meeting, with slight Alterations 
by a Teetotaller,” etc. There are a few 
slight deficiencies in the “Autocrat.” The 
poems are introduced a little awkwardly, and 
the machinery of the characters and of the 
boarding-house is a little tiresome, and in the 
succeeding volumes of the “Professor” and 
the “ Poet ” becomes unspeakably wearisome,. 
In the latter volumes the poor straw-men, or 
lay-figures, set up for the author to exercise 
his wit upon, get completely worn out with 
being so long buffeted about, poor things ! 
The straw sticks out at their elbows, and the 
sawdust dribbles from their armpits, until, 
like Don Quixote at Master Peter’s Puppet- 
Show, we would fain, in our impatience, fall 
upon the whole rabble rout and hustle them 
out of our sight. But in the “ Autocrat ” 
proper these characters — the Schoolmis- 
tress, Benjamin Franklin, the Landlady, etc., 
— are pretty skilfully subordinated to the 
chief actor, or talker, in the scene, and, as a 
whole, the work is justly ranked with such 
productions as Emerson’s “ Conduct of Life " 
or Lamb’s “Essays of Elia.” 
Narrow and acrid, indeed, must be the 148 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
nature that would find fault with Dr. Holmes’ 
chief work because it is mainly monologue. 
Shall not the Autocrat wield his sceptre? 
Grant that — 
“ 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.” 
Grant this, and say that this is not good 
drama, still we are glad to have his thought 
in any shape ; and, regarding the “Autocrat,r 
alone, we say with its author that it is not 
much matter, after all, 
“ If the figures seen 
Are only shadows on a screen, 
He finds in them his lurking thought, 
And on their lips the words he sought, 
Like one who sits before the keys 
And plays a tune himself to please.” 
In 1882, twenty-five years after the pen- 
ning of the “Autocrat,” Dr. Holmes wrote 
a new preface to the work, and added some THE AUTOCRAT. 
149 
interesting foot-notes. He alluded to the 
great change that had taken place in the 
religious opinions of people, saying that when 
he wrote his Breakfast-Table series it almost 
meant social martyrdom to utter truths that 
can now be spoken and defended in any 
circle of listeners without offence. CHAPTER VI. 
NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
In the Proceedings of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society for December, 1859, Dr. 
Holmes gives an agreeable account of a visit 
paid by him to Washington Irving in Decem- 
ber, 1858, the year before Irving died : — 
“ Sunnyside was snowyside on that Decem- 
ber morning; yet the thin white veil could 
not conceal the features of a place long fa- 
miliar to me through the aid of engravings 
and photographs, and as stereotyped in the 
miraculous, solid sun-pictures. The sharp- 
pinnacled roof, surmounted by the old Dutch 
weather-cock; the vine-clad cottage, with its 
three-arched open porch, — open on all sides* 
like the master’s heart, — were there just as 
I knew them, just as thousands know them 
who have never trodden or floated between 
the banks of the Hudson. 
“We knocked and were admitted, feeling NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
still very doubtful whether Mr. Irving would 
be able to see us. Presently we heard a slow 
step, which could not be mistaken in that 
household of noiseless footfalls. Mr. Irving 
entered the room, and welcomed us in the 
most cordial manner. He was slighter and 
more delicately organized than I had sup- 
posed ; of less than average stature, I should 
think, looking feeble, but with kindness beam- 
ing from every feature. He spoke almost in 
a whisper, with effort, his voice muffled by 
some obstruction. Age had treated him like 
a friend ; borrowing somewhat, as is his wont, 
but lending also those gentle graces which 
give an inexpressible charm to the converse 
of wise and good old men, whose sympathies 
keep their hearts young and their minds 
open. . . . Something authorized me to al- 
lude to his illness, and my old professional 
instincts led me to suggest to him the use of 
certain palliatives which I had known to be 
used in some cases having symptoms resem- 
bling his own. 
“After returning home I sent him some 
articles of this kind. Early in January he 
wrote me a letter of considerable length; 152 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
saying, among other things, that he had used 
some medicated cigarettes I sent him with 
much relief. This letter was overflowing 
with expressions of kindness; but, though 
written in his own hand, it had no signature. 
I sent it back to him for his name; telling 
him that his was the first autograph I had 
ever asked for, but that I must have it at the 
end of such a letter. The next post brought 
the letter back signed.” 
In 1858 Holmes removed from the old 
Montgomery Place home to 21 Charles Street, 
where he had as neighbors Governor Andrew 
and James T. Fields. His study, in the rear 
of the house, commanded a wide and beauti- 
ful view of Charles River, with the towns of 
Cambridge and Brighton, and the green 
slopes of Corey and Parker hills in the dis- 
tance. Here twice a day, almost beneath the 
very windows, the tidal waters of the ocean 
come surging in along the sinuous Charles, 
bearing the perfume and strength of the 
sea in their arms. To the right one sees the 
long procession of travellers along West Bos- 
ton bridge; in the distance loom the spires 
of Cambridge; the far-off hills are full of NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
beauty, their tints ever changing; and at 
evening you have in full view 
“ The gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun. 
Burning, expanding the air.” 
At night there is something Venetian in 
the appearance of the Back Bay, as the ex- 
pansion of the Charles River here is styledL 
The long lamp-rows of the bridges and of 
the Brighton road, the colored lights stream- 
ing down into the reflected abyss of the 
sky, the gleam of the smooth elastic sur- 
face of the stream, the expanse of stars, — it 
is all very soothing and beautiful of a summer 
evening. By day a prominent feature of the 
landscape is formed by the smoke-pillars from 
the tall East Cambridge factory-chimneys,—- 
the giant-twisted smoke-columns of jet or snow* 
pinnacled in the azure sky, silent, sinuous* 
stately, the grace of motion and contour in 
perfect and harmonious expression. In win- 
ter the scene is still full of charm, with variety 
of tint and aspect, — the distant snow-line 
meeting that of the sky, the ships, the ice* 
the wheeling gulls, etc. From his study- 
window Dr. Holmes used to look out with an. 154 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
opera-glass at the little groups of tent-like 
screens made of sail-cloth and used by men 
who were fishing through the ice. There was 
then, and there is to-day, a good deal of fish- 
ing for eels and smelts from West Boston 
bridge. In the “ Autocrat ” Dr. Holmes 
tells us about his rowing experiences on the 
Charles and about the harbor. He kept 
several boats at the foot of his garden. His 
boat was the delicate “shell” with its an- 
tennae-oars. 
The “Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table” 
was followed in 1859 by “The Professor at 
the Breakfast-Table,” a work distinctly in- 
ferior to its predecessor, but containing 
many fine single passages, and one episode, 
the “ Story of Iris,” which possesses great 
pathos and beauty, and has been reprinted in 
Rossiter Johnson’s “Little Classics.” The 
last moments of the poor old starved tutor, 
and his words to his little daughter, will draw 
the tears from the eyes of many a reader: 
“ ‘ Iris ! ’ he said, — ‘filiola mea ! ’ — The 
child knew this meant my dear little daughter 
as well as if it had been English. — ‘ Rain- 
bow!’— for he would translate her name at NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
155 
times, — ‘ come to me, — veni ’ — and his 
lips went on automatically, and murmured, 
‘vel venito !' — The child came and sat by 
his bedside, and took his hand, which she 
could not warm, but which shot its rays of 
cold all through her slender frame. But 
there she sat, looking steadily at him. Pres- 
ently he opened his lips feebly, and whis- 
pered, ‘ Moribundus.’ She did not know 
what that meant, but she saw that there was 
something new and sad. So she began to 
cry ; but presently remembering an old book 
that seemed to comfort him at times, got up 
and brought a Bible in the Latin version, 
called the Vulgate. ‘Open it,’ he said, — ‘I 
will read, — segnios irritant, — don’t put the 
light out, — ah ! haeret lateri, — I am going, 
— vale, vale, vale, good-by, good-by — the 
Lord take care of my child ! — Domini audi, 
— vel audito ! ’ His face whitened suddenly, 
and he lay still, with open eyes and mouth. 
He had taken his last degree.” 
As a treasury of practical philosophy and 
observation, the “ Professor ” is a valuable 
and readable book; but as a story or narra- 
tive it is a failure. The everlasting boarders OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
.appear on the stage again, as lifeless and 
characterless as ever. The style is turgid, 
.and frothy, and wearisome. Simplicity and 
the calmness of a great nature is what the 
jneader comes to long for. The Christian Ex- 
rsmiuer said of “ The Professor at the Break- 
Jast-Table “ The anxiety to leave out 
aiGitliing in the estimate of the universe, whe- 
ther of old ideals or of new experiences, and 
the anxiety not to be too anxious, are curi- 
<3Hisly balanced throughout the book. There 
is a keen susceptibility to impressions, out- 
rnird or inward, checked by the desire not to 
Ihe led away by these impressions, and a 
belief that the base and issue of things are 
both good and right.” 
In. the “ Autocrat ” Professor Holmes had 
■expressed the opinion that every man has in 
him the material for one novel at least; for 
erne's own life experiences would furnish him 
with such material. This hint of the inev- 
itable novel, at which everybody nowadays 
tries his or her hand, took shape in 1859 in 
ftbat weird New England story, “ Elsie Ven- 
smt, a Romance of Destiny,” which exerted 
its subtle and thrilling fascination over a wide NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
circle of readers, and was followed in 1867 bjr 
the somewhat similar novel, '‘The Guardian 
Angel.” 
Of the technical qualifications of the pro- 
fessional novel-wright Holmes has not where- 
with to furnish forth ever a third-rate genius 
there are twenty-and-one novelists now living 
who would laugh to scorn the threadbare 
conventionalisms of his plots, notwithstand- 
ing their few thrilling dramatic incidentSw 
But then his two novels are not so muefe 
novels of plot as they are stories written 
illustrate a psychological theory of 
and the interest chiefly centres, and was in- 
tended to centre, upon the one character ins 
the novel whose nature and life experience© 
set forth the theory. The strength of ‘ Elsie 
Venner ” and “ The Guardian Angel ” lies ha- 
their shrewd psychological analysis of char- 
acter (or rather of mental states), and in their 
wealth of practical philosophy, incidental in- 
formation, and strong flavor of New EnglamS- 
ism. Certain types of New England charac- 
ter are sketched in coarse, raw pigments will* 
great fidelity ; but, when the author is de- 
picting his subordinate and ruder personage^ OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
you generally receive the impression of gro- 
tesque exaggeration and caricature (like that 
of firelight shadows on the wall). On such 
occasions he has an irresistible tendency to 
indulge in a kind of horse-play, a coarse real- 
ism of portraiture to a great extent lacking 
in the subtle and delicate touch by which the 
great novelists reveal the hidden springs of 
feeling and nobleness even in their least 
prominent characters. There is a certain 
harshness or hardness of manner in Dr. 
Holmes’ novels. “ Elsie Venner ” and “The 
Guardian Angel” are pervaded through- 
out by a physiological atmosphere, with a 
whiff now and then from the peculiar medi- 
cated air of the physician’s office. When 
Dr. Holmes brings a new character before us, 
or before himself, he is apt to begin his de- 
lineation with a sensuous, physiological study 
of the outward casing, tells us about the 
suits of muscles — the trapezius, the del- 
toid, the triceps — and many other facts of 
the kind. 
The readers of Holmes who know that his 
chief trait is self-consciousness, and that the 
power of projecting himself into the lives of NOVELS AND ESS A TS. 
159 
others, and becoming those others for a time, 
is something only with difficulty and effort ac- 
complished by him, get the feeling that, in the 
character of novelist, he is only playing a role, 
— as if he had said, “ Go to! I can write a 
novel as well as others; see in how approved a 
fashion I do it.” A feature of his two novels 
which strengthens this impression is that 
many of their details seem not to have been 
premeditated, but to have been ground out 
as the writer went on. 
But in spite of their deficiencies the stories 
hold us fascinated to the end. This means 
that they are successful works; and, indeed, 
they have had, and still have, a wide circle of 
readers. “Elsie Venner,” especially, has 
attracted great attention on both sides of the 
Atlantic. 
A few words should be said about our 
author’s types of women, or let us say his 
typical woman. It is, perhaps, too much to 
expect that a physician and physiologist should 
have a very exalted idea of woman. We 
should hardly expect one who spends his life 
in considering the weak and diseased speci- 
mens of any group of nature’s productions, to OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
have a high ideal view of the present excel- 
lences and latent possibilities of develop- 
ment of the group as a sound and beautiful 
whole. Dr. Holmes, at any rate, is half a 
behind the times in his conception of 
woman. His women are little more than 
pretty pieces of flesh, “fine specimens of 
muliebrity,” “fine specimens of young fe- 
males.” “ The less there is of sex about 
a. woman,” he says, “ the more she is to be 
There is of course a good deal of 
truth in this statement, and there is truth in 
Dr. Holmes’ delineation of the womanly type 
as being at its best and highest (domestically 
speaking) when the softness and grace of wife- 
hood and maternity are in normal and har- 
monious expression. But what we quarrel 
.with him for is that he stops there and shows 
himself apparently incapable of conceiving of 
woman in her relations outside of the domes- 
tic circle, where, equally with man outside of 
the relations of fatherhood and the home, she 
.appears as an aspiring human being, athirst 
:for knowledge and power and aesthetic enjoy- 
ment. There is not apparently in all of Dr. 
'Holmes’ writings a single passage which ex- NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
161 
presses any sympathy with woman in her 
nobler ideal aspirations and struggles. Per- 
sonally, he is popular with women, as most 
physicians are ; but he has been taken to task 
for his low ideal of womanhood by more than 
one female writer. Listen to him : “ I con- 
fess I like the quality-ladies better than the 
common kind even of literary ones. They 
haven’t read, the last book, perhaps, but they 
attend better to you when you are talking to 
them. If they are never learned they make 
up for it in tact and elegance. Besides, I 
think, on the whole, there is less of self-asser- 
tion in diamonds than in dogmas.” He has no 
doubt that Esther “ was a more gracious and 
agreeable person than Deborah, who judged 
the people and wrote the story of Sisera.” . . . 
** A woman who does not carry a halo of good 
feeling and desire to make everybody con- 
tented about with her wherever she goes, —' 
an atmosphere of grace, mercy, and peace, of 
at least six feet radius, which wraps every 
human being upon whom she voluntarily be- 
stows her presence, and so flatters him with 
the comfortable thought that she is rather 
glad he is alive than otherwise, isn’t worth 162 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
the trouble of talking to as a woman; she 
may do well enough to hold discussions 
with.” 
Observe the complacent masculine am> 
gance (so naive !), the reference of the whole 
matter to one’s self: the question with him is 
not whether woman shall develop herself nobly 
or not, but does she please me, does she 
flatter me, comfort me, and add to my enjoy- 
ment. It is such seraglio philosophy as this 
that brings the sneer to the lips of the nobler 
women when they are discussing men among 
themselves. But we may not be too harsh in 
our strictures. For, although such philosophy 
as this is now happily almost entirely rele- 
gated to the less liberalized ranks of society, it 
was not so thirty or forty years ago ; the prev- 
alent conception then was that which appears 
in the writings of Holmes. He has of late 
both in print and in private conversation ex- 
pressed the wish that he could recall many 
things written in his earlier years, and we 
shall doubtless be right in including among 
these certain pages or paragraphs in which he 
has treated of woman. Let us not forget to 
add that his portraitures of the doll-type of NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
163 
women are very pretty and attractive. Iris, 
Myrtle Hazard, Olive Eveleth, Letty Forres- 
ter, — they are all charming little women, 
lovable and wifely. What a subtle concep- 
tion that of Iris ! Falling in love with the 
deformed Little Gentleman, and then, in the 
utter goodness and eternal womanly devotion 
•of her soul, trying to idealize deformity, and 
look at it as one of Nature’s eccentric curves, 
and a necessary part of the system of beauty ; 
and then filling her drawing-book with crea- 
tures having twisted spines, humped drome- 
daries, high-shouldered herons, buffaloes, and 
twisted serpents ! And her devotion in car- 
ing for the poor dwarf in his last illness, all 
this is very noble, and goes far toward making 
us pleased with Dr. Holmes’ conception of 
woman as wife. Iris is indeed a delicate 
creature. 
But the reader will get better hints of Dr. 
Holmes’ methods as a novelist by examining 
with us the separate works. “ Elsie Venner ” 
appeared under the title of “ The Professor’s 
Story,” in 1859 and i860. The central con- 
ception of the novel is a weird and powerful 
one, strongly grasped and consistently and 164 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
subtly elaborated in its details. One who is 
about to become a mother is bitten by a rat- 
tlesnake. The mother lives for three weeks 
after the birth of the child and then dies. 
The child, infected and serpentized by the 
poison, grows up, and manifests many of the 
characteristics of the snake. The story is a 
tragedy : poor serpentoid Elsie excites either 
pity or horror in all breasts but one, that of 
her old black nurse, Sophy, who really loves 
her. But her rich and passionate nature asks 
a deeper and more intimate love than this, 
and when she finds that the young scholar 
upon whom she has bestowed her affection 
cannot return it she dies in despair; but love 
has acted as a spell to release her from the 
weird enchantment, and before she dies she 
seems completely free from the terrifying 
serpentine looks and actions which have char- 
acterized her, and leaves with us the impres- 
sion that if she could only have had her love 
returned she would have been cured of her 
inherited taint, and would have had a happy 
married life.* This bringing back into 
* Compare carefully pages 231 and 232 with page 
262 (Vol. II., original edition). NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
human fellowship and sympathy of some 
abnormal or sin-scarred individual through 
the potent might of love, or the growth of 
human affection and sympathy, is also the 
central idea of “The Guardian Angel," of 
the “ Silas Warner ” of George Eliot, and of 
nearly all of Hawthorne’s works, — only in 
Holmes’ stories the taint is physiological ; in 
the others it is ethical. The isolation which 
was the lot of poor Elsie is described by 
Hawthorne in “ The Marble Faun ” as the 
“ perception of an infinite shivering solitude, 
amid which we cannot come close enough to* 
human beings to be warmed by them, and 
where they turn to cold, chilly shapes of 
mist." This isolation was the lot of Gervase 
Hastings, of Ethan Brand, of old Rappaccini,, 
Hollingsworth, Roger Chillingsworth, Hester 
Prynne, and Donatello. When Hester forgot 
herself in ministrations to the suffering and 
sorrowing she lost the sense of her guilt, and 
“ the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma;" 
in the case of Donatello, “ when first the idea 
was suggested of living for the welfare of his 
fellow-creatures, the original beauty, which 
sorrow had partly effaced, came back elevated 166 
OLIVER WE UDELL HOLMES. 
and spiritualized. In the black depths the 
Faun had found a soul, and was struggling 
with it toward the light of heaven ” ; and in 
Hawthorne’s story of “ Egotism, or the Bosom 
Serpent,” Roderick Elliston, haunted by the 
Belief that a serpent is lodged in his bosom, 
was cured of his hallucination the moment 
'that Bis gentle wife whispered in his ear 
the words, “Forget yourself in the idea of 
another.” Then did he perceive that the ser- 
pent in his bosom was his own selfishness.* 
Hm “The Marble Faun” Hawthorne has given 
\us„ In the character of Donatello, an idea 
like that which Dr. Holmes has embodied 
in “Elsie Venner,” namely, of a human 
being inheriting certain characteristics of an 
animal. 
Almost all of Dr. Holmes’ books are written 
to combat some theological dogma. The 
moral intended to be conveyed by “ Elsie 
Venner ” is that men are not responsible for 
many of their crimes, shortcomings, and 
moral and mental twists, the tendency to 
* See The Californian magazine for August, 1881, 
where the writer has discussed Hawthorne’s treatment 
_of sin. NOVELS AND ESS A YS. 
167 
these things having been inherited. This is 
a favorite thesis with Dr. Holmes. He be* 
lieves in free will, but thinks, with many 
other eminent writers, that its freedom is 
very much limited. The old pastor in “ Elsie 
Venner” is led by the story of the heroine's 
life to adopt charitable conclusions about 
the total depravity of people; and Helen 
Darley thinks that “ if, while the will lies 
sealed in its fountain, it may be poisoned at 
its very source, so that it shall flow dark and 
deadly through its whole course, who are we 
that we should judge our fellow-creatures by 
ourselves ? ” It should be remembered that 
Dr. Holmes does not assert his absolute be- 
lief in the possibility of animal characteristics 
being introduced into the nature by foetal 
transmission, as in the case of Elsie Venner, 
but he says that he has received startling 
confirmation of its possibility. 
The scene of “ Elsie Venner ” is laid in 
the Connecticut Valley, apparently in or near 
Northampton, where, in a quaint and roomy, 
old mansion, lives Dudley Venner, the father 
of the heroine. To this neighborhood comes 
one day, as a teacher, a young man of the 168 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
** Brahmin caste,” — the cultured bookish 
class, — named Bernard Langdon, and with 
him Elsie eventually falls in love. Silas 
Peckham, proprietor of the Apollinean Insti- 
tute, employs, besides Langdon, a Miss Helen 
Darley, — a frail, sensitive, conscientious, 
overworked young teacher. Silas Peckham 
is admirably drawn, — only a little too hid- 
eous for the reality,—a Yankee Squeers, a 
Lard, grasping, merciless man, “ thin as if he 
had been split and dried ; with an ashen kind 
of complexion, like the tint of the food he is 
made of (split codfish) ; and about as sharp, 
lough, juiceless, and biting to deal with as the 
other is to the taste.” And Elsie, — “She 
was a splendid scowling beauty, black-browed, 
with a flash of white teeth which was always 
like a surprise when her lips parted. She 
wore a checkered dress, of a curious pattern, 
.and a camel’s-hair scarf twisted a little fan- 
tastically about her. . . . Black piercing eyes, 
not large, — a low forehead, as low as that of 
‘Clytie in the Townley bust, — black hair 
twisted in heavy braids, — a face that one 
.could not help looking at for its beauty, yet 
that one wanted to look away from for some- NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
169 
thing in its expression, and could not for 
those diamond eyes.” She wore a barred 
skirt, had on her arm as a bracelet a golden 
asp with emerald eyes, and around her neck 
sometimes a torque chain, and sometimes a 
necklace of enamelled scales; she loved to 
haunt the dreaded rattlesnake cavern, especi- 
ally in hot mid-summer, when the fierce pois- 
ons of nature were generated in the heats, 
and when her own nature became most un- 
governable and serpentoid ; she had castanets 
which she loved to rattle as an accompani- 
ment to her dance; she had the habit of nar- 
rowing her eyes like a sleepy cat, and of 
drawing down, or flattening, her forehead; 
she had a just perceptible lisp; her hands 
were cold, and her glistening eyes had the 
power of fascinating people and making them 
shudder and shiver; the hysterical school- 
mistress, Helen Darley, was absolutely made 
ill by the sight of her; her handwriting was 
sharp-pointed, long and slender, and she 
wrote on wavy, ribbed paper; for the olive- 
purple leaves of the white ash she had a 
.strong and unconquerable aversion, which is 
said to be the case also with the rattle-snake. 170 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
A passage in the second volume of the 
story throws light on the mystery of this 
poor girl. When Helen Darley, Elsie’s 
teacher, learns from old Sophy the secret of 
the “ante-natal impression which had mingled 
an alien element in her nature,” she then urn 
derstood the fascination of her cold, glittering 
eyes. “ She knew the significance of the 
strange repulsion which she felt in her own 
intimate consciousness underlying the inex* 
plicable attraction which drew her towards 
the young girl in spite of this repugnance. 
She began to look with new feelings on the 
contradictions in her moral nature, — the 
longing for sympathy, as shown by her wish* 
ing for Helen’s company, and the impose 
sibility of passing between the cold circle of 
isolation within which she had her being. 
The fearful truth of that instinctive feeling 
of hers, that there was something not human 
looking out of Elsie’s eyes, came upon her 
with the sudden flash of penetrating convic- 
tion. There were two warring principles in 
that superb organization and proud soul. 
One made her a woman with all a woman’s 
powers and longings. The other chilled all NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
1/1 
the currents of outlet for her emotions. It 
'made her tearless and mute, when another 
"woman would have wept and pleaded. And 
it infused into her soul something — it was 
cruel now to call it malice — which was still, 
Watchful, and dangerous, — which waited its 
opportunity, and then shot like an arrow 
from its bow out of the coil of brooding pre- 
meditation.” 
The author of “Elsie Venner” wisely 
keeps his heroine mysteriously in the back- 
ground of his picture, or rather keeps her in 
view, but does not permit her to speak much. 
This heightens the mystery and whets our 
curiosity. The deathbed scene of poor Elsie 
is as pathetic as that of the tutor in the story 
of Iris. A rich, deep, strange nature that of 
Elsie, and one that gets hold of our sympa- 
thies in a very strong manner. Who, indeed, 
can ever forget her ? No character in Eng- 
lish literature more eldritch and fantastical; 
and in English poetry but two characters at 
all resembling her. In Coleridge’s “ Christa- 
bel” the lovely Lady Geraldine exercises 
over the fair Christabel a fascination like that 
of a serpent: — 172 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
“ A snake’s small eye blinks dull and shy, 
And the lady’s eyes they shrunk in her head, 
Each shrunk up to a serpent’s eye, 
And with somewhat of malice, and more of 
dread, 
At Christabel she looked askance ! ” 
The Lamiae of antiquity were fabulous mon- 
sters with the head and breast of a woman 
and the body of a serpent. They allured peo- 
ple to destruction by a soothing, strange kind 
of hissing. Keats gives a picture of one o£ 
these creatures: — 
“ A palpitating snake, 
Bright, and cirque-couchant in a dusky brake; 
Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire, 
Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne’s tiar; 
Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter sweet! 
She had a woman’s mouth, with all its pearls con* 
plete.” 
The minor characters in “ Elsie Venner ” —. 
Old Sophy, Dick Venner, Helen Darley, and 
the Doctor, — are finely individualized. The 
Sprowles’ party affords the Autocrat an oppor* NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
173 
tunity to display a good deal of his character- 
istic satirical wit, slang, and buffoonery. There 
is considerable fun and much local coloring 
in this bit of optra comique, or variety show 
— the Sprowles’ party; but the sketch is over- 
done, and has a touch of coarseness, unkind- 
liness, and cockneyism in it. However, the 
ludicrousness of the situation grows irresist- 
ible, and, when one reaches the incident of 
the Deacon and the ice-cream, laughter be- 
comes uncontrollable and violent. The Dea- 
con mistook the ice-cream for custard, and 
after swallowing an immense spoonful set up 
a sound something between a howl and an 
-oath; his features assumed an expression of 
intense pain, his eyes staring wildly; and, 
clapping his hands to his face, he rocked his 
head backward and forward in speechless 
agony. After a good deal of slapping on the 
back he recovers. Here is another bit of 
realism : “ The elder Miss Spinney, to whom 
she made this remark, assented to it, at the 
same time ogling a piece of frosted cake, 
which she presently appropriated with great 
refinement of manner, — taking it between 
her thumb and forefinger, keeping the others 174 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES* 
well spread, and the little finger in extreme 
divergence, with a graceful undulation of the 
neck and a queer little sound in her throat, as 
of an w. that wanted to get out and perished 
in the attempt.” 
The tea-party of the widow, Marilla Row* 
ens, forms an agreeable companion-piece to 
the vulgarities of this party of the Sprowles. 
As a pendant to this theme one may add the 
following ludicrous advice of the “ Professor ”• 
“ A few rules are worth remembering by all 
who attend anniversary dinners in Faneuil 
Hall or elsewhere. Thus: Lobsters’ claws 
are always acceptable to children of all ages. 
Oranges and apples are to be taken one at a 
time, until the coat-pockets begin to become 
inconveniently heavy. Cakes are injured by 
sitting upon them ; it is, therefore, well to 
carry a stout tin-box of a size to hold as many 
pieces as there are children in the domestic 
circle.” 
** Elsie Venner ” is a novel strongly fla- 
vored with rural and dialect language, of 
which, however, Dr. Holmes does not appear 
to have made quite so artistic a study as has 
Lowell Some of the rural characters' of the NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
175 
work well illustrate negatively Dr. Holmes 
saying that the best specimens of New Eng- 
land character are raised under glass. Such 
Yankeeisms as the dispute, in “ Elsie Venner,” 
over the skin and shoes of the dead horse, and 
the negotiations of Silas Peckham for the 
remainder delicacies of the Sprowles’ party 
to feed his Institute pupils with, are capital 
satirical strokes. 
For the sake of convenience we may here 
consider Dr. Holmes’ second novel, “The 
Guardian Angel,” although it was not pub- 
lished in book-form until 1867. Perhaps the 
germ, or suggestion, of the work is found in 
this sentence from “ Elsie Venner”: “ Every 
young girl ought to walk, locked close, arm 
in arm, between two guardian angels.” Myr- 
tle Hazard, however, has but one, the old bach- 
elor and book-worm, Byles Gridley, whom it 
seems slightly absurd, by the way, to dub 
with the title of angel. The central idea of 
the story is this : There is evidence which 
seems to show that persons who have long 
been dead “ may enjoy a kind of secondary 
and imperfect, yet self-conscious life ” in our 
bodily tenements. “This body,” says the 176 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
author, “ in which we jourpey across the 
isthmus between the oceans is not a private 
carriage, but an omnibus.” The plan of the 
novel is to show how in the life of Myrtle 
Hazard (the heroine of the book) the traits 
and experiences of ancestors reappear, and 
produce in her strange and unaccountable 
actions, until love and self-sacrifice break the 
spell. One of her ancestors had been accused 
of sorcery, or witchcraft : consequently Myr- 
tle is full of wild and eldritch freaks and fits of 
waywardness. A tinge of tropical fierceness 
is added to her character from the circum- 
stance that she was born in India; when she 
was a little girl she wore a scarlet dress, and 
was styled by a young man in the town “ the 
fire-hang-bird,” or oriole. Another of her an- 
cestors was burned at the stake : accordingly 
she is represented as being cured of her in- 
herited taint, partly, indeed, through her love 
of Clement Lindsay, but chiefly through her 
self-denying offices of mercy in the hospitals,, 
as well as in her self-sacrifice in the choice of 
a poor but noble husband : “ What change 
was this which Myrtle had undergone since 
love had touched her heart, and her visions NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
177 
of worldly enjoyment had faded before the 
.thought of sharing and ennobling the life of 
one who was worthy of her best affections, — 
of living for another, and finding her own 
noblest self in that divine office of woman ? 
... If it could be that, after so many gene- 
rations, the blood of her who had died for her 
faith could show in her descendant’s veins,, 
and the soul of that elect lady of her race 
look out from her far-removed offspring’s dark 
eyes, such a transfiguration of the martyr’s life 
and spiritual being might well seem to manifest 
itself in Myrtle Hazard.” . . . “ In the offices 
of mercy which she performed for sick and 
the wounded and the dying the dross of her 
nature seemed to be burned away. The con- 
flict of mingled lives in her blood had ceased.” 
The plot of the work has some dramatic 
crises and developments,—as, for example,, 
the scene at the rapids, the management of 
the will, and the finding of the old leather 
mitten, with the fist full of silver dollars, and 
the thumb of gold half-eagles. The villain, 
Murray Bradshaw, is almost too cold and pas- 
sionless an abstraction to be lifelike; but not 
so Byles Gridley, author of “ Thoughts on 178 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
the Universe,” the dear, honest, hearty old 
bachelor, who countermines so handsomely 
the plots of Bradshaw. The oily and nau- 
seous cant of the Rev. Mr. Stoker seems as 
accurately reported as it could be, and the hits 
at the preachers are good and well-deserved. 
When the Rev. Mr. Stoker begins to take a 
too tender interest in the rich young beauty, 
Myrtle Hazard, Mrs. Hopkins advises the 
procuring of a bull-dog who would take the 
seat out of his black pantaloons the next time 
he called. Old Dr. Hurlbut adds his contri- 
bution to the good cause by remarking that 
he always had to lay in an extra stock of 
valerian and assafoetida whenever there was 
a young minister around, — “for there’s 
plenty of religious ravin’, says he, that’s 
nothin’ but hysterics.” The vain and silly 
poetaster is hit off so well in Gifted Hopkins 
that the character at once recalls the numer- 
ous acquaintances of that genus which we 
have all had : the interview with the publisher 
is full of the richest humor. Silence With- 
ers and Miss Cynthia Badlam seem to have 
been photographed from the life. A writer 
in the Spectator thinks that the character of NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
179 
Myrtle Hazard is effectually analyzed, but 
not reconstructed again in a unity of person- 
ality ; also thinks that “ to precipitate an old 
book-student, however keen at reading gen- 
eral character, into the task of unravelling 
and countermining the conventional con- 
spiracy of a legal rogue like Murray Brad- 
shaw was not a very artistic idea.” 
A writer in The Nation for November 14, 
1867, offered the following caustic criticism 
on “The Guardian Angel ” : — 
“ What ‘ goes without saying,’ as the 
French put it, Dr. Holmes is very apt to 
say; that, we believe, is the thing which 
chiefly interferes with our enjoyment of his 
works.” The reviewer cites as instances the 
talk of Professor Gridley, and the hit at the Cal- 
vinists in the dismal ululations of the hell-fire 
hymns of those low-spirited Christian pessi- 
mists, Cousin Silence and Miss Cynthia. “ Dr. 
Holmes,” he continues, “ goes through his 
story, — too often bearing on hard when only 
the lightest touch would have been pleasing, 
not to say sufferable; sternly breaking on 
his wheel the deadest of bugs and butterflies.” 
—“There is a good deal of triteness and dul OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
ness and flippancy in his book.” — “ When he 
had written * The Autocrat of the Breakfast- 
Table,’ Dr. Holmes would have done well, as 
it has since appeared, had he ceased from 
satire. That series of papers gave him a 
brilliamt reputation, which from that time for- 
ward he has gone on damaging, diminishing 
it by each new book ; diminishing the bril- 
liance of it, at any rate, though it may well 
enough be that he has extended it among 
more people. He has never stopped ham- 
mering on the same nail which he hit on the 
head when he first struck. ‘The Professor’ 
took away something from the estimation in 
which we had been holding the ‘Autocrat ’; 
* Elsie Venner ’ took away a little more ; and 
■•The Guardian Angel ’ takes away a larger por- 
tion than was removed by either of the others. 
“ We speak of the author as a satirist. 
That he is, mainly; he is hardly to be called 
a novelist. His characters are figures labelled 
and set up to be fired at, or are names about 
which a love-story is told, or they embody 
some physiologico-psychological theory; but 
they are never to be called characters in any 
true sense of the word.” NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
181 
The year 1861 saw the opening of the 
Civil War waged for the preservation of the 
Union and of the rights of man. There is 
nothing like the glowing furnace of a great 
moral conflict to purge away the dross and 
slag from men’s natures. Dr. Holmes pos- 
sesses, or possessed, a generous share of those 
very human frailties of character which do 
so much to level distinctions among men. 
He has probably written and spoken more 
offensive ineptitudes about “ the quality,” the 
"swell-fronts,” the “Brahmin caste,” “the 
unpaved districts,” etc., than any other writer 
in America. The fierce war struggle, and the 
close sympathy it excited between all classes, 
served to take a good deal of this pride 
out of him. He says somewhere, “ The camp 
is deprovincializing us very fast. ... It takes 
all the nonsense out of everybody, or ought 
to do so, to see how fairly the real manhood 
of a country is distributed over its surface.” 
Professor Holmes’ attitude on the slavery 
question in the ante-bellum days is not wholly 
such as we could wish it had been. Like so 
many others in the early days of abolitionism, 
he thought that offensive measures against 182 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
the South would result disastrously to the 
integrity of the Union. He therefore took 
to the fence, unwilling to identify himself 
fully with either party in the dispute. In an 
address before the New England Society of 
New York City he expressed admiration for 
the manly logic of the faction of the extreme 
left, — the Abolitionists, the “ melanophiles.” 
He said : “ We have respect for the men of the 
extreme party; namely, the respect which we 
feel for Othello in his murderous delusion 
But then we also demand consistency in the 
party of the centre and the moderate left: 
they should either annul the Constitution, or 
else keep it in its evident spirit; not act 
double, crying out against slavery, and yet 
clinging to the Constitution.” 
A citation from a very careful and schol- 
arly writer who was an active participant in 
the stormy struggles of the war will throw 
more light on this topic than we can get 
from any other source : “ Boston,” says Mr. 
F. B. Sanborn,* “ then abounded with those 
natural Tories, who, in the rough dialect of 
• In his excellent and valuable article in “ The Homes 
and Haunts of our Elder Poets.” NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
their radical opposites, were styled ‘Hunkers.’ 
They made up the powerful class which con- 
trolled the market, the college, and the draw- 
ing-room ; they opened or closed at will the 
avenues of preferment for young men of tal- 
ent ; they ignored Emerson, loathed Garrison, 
detested Parker, ridiculed Alcott and Mar- 
garet Fuller, tolerated Sumner and Phillips 
for a time on account of their talents, and then 
quietly sent them to Coventry. In this well- 
fed, well-bred minority, supported by a well- 
fed, but ill-bred majority, Dr. Holmes was 
content to remain for years, scoffing at re- 
formers now and then to please his audience, 
but chafing a little under the dull oppression 
of the popular theology, against which he 
finally revolted as completely as Theodore 
Parker had done before him. In his ‘ Urania,’ 
written in 1846, Dr. Holmes went so far as to 
denounce John Quincy Adams, by implica- 
tion, as an enemy of the Union, while that 
■* old man eloquent ’ was fighting the battle of 
freedom in Congress. The poet exclaimed: — 
* Chiefs of New England ! by your sires’ renown, 
Dash the red torches of the rebel down! 
Flood his black hearthstone till its flames expire, 
Though your old Sachem fanned his councilfire' 184 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
“ This ‘ old Sachem ’ was Adams, and the 
‘ rebel ’ was the Abolitionist, not the slave- 
holder, who turned out in fact to be so. Pat- 
riotism, always strong in Dr. Holmes, united 
with Toryism to hold him on the ‘Hunker’ 
side until toward the beginning of the Civil 
War, or, perhaps, no later than 1857, when 
the anti-slavery party definitely gained control 
of Massachusetts, re-electing Sumner to the 
Senate almost unanimously. Indeed, in 1856, 
when Sumner was assaulted by the South 
Carolina bully, Dr. Holmes at a public dinner 
in Boston denounced the outrage as an as- 
sault upon the Union. And when the Civil 
War broke out none stood more firmly by the 
cause of the North than the laughing Profes- 
sor. He sent his eldest son to the fight, and 
saw him twice or thrice wounded, without 
shrinking from the sacrifice which his country 
demanded. This manly attitude, from which 
Dr. Holmes never receded, atoned, in the 
eyes even of his cousin Wendell Phillips,, 
for the early antagonism to what few men 
then recognized as the sacred cause of civili- 
zation.” 
Mr. Sanborn may well say that the war NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
185 
record of Holmes atoned for his early indif- 
ference. We hardly expect poets to be lovers 
of strife, and it is not much wonder that 
Holmes took the attitude he did toward 
abolitionism. But read his patriotic war 
poems, his splendid Fourth of July Oration, 
delivered in Boston in 1863, and his many 
patriotic articles in the Atlantic Monthly, if 
you would know how glowing and earnest was 
his love of the Union and of human rights. 
His inherited toryism and conservatism made 
it harder for him than for others to grieve at 
the subjugation of an inferior class : as late 
as 1882 he was taken to task by a Boston 
paper for depreciation of the Irish in their 
efforts to free their throats from the teeth of 
the British bull-dog. But of his patriotism 
no one can doubt. His Fourth of July Ora- 
tion was delivered at one of the gloomiest 
moments of the war, when Lee was in the 
heart of Pennsylvania, and just before the 
capture of Vicksburg. The argument of the 
oration is this : The principle of self-govern- 
ment involves the right of free discussion and 
free political action. The exercise of this 
right led to the war between slavery and 186 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
freedom, and in striving to preserve the 
Union the North vindicates a principle fatal 
to the existence of slavery. Hear a few sen- 
tences : — 
“ By those wounds of living heroes, by 
those graves of fallen martyrs, by the corpses 
of your children, and the claims of your chil- 
dren’s children yet unborn, in the name of 
outraged honor, in the interest of violated 
sovereignty, for the life of an imperilled nation, 
for the sake of men everywhere, and of our 
common humanity, for the glory of God, and 
the advancement of his kingdom on earth, 
your country calls upon you to stand by her 
through good report and through evil report, 
in triumph and in defeat.” 
In the Atlantic Monthly for October, 1861, 
Dr. Holmes published an article entitled 
“ The Wormwood Cordial of History.” It is 
an historical paper, designed to give comfort 
to the people of the North after their defeat 
at the battle of Bull Run. The Romans were 
beaten at Lake Trasimenus and at Cannae, 
and the Prussians were beaten at Jena; yet 
both peoples retrieved those disasters, and so 
will the North. The fable of “The Front NOVELS AND ESS A YS. 
187 
Teeth and the Grinders ” will bear repeats 
in g: — 
“ Once on a time a mutiny arose among 
the teeth of a man, in good health, and 
blessed with a sound constitution, commonly 
known as Uncle Samuel. The cutting teeth* 
or incisors, and the eye-teeth, or canines, 
though not nearly so many, all counted, nor 
so large nor so strong as the grinders, and 
by no means so white, but, on the contrary, 
very much discolored, began to find fault 
with the grinders as not good enough com- 
pany for them. The eye-teeth being very 
sharp, and fitted for seizing and tearing, and 
standing out taller than the rest, claimed to. 
lead them. Presently one of them com- 
plained that it ached very badly, and then 
another and another. Very soon the cut- 
ting teeth, which pretended they were sup- 
plied by the same nerve, and were proud of 
it, began to ache also. They all agreed that 
it was the fault of the grinders. 
“ About this time, Uncle Samuel, having 
used his old tooth-brush (which was never a 
good one, having no stiffness in the bristles) 
for four years, took a new one, recommended to OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
him by a great number of people as a homely 
but useful article. Thereupon all the front 
teeth, one after another, declared that Uncle 
Samuel meant to scour them white, which 
was a thing they would never submit to, 
though the whole civilized world was calling 
on them to do so. So they all insisted on 
getting out of the sockets in which they had 
grown and stood for so many years. But the 
wisdom teeth spoke up for the others, and 
said : — 
“ ‘ Nay, there be but twelve of you front- 
teeth, and there be twenty of us grinders. We 
are the strongest, and a good deal nearest the 
muscles and the joint, but we cannot spare 
you. We have put up with your black stains, 
your jumping aches, and your snappish looks, 
and now we are not going to let you go, under 
the pretence that you are going to be scrubbed 
white if you stay. You don’t work half so 
hard as we do, but you can bite the food well 
enough, which we can grind so much better 
than you. We belong to each other. You 
must stay.’ 
“Thereupon the front-teeth, first the ca- 
nines, or dog-teeth, next the incisors, or cut* NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
189 
ting-teeth, proceeded to oeclare themselves 
out of their sockets, and no longer belonging 
to the jaws of ‘ Uncle Samuel.’ 
“ Then Uncle Samuel arose in his wrath, 
and shut his jaws tightly together, and swore 
that he would keep them shut till those ach- 
ing and discolored teeth of his went to pieces 
in their sockets, if need were, rather than 
have them drawn, standing, as some of them 
did, at the very opening of his throat and 
stomach. 
“ And now, if you will please to observe,, 
all those teeth are beginning to ache worse 
than ever, and to decay very fast, so that it 
will take a great deal of gold to stop the holes 
that are forming in them. But the great 
white grinders are as sound as ever, and will 
remain so until Uncle Samuel thinks the time 
has come for opening his mouth. In the 
mean time they keep on grinding in a quiet 
way, though the others have had to stop 
biting for a long time. When Uncle Samuel 
opens his mouth they will be as ready for 
work as ever; but those poor discolored 
teeth will be tender for a great while, and 
never be so strong as they were before they OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
foolishly declared themselves out of their 
sockets.” 
“ Soundings from the Atlantic ” is the 
title of a volume made up chiefly of papers 
first published in the Atlantic Monthly. They 
are very readable, — breezy and light as well 
as solid. Those on the photograph and the 
•Stereoscope are certainly unique in their 
'coiftbination of airy humorous treatment with 
•solid Scientific discussion, or teaching. He 
has made the subject of the photograph and 
the stereoscope in their aesthetic relations 
pefciiiiariy his own by the thoroughness and 
enthusiasm of his investigations and experi- 
ments. On one page he gives you a charm- 
ingly poetical and lucid description of the 
-way a photograph is made, and of his amateur 
apprenticeship to the art; and on the next 
page you have a record of original scientific 
(.observations and studies. It is probably 
"known to but few that to Dr. Holmes’ invent- 
ive genius we owe the stereoscope in the 
convenient form in which it is now made; 
the public obtained his improvements unpat- 
ented, and consequently at a lower price. 
There is room for but a single paragraph KOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
191 
from the article on the stereoscope and the 
stereograph : — 
“ We were just now stereographed our- 
selves, at a moment’s warning, as if we were 
fugitives from justice. A skeleton shape, of 
about a man’s height, its head covered with a 
black veil, glided across the floor, faced us, 
lifted its veil, and took a preliminary look. 
When we had grown sufficiently rigid in our 
attitude of studied ease, and got our umbrella 
into a position of thoughtful carelessness, and 
put our features with much effort into an un- 
constrained aspect of cheerfulness tempered 
with dignity, of manly firmness blended with 
womanly sensibility, of courtesy, as much as 
to imply, ‘You know me, sir,’ toned or sized* 
as one may say, with something of the self- 
assertion of a human soul which reflects 
proudly, ‘ I am superior to all this,’ — when, I 
say, we were all right, the spectral Mokanna 
dropped his long veil, and his waiting slave 
put a sensitive tablet under its folds.” 
From an article on “Sun-Painting and Sun- 
Sculpture” the following is extracted : — 
“ We may regard those shadows of bodies 
which are fixed by photography as films, or 192 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
subtle effluences, thrown off from the bodies 
themselves. Hence, we may say that “we 
lift an impalpable scale from the surface of the 
Pyramids. We slip off from the dome of St. 
Peter’s that other imponderable dome which 
fitted it so closely that it betrays every scratch 
on the original. We skim off a thin, dry 
cuticle from the rapids of Niagara, and lay it 
on our unmoistened paper without breaking a 
bubble or losing a speck of foam. We steal 
a landscape from its lawful owners, and defy 
the charge of dishonesty. We skin the flints 
by the wayside, and nobody accuses us of 
meanness.” 
An amusing chapter in “Soundings” is 
the “Visit to the Asylum for Aged and De- 
cayed Punsters.” Here are some of the puns 
of the afflicted inmates : — 
“ ‘ Don’t you see Webster ers in the words 
center and theater ? 
“ * If he spells leather lether, and feather 
fether, isn’t there danger that he’ll give us 
a bad spell of weather ? 
“ ‘ Look! ’ said the Director, — ‘ that is our 
Centenarian.’ 
“ The ancient man crawled towards us, NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
193 
cocked one eye, with which he seemed to see 
a little, up at us, and said, — 
“‘Sarvant, young gentleman. Why is a — 
a — a — like a—a — a— ? Give it up ? Be- 
cause it’s a — a — a — a—.’ 
“ He smiled a pleasant smile, as if it were 
all plain enough. 
“ ‘ One hundred and seven last Christmas,' 
said the Director.” 
As the Autocrat assures us that a pun 
does not commonly justify a blow in return, 
we are encouraged to quote here two or three 
good ones from his own poems, as this: — 
** Long metre answers for a common song, 
Though common metre does not answer long.” 
Or this : — 
** Thus great Achilles, who had shown his zeal 
In healing wounds, died of a wounded heel.” 
Or this first stanza from the poem read at 
the meeting of the Harvard Alumni in 
1857: — 
** I thank you, Mr. President, you’ve kindly broke 
the ice; 
Virtue should always be the first, — I’m only 
Second Vice — 194 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
(A vice is something with a screw that’s made to 
hold its jaw 
Till some old file has played away upon an ancient 
saw.) ” 
There are two more interesting papers in 
“Soundings from the Atlantic.” “The Hu- 
man Wheel, its Spokes and Felloes,” is an 
interesting illustrated paper about human 
locomotion with special reference to the 
wooden leg invented by B. F. Palmer, and to 
the shoe-lasts of Dr. J. C. Plumer. Palmer’s 
wooden leg seems to be as great a wonder in 
its way as that wonderful golden limb of Miss 
Kilmansegg. The following sentences of Dr. 
Holmes explain the title of his article : “ Man,” 
he says, “ is a wheel with two spokes, his legs, 
and two fragments of a tire, his feet. He: 
rolls successively on each of these fragments, 
from the heel to the toe. If he had spokes 
enough, he would go round and round as the 
boys do when they ‘ make a wheel ’ with- 
their four limbs for its spokes.” 
“ The Great Instrument ” is a paper de- 
scribing. Walcker’s organ in Music Hall, Bos- 
ton. The organ is a choir of nearly six NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
195 
thousand v#cal throats, four key-boards, two 
pedals, and twelve pairs of bellows. The 
facade was designed by the Herter Brothers 
and Hammatt Billings. 
Two or three articles put forth in 1864 
call for notice. “ The Minister Plenipo- 
tentiary ” is an eulogium of Henry Ward 
IBeecher for his valuable services to the 
Union in Great Britain. Dr. Holmes calls 
his visit “a more remarkable embassy than 
tthat of any envoy who has represented 
<us in Europe since Franklin pleaded the 
icause of the young Republic at the Court of 
17«rsailles.” The essayist gives a lively and 
complete account of Mr. Beecher’s impas- 
sioned speeches in the great centres of Britain, 
and tells how the populace covered the walls 
in London with blood-red, threatening pla- 
cards and hired their “Chokers,” their “ Hust- 
lers,” and their burglars to waylay him. 
** Our Progressive Independence ” is a long 
and thoughtful paper on the relation of Great 
Britain to our own country, and was suggested 
iby the blind and selfish policy of the mother- 
country in respect of our Civil War. Alluding 
to the stimulus to invention which constitu- OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
tional freedom from Great Britain necessarily 
produced among us, the essayist says that the 
Yankee whittling a shingle with his jack- 
knife has been regarded as a caricature, but 
that it is in fact an unconscious symbolization 
of the plastic or inventive instinct which rises 
by gradations from the shingle to the clothes- 
pin, the apple-parer, the mowing-machine, 
the wooden truss-bridge, the clipper-ship, 
the carved figure-head, the Cleopatra of the 
World’s Exhibition. 
One invention especially, the discovery 
of anaesthesia, or the administering of ether 
for the alleviation of pain, goes far in itself 
alone toward paying back the debt we owe to 
the Old World. One evening in October, 
1846, says the Doctor, a professional brother 
called upon him ; shutting the door carefully, 
he looked nervously around, and then told of 
the wonderful discovery in the operating- 
room whereby a patient could be made pleas- 
antly and safely insensible to pain for a 
limited period. He produced a communica- 
tion which he had just written out for a 
learned society in Boston, the first ever drawn 
up on the subject. “ In one fortnight’s time," NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
he said, “all Europe will be ablaze with this 
discovery ”; and so it proved ; in a few 
weeks every surgeon in the world knew the 
miraculous process. So much for one dis- 
covery, and one step in our progressive in- 
dependence. 
As for our early political literature, it is no 
wonder that the British did not understand 
its power and beauty. They did not under- 
stand their own constitution until De Lolme, 
a Swiss exile, explained it to them. “ One 
British tourist after another visited this coun- 
try, with his eye-glass at his eye, and his 
small vocabulary of ‘Very odd !’ for all that 
was new to him; his * Quite so! ’ for what* 
ever was noblest in thought and deed; his 
‘Very clever!’ for the encouragement of 
genius; and his * All that sort of thing, you 
know! ’ for the less marketable virtues and 
heroisms not to be found in the Cockney 
price-current. They came, they saw, they 
made their books, but no man got from them 
any correct idea of what the Great Republic 
meant in the history of civilization. For this 
the British people had to wait until De 
Tocqueville, a Frenchman, made it in some 198 
OLIVER WENDELL HO LILES. 
degree palpable to English comprehension.’* 
The odious sneers of Dr. Samuel Johnson, in 
his “ Taxation no Tyranny,” Holmes whim- 
sically calls “ The coprolites of a literary 
megatherium.” Johnson was succeeded by 
Carlyle — a man whom his elephantine pre- 
decessor in London would have hated for his 
nationality, and knocked down with his dic- 
tionary for his assaults on the English 
language. Dr. Holmes thinks Prescott did 
more than any other to establish the inde- 
pendence of American literature. He was 
the first who worked with an adequate literary 
apparatus, and at the same time cast his 
costly and learned researches in a pictorial 
and popular form. It was not however from 
England, but from the Continent of Europe, 
that the recognition of his genius first came. 
The essay closes with a reference to the fact 
that the attitude of England toward us in the 
Civil War, the dense ignorance of us and 
our affairs that it betrayed, and the blind 
contempt which always accompanies igno- 
rance, served completely to destroy in the 
minds of our people that implicit and unques- 
tioning deference to English standards and NOVELS AND ESSAYS. 
199 
models which had so long characterized us as 
a nation. 
Professor Holmes was one of the illustrious 
company that followed the remains of the 
author of “ The Scarlet Letter ” to their 
final resting-place in Sleepy Hollow. With 
the closing paragraph of the unfinished 
“Dolliver Romance,” says Dr. Holmes, “the 
mystic music of the poet’s voice is suddenly 
hushed, and we seem to hear instead the 
tolling of a bell in the far distance. The pro- 
cession of shadowy characters which was 
gathering in our imaginations about the 
ancient man and the little child who come so 
clearly before our sight seems to fade away, 
and in its place a slow-pacing train winds 
through the village-road and up the wooded 
hillside until it stops at a little opening 
among the tall trees. There the bed is made 
in which he whose dreams had peopled our 
common life with shapes and thoughts of 
beauty and wonder is to take his rest. . . . 
“ The day of his burial was the bridal day of 
the season, perfect in light as if heaven were 
looking on, perfect in air as if Nature herself 200 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
were sighing for our loss. The orchards were 
all in fresh flower, 
* One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower 
Of mingled blossoms ’; 
the banks were literally blue with violets ; the 
elms were putting out their tender leaves, 
just in that passing aspect which Raphael 
loved to pencil in the backgrounds of his holy 
pictures, not as yet printing deep shadows, 
but only mottling the sunshine at their feet 
The birds were in full song; the pines were 
musical with the soft winds they sweetened. 
All was in faultless accord, and every heart 
was filled with the beauty that flooded the 
landscape.” CHAPTER VII. 
BEACON STREET. 
Down the hill crowned by the State House, 
Beacon Street stretches straight away west- 
ward for a mile or more. For the first half 
of that distance it skirts the Common and 
the beautiful, flower-filled Public Garden, and 
has at its side a great elm-arched tunnel of 
leaves, — the Beacon Street mall, most de- 
lightful of walks. It is a fine sight to stand 
at night at the head of the street and see the 
long fairy-like perspective of golden lamp- 
globes winking and gleaming as if to rival the 
stars above them. On pleasant afternoons, 
too, you will see the wealth and blood (equine 
and human) of the city on this street. The 
people in the carriages are mostly free 
from the melancholy, corpse-like appearance 
of their Fifth Avenue brethren; and the 
equestrians and the pedestrians — where will 
you see ruddier and manlier physiques, or 
happier, healthier children? Yet to one 202 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
coming suddenly into Beacon Street from 
thoughtful Cambridge, from the aristocracy of 
mind to the aristocracy of wealth, a slight 
lowering of the intellectual temperature is 
perceptible. As for the people, they are 
either a community of happy drones in the 
national hive, or they are engaged in severe 
mental toil for the benefit of the republic. 
Which is it ? But however it may be with 
others, the reproach of idleness cannot be 
visited upon one inhabitant, at least, of this 
street; for in the brick house numbered 296, 
situated on that extension of Beacon Street 
which formerly went by the name of the Mill 
Dam, lives the laureate of Boston, the white- 
haired poet of a hundred civic banquets, pro- 
lific author, honored ex-professor, the sun- 
niest-hearted man in the city, and one of the 
most popular. Professor Holmes removed 
from 164 Charles Street to his Beacon Street 
residence in 1871. There is a tiny grass-plot 
in front of the house, and in small letters over 
the door-bell is the familiar name. Entering 
by a spacious hall, the visitor, if on terms of 
intimacy, is ushered into the study in the rear 
of the house. The room is light and cheer- BEACON STREET. 
203 
ful, its bay-window giving directly upon the 
River Charles, with Memorial Tower in Cam- 
bridge looming up in the distance ; — the old 
view, you see, and one which the poet has 
enjoyed now for twenty-three years. Let 
him describe one phase of it as seen from the 
Beacon Street study : — 
4i Through my north window, in the wintry 
weather, — 
My airy oriel on the river shore, — 
I watch the sea-fowl as they flock together 
Where late the boatman flashed his dripping 
oar. 
“ The gull, high floating, like a sloop unladen, 
Lets the loose water waft him as it will; 
The duck, round-breasted as a rustic maiden, 
Paddles and plunges, busy, busy still. 
u I see the solemn gulls in council sitting 
On some broad ice-floe, pondering long and 
late, 
While overhead the home-bound ducks are flit- 
ting, 
And leave the tardy conclave in debate, 204 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
“ Those weighty questions in their breasts revolt* 
ing 
Whose deeper meaning science never learns, 
Till at some reverend elder’s look dissolving, 
The speechless senate silently adjourns.” 
Besides the bay-window the study has two 
circular windows which throw light upon the 
alcoves between the bookcases, as well as 
upon the microscopical apparatus which 
stands ready for its owner’s use. Three 
sides of the apartment are completely lined 
with books,— 
“ A mingled race, the wreck of chance and time, 
That talk all tongues and breathe of every clime, 
Each knows his place, and each may claim his 
part 
In some quaint corner of his master’s heart.” 
The Study. 
Dr. Holmes’ private library is rich in rare 
medical treatises and in literary treasures: 
his readers will find references to these books 
scattered all through his works. The writing- 
desk is in the centre of the room, and over it 
hangs a drop-light. There are easy chairs, and BEACON STREET. 
205 
lambrequins, and a large mirror over the fire* 
place, while near the door hangs the original 
portrait of “Dorothy Q.” Another portrait 
in the room is by Copley, and represents the 
Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper, who was a friend 
of Benjamin Franklin, and preached in the 
Brattle Street Church to some of the ancestors 
of Dr. Holmes. In the drawing-room just 
across the hall from the library are to be seen 
some fine reproductions of paintings of the 
old masters, made by a peculiar process. 
“ The Poet at the Breakfast-Table ” (1873) 
was first published, like its predecessors, in 
periodical instalments. It is the weakest 
work of the Breakfast-Table Series, and 
much of it had better have been left un- 
written. The vein has been worked so long 
that it “pans out” — nothing, or next to 
nothing. We manage to work up a trifle of 
sympathy for the Little Gentleman, and take 
an interest in a few brilliant parts of the 
work: the poem called “ Epilogue to the 
Breakfast-Table Series” is capital; but these 
are redeeming features in an intolerably dull 
book, in which the continual straining after 
effect wearies us, and the homilies and dull OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
commonplaces of experience make us yawn, 
and anxiously measure, from time to time, 
with thumb and finger, the amount still left 
to be read. Dr. Holmes has written many 
fine and valuable papers since 1873, but cer- 
tainly about that time people would have 
been justified in quoting against him two 
lines of his own : — 
“ * Why won’t he stop writing ? ’ Humanity cries ; 
The answer is briefly, ‘ He can’t if he tries.’ ” 
But the reader shall have one or two fine 
extracts from the “ Poet at the Breakfast- 
Table.” First, a description of the piano- 
player : — 
“ I have been to hear some music-pounding. 
It was a young woman, with as many white 
muslin flounces around her as the planet 
Saturn has rings, that did it. She gave the 
music-stool a twirl or two, and fluffed down 
on to it like a whirl of soapsuds in a hand- 
basin. Then she pushed up her cuffs as if 
she was going to fight for the champion’s 
belt. Then she worked her wrists and her 
hands, to limber ’em, I suppose, and spread 
out her fingers till they looked as though BEACON STREET. 
207 
they would pretty much cover the key-board, 
from the growling end to the little squeaking 
one. Then those two hands of hers made a 
jump at the keys as if they were a couple of 
tigers coming down on a flock of black and 
white sheep, and the piano gave a great howl 
as if its tail had been trod on. Dead stop, — 
so still you could hear your hair growing. 
Then another jump, and another howl, as if 
the piano had two tails, and you had trod on 
both of 'em at once, and then a grand clatter 
and scramble and string of jumps, up and 
down, back and forward, one hand over the 
other, like a stampede of rats and mice more 
than like anything I call music.” 
Next, a whimsical account of a poor ghost 
who visits a library some years after his de- 
parture from the body, and discovers, to his 
indignation, the stupid blunders that have 
been made by his biographer: — 
“ ‘ Born in July, Iff6 ! ’ And my honored 
father killed at the battle of Bunker Hill! 
Atrocious libeller! to slander one’s family at 
the start after such a fashion! 
“ ‘ The death of his parents left him in 
charge of his Aunt Nancy, whose tender care 208 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
took the place of those parental attentions 
which should have guided and protected his 
infant years, and consoled him for the severity 
of another relative.’ 
“—Aunt Nancy! It was Aunt Betseyr 
you fool! Aunt Nancy used to — she has 
been dead these eighty years, so there is no 
use in mincing matters — she used to keep a 
bottle and a stick, and when she had been 
tasting a drop out of the bottle the stick used 
to come off of the shelf, and I had to taste that. 
And here she is made a saint of, and poor 
Aunt Betsey, that did everything for me, is 
slandered by implication as a horrid tyrant! 
“ * The subject of this commemorative history 
was remarkable for a precocious development 
of intelligence. An old nurse, who saw him 
at the very earliest period of his existence, is 
said to have spoken of him as one of the most 
promising infants she had seen in her long ex- 
perience. At school he was equally remark- 
able, and at a tender age he received a paper 
adorned with a cut, inscribed Reward of 
Merit.’ 
— “I don’t doubt the nurse said that, — 
there were several promising children born BEACON STREET. 
209 
about that time. As for cuts, I got more 
from the schoolmaster’s rattan than in any 
other shape. Didn’t one of ’em split a Gun- 
ter’s scale into three pieces over the palm of 
my hand ? And didn’t I grin when I saw the 
pieces fly ? No humbug, now, about my boy- 
hood ! ” 
The only wonder is that the penning of 
the foregoing lines did not bring down at 
once upon the Autocrat an army of biogra- 
phers, with assurances of sympathy, and with 
the offer of immediate justice in the shape of 
a hot-pressed, gilt-edged biography, to be writ- 
ten in the warm present, when there is little 
chance of error respecting Aunt Nancy and 
Aunt Betsey. 
In an appreciative review of “ Exotics,” a 
little book of delicate poetical translations, 
by James Freeman Clarke, and his daughter, 
Miss L. Clarke, Dr. Holmes has embodied 
(in the Atlantic for September, 1875) a de- 
scription of the poet’s state of mind and body 
when writing, which will be recognized by all 
who have indulged in poetical creation as 
true in all its details. It is impossible to 
condense or rewrite this bit of analysis. He 210 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
says that, when composing, the poet is a 
medium, a clairvoyant. “The will is first 
called in requisition to exclude interfering 
outward impressions and alien trains of 
thought. After a certain time the second 
state or adjustment of the poet’s double con- 
sciousness (for he has two states, just as the 
somnambulists have) sets up its own auto- 
matic movement, with its special trains of 
ideas and feelings in the thinking and emo- 
tional centres. As soon as the fine frenzy, 
or quasi trance-state, is fairly established, the 
consciousness watches the torrent of thoughts 
and arrests the ones wanted, singly with their 
fitting expression, or in groups of fortunate 
sequences which he cannot better by after 
treatment. As the poetical vocabulary is 
limited, and its plasticity lends itself only to 
certain moulds, the mind works under great 
difficulty, at least until it has acquired by 
practice such handling of language that every 
possibility of rhythm or rhyme offers itself 
actually or potentially to the clairvoyant per- 
ception simultaneously with the thought it is 
to embody. Thus poetical composition is the 
most intense, the most exciting, and there* BEACON STREET. 
211 
fore the most exhausting of mental exercises. 
It is exciting because its mental states are a 
series of revelations and surprises ; intense 
on account of the double strain upon the at- 
tention. The poet is not the same man who 
seated himself an hour ago at bis desk, with 
the dust-cart and the gutter, or the duck-pond 
and the hay-stack and the barnyard fowls be- 
neath his window. He is in the forest with 
the song-birds ; he is on the mountain-top with 
the eagles. He sat down in rusty broadcloth, 
he is arrayed in the imperial purple of his 
singing robes. Let him alone now if you are 
wise, for you might as well have pushed the 
arm that was finishing the smile of a Ma- 
donna, or laid a rail before a train that had a 
queen on board, as thrust your untimely ques- 
tion on this half cataleptic child of the muse, 
who hardly knows whether he is in the body 
or out of the body. And do not wonder if, 
when the fit is over, he is in some respects 
like one who is recovering after an excess of 
the baser stimulants. . . . ‘ Song intoxicates 
the poet.’ His brain rings with it for hours 
or days or weeks after it has chimed itself 
through his consciousness. The vibration 212 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
dies away gradually like the tremor of a bell 
which has been struck, and the medium comes 
to himself again. What a pity that the pas- 
sion and the fever and the delirium are not a 
measure of the excellence of the product of 
the poetic trance ! ” 
A valuable and unique article by Dr. Holmes 
on the “ Physiology of Versification and the 
Harmonies of Organic and Animal Life ” 
should be rescued from the pages of the Bos- 
ton Medical and Surgical Journal (January 7, 
1875). Following is an abstract of it: The 
secret of our success or failure as social be- 
ings depends far more largely on our bodily 
health than our friends suppose. 
The rhythmical movements of the respira- 
tion and the pulse are the time-keepers of the 
body, with a constant ratio of one inspiration 
to every four beats of the heart. 
Respiration has an intimate relation to the 
structure of metrical compositions. The rea- 
son why octosyllabic verse is so easy to read 
aloud is that it follows more exactly than any 
other measure the natural rhythm of the res- 
piration. In reading, for example, such eight- 
syllable verse as that of “ In Memoriam,” or BEACON STREET. 
213 
““The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” it is found 
that about twenty lines can be uttered in a 
minute; now the average number of expira- 
tions a minute is also twenty, showing that 
one line is read for each expiration, with an 
inspiration at the end of the line. The pecu- 
liar majesty of the ten-syllable, or heroic line, 
comes from the fact that its pronunciation 
requires a longer respiration than ordinary ; 
lienee a sense of effort and slowness. The 
caesura comes in at irregular intervals, to be 
sure, and serves as a breathing-place, but 
its management requires care in reading, 
and entirely breaks up the natural rhythm 
of breathing. The fourteen-syllable line of 
Chapman’s Homer and of our hymn-books 
metre”) is exceedingly easy read- 
ing, because broken up into short, alter- 
nate lines of six and eight syllables. The 
twelve-syllable line — that of Drayton’s Poly- 
olbion — is the most irksome of all, owing 
to its unphysiological construction. The 
fourteen-syllable line we easily divide in half 
in reading, but the twelve-syllable one is 
too much for one expiration and not enough 
for two, and for this reason has been instinct- 214 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
ively avoided by nearly all poets. Parts of 
Tennyson’s “ Maud ” are written in fourteen 
and seventeen-syllable verse, and are very 
difficult to read aloud. 
But then there is the personal equation tx* 
be taken into the account. A person of 
ample chest and quiet temperament may 
breathe habitually only fourteen times in a 
minute, and to him the heroic measure wiB 
be very easy reading; whereas a narrow- 
chested, nervous person, breathing oftener 
than twenty times a minute, may find such 
seven-syllable verse as that of Dyer’s “Gron- 
gar Hill” more agreeable to his respiration, 
than the heroic line ; and a quick-breathing 
child will recite with pleasure Mother Goose- 
melodies when long metres would make it 
catch its breath. Perhaps there may be 
other organic rhythms; perhaps accent is 
suggested by or connected with the mow 
ments of the pulse; it is a fact that twenty 
acts of respiration correspond to eighty arte- 
rial pulsations, and that twenty eight-syllable, 
lines, corresponding to these eighty pulsations* 
have exactly eighty accents. Finally, there m 
the well-known coincidence between the aver BEACON STREET. 
age pulsations of the arteries and the number 
of steps taken in a minute; as we increase 
the rapidity of our steps, the heart increases 
the rapidity of its beats. 
In 1879 the publishers of the Atlantic 
J&iotUhly, with which Dr. Holmes had been 
associated as a contributor ever since its es- 
tablishment, twenty-two years previously, re- 
solved to give a breakfast in honor of the 
-Autocrat's seventieth birthday, and the third 
day of December was chosen as a more con- 
finement time than August the twenty-ninth for 
ifche celebration of the event. The breakfast 
was given at the Hotel Brunswick, in the 
richly and massively furnished parlors of 
which the reception took place, previous to 
£he adjournment to the dining-room. Dr. 
Holmes and his daughter, Mrs. Sargent, 
received the one hundred guests of the occa- 
sion, and were assisted in that ceremony by 
.Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, John G. Whittier, and Mrs. Julia 
'Ward Howe. The breakfast proper lasted 
from one-and-a-half to four o’clock in the 
;afternoon. The six tables — four of them 
Jengthwise, and two crosswise — were well OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
filled (the Autocrat at the head), and the 
masculine black of the company was 
by a sprinkle here and there of bright fem- 
inine colors. Mr. H. O. Houghton and Mr, 
W. D. Howells presided, — Mr. Houghtcns 
being seated between Dr. Holmes and Mrs. 
Stowe, and Mr. Howells between Mr.'Emer- 
son and Mrs. Howe. Nearly every author of 
eminence in America was either present in 
person, or sent a letter of regret and con- 
gratulation. The picture of this flowery ban- 
quet, where sat the laureate of Boston, sur- 
rounded by the most eminent authors of 
America, many of them the cherished friends 
of a lifetime, gives'one a great sense of sat- 
isfaction, as one thinks of it; the idea 
so happy, so fitting. The generous rivalry of 
the tributes, the unusual excellence of the 
poems and the speeches, and the sunshine 
diffused over the whole by the genial presence 
of him who had for a lifetime been the light 
and soul of a long series of similar happy occa- 
sions, —all these things combined to make the 
Holmes Breakfast the crowning event of the 
kind in the literary history of the city. Tfee 
poem read by Dr. Holmes is (perhaps wztb BEACON STREET. 
217 
the exception of “The Chambered Nautilus") 
the finest creation of his genius. Where in 
all literature will you find a more exquisite 
poetical description of old age than in “ The 
Iron Gate ” ? Where finer imagery, melody, 
pathos ? — 
“ Still as the silver cord gets worn and slender, 
Its lightened task-work tugs with lessening 
strain, 
Hands get more helpful, voices, grown more 
tender, 
Soothe with their softened tones the slumberous 
brain.” 
Youth longs and manhood strives, but age re- 
members, 
Sits by the raked-up ashes of the past, 
Spreads its thin hands above the whitening em- 
bers 
That warm its creeping life-blood till the last. 
But Nature lends her mirror of illusion 
To win from saddening scenes our age-dimmed 
• eyes, 
And misty day-dreams blend in sweet confusion 
The wintry landscape and the summer skies. 218 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
So when the iron portal shuts behind us, 
And life forgets us in its noise and whirl, 
Visions that shunned the glaring noonday find us, 
And glimmering starlight shows the gates of 
pearl. 
And now with grateful smile and accents cheerful, 
And warmer heart than look or word can tell, 
In simplest phrase, — these traitorous eyes are 
tearful, — 
Thanks, Brothers, Sisters, — Children, — and 
farewell! ” 
One who was present has said that the in- 
tonation of that word “ farewell ” will never 
cease to ring in the ears of those who felt the 
throb of feeling with which it was spoken. 
The other poems read were by Whittier, 
Cranch, Stedman, J. T. Trowbridge, William 
Winter, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. Helen 
Hunt, and others. Here are three stanzas of 
Mr. Winter’s beautiful poem : — 
“ At first we thought him but a jest, 
A ray of laughter, quick to fade; 
We did not dream how richly blest 
In his pure life, our lives were made ; 
Till soon the aureole shone, confest, 
Upon his crest. BEACON STREET. 
219 
“ When violets fade the roses blow; 
When laughter dies the passions wake; 
His royal song, that slept below, 
Like Arthur’s sword beneath the lake, 
Long since has flashed its fiery glow 
O’er all we know. 
“ The silken tress, the mantling wine, 
Red roses, summer’s whispering leaves, 
The lips that kiss, the hands that twine, 
The heart that loves, the heart that grieves, 
They all have found a deathless shrine 
In his rich line ! ” 
Many interesting letters from those who 
were unable to be present were read. Among 
them was this characteristic letter from John 
Holmes, the brother of the poet: — 
“ Cambridge, Nov. 14, 1879. 
“Gentlemen, — I cannot decline your 
kind invitation without a word of preface. 
Between my brother and myself there has 
never been but one subject of rivalry, — that 
of age ; and there I long since gained the day, 
—having found myself generally considered 
his superior on this point. This circumstance 220 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
has placed me in a quasi paternal attitude 
toward him, and gives me a double claim to 
enjoy the pleasant evidence of his success 
which you now offer. 
“As intermediary between my brother and a 
casual portion of society I have been made 
the depositary of many favorable opinions in 
his behalf, and can honestly say that I have 
never accepted any commission for my 
services, in the way of personal compliment. 
Employed, as I so often have been, as an 
opaque sentient medium to transmit rays of 
appreciation without loss of heat by absorp- 
tion, I am pleased to report to you the uni- 
form success of the experiment. 
“ I wish my brother all that he would him- 
self select from the bouquets of good-will 
that are made up for such occasions, and 
freely tender him that title to seniority of 
which I have so long deprived him. 
“ As on a former occasion, I feel unwilling 
to seat myself among our litterateurs, on the 
score of my scant authorship, — even with 
the added plea of brotherhood to your guest. 
“ Very truly yours, 
“John Holmes." BEACON STREET. 
221 
Lowell has aptly called John Holmes “one 
of those choice poets who will not tarnish 
their bright fancies by publication.” And, 
indeed, those of us here in Cambridge who 
have had frequent tastes, in social circles, of 
the “ Lambish quintessence of John,” feel 
pretty confident, and dare maintain it, too, 
that as for the rich sunshine and the pure 
honey of artless humor, we are not poorer 
than Boston ; that city possesses Oliver 
Wendell Holmes, and Cambridge has his 
fraternal counterpart. He has not published 
much, but that little is choice. 
But to return to the Autocrat. The 
spring of 1882 saw the death of Longfellow,, 
Emerson, and Darwin, all of whom passed 
away within a few weeks of each other. That 
was a sad spring in Boston : there was a 
troubled look in people’s faces, and the mute 
inquiry, “ Who next ? ” To the memory of 
each of his brother-poets, Dr. Holmes dedi- 
cated a masterly oration. The qualities of 
Emerson he sums up in these words : — 
“ He was a man of excellent common- 
sense, with a genius so uncommon that he 
seemed like an exotic transplanted from some 222 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
angelic nursery. His character was so blame- 
less, so beautiful, that it was rather a standard 
to judge others by than to find a place for on 
the scale of comparison. Looking at life with 
the profoundest sense of its infinite signifi- 
cance, he was yet a cheerful optimist, almost 
too hopeful, peeping into every cradle to see 
if it did not hold a babe with the halo of a 
new Messiah about it. He enriched the 
treasure-house of literature, but what was far 
more, he enlarged the boundaries of thought 
for the few that followed him and the many 
who never knew, and do not know to-day, 
what hand it was which took down their 
prison walls. He was a preacher who taught 
that the religion of humanity included both 
those of Palestine, nor those alone, and 
taught it with such consecrated lips that the 
Marrowest bigot was ashamed to pray for him, 
as from a footstool nearer to the throne.” 
The summers of our poet have been passed 
not only at Pittsfield, and at the old homestead 
in Cambridge, but also, of late years, at the 
home of his daughter, Mrs. Sargent, in 
Beverly Farms. This is one of the most 
fashionable suburban villages, or collection of BEACON STREET. 
223 
villas, near Boston. It is by the sea, and 
north of Boston some eighteen miles. Part 
of the way to Beverly, via the Eastern Rail- 
way, lies through wide lagoons, covered with 
the sea, at high tide. If it is autumn you 
will see around you innumerable half-drowned 
haycocks (the marsh-grass stacked on piles 
out of reach of the water), and to the right 
the Lynn Railroad, and Revere Beach witk 
its hotels, where 
“ His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes,” 
and wanders smiling on “ ventiferous ripes.” 
Neighbors of Holmes at Beverly Farms are 
John T. Morse, Henry Lee, Robert Rantoul, 
and others. His own residence is quite near 
the depot, and is a plain, cream-colored house, 
with green blinds and broad front verandah 
and surrounding yard and apple orchard, — a 
house conspicuous for its plainness, in contrast 
with the magnificent villas that crown the 
rocky, wooded crags, and peep castle-like 
from the verdure. There is a good bathing- 
beach, from which, on a breezy day, you may 
see the far snow-spray tossing above the 
rocks and islands that line the coast,— Eagle 224 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Island, Misery Island, Marblehead Rock, etc. 
Besides the owners of the villas, there is a small 
native ” population. They have a collection 
of books, with a cosey name painted on a 
quaint little sign above the door: “ The 
Neighbors’ Library.” Mrs. Sargent’s rooms 
are very pleasantly and tastefully decorated 
— old-fashioned fire-places, chintz-covered fur- 
niture, Japanese wall hangings, etc. At 
Beverly Dr. Holmes drives out frequently 
with his wife, on pleasant days, and on such 
occasions may often be heard composing his 
poems al fresco, — testing them by the open 
air, as Whitman advises. 
In the autumn of 1882 Dr. Holmes re- 
signed his position as Parkman Professor of 
Anatomy in Harvard University, — a position 
which he had held for thirty-five years. His 
chief reason, as announced, was that he might 
devote himself more particularly to literary 
pursuits, — especially to writing for the At- 
Jantic Monthly magazine. Upon laying aside 
the professor’s gown to enjoy a little well- 
-earned leisure, he was immediately appointed 
by the college Professor Emeritus, and his 
vacant chair will be filled by Dr. Thomas BEACON STREET. 
225 
I>wight, a fellow-teacher in the Medical 
School. 
On Tuesday, November 28, Dr. Holmes 
delivered his last lecture before his students. 
The amphitheatre of the anatomical lecture- 
room was packed with students, and many 
gray-haired practitioners were present, assem- 
bled to hear their old teacher for the last time 
m. that capacity. As the Doctor entered the 
•room the audience rose to their feet with 
acclamations, and when the applause ceased 
one of the students presented him, in behalf 
of his last class, with a beautiful “ Loving- 
Cup,” inscribed with the following quotation 
from one of his own poems: “ Love bless 
■thee, joy crown thee, God speed thy career.” 
This proof of the esteem in which he was 
held by his pupils was almost too much for 
the Professor’s quick emotional nature. As 
soon as he had got control of the springs of 
feeling he began his address, which was 
naturally retrospective, passing in review his 
long connection with the school, with refer- 
gences to his early college days, and some 
account of the teachers and associates of his 
Vvoth. of his studies at the Ecole de M£de- 226 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
cine, La Charitd, H6tel Dieu, and the Iaies- 
lides, in Paris, and of the noted physicians 
whom he heard lecture in that city,— 
Baron Boyer, Baron Larrey (Napoleon’s fa- 
vorite surgeon), Baron Dupuytren, 
Velpeau, Broussais, Gabriel Andral, aa4 
above all, Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis, fegr 
whom Holmes and his fellow-students wsne 
ready to swear at all times, and who exer- 
cised more influence on them than any of the 
other living masters in the science. There 
are in this lecture of Dr. Holmes some strong, 
nervous portraitures of those grim French 
savans, — Larrey, the short, square, sub- 
stantial man, with iron-gray hair, red face, 
and white apron ; Dupuytren, oracular, Web- 
sterian, dominating ; Lisfranc, who used occa- 
sionally, when a phlebotomizing fit was cm 
him, to order a wholesale bleeding of his 
patients, right and left, whatever was the 
matter with them, and who was heard cone 
day lamenting the splendid guardsmen of the 
old empire because they had such magnifi- 
cent thighs to amputate! Then there mas 
Velpeau, who walked to Paris in wooden shoes 
and worked his way up to eminence; Brovsr BEACON STREET. 
227 
3ais—(“the way in which that knotty-feat- 
ured, savage old man would bring out the 
word irritation — with rattling and rolling re- 
duplication of the resonant letter r—might 
have taught a lesson in articulation to Sal- 
vim”) ; and finally Louis, of whom his stu- 
dents learned the great truth, — afterwards 
enforced in this country by Dr. James Bige- 
>Sow and Dr. Holmes himself, — that a very 
large proportion of diseases get well of them- 
selves. 
Having finished his “show of ghosts,” as 
hte termed it, the lecturer made some practical 
nremarks on the way science was tending, and 
some pleasantly sarcastic observations on 
t&e old building where he had so long taught, 
remarking that he had always thought it best 
to* abstain from anything like eloquence lest 
sb burst of too emphatic applause might land 
himself and class in the cellar, alluding also 
ka a humorous way to the twilight region 
Binder the amphitheatre, where he had for 
veaxs made preparations for his lectures. 
In addition to the offering of the cup, a 
Heautiful basket of flowers was presented by 
former pupils of the Doctor. In afterwards 228 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
acknowledging the cup by letter, he said that' 
the unexpectedness of the tribute had made 
him speechless, but that he was sure that 
they did not mistake aphasia for acardia, and 
that his heart was in its right place thongbi 
his tongue forgot its office. In the Bostoss 
Medical and Surgical Journal for December 
7, 1882, will be found a complete report ctf 
this farewell lecture. It is also published m 
separate form. 
This seems an appropriate place to mca- 
tion that Dr. Holmes is a member of the 
Massachusetts Medical Society, President of 
the Boston Medical Library Association, and 
Vice-President of the American Academy of 
Arts and Sciences. 
In person Holmes is a little under the 
medium height, though it does not strike yarn 
so when you see him, especially on the street, 
where he wears a tall silk hat and carries a 
cane. As a young man he was, like Long- 
fellow, a good deal of an exquisite in dressy 
and he has always been very neat and care- 
ful in his attire. He is quick and nervous in 
his movements, and conveys, in speaking* 
the impression of energy and intense vitality; BEACON STREET. 
229 
and yet he has a poet’s sensitiveness to 
noises, and a dread of persons of superabun- 
dant vitality and aggressiveness. When the 
fountain of laughter or smiles is stirred 
within him his face lights up with a win- 
ning expression and a laughing, kindly glance 
of the eye. When he warms up to a subject 
in conversation he is a very rapid, vivacious- 
speaker. Hawthorne recorded his observa- 
tion of this quality as early as 1843. In his- 
“ Hall of Fantasy ” he describes certain poets 
whom he saw “ talking in groups, with a liveli- 
ness of expression, or ready smile, and a light 
intellectual laughter, which showed how 
rapidly the shafts of wit were glancing to and 
fro among them. In the most vivacious of 
these,” he says, “ I recognized Holmes.” Per-' 
haps it is in his vers d'occasion and his after- 
dinner speeches that he has shone most bril- 
liantly in society. At the breakfast given to 
him in New York city, in 1879, by the Rev- 
Dr. Henry C. Potter, Mr. George William Cur- 
tis, who, as all the world knows, is a very 
prince among impromptu and graceful speak- 
ers, aptly began his post-prandial remarks by 
the following little prologue (the poetical quo- OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
tation being from one of Dr. Holmes’ early 
poems): — 
“ ‘ I know it is a sin 
For one to sit and grin 
At him here ’ — 
But how can I help it ? How can any of us 
help it ? We have all been grinning for a 
generation, and my only comfort is that the 
whole English-reading world are our fellow- 
dinners. Indeed, for many a year, at happy 
little feasts like this, the chief dish — what 
the French with their incomparable and 
incomprehensible felicity call the piece of 
resistance, because, I suppose, nobody can 
resist it — has been a poem of his own, read 
by your distinguished guest.” 
Let us see also what impression he has 
made upon foreign visitors. Chatty Miss 
Mitford said of him in 1851: “ He is a small, 
compact little man (says our mutual friend), 
the delight and ornament of every society he 
enters, buzzing about like a bee, or fluttering 
like a humming-bird, exceedingly difficult to 
catch, unless he be really wanted for some 
kind act, and then you are sure of him.” BEACON STREET. 
231 
In 1875 Dr. Appleton, the Oxford scholar, 
met Holmes at the Saturday Club in Bos- 
ton : — 
“ Dr. Holmes was highly talkative and 
agreeable ; he converses very much like the 
Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, — wittily, 
and in a literary way, but, perhaps, with too 
great an infusion of physiological and medical 
metaphor. He is a little deaf, and has a 
mouth like the beak of a bird ; indeed he is, 
with his small body and quick movements, 
very like a bird in his general aspect. When 
poor Kingsley was in Boston he met Holmes, 
who came in, frisked about, and talked inces- 
santly, Kingsley intervening with a few words 
only occasionally. At last Holmes whisked 
himself away, saying, ‘And now I must go.’ 
‘He is an insp-sp-sp-ired j-j-j-h-ack-daw,’ said 
Kingsley.” * 
Mr. David Macrae, a Scotchman, in his 
book called “The Americans at Home,”f 
gives a lively picture of Holmes, the lecturer, 
* Quoted by Mr. Sanborn in “ Homes and Haunts of 
our Elder Poets.” 
t As quoted in William Shepard’s ■“ Pen Pictures of 
Modern Authors,” pp. 147, 149. 232 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
as he saw him and heard him in 1863. The 
occasion was an inaugural address before the 
Medical School: — 
“Holmes is a plain little dapper man, his 
short hair brushed down like a boy’s, but 
turning gray now, a trifle of furzy hair under 
his ears; a powerful jaw, and a thick, strong 
under-lip that gives decision to his look, with 
a dash of pertness. In conversation he is 
animated and cordial,—sharp, too, taking the 
word out of one’s mouth. When Mr. Fields 
said, ‘ I sent the boy this — ’ ‘ Yes ; I got 
them,’ said Holmes. 
“ Dr. Holmes now gets up, steps forward 
to the high desk amidst loud cheers, puts his 
eye-glasses across his nose, arranges his 
manuscript, and, without any prelude, begins. 
The little man, in his dress-coat, stands very 
straight, a little stiff about the neck, as if he 
feels that he cannot afford to lose anything of 
his stature. He reads with a sharp, percus- 
sive articulation, is very deliberate and formal 
at first, but becomes more animated as he 
goes on. He would even gesticulate if the 
desk were not so high, for you see the arm 
that lies on the desk beside his manuscript JEA con street 
233 
giving a nervous quiver at emphatic points. 
The subject of this lecture is the spirit in 
which medical students should go into their 
work, — now as students, afterwards as prac- 
tioners. He warns them against looking on 
it as a mere lucrative employment. ‘ Don’t 
be like the man who said, “ I suppose I must 
go and earn that d — d guinea!’” He en- 
livens his lecture with numerous jokes and 
brilliant sallies of wit, and at every point 
hitches up his head, looks through his glasses 
at his audience as he finishes his sentence 
and then shuts his mouth pertly with his 
under-lip. as if he said, ‘There, laugh at 
that! ’ ” CHAPTER VIIL 
CHARACTERISTICS. 
The task of him who would, with however 
light a touch, give some analysis and inter- 
pretation of the writings of a loved and ven- 
erated author, now full of years and honors, 
and enshrined as a personal friend in the 
affections of thousands who have never even 
seen him in person, is indeed a delicate one. 
To avoid the error of the youthful newspaper 
critic administering his masterly rebukes to 
Homer, and Carlyle, and Emerson, and other 
presumptuous writers of like calibre, — to 
avoid this is not very difficult for one who 
has been mellowed a little by time, and 
taught caution by experience. But there is 
a class of persons who, in the case of a 
favorite author, take in a sort of dudgeon 
analysis of any sort, however respectful and 
delicate. These idolizers would fain persuade 
themselves that their hero has had conferred 
upon him a providential exemption from faults CHA RA G TERIS TICS. 
235 
&nd deficiencies. Such persons had better 
skip this chapter. Then the hero himself, 
if he has been petted, is apt to take criticism 
with a wry face. It is unnecessary to say 
that this is not the case with Holmes, who 
in almost all of his writings is himself purely 
and distinctively a satirist, and for a lifetime 
has been lashing others with the most sting- 
ing and excoriating satire (tempered with 
humor and good-nature). Of course such a 
one would not stultify himself by asking ex- 
emption from good-humored retaliation ; in- 
deed, he distinctly states somewhere in one 
of his Breakfast-Table talks that he welcomes 
criticism, because then he himself feels free to 
'exercise his own gift in that direction. The 
really great man always welcomes the truth, 
if it is spoken in a generous and kindly 
spirit.* 
* Compare the following from his paper entitled 
“ The Autocrat gives a Breakfast to the Public ” {Atlan- 
tic Monthly, December, 1858).: “ Every man of sense 
has two ways of looking at himself. The first is an 
everyday working view, in which he makes the most 
of his gifts and accomplishments. It is the superficial 
stratum in which praise and blame find their sphere 
of action, — the region of comparisons, — the habitat 
where envy and jealousy are to be looked fqr. But 236 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Broadly speaking, Holmes is Janus-facecf*. 
that is, he has a dual nature : he laughs oil 
one side of his face, and is serious on the 
other; in one mood, fun, humor, laughing 
satire predominate : he is a harlequin tum- 
bling in mottled coat, a court fool bubbling 
over with puns and saucy jests, a Yorick, a 
Mercutio, and nimble-witted as they; but 
suddenly some hidden spring of feeling or 
pathos is touched, the eyes brim with tears, 
and the soul soars upward in a rapt passion 
of tenderest sentiment. Presently the mood 
changes again, and deep-eyed Sorrow glides- 
away veiled in tears and sable weeds, and Joy 
peers in through trellis of perfumed roses, and 
laughs to see her merry boy transformed tor 
a sober, spectacled, dry-as-dust professor and 
scientist, delivering a learned lecture upon the 
processes and sutures of Yorick’s skull, or 
underneath this surface-soil lies another stratum of 
thought, where the tap-roots of the larger mental 
growths penetrate and find their nourishment. Out 
of this comes heroism in all its shapes; here the enter- 
prises that overshadow half the planet, when full grown,, 
lie, tender in their cotyledons. In this deeper region; 
a man calmly judges and weighs his nature, and knows 
yhat the accident of applause is often but temporary.!* CHA RA C TERIS TICS. 
23 7 
the simian tendencies in the facial angle of 
Dick Turpin or Jack Newgate. Holmes is, on 
the one hand, a humorous poet and satirico- 
humorous essayist and novelist ; and, on the 
other, a lay-preacher, an earnest thinker, a 
cultured and accurate teacher, and an orig- 
inal scientific investigator. And yet these 
numerous endowments and traits are all 
blended in one homogeneous personality, — 
humor twining like a silver thread through 
the whole nature and gleaming out for a 
moment in the midst of the most serious 
disquisition or address ; and science in turn 
invading the poem, the novel, and the essay, 
and giving to these the solid value of accu- 
Tate observation. 
He is greatest as a humorist. As a writer 
of comic poetry he is excelled by no other 
English author. Hood’s verses are slovenly 
in construction and not so gayly riant as 
Holmes’, do not shake the diaphragm so 
deeply. In Holmes the essayist (when in his 
best moods) we have Swift without his rabid 
savagery, Sterne without his salaciousness, 
Steele without his shuffling irresolution, and 
Pope without his envenomed bitterness. 238 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
When at its best his humor has the genia\ 
and kindly character which marks that of all 
the great humorists ; but too often it is only 
an ironical smirk, a sardonical grin, a laugh- 
ing at others instead of with them. The 
comic in him is always saved from rodo- 
montade and monstrosity by an equipoise of 
shrewd practical sense: we tremble as his 
glowing wheel grazes the brink of bombast 
and folly, but with a cut of the lash, and a 
short turn, away he flies again, laughing, and 
we laughing with him. 
As has been intimated, his finest humor 
borders close upon pathos, and this is true 
of Hood and Dickens ; it is true of Gough 
and Beecher, and of all great orators and 
humorists. There is no well-defined line of 
"separation between the comic and the pathetic, 
or tragic; the only difference being, as Scho- 
penhauer points out, that the comic is purely 
objective, and deals with the forms and sur- 
faces of things, while the tragic is subjective, 
dealing with the innermost nature and the 
depths of life ; but things that seem comic to 
some are tragic to others, and vice versa. 
“ Humor! humor is the mistress of tears/'* CHA RA C TJERIS TICS. 
239 
says Thackeray : “ she knows the way to the 
fons lachrymarum, strikes in dry and rugged 
places with her enchanting wand, and bids the 
fountain gush and sparkle. She has refreshed 
myriads more from her natural springs than 
ever tragedy has watered from her pompous 
old urn.” 
There is much in Holmes that reminds one 
ii dear foolish old Pepys. Like him he is 
sweetly sentimental about himself; he is 
never done talking about himself, and espe- 
cially about his childhood. The poetry of his 
early life clings and twines about his heart in 
perennial freshness and interest. All poets 
feel a certain sweet sting and poignant joy 
when recalling their childhood. The early 
life of Holmes was exceptionally happy, and 
with Chaucerian na'ivettand delight the white- 
haired boy babbles about it in a style so gay 
and charming that you fairly hold your breath 
with suspense of interest, and wish for the 
thousand and one nights of Scheherezade 
to listen to him. He has also Pepys’ hearty, 
sensuous enjoyment of life,—loves rowing, 
racing, trees, women, flowers, perfumes, and a 
well-furnished table. (Isn’t it funny that Pepys OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
could never make an entry in his diary with- 
out recording what he had for dinner, that 
cut of beef at the Boar’s Head, or that roast 
duck eaten at my Lord so and so’s ?) Holmes 
has Pepys’ rashness and impetuosity. He 
says somewhere that a gentleman will say yes 
to a great many things without stopping to 
think, while a mean, shabby fellow will look 
suspicious and cautious and hesitate a long 
while for fear of some disadvantage to himself. 
This observation is true if not pressed too 
hard; but it also seems to show in Holmes 
the rashness of a quick, generous nature that 
acts before it thinks, and is sorry for it after- 
wards. That Dr. Holmes has said many 
things in the heat and flush of manhood 
which he would now like to unsay he himself 
has admitted, both in private conversation 
and in the 1882 preface to the new edition 
of the “Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.” 
It is to his honor that he has frankly con- 
ceded this. In concluding this parallelism 
between Pepys and Holmes, one may add that 
between Sir Thomas Browne, also, and his 
American fellow-physician there is a good 
deal in common, — for example, their love of 
antiquarian studies. CHA RAC TER IS TICS. 
241 
Holmes is one of the last survivors of an 
illustrious group of writers who lived in an 
epoch of great intellectual brilliancy, — the 
era of Transcendentalism. He belongs to 
what may, perhaps, be known to posterity as 
the Concord School, the writers belonging to 
which have one and all based their intellect- 
ual creations upon the moral, and whether 
they have sung or lectured, or written fiction, 
have never failed to reveal the fact of their 
Puritan antecedents by deftly wreathing the 
lustrous flowers of their thought around some 
hidden sermon, some practical moralization, 
or some useful lesson in life. Holmes was 
brought up in a Calvinistic family, as many 
of us have been ; and we know what a grip the 
horrors and the fatalism of that theological 
scheme get upon the nature. The one per- 
sistent purpose running all through the prose 
writings of our author has been to attack the 
effete ecclesiasticism of the Calvinistic creed. 
Like Emerson and Parker and Whittier, he has 
been a knight-errant of the religious senti- 
ment, taking a good deal of odium upon him- 
self in times when it almost meant social 
ostracism to inveigh against the colossal devil 242 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
whom good people had mistakenly exalted 
into the seat of their God. 
We have said that Dr. Holmes is to be 
classed with the Transcendentalists of the 
Concord School in respect of the ethical char- 
acter of his writings; but he is to be sharply 
distinguished from them in one cardinal point: 
they made little of conventional manners and 
behavior, and much of individuality, and 
they sternly challenged established customs : 
Holmes conforms in all except religion. 
Great men are necessarily egotistic ; but 
there are different varieties of egotism. That 
of Holmes has not, it must be admitted, any 
element of grandeur in it. He says in “The 
Poet at the Breakfast-Table ” (at the close of 
a series of works by him): — 
“ Liberavi animam meant (I have unbur- 
dened my mind). That is the meaning of my 
book and of my literary life.” He has a feel- 
ing of relief in having got rid of the thoughts 
that were pressing for utterance, —that is all! 
There is in that statement the confession of 
his great limitation, namely, that all his 
thoughts revolve around himself, himself, 
himself, — reminding one of that satirical CHA RA C TERIS TICS. 
243 
piece of Poe’s on Nosology, wherein the man 
with the big nose continually talks of him- 
self and his nose, his nose, his nose. With 
the genius, it is, “ Woe is me if I speak not! ” 
He chisels, or paints, or writes to satisfy the 
craving within him for ideal expression, and 
to advance the interests of truth. A consid- 
erable part of Holmes’ poetry was written be- 
yond doubt from the point of view of the 
genius, and there are many of his poetical 
creations which are the expression of purest 
genius of the ideal sort; and his humorous 
verses have also the stamp of a kind of genius. 
But looking at his nature as a whole, and 
apart from exceptional flights of imagination 
(as in “ The Chambered Nautilus ”), we must 
pronounce him deyoid of that sublimated 
essence called genius, at least that kind of 
genius which Poe, and Burns, and Keats pos- 
sessed. In sooth he is at just the opposite 
pole of their genius : he is shrewd practicality 
incarnate; he is purely a man of the world, 
a man of dress-coats, and white neckties, 
and drawing-rooms, which your genius never 
is; he advises conformity to the world, is 
horrified at unconventional things, which a 244 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
genius never is ; he abuses the great Richter,* 
which no genius ever has done, or ever will 
do; he has little or no sympathy for down- 
trodden and inferior races, f but the one dis- 
tinguishing feature of genius is its volcanic, 
undying hatred of oppression ; and, finally, 
hear his own words: “You know twenty 
men of talent who are making their way in 
the world; you may perhaps know one man 
of genius, and very likely do not want to 
know any more. ... It must have been a 
terrible thing to have a friend like Chatterton 
or Burns.” Such is Holmes’ opinion of 
genius. But what then ? Simply this, that 
if he is not a genius of the Poe stamp so 
much the better. We do not want our 
authors all Poes. If the genius of Holmes is 
not of the high transcendental sort, yet, after 
all, it is a species of genius, and of the finest 
carat in its kind. 
* See his “ After-Dinner Poem” (Phi Beta Kappa, 
1843)- 
t .See “ Autocrat,” Chapter III.: “ In the conflict of 
two races our sympathies naturally go with the higher.” 
We will do Professor Holmes the credit to believe that 
this is one of those paragraphs which he says he re- 
grets having written. CHA RA C TER IS TIGS. 
245 
Holmes is fond of puns and fantastic con- 
ceits, to the making of which considerable 
preparation has evidently been given; he 
repeats himself a good deal; he is well read, 
but has not, like Emerson, made a professional 
study of belles-lettres; he has studied the 
humanities at first hand in man himself. The 
one most charming feature of his printed and 
spoken conversation is that he establishes a 
relation of sympathy between himself and his 
readers, or listeners, by expressing for them 
those common, everyday thoughts that we 
all think, but rarely say. The central core of 
him is bravery, honesty, kindliness. The sun- 
shine of his soul gleams out upon you so often 
that you forget the offensive egotism of the 
cit in the charm of the artless humor and 
tender sympathy of his nature. 
He is indigenous; throws up New England 
subsoil as he ploughs; his homespun charac- 
ters speak the native patois, and the whole 
tone of his writings is racily and unaffectedly 
Yankee. Only his personal spirit and point 
of view and his serious diction are British. 
Dr. Storrs of Brooklyn once told how, when 
living in a small German town across the 246 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
seas, the reading of the various instalments 
of the “ Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table ” 
as they appeared transported him as magi- 
cally to New England scenes as the rubbing 
of a little powder in his hands transferred the 
magician of the “ Arabian Nights ” to distant 
lands. 
In spite of his city life he knows how to 
observe nature closely and describe her poeti- 
cally. Witness such passages as this : — 
“The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the 
mould 
Naked and shivering with his cup of gold. 
Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on 
high 
Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky.” 
Spring. 
This prose description shows a sharp ear 
and eye: “The woods at first convey the 
impression of profound repose, and yet, if you 
watch their ways with open ear, you find the 
life which is in them is restless and nervous 
as that of a woman; the little twigs are 
crossing and twining and separating like 
slender fingers that cannot be still; the stray 
leaf is to be flattened into its place like a CHA RA C TER1S TICS. 
247 
truant curl ; the limbs sway and twist, impa- 
tient of their constrained attitude ; and the 
rounded masses of foliage swell upward and 
subside from time to time with long soft 
sighs, and, it may be, the falling of a few rain- 
drops which had lain hidden among the deeper 
shadows.” 
Those who would enjoy a treat in the way 
of nature-writing should read Dr. Holmes’ 
two or three articles in the “ Atlantic 
Almanac,” if they can obtain a copy of that 
valuable annual. Here are two vignettes out 
of it by the pencil of Holmes : — 
“The Indian corn is ripe, beautiful from 
the day it sprung out of the ground to the 
time of husking. First a little fountain of 
green blades, then a miniature sugar-cane, by 
and by lifting its stately spikes at the summit, 
alive with tremulous pendent anthers, then 
throwing out its green silken threads, each 
leading to the germ of a kernel, promise of 
the milky ear, at last offering the perfect 
product, so exquisitely enfolded by nature, 
outwardly in a coarse wrapper, then in sub- 
stantial paper-like series of layers, then in a 
tissue as soft and delicate as a fairy’s most 248 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
intimate garment, and under this the whito 
even rows, which are to harden into pearly, 
golden, or ruby grains. . . . 
“ But here comes winter, savage as when 
he met the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Indian all 
over, his staff a naked splintery-hemlock, his 
robe torn from the backs of bears and bisons, 
and fringed with wampum of rattling icicles, 
turning the ground he treads to ringing iron, 
and, like a mighty sower, casting his snow far 
and wide, over all hills and valleys and 
plains.” 
There is one prominent feature of Dr. 
Holmes’ writings over which one hardly 
knows whether to be amused or satirical. The 
vanity of it is so deliciously apparent that one 
would simply allude to it and pass it over in 
silence did it not occupy so very conspicuous 
a place in his writings, and if it were not cer- 
tain that a good deal of mischief has been 
caused by it among silly people, and a good 
deal of pain among many worthy people.* 
* Harriet Preston, for example. The writer’s atten- 
tion was called to this author’s novel of “ Aspendale ” 
after his own strictures on this matter had been written, 
and he finds that she is even more severe than he is on CHARACTERISTICS. 
249 
Reference is made to all that talk about “ the 
quality,” “ men of family,” the “ Brahmin 
caste,” “ the sifted few,” “we Boston folks ” ; 
and, per contra, all those sneering allusions 
to “.the rural districts,” “ the unpaved dis- 
tricts,” the “ large-handed bumpkins,” “ the 
deep-rutted villages lying along the unsalted 
streams, “ the ungloved,” “the folks who can’t 
pronounce view,” “the red-handed, glove- 
less undergraduate of bucolic antecedents 
squirming in his corner,” etc. What is to 
be done with a man who will write such a 
sentence as this : “ Even provincial human 
nature sometimes has a touch of sublimity in 
it”? Nothing — except to laugh at him. 
When a man like Dr. Holmes can seriously 
ask that we make out of various little sec- 
tional peculiarities of pronunciation, dress, 
and manners, capital distinctions that shall 
decide the social worth and station of people, 
we can only — smile. 
The “ Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table ” 
the “ snobbishness,” as she calls it, of Dr. Holmes, in 
his treatment of “provincial” people, among whom 
were her own ancestors. See “ Aspendale,” pp. 
139-155* OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
250 
begins with “quality” talk, and “Elsie Ven- 
ner” begins with it, and it crops out in all 
his other writings. In this matter of family 
and caste he is the most badly bitten man we 
know. This is the kind of class feeling that 
is dear to the British heart. Indeed, is it not 
barely possible that this non-American trait 
has unconsciously exercised its influence to a 
alight extent in procuring for Holmes the ad- 
miration of the English, so that in a recent 
issue of one of the great London papers it 
was editorially stated that no contemporary 
American writer except Lowell had so amused 
and instructed the insular mind as Holmes 
had done ? And no wonder they breathe a 
sigh of gratification over his pages. For what 
with communists, and nihilists, and radical 
republicans in every country of Europe, in- 
cluding their own, they must find it difficult 
to discover an author of eminence who can 
be modern and mediaeval in a breath. A man 
who is so conservative in his social philosophy 
is a godsend to a nation surfeited with the too 
refulgent democratic sunlight of Mirabeau, 
Hugo, Gambetta, Garibaldi, and others. “ I 
go politically for e quality, and socially for the CHA RA C TER IS TIGS. 
251 
quality,” says Holmes. The quality! why, 
this sounds like high-life-below-stairs talk. 
The reason why he goes for the quality he 
explains in the introductory chapter to “ Elsie 
Venner.” But it is almost wrong to take ad- 
vantage of one who has unbosomed himself 
so naively to his own injury. But we must 
probe the matter a little further. When 
Holmes expresses profound commiseration 
for poor geniuses like Poe, for poor old maids, 
and for poor reformers; and when Emerson 
admits that he abhors a man with a good, 
loud, hearty stomachic laugh, why is it that 
we immediately take the part of the genius 
and the reformer, think with admiration of 
Theodore Parker’s “ glorious phalanx of old 
maids,” and feel deep in our natures a per- 
verse hunger for something gross and strong, 
— say a horse-laugh, or even an oath from a 
fisherman or a teamster? And when Holmes 
says : “ It has happened hitherto, so far as 
my limited knowledge goes, that the Presi- 
dent of the United States has always been 
what might be called in general terms a gen- 
tleman. But what if at some future time the 
choice of the people should fall upon one on 252 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
whom that lofty title could not by any stretch 
of authority be bestowed,” — when we con- 
template this appalling possibility, why do we 
thank God that Abraham Lincoln was not a 
“gentleman”? Or when the laureate of 
Boston, in his “ Rhymed Lesson,” gives to 
the young men of the Mercantile Library 
minute furnishing-store rules for dress (boots, 
cravats, breastpins, shirts, etc.), why, in dis- 
gust at all this pettiness and artificiality, can 
we think with complacency of an act of 
Joaquin Miller, who (as the author was told by 
a friend of that poet) got so nauseated with 
artificiality one day in Boston that he went 
down to the wharves, selected two of the 
hungriest-looking men he could find, brought 
them to the Parker House, and paid for their 
dinners, solely for the pleasure of seeing a 
genuine, unsophisticated act that should keep 
him sane until he should get away from the 
city ? Or when the Autocrat tells us of the 
unparalleled heroism of the lady who, at a 
social gathering, actually spoke to a “ poor 
social mendicant ” who wore no shirt-collar, 
had on black gloves, and flourished a red 
bandanna handkerchief, — why is it that CHA RA C TEELS TICS. 
253 
(while admitting the possible heroism of the 
act, though such things are sometimes done 
for display) we still have a wayward feeling 
of amusement at the trepidations and panics 
of our good friends, the carpet-knights, 
and think with pleasure of Thoreau and his 
woodchuck cap; of Audubon in the great 
hotel at Niagara, with his rifle and tattered 
garb of skins, — Audubon, at that very mo- 
ment honored by the crowned heads of Eu- 
rope, and by the civilized world; or of 
Thomas De Quincey going to one of the 
highest social gatherings in Edinburgh 
dressed in ink-bespattered linen trousers, 
and an old coat buttoned up to his chin, and 
upon his feet shoes of felt over which the 
snow had sifted ; or, finally, of that magnifi- 
cent young Greek-faced sailor, with waving 
hair, whom Dr. Holmes himself describes so 
enthusiastically in the “Poet at the Break- 
fast-Table ” ? 
But how about this chryso-aristocracy over 
which such a to-do is made ? Why, they are 
the most charming and inoffensive people in 
the world, — most of them, — and we are 
always disposed to hearty liking for their 'OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
sunny, urbane characters except when we are 
reading such champions of them as Holmes. 
To be sure there is one type of American 
ehryso-aristocrat that forms a not very agree- 
able spectacle. Holmes aptly likens him to a 
gull : — 
“ A gentleman of leisure, 
Less fleshed than feathered ; bagged you’ll find 
him such ; 
His virtue silence ; his employment pleasure ; 
Not bad to look at, and not good for much.” 
In other words, a sort of negative, mollus- 
cous creature who shuns the lion-hunts, ex- 
ploring expeditions, and civil and military 
employments of his more manly British 
brother, — his only value to the world being 
that he serves as a walking advertisement to 
his tailor, and as a model of conventional 
etiquette to the poor. It is not, indeed, to 
such as these that we yield the homage of 
our admiration, but to those industrious, 
cheery-faced, scholarly men of wealth and 
position (often men of “old family” stock) 
who are free from bourgeois insolence of man- 
ner, are courteous, urbane, public-spirited£ CHA RA C TERIS TICS 
255 
in short, the men to add the required ele- 
ment of dignity to democratic life, the men 
for your governors, mayors, bank-presidents, 
or foreign ambassadors. 
We may sum up an unpleasant subject by 
saying that our genial author has expressed 
a great deal of truth in a very offensive way. 
He has said, has he not, things that had bet- 
ter have been left unsaid ? There can be no 
doubt that certain portions of the writings of 
Holmes have helped more or less to increase 
that spirit of caste, and nervous, morbid con- 
servatism and timidity which is paralyzing 
the spontaneous creative and imaginative 
genius of Boston. This is a hard thing to 
say; but, if true, it ought to be said. Every 
foot of land in Boston, and every other piece 
of property there, begins to decline in value 
the moment great men cease to be produced. 
Of what worth are your buildings and ships 
and streets if not animated by a soul, if not 
permeated by the glowing and untramelledi 
spirit of creative energy and a sympathetic 
unitary life ? The question is whether the 
creative instinct in Boston literature is to be 
crusned out by criticism and formalism, and 256 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
robust manliness by morbid aestheticism. 
We stand in the midst of dead systems of 
thought. The freshness and glory and mys- 
tery of the new will certainly never fill our 
souls as long as we cherish a public senti- 
ment which makes original character and 
individuality subordinate to petty conven- 
tional manners and the accident of birth. 
We laugh at that Philadelphia editor who 
printed in his magazine a translation of 
Edward Everett Hale’s “ Man Without a 
Country,” under the impression that it had 
never before appeared in an English dress.* 
Yet upon Boston has fallen the infinitely 
deeper disgrace of suppressing by law the 
writings of the most powerful poetical genius 
in America. But it is never too late to re- 
form. The remedy for a stagnant literary 
life is a fresh study of nature, and bravery in 
standing out against the ridicule of critics 
and conventional conformers. 
If it were not that the theological battles 
which Holmes was fighting a quarter of a 
century ago are now, as he himself has re- 
* See Potter’s American Monthly for December, 1881, 
and January, 1882, p. 103. CHAR A CTERISTIC8. 
cently said, all won and passed wholly by, it 
would be interesting to draw up a Religio 
Medici, extracting from his books the doc- 
trines which he believes as well as those he 
has combated in so many places and on so 
many occasions. The existence of a score 
and more of Unitarian churches in Boston, 
and the fact that the best intellect of the city 
has for half a century been either Unitarian 
or purely theistic, have combined to throw 
what is usually called orthodoxy into the 
shade there. A Cambridge lady told the 
author that when she was a girl at school 
she was ridiculed for belonging to an ortho- 
dox church, —just as in the West a boy or 
girl might be ridiculed by a schoolmate for 
belonging to a Roman Catholic church. 
In the University circles in which Dr. 
Holmes has moved since he was a young man 
at college, the absurdities of the prevalent 
popular creeds have always been the subject 
of quiet merriment. But Dr. Holmes’ father 
was an orthodox, that is, a Calvinistic, divine. 
In this we have the key, have we not, to the 
son’s life-long warfare against Calvinism. It 
was necessary for him to define himself in 258 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
order to escape ridicule, in order to escape 
the imputation to himself of his father’s creed. 
Then, too, those who have been brought up 
in the Calvinistic creed know how tenaciously 
it interweaves itself with the mental fabric ; 
and perhaps, yes, doubtless, Dr. Holmes had 
for many years to wage verbal war against his 
childhood’s creed in order to get wholly free 
from it himself. The Devil is one of the most 
difficult things to get rid of (and no joke). 
Young Oliver appears to have been haunted 
by this old anthropomorphic phantom all 
through boyhood. He was troubled not only 
by the Devil, but by devils. He says that 
there were two things that somewhat diabol- 
ized his imagination when a boy, that is, two 
things that induced belief in a formidable in- 
carnate fiend prowling about the neighbor- 
hood of his father’s house seeking whom he 
might devour. These were, first, certain 
marks called the “Devil’s Footsteps,” con- 
sisting of bare, sandy patches in the pastures 
where no living thing would grow ; and, sec- 
ond, a patched place on one of the college 
dormitories said to have been made by the 
Evil One when he burst violently through the CHA RA G TER IS TICS. 
259 
side of the room where some gay, dare-devil 
students were travestying one of the rites of 
the church. Other circumstances fostered 
the superstitious tendency developed by these 
two facts (so striking to a child’s mind). 
There was a dark store-room, through the 
key-hole of which the boy dimly saw great 
heaps of furniture, which, to his vivid imagi- 
nation and fearful gaze, seemed to have rushed 
in pell-mell and climbed upon each other’s 
backs, and there remained in enchanted im- 
mobility. Then there were wild stories told 
by country servant-boys of dreams, appari- 
tions, and death-signs, and of contracts writ- 
ten in blood, left out over night, and taken 
away by the arch-fiend to be filed away for 
future use. When one remembers that these 
stories were all ingrained in the nature, along 
with what were to him actual and awful religi- 
ous verities, one sees reason enough for re- 
ligious controversy in after-life, and for resent- 
ment against the creed that had stuffed his 
head with such nonsense. 
But there were counter-actions and counter- 
irritants. He hints that the dogma of th£ 
immaculate Conception early received a severe 260 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
blow in his mind by a whispered story of a 
too common event. And then there was the 
clerical element to frighten and repulse him. 
The Doctor’s readers are familiar with his 
frequent home thrusts at the clergy. He 
says in, one place that when he was a child 
some jolly, benignant clergymen used to pass 
the Sunday at his father’s house, and made 
the day seem almost like Thanksgiving. But 
occasionally one of the undertaker stamp 
would come, and by his woebegone looks and 
wailing pessimistic tones make religion utterly 
distasteful to him. One, especially, so twitted 
young Oliver with his blessings as a Christian 
child, whining about the “ naked, black chil- 
dren, who, like the ‘Little Vulgar Boy,’ hadn’t 
got no supper, and hadn’t got no ma, and 
hadn’t got no catechism (how I wished for 
the moment I was a little black boy !), that he 
did more in that one day to make me a hea- 
then than he had ever done in a month to* 
make a Christian out of an infant Hottentot.”" 
Evidently Oliver was not destined to die early 
and pious ; and his career as a Harvard stu- 
dent, and as a medical student in Boston and 
Paris, did not directly stimulate superstition. CHA RA C TERIS TICS. 
261 
But Dr. Holmes’ admirers do not need to be 
told of the fact that he has a deeply religious 
nature, — he could not be a poet if he had not. 
He owns a pew in King’s Chapel (Unitarian), 
and is a pretty regular attendant. His relig- 
ion is, and has been, a liberal theism, Tran- 
scendentalism in fact, as many prose and 
poetical passages witness. In his seventieth 
year he wrote the following stanza in his ex- 
quisite poem “ The Iron Gate”: — 
“ If word of mine another’s gloom has brightened, 
Through my dumb lips the heaven-sent mes- 
sage came; j 
If hand of mine another’s task has lightened, 
It felt the guidance that it dares not claim.” * 
Section fifth of “ The Professor at the 
Breakfast-Table” is almost wholly given up to 
theological discussion. A curious instance of 
the old anthropomorphic ways of studying 
nature is furnished by the Doctor’s explana- 
tion of a certain little useless collar-bone 
which is found floating about in the shoulder 
of the cat. In 1857 Hr. Holmes held this 
view about it: that it is there not as a survi- 
val, but because “ the Deity respects a normal 262 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
type more than a practical fact,” or utility. 
(From a paper on “The Mechanism of the 
Vital Actions,” in the North American Re- 
viezv for July, 1857.) 
As chairman of the Boston Unitarian Fes- 
tival in 1877, Dr. Holmes summed up neatly 
the various theological views which he always 
has loved to combat: — 
“ May I, without committing any one but 
myself, enumerate a few of the stumbling- 
blocks which still stand in the way of some 
who have many sympathies with what is 
called the liberal school of thinkers ? 
“The notion of sin as a transferable object. 
As philanthrophy has ridded us of chattel 
slavery, so philosophy must rid us of chattel 
sin and all its logical consequences. 
“ The notion that what we call sin is any- 
thing else than inevitable, unless the Deity 
had seen fit to give every human being a per- 
fect nature, and develop it by a perfect 
education. 
“ The oversight of the fact that all moral 
relations between man and his Maker are re- 
ciprocal, and must meet the approval of man’s 
enlightened conscience before he can render CHA RA C TERIS TICS. 
263 
true and heartfelt homage to the power that 
called him into being. And is not the great- 
est obligation to all eternity on the side of the 
greatest wisdom and the greatest power ? 
“The notion that the Father of mankind 
is subject to the absolute control of a certain 
malignant entity known under the false 
name of justice, or subject to any law such as 
would have made the father of the prodigal 
son meet him with an account-book and pack 
him off to jail, instead of welcoming him back 
and treating him to the fatted calf. 
“ The notion that useless suffering is in 
any sense a satisfaction for sin, and not simply 
an evil added to a previous one.” 
One of the most frequently urged themes of 
Holmes is the now commonly-accepted doc- 
trine of the limited responsibility of the 
human mind, owing to inherited tenden- 
cies. This is the key-note of the brilliant 
Phi Beta Kappa lecture of 1870, entitled 
“ Mechanism in Thought and Morals.” In 
his review of Mr. Prosper Despine’s three 
volumes on the psychology of crime {Atlantic 
Monthly, 1875, p. 466), he maintains that 
moral responsibility is limited, that the worst 264 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
criminals are virtually almost moral idiots, 
and therefore the least responsible of all 
for crimes committed. Despine believes that 
such men should not be capitally punished, 
but be confined. Holmes suggests that these 
dangerous automata ought to be confined 
before their crimes are committed. If there 
is a tendency in Dr. Holmes to lean toward 
the doctrine of complete criminal automatism, 
it is never carried to the length of totally de- 
nying that we must hold criminals responsible 
for their deeds, but is cautiously kept within 
known and proved scientific limits. He es- 
pecially frowns upon the theological idea that 
moral responsibility is transmissible, and says 
that “ the inherited tendencies belong to the 
machinery for which the Sovereign Power 
alone is responsible. The misfortune of per- 
verse instincts, which adhere to us as con- 
genital inheritances, should go to our side of 
the account, if the books of heaven are kept, 
as the great church of Christendom main- 
tains they are, by double entry.” 
In his tilt against Jonathan Edwards (lec- 
ture read at the Radical Club, and afterwards 
published in the International Review for 265 
CHA RA C TER IS TICS. 
July, 1880), he says, that there is good rea- 
son to believe that there are persons who 
are born more or‘less completely blind to 
moral distinctions, just as some are born color- 
blind. Yet “we have a sense of difficulty 
overcome by effort in many acts of choice.” 
So that, if not free, we think that we are, and 
this in itself constitutes a powerful motive. 
“ Our thinking ourselves free is the key to 
our whole moral nature. i Possumus quia 
posse videmur.' ” 
In the article just quoted Dr. Holmes 
draws a detailed parallelism between Edwards 
and Pascal, finding them to have much in 
common. He says of Edwards that his 
ancestors had listened to sermons so long 
that he must have been born with scriptural 
texts lying latent in his embryonic thinking- 
marrow, as undeveloped pictures lurk in a 
film of collodion. He also suggests that the 
Northampton divine must have read that text 
that mothers love so well, “ Suffer little vipers 
to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of 
such is the kingdom of God.” 
One should not forget to add that the few 
hymns of Dr. Holmes are much admired, and 2 66 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
that there are beautiful fragments of religious 
poetry scattered through his works. What 
a sweet and trustful spirit breathes through 
these lines, from “ Wind-Clouds and Star- 
Drifts ” ! — 
“ Thou wilt not hold in scorn the child who dares 
Look up to Thee, the Father, — dares to ask 
More than Thy wisdom answers. From Thy 
hand 
The worlds were cast; yet every leaflet claims 
From that same hand its little shining sphere 
Of starlit dew; thine image the great sun, 
Girt with his mantle of tempestuous flame, 
Glares in mid heaven ; but to his noontide blaze 
The slender violet lifts its lidless eye, 
And from its splendor steals its fairest hue, 
Its sweetest perfume from his scorching fire.’* CHAPTER IX. 
POETRY. 
“ His the quaint trick to cram the pithy line 
That cracks so crisply over bubbling wine”— 
Holmbs. 
It is as a writer of humorous poetry that 
Holmes excels. His non-humorous poems 
are full of beautiful passages, as we shall 
see ; but they are not, many of them, perfect 
works of art like the others; they have not 
the same unique flavor of individuality. A 
goodly proportion of his best comic and hu- 
morous pieces are vers d'occasion, written 
to be read at banquets or before select com- 
panies. From time immemorial wit has sea- 
soned table-talk. A company at table assigns 
by instinct the chief rdle to the wit or hu- 
morist. The three meals of a day are its 
green oases, its sparkling poems. “ The 
Poet at the Breakfast-Table,”— the title was 
well chosen. In the freshness and buoyancy 
•f the morning hour the fancy plays most 2 68 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
delicately and spontaneously, and the poet of 
Beacon Street has transferred to the pages of 
his prose and his poetry the vitality and in- 
tensity of spirits that the cup of coffee im- 
parts. He also understands the soft illusory 
enchantment of the chandelier, what time its 
lustre mingles with the faint waxy aroma 
and flowery perfume of the banquet-room. 
When the critic approaches the post-coenati- 
cal and convivial poems of Holmes, he will 
throw aside his quill, if he is not a fool, and 
yield himself with others to the fun and riant 
humor of the moment.* If he does anything,, 
he will long for an artist’s brush to paint 
some such scene as this : (no Deipnosophis- 
tean Greek debauch, with wreaths and wine, 
but) an ample breakfast-table in a high and 
sunny room, the cheery crackle of blazing 
wood in a spacious fireplace, the delicate 
aroma of coffee gratefully inhaled (but you 
can’t paint that), a cultured and merry com- 
* “ 1 would go fifty miles on foot,” says Yorick, “ for I 
have not a horse worth riding on, to kiss the hand of 
that man whose generous heart will give up the rein6 
of his imagination into his author’s hands, — be 
pleased he knows not why, and cares not wherefore.” POETRY. 
269 
pany seated at the table, and at its head the 
genial face of one crowned 
“With white roses in place of the red,” 
whose tender-glancing eye is now moist with 
tears, and now gleaming with fun, and whose 
lips at one moment utter subtle and senten- 
tious truth, and at another bubble over with 
puns and rippling laughter, and jests which 
put the company into such a state of interior 
titillation and stomachic exhilaration of mood 
that the snowy table-cloth is momently in 
clanger of amber stains from shaking cups. 
And upon the frieze of the room let there be 
a motley procession of figures, — weird Elsie, 
sweet Iris and the Little Gentleman hand 
in hand, the poor Tutor, roguish Benjamin 
Franklin, gaunt Silence Withers, wayward 
Myrtle, and honest Gridley, — with gar- 
goyles and grotesques at intervals, a whiz- 
zing Comet, the immortal One-Hoss Shay at 
the moment of its dissolution, the Spectre Pig, 
and the pensive Oysterman, and for scroll- 
work a chain of spiral, pearly shells with pur- 
pled wings outspread. 
After reading a dozen or more pages of the 270 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
neat Augustan couplets of Holmes’ best vers 
d'occasion, packed and crammed with little 
genre images and neat concretes, you have 
the comfortable feeling of a man who has 
just despatched a dish of hickory-nuts cracked 
in halves, and intermingled with raisins,— 
the whole washed down with a gldschen of 
old sherry. Or you feel as if you had been 
at Mr. Aldrich’s “Lunch”: — 
“ A melon cut in thin delicious slices, 
A cake that seemed mosaic-work in pieces, 
Two china cups with golden tulips sunny, 
And rich inside with chocolate like honey." 
But not all of Dr. Holmes’ memorial and 
anniversary productions, and verses kindly 
written by request, are of equal merit. 
Scores of them are nothing but rhymed 
rhetoric and sentiment, and should never 
have been printed at all except in newspa- 
pers. Their author has said of late that he 
would like to go over his poetry and cull 
out the best for a final edition. It is to be 
hoped that he may find time for this task. 
He has told us of the origin of many of his 
verses:— POETRY. 
* I’m a florist in verse, and what would people say, 
If I came to a banquet without my bouquet ” ? 
And in another place : — 
“ Here’s the cousin of a king, — 
Would I do the civil thing? 
Here’s the firstborn of a queen; 
Here’s a slant-eyed Mandarin. 
Would I polish off Japan ? 
Would I greet this famous man, 
Prince or Prelate, Sheik or Shah ? 
— Figaro 51 and Figaro lk ! ” 
What was a kind-hearted man to do ? Of 
course he complied: the verses were ground 
out somehow, — and what poet could ever 
resist the temptation to publish ? It is almost 
impossible to impart by quotations the spirit 
and hilarity of the best of these vers d'occa- 
sion : there is a whet and stimulant in every 
line : the humor of them is interior, below the 
midriff, and penetrates the thick integument 
of care and gravity with a slow, delicious 
feeling that finally breaks out into uncon- 
trollable laughter. Read the “Modest Re- 
quest ” for an illustration; or the “ Chanson 
without Music,” — a voluble polyglot medley OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
272 
that almost takes one’s breath away, resem- 
bling nothing so much as the tipsy music of 
a bobolink, or the vocal pyrotechnics of the 
Southern mocking-bird : — 
“ You bid me sing, — can I forget 
The classic ode of days gone by, — 
How belle. Fifine and Jeune Lisette 
Exclaimed, ‘ Anacreon, geron ei ’ ? 
‘ Regardez done,’ those ladies said, — 
‘ \ ou;re getting bald and wrinkled too : 
When summer’s roses all are shed, 
Love’s nullum ite, voyez-vous ! ’ 
In vain ce brave Anacreon’s cry, 
* Of Love alone my banjo sings ’ 
(Erota mounon). ‘ Etiam si, — 
Eh b’en ? ’ replied the saucy things, — 
‘ Go find a maid whose hair is gray, 
And strike your lyre, — we sha’n’t com- 
plain ; 
But parce nobis, s'il vous plait, — 
Voilk Adolphe! Voilk Eugene!’ 
Ginosko. Scio. Yes, I’m told 
Some ancients like my rusty lay, 
As Grandpa Noah loved the old 
Red-sandstone march of Jubal’s day. POETRY. 
273 
I used to carol like the birds, 
But time my wits has quite unfixed, 
Et quoad verba, — for my words, — 
Ciel! Eheu! Whe-ew! — how they’re mixed! ” 
Some of Holmes’ best anniversary poems 
have been those for the Phi Beta Kappa. 
“ Post-Prandial ” is one of these, and its rare 
fun will not be understood by those who are 
ignorant of the circumstance that Wendell 
Phillips, who is a distant “connection” of 
Holmes, and Charles G. Leland (Hans Breit- 
mann) both had public parts to perform on 
the occasion that gave rise to the poem. 
“Rip Van Winkle, M.D.—An after-dinner 
prescription taken by the Massachusetts Med- 
ical Society at their meeting, held May 25, 
1870,” is a capital piece of professional fun. 
It is full of sly thrusts at antiquated doctors. 
They are typified in the person of Rip Van 
Winkle (a grandson of Irving’s hero), who 
goes to sleep with the request that he be 
awakened once a year for the doctors’ 
meeting. Rip 
“ Had, in fact, an ancient, mildewed air, 
A long gray beard, a plenteous lack of hair. — OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
The musty look that always recommends 
Your good old Doctor to his ailing friends. 
— Talk of your science ! after all is said 
There’s nothing like a bare and shiny head ; 
Age lends the graces that are sure to please; 
Folks want their Doctors mouldy, like their 
cheese.” 
Holmes was class poet at college, and he 
has remained class poet all his life. Thirty- 
seven of his class anniversary poems appear 
in his complete poetical works. Some of 
them are in his finest vein and are of general 
interest. For example, “ The Boys,” written 
in 1859 : — 
“Has there any old fellow got mixed with the 
boys ? 
If there has, take him out without making a 
noise. 
Hang the Almanac’s cheat, and the Catalogue’s 
spite! 
Old Time is a liar ! We’re twenty to-night! 
We’re twenty! We’re twenty! Who says we 
are more ? 
He’s tipsy,—young jackanapes! — show him 
the door t POETRY. 
275 
‘ Gray temples at twenty ? ’ — Yes ! white if we 
please; 
Where the snowflakes fall thickest there’s 
nothing can freeze ! 
Then here’s to our boyhood, its gold and its 
gray! 
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May ! 
And when we have done with our life-lasting 
toys, 
Dear Father, take care of thy children, The 
Boys ! ” 
“The Last Survivor” is one of those fine 
pieces of imagined retrospect, or forecasting 
of the future, which is so excellently done in 
the “ Epilogue to the Breakfast-Table Series." 
“ The Archbishop and Gil Bias ” may serve 
as the comic counterpart of “ The Iron Gate,” 
and could, one thinks, scarcely have been 
written except by an old physician who had 
himself been a keen observer of old men : — 
“ Can you read as once you used to 1 Well, the 
printing is so bad, 
No young folks’ eyes can read it like the book* 
that once we had. 276 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Are you quite as quick of hearing ? Please to 
say that once again. 
Don't I use plain words, your Reverence f Yes, 
I often use a cane, 
But it’s not because I need it, — no, I always 
liked a stick; 
And as one might lean upon it, ’tis as wrell it 
should be thick. 
Oh, I’m smart, I’m spry, I’m lively, — I can 
walk, yes, that I can, 
On the days I feel like walking, just as well as 
you, young man ! ” 
The exquisite elegiac poem on his class- 
mate, Prof. Benjamin Peirce—that grand old 
mathematician of lion aspect, whose very pres- 
ence seemed a proof of immortality, — is 
pitched in a lofty key, as the subject, indeed, 
could not but inspire. Two of the stanzas 
may need a word of explanation : — 
“ To him the wandering stars revealed 
The secrets in their cradle sealed : 
The far-off, frozen sphere that swings 
Through ether, zoned with lucid rings ; 
The orb that rolls in dim eclipse 
Wide wheeling round its long ellipse,— 
His name Urania writes with these 
And stamps it on her Pleiades.” POETRY. 
The reference here is to Prof. Peirce’s cal- 
culations of the perturbations of Uranus 
about the time of the discovery of Neptune 
by Leverrier and Adams. “Peirce” (says 
Dr. Thomas Hill of Portland, ex-President of 
Harvard University) “showed that the dis- 
covery of Neptune was a happy accident; not 
that Leverrier’s calculations had not been 
exact and wonderfully laborious, and deserv- 
ing of the highest honor, but bee?use there 
were, in fact, two very different solutions of 
the perturbations of Uranus possible. Lever- 
rier had correctly calculated one, but the 
actual planet solved the other, and the actual 
planet and Leverrier’s ideal one lay in the 
same direction from the earth only in 1846.” 
A writer in the New York Nation, October 
14, 1880, says: “When, in 1846, he [Peirce] 
announced in the American Academy that 
Galle’s discovery of Neptune in the place pre- 
dicted by Leverrier was a happy accident, the 
President, Edward Everett, ‘hoped the an- 
nouncement would not be made public ; noth- 
ing could be more improbable than such a 
coincidence.’ ‘Yes,’ replied Peirce, ‘but it 
would be still more strange if there were an 278 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
error in my calculations ’; a confident asser- 
tion which the lapse of time has vindicated.” 
The reader of Dr. Holmes’ class poems may 
like to know the full names of certain class- 
mates to whose memory poems are dedicated. 
The initials J. D. R. stand for Jacob D. 
Russell; F. W. C. for Frederick William 
Crocker; J. A. for Joseph Angier; and H. C. 
M., H. S., J. K. W., respectively for Horatius 
C. Merriam, Howard Sargent, and Josiah 
Kendall Waite. 
There are no very strongly marked epochs 
in his poetical development; still his poetical 
activity may be roughly divided into four 
periods, each with characteristics of its own. 
During the first period — from 1830 to 1849 
— the greater portion of the best humorous 
poems were written. From 1849 to 1857 — 
or from the fortieth to the forty-eighth year of 
the poet — he seems, as he himself has inti- 
mated, to have fallen into a sort of literary 
lethargy, and there was scarcely a poem pro- 
duced which takes rank with the work of other 
periods in his life. There is scarcely a 
humorous poem in this group ; and only three 
satirical ones which stick in one’s memory,— POETRY. 
279 
namely, “ The Moral Bully,” “ The Old Man 
of the Sea,” and “The Sweet Little Man.” 
It is a curious coincidence that this barren 
period extends precisely over the period of his 
summerings at Pittsfield, and over his career 
as a lecturer. In 1857 came the Atlantic 
Monthly; and the first contributions of 
Holmes to its pages — prose and poetry — 
form the finest literary work of his life. Tha 
poems published in the “ Autocrat ” are of so 
uniformly high an order that one may con- 
sider them as forming a group by themselves 
(1857-1858). They include such famous 
pieces as “The Chambered Nautilus,” “Lat- 
ter-Day Warnings,” “.Estivation,” “The 
One-Hoss Shay,” and “ Ode for a Social 
Meeting.” The period from 1858 to the 
present time is distinguished by a very 
much larger proportion than before of anni- 
versary and memorial verses, and other vers 
d'occasion, and for a decided preponderance of 
serious over humorous poems. 
His early humorous poetry (and his later 
also) is idiomatic, pitched in a conversational 
key, full of bright fancies, rippling laughter, 
crisp and sparkling rhythm, and pleases most 280 
OLIVER WEE BELL HOLMES. 
in virtue of the use of familiar and homely 
objects placed in the most incongruous rela- 
tions. But we are not going to be betrayed 
into an analysis of Dr. Holmes’ vers de societe. 
Rash would be the man who should attempt 
it;; and he would get no thanks for his pains 
either. Nor shall his early humorous poems 
be quoted. There is but one way : you must 
buy his poetical works and read them, — read 
them and laugh, and find your moral atmos- 
phere cleared, your breath freer, your diges- 
tion better, and your whole nature sunnier 
than before. 
A feature of all his versification is its neat- 
ness, — no slovenly rhymes, no slipshod 
metres. And Pope himself never crammed 
more meaning into single lines and stanzas, 
which gleam with the polish and delicate 
finish of fresh-minted coins of gold. Where 
will you find greater condensation (outside of 
the writings of Tacitus) than in such lines as 
these: — 
“ The sexton, stooping to the quivering floor 
Till the great caldron spills its brassy roar\ 
Whirls the hot axle,” etc. 
The Bells. POETRY. 
281 
u These are the scenes : a boj appears 
Set life’s round dial in the sun, 
Count the swift arc of seventy years, 
His frame is dust; his work is done.” 
Birthday of Daniel Webster. 
“ True to all truth the world denies, 
Not tongue-tied for its gilded sin ; 
Not always right in all men’s eyes, 
But faithful to the light within.” 
A Birthday Tribute to James Freeman Clarke. 
“ Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed/* 
The Chambered Nautilus_ 
“ For these the blossom-sprinkled turf 
That floods the lonely graves 
When Spring rolls in her sea-green surf 
Iti flowery-foaming waves.” 
The Two Armies. 
There is still another whole compartment 
in the mind of this many-sided man which we 
have not explored, — his tender passion and 
delicate feminine sensibility. Every person 
of mature years who passed through the fiery 
furnace of the American Civil War of 1861-65 
came out chastened and purified and elevated 282 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
in nature. Already in 1861 we seem to see 
the influence of the opening war upon Holmes, 
in the prelude to his “ Songs in Many Keys ” 
(1861). After this his mind seems sobered 
and elevated to more earnest and impassioned 
poetical thought. But perhaps it is only the 
sobering influence of years that we notice. 
The key-note of the change is struck in th* 
prelude just mentioned : — 
“ Song is thin air; our hearts’ exuiting play 
Beats time but to the tread of marching deeds, 
Following the mighty van that Freedom leads 
Her glorious standard flaming to the day! 
The crimsoned pavement where a hero bleed* 
Breathes nobler lessons than the poet’s lay. 
Strong arms, broad breasts, brave hearts, are 
better worth 
Than strains that sing the ravished echoes 
dumb.” 
The poem “ Musa ” is full of a youthfiu, rich, 
Oriental fire and passion that one had hardly- 
suspected in Holmes, — reminds you some 
of Bayard Tayior’s poems of the East. So do 
the following two stanzas (“ FanUsia ”) : — POETRY. 
283 
u Kiss mine eyelids, beauteous Morn, 
Blushing into life new-born! 
Lend me violets for my hair, 
And thy russet robe to wear, 
And thy ring of rosiest hue 
Set in drops of diamond dew! 
Kiss my cheek, thou noontide ray, 
From my Love so far away! 
Let thy splendor streaming down 
Turn its pallid lilies brown, 
Till its darkening shade reveal 
Where his passion pressed its seal! ” 
“ Under the Violets ” has the delicacy of 
“ Claribel,” and all the artlessness of Her- 
rick’s pieces without their sensuality. “ Iris, 
her Book,” is full of that subtle, tremulous 
feeling, and sensitive psychical affinity which 
unlocks for its author the inmost souls of 
such young girls as Iris and Myrtle Hazard. 
A poet never hung more breathlessly over an 
opening lily, or gazed more reverently into 
the innocent little face of the spring’s first 
violet, than the creator of Iris and Elsie has 
watched the Psyche unfolding in a young 284 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
girl’s nature, or new-born Eros trying his 
wings in the rosy light of her fancy. 
One topic still remains to be touched upon, 
and we would not treat it in an ungracious or 
complaining spirit, — namely, the Anglicism 
of his poetical vehicle or metrical style. That 
this is not original does not detract from the 
merit of his poetry in the eyes of those who 
■were partially nourished by the poetry of the 
«Queen Anne school. He is a man of the 
world, a university man, and we should 
hardly expect such a one to strike out a 
new style in poetry, like the great lovers 
of nature, — Wordsworth, Burns, Emerson, 
Whitman : still it remains to inquire how 
the style of the Boileau and Pope school ac- 
quired such a life-long hold upon him. The 
answer is doubtless to be found in the cir- 
cumstance that in his father’s house, and in 
the university town where he lived as a 
youth, that species of poesy was exclusively 
fashionable at the time when his poetical 
style was forming. If there is a great deal 
in Holmes that reminds one of William 
Spencer, of Crabbe, Pope, Hood, and the 
Prize Poets of the English universities, — POETRY. 
285 
it is because these were the popular poets 
when he was a boy and when he was in col- 
lege. He tells us in the “ Atlantic Almanac ’* 
that he and the other children of his 
house were educated on such English books 
as Miss Edgeworth’s “ Frank ” and “ Parent's- 
Assistant,” “ Original Poems,” “ Evenings at 
Home,” and “ Cheap Repository Tracts,” 
and says that he considers it to have been 
a great misfortune that they should have been 
fed on these English books instead of on 
American ones, for the former were full o£ 
words that had no meaning for them. They 
found themselves in a strange world where 
James was called “Jem,” not Jim as they 
always heard it; where a young woman was 
called “ a stout wench ” ; where the boys- 
played, not at marbles, but at “taw”; where 
mischievous boys crawled through a gap in: 
a hawthorn to steal Farmer Giles" 
red-streaks, instead of shining over the fence 
to hook Daddy Jones’ Baldwins ; where 
Hodge used to go to the ale-house to get his 
mug of beer, whereas they used to see old 
Joe steering for the grocery to get his glass 
rum ; where toffy and lollypop were eaten 286 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
in place of molasses-candy and gibraltars 
where poachers were pulled up before the 
squire for knocking down hares with sticks, 
while to their knowledge boys hunted rabbits 
with guns, or set “ figgery-fours ” for them 
without fear of the constable; “ where birds 
were taken with a wonderful substance they 
called bird-lime ; where boys studied in forms, 
and where there were fags, and ushers, and 
barrings-out ; where there were shepherds, 
and gypsies, and tinkers, and orange-women, 
who sold China oranges out of barrows; 
where there were larks and nightingales in- 
stead of yellow-birds and bobolinks.” Upon 
all this the Doctor remarks : “ What a mess, 
— there is no better word for it,—what a 
mess was made of it in our young minds in 
the attempt to reconcile what we read about 
with what we saw. It was like putting a 
picture of Regent’s Park on one side of a 
stereoscope, and a picture of Boston Common 
on the other, and trying to make one of them. 
The end was that we all grew up with a 
mental squint that we could never get rid 
•f.” 
How closely the heroics of Dr. Holmes POETRY. 
287 
resemble those of Goldsmith and Pope no 
careful reader needs to be told. As for 
Hood, there is a striking resemblance be- 
tween his features and those of Holmes, and 
there is a striking general resemblance be- 
tween the style and literary methods of the 
two in some of their humorous poems. 
Holmes is unique and original in matter, 
only his style shows the influence of Hood. 
To show to what purpose Hood was read by 
Boston and Cambridge people about the time 
when Holmes was making his first poems, 
read the following stanza selected by the 
writer from many similar ones in the Boston 
Daily Advertiser for 1830. The verses are 
called “ Fashionable Eclogues ” : — 
“ Next year, papa ! next year, mamma! 
You know I’m thirty-two, 
(I call myself but twenty-six, 
So this is entre nous:) 
Next year I shall be thirty-three, 
I’ve not a day to lose, 
Oh, let us go to town at once, 
I’m lost if you refuse.” OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Compare the metrical flow of thi* with 
Hood’s “ Sally Simpkins’ Lament ” : — 
Oh Jones, my dear ! Oh dear ! my Jones, 
What is become of you ? 
*l Oh ! Sally dear, it is too true, — 
The half that you remark 
Is come to say my other half 
Is bit off by a shark ! 
** Oh ! Sally, sharks do things by halves 
Yet most completely do ! 
A bite in one place seems enough, 
But I’ve been bit in two.” 
Hood’s “ Ode on a Distant Prospect of 
Clapham Academy ” contains just the touch 
of Holmes in his “ Old Cambridge.” Hood 
says:— 
“ Ay, that’s the very house ! I know 
Its ugly windows, ten a-row ! 
Its chimneys in the rear ! 
And there’s the iron rod so high, 
That drew the thunder from the sky 
And turned our table-beer! 289 
POETRY'. 
And Mrs. S ? Doth she abet 
{Like Pallas in the parlor) yet 
Some favor’d two or three, — 
The little Crichtons of the hour, 
Her muffin-medals that devour, 
And swill her prize — bohea ? ** 
And Holmes’ metres run as follows: — 
“ The yellow meetin’ house, — can you tell 
Just where it stood before it fell, 
Prey of the vandal foe, — 
Our dear old temple, loved so well, 
By ruthless hands laid low ? 
Where, tell me, was the Deacon’s pew ? 
Whose hair was braided in a queue ? 
'{For there were pig-tails not a few),— 
That’s what I’d like to know.” 
So much for the metrical vehicle of Holmes, 
and the models on which he formed his style. 
A poet must choose some style or other, and 
the Boston singer found that of the school of 
Pope and Hood best fitted for his use. By 
any other name the rose would smell as 
sweet. In the case of humorous or comic 
verse, we need not quarrel much with the 
style, if the matter be but good. 290 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Inasmuch as Dr. Holmes has not yet edited 
a selection of his best poems, the following an- 
thology may be an acceptable guide for hurried 
readers; and let it be premised that all the 
preludes of the poet are exquisite pieces of 
poetry and sentiment. The best poems, in 
the judgment of the writer, are these : — * 
Old Ironsides; The Last Leaf; The Cam- 
bridge Churchyard ; My Aunt; Evening by a 
Tailor; The Dorchester Giant; The Comet; 
The Music Grinders; The September Gale; 
The Height of the Ridiculous ; On Lending a 
Punch-Bowl ; Nux Postcoenatica ; A Modest 
Request; The Stethoscope Song; The Meeting 
of the Dryads ; The Mysterious Visitor; The 
Toadstool; The Spectre Pig; The Ballad of 
the Oysterman ; The Hot Season ; The Moral 
Bully ; The Old Man of the Sea; The Sweet 
Little Man ; The Chambered Nautilus ; The 
Two Armies ; Musa; A Parting Health; Pro- 
logue ; Latter-Day Warnings ; A Good Time 
Going; The Last Blossom ; Contentment; A£s- 
* The poems are given in the order in which the/ 
occur in the latest edition (1882), and may therefore 
be read consecutively and chronologically by referring 
to the table of contents of the poems. POETRY. 
291 
tivation; The Deacon's Masterpiece, or The 
Wonderful ‘ One-Hoss Shay’; Ode for a So- 
cial Meeting; Under the Violets; Iris, her 
Book; Aunt Tabitha ; Epilogue to the Break- 
fast-Table Series ; The Old Man dreams ; The 
Boys; The Last Survivor; The Archbishop 
and Gil Bias; Benjamin Peirce; Dorothy Q.; 
The Organ-Blower; Rip Van Winkle, M. D.; 
Chanson without Music; A Sea Dialogue ; 
Grandmother's Story of Bunker-Hill Battle ; 
Old Cambridge; How the Old Horse won the 
Bet ; The Iron Gate ; My Aviary ; For Whit- 
tier’s Seventieth Birthday; The Coming Era; 
Post-Prandial. CHAPTER X. 
THE SCIENTIST. 
An abler pen than that of the writer of 
these pages will doubtless at some future time 
treat of Dr. Holmes as physician, professor, 
and scientific specialist. In the mean time 
one may indicate the general features of his 
scientific work, and give in epitome the gist 
of his interesting studies and original re- 
searches. 
His first original work was his Boylston 
prize dissertation on “ Indigenous Intermit- 
tent Fever,” or malaria (1837), a paper still 
valued by physicians. Following this was his 
treatise on “ The Contagiousness of Puerperal 
Fever” (1843), concerning which he has 
said : — 
“When, by the permission of Providence, I 
held up to the professional public the damna- 
ble facts connected with the conveyance of 
poison from one young mother’s chamber to 
another’s, — for doing which humble office I THE SCIENTIST. 
293 
desire to be thankful that I have lived, though 
nothing else good should ever come of my 
life, — I had to bear the sneers of those whose 
position I had assailed, and, as I believe, have 
at last demolished, so that nothing but the 
ghosts of dead women stir among the ruins.” 
Dr. Holmes has experimented considerably 
in optics. The reader has already learned of 
his stereoscopical researches and invention. 
In Volume IV. of the Proceedings of the 
American Academy will be found a paper by 
Dr. Holmes on certain original optical experi- 
ments, to which he gives the name “ Reflex 
Vision.’’ 
He has aRo done some original work in 
microscopy. The first microscope owned by 
him was one c( Raspail’s, purchased for him 
by his father froor. the Rev. Dr. John Prince, 
of Salem. After making many experiment? 
in the construction of microscopes, Professoi 
Holmes finally succeeded in inventing one 
which suited his wants, h is not only useful 
for class purposes but i= also good for ordr 
nary use by the addition of ? simple hinged 
platform and stage, also devised by him. Vol 
ume II. of the Proceedings of the Anericrf 294 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Academy contains a communication from 
him “ On the Use of Direct Light in Micro- 
scopical Researches,” accompanied by a draw- 
ing of a horizontal microscopical apparatus 
invented by himself. As illustrating his 
scientific accuracy in microscopical investi- 
gations, one may quote his own words, as 
published in his address before the Boston 
Medical Library Association : — 
4‘ I do not pretend to hoist up the Bibliotheca 
Anatomica of Mangetus and spread it on my 
table every day. I do not get out my great 
Albinus before every lecture on the muscles, 
nor disturb the majestic repose of Vesalius 
every time I speak of the bones he has so 
admirably described and figured. But it does 
please me to read the first descriptions of 
parts to which the names of their discoverers, 
or those who have first described them, have 
become so joined that not even modern sci- 
ence can part them ; to listen to the talk of 
my old volume, as Willis describes his circle, 
and Fallopius his aqueduct, and Varolius hi* 
bridge, and Eustachius his tube, and Monro his 
foramen, — all so well known to us in the 
kuman body ; it does please me to know the THE SCIENTIST. 
295 
very words in which Winslow described the. 
opening which bears his name, and Glisson 
his capsule and De Graaf his vesicle; I am 
not content until I know in what language 
Harvey announced his discovery of the circu- 
lation, and how Spigelius made the liver his 
perpetual memorial, and Malpighi found a 
monument more enduring than brass in the 
corpuscles of the spleen and the kidney.” 
Homoeopathy Dr. Holmes believes to be 
an arrant humbug. Now, if you put a hum- 
bug and Dr. Holmes in juxtaposition you 
are sure to have a lively fight. And whe-ew ! 
(as he would say) haven’t the homceopathists; 
caught it though ! They have, and they have 
writhed under the lash, as the numerous repli- 
catory pamphlets prove. Read, and you shall 
see. 
In 1842 he published his two brilliant lec- 
tures on “ Homoeopathy and its Kindred De- 
lusions.” They were originally delivered be- 
fore the Boston Society for the Diffusion of 
Useful Knowledge. 
The first lecture gives an account of four 
famous delusions : (1.) The Royal Cure of 
the King’s Evil, or Scrofula; (2.) The Wea* 296 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
pon Ointment, and the Sympathetic Powder; 
(3.) The Tar-water mania of Bishop Berkeley; 
(4.) The Metallic Tractors, or Perkinsism. 
The first of these, the King’s Touch, is too 
well known to need explanation. The Wea- 
pon Ointment, or Unguentum Armarium, was 
believed to cure wounds by being applied to 
the weapon that produced the wound, and the 
Sympathetic Powder performed the same 
office if applied to the blood-stained garments 
of the injured person, although that person 
might be at a great distance from the gar- 
ments themselves. 
Amiable Bishop Berkeley believed that his 
tar-water, made by stirring a gallon of water 
with a quart of tar, and then decanting the 
clear water, was a specific for about all the 
diseases under the sun. “He was an illus- 
trious man,” says Dr. Holmes, “ but he held 
two very odd opinions,—that tar-water was 
everything, and that the whole material uni- 
verse was nothing.” The Metallic Tractors 
(invented 1796) were two pieces of metal, 
one apparently iron and the other brass, about 
three inches long, blunt at one end and 
pointed at the other. The tractors were ap- THE SCIENTIST. 
297 
plied for the cure of various ills by being 
drawn lightly for about twenty minutes over 
the affected parts. They were the invention 
•of Dr. Elisha Perkins, of Norwich, Connecti- 
cut. The Tractor delusion swept over 
America and Europe like wildfire, and as 
quickly subsided. Of course those various 
delusions are described and classed with 
Tiomoeopathy in order to show that in Dr. 
Holmes’ opinion one is as much a piece of 
imposture as the others. 
The second lecture treats of homoeopathy 
directly. It is conceived and written in a 
vein of noble scorn, and the thought is poured 
out along the pages with a lucidity, pungency 
of satire, and cogent understatement that 
give to the performance the velocity and 
penetrating force of a cannon-shot. Dr. 
Holmes never wrote anything in clearer, purer 
style than this. 
The three great principles of Hahnemann, 
the founder of homoeopathy, are these, as 
Dr. Holmes puts them : — 
(i.) Like cures like. That is, diseases are 
cured by agents capable of producing symp- 
toms in healthy persons resembling those 
found in sick persons. 298 
OLIVER WENDELL EOLMES. 
(2.) The efficacy of medicinal substances 
reduced to a wonderful degree of minuteness, 
or dilution. 
(3.) Seven-eighths at least of all chronic 
' diseases are produced by the existence in the 
system of psora, or the itch. 
As to the first of these principles, Dr. 
Holmes says that there are a few cases in 
which an ill is cured by remedies producing 
similar symptoms ; but that it is absurd to 
say, as Hahnemann did, that the homoeo- 
pathic axiom is the sole law of nature in thera- 
peutics. 
As to the second principle : the ridiculous- 
ness of the claim that the one-trillionth of a 
drop of any drug can produce any effect what- 
ever on the system he illustrates by suppos- 
ing that the whole of a drop of chamomile 
were diluted, or minimized, to the degree 
which Hahnemann’s disciples prescribe : the 
calculation proves that the single drop of 
chamomile would have to be diffused through 
ten thousand seas of alcohol as large as the 
Adriatic ! And yet a few pellets moistened 
in such a dilution are said to cure the most 
terrible and fatal diseases 1 THE SCIENTIST. 
299 
The third principle of Hahnemann is dis- 
missed as unworthy of consideration. Dr. 
Holmes shows that many of Hahnemann’s 
Quotations from ancient writers are garbled; 
that the cures asserted to be effected by 
homoeopathic medicines are really cures of 
hature, the unconscious, invisible physician 
of life; and, finally, that many eminent phy- 
sicians of Europe have fairly and repeatedly 
tested homoeopathy, and found it a complete 
humbug. 
He closes his lecture as follows : — 
“Such is the pretended science of homoe- 
opathy, to which you are asked to trust your 
lives, and the lives of those dearest to you. 
A mingled mass of perverse ingenuity, of 
tinsel erudition, of imbecile credulity, and 
of artful misrepresentation, too often mingled 
in practice, if we may trust the authority of 
its founder, with heartless and shameless im- 
position. Because it is suffered so often to 
appeal unanswered to the public, because it 
has its journals, its patrons, its apostles, some 
are weak enough to suppose it can escape the 
inevitable doom of utter disgrace and oblivion. 
Not many years can pass away before the 300 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
same curiosity excited by one of Perkins’ 
tractors will be awakened at the sight of one 
of the Infinitesmal Globules. If it should 
claim a longer existence, it can only be by 
falling into the hands of the sordid wretches 
who wring their bread from the cold grasp of 
disease and death in the hovels of ignorant 
poverty. 
“ As one humble member of a professions 
that for more than two thousand years has- 
devoted itself to the best earthly interests of 
mankind, always assailed and insulted front, 
without by such as are ignorant of its infinite 
perplexities and labors, always striving in un- 
equal contest with the hundred-armed giant 
who walks in the noonday, and sleeps not ire 
the midnight, yet still toiling, not merely for 
itself and the present moment, but for the 
race and the future, I have lifted my voice 
against this lifeless delusion, rolling its shape- 
less bulk into the path of a noble science it: 
is too weak to strike or to injure.” 
These lectures naturally produced quite a 
commotion in the enemy’s camp, and there- 
were a number of pamphlet replies by Doc- 
tors Charles Neidhard, A. H. Okie, Robert THE SCIENTIST. 
301 
Wesselhoeft, and others. But they must have 
been rather uncertain and evasive, if we may 
judge all of them by that of Dr. Neidhard. 
He, however, scores one good point against 
our poet-doctor, when he says that he ought 
to have satisfied himself of the truth or falsity 
of homoeopathy by actual and irrefutable ex- 
periments of his own. 
To what has been quoted from Dr. Holmes’ 
utterances upon homoeopathy, we may add 
this : In his “ Currents and Counter Cur- 
rents,” he says : “ There is in some persons a 
singular inability to weigh the value of testi- 
mony ; of which, I think, from a pretty care- 
ful examination of his books, Hahnemann 
affords the best specimen outside the walls 
Bedlam.” And again : Homoeopathy means 
“that the sick are to be cured by poisons. 
Similia similibus curantur means exactly 
this. It is simply a theory of universal 
poisoning, nullified in practice by the infini- 
tesimal contrivance.” And in the Atlantic 
Monthly for December, 1857, he sums up the 
whole matter in such a compact and charac- 
teristic style that it would be too bad to 
abbreviate or rewrite his words : — 302 
OLIVER WE HI DELL HOLMES. 
“ Of course it has had a certain success. 
Its infinitesimal treatment being a nullity ; 
patients are never hurt by drugs, when it is 
adhered to. It pleases the imagination. It 
is image-worship, relic-wearing, holy-water 
sprinkling, transferred from the spiritual 
world to that of the body. Poets accept it; 
sensitive and spiritual women become sisters 
of charity in its service. It does not offend 
the palate, and so spares the nursery those 
scenes of single combat in which infants, 
were wont to yield at length to the pressure 
of the spoon and the imminence of asphyxia. 
It gives the ignorant, who have such an in-, 
veterate itch for dabbling in physics, a book 
and a doll’s medicine-chest, and lets them 
play doctors and doctresses without fear of 
having to call in the coroner. And just so 
long as unskilful and untaught people cannot 
tell coincidences from cause and effect in 
medical practice, — which to do, the wise 
and experienced know how difficult! — so 
long it will have plenty of * facts ’ to fall 
back upon. Who can blame a man for being 
satisfied with the argument, ‘ I was ill, and 
am well, — great is Hahnemann ! ’ Only this THE SCIENTIST. 
303 
argument serves all impostors and imposi- 
tions. It is not of much value, but it is 
irresistible, and therefore quackery is im- 
mortal.” 
Only three years after the foregoing lines 
were penned by Dr. Holmes he startled the 
physicians of Boston with almost as severe an 
attack upon the allopathists, with whom he 
had always classed himself, as had been his 
attack upon the homoeopathists. It must have 
caused a sensation indeed when one who had 
always been sarcastic over almost all hygienic 
and medical innovations, suddenly turned 
squarely about and belabored his own coadju- 
tors, the solemn conservators of the tradi- 
tions of old-fashioned medical practice. His 
address by no means gives countenance to 
homoeopathy in any shape, and yet a fairly 
deducible inference from it is that a modified 
homoeopathic practice may not be much 
worse after all than an unmitigated allo- 
pathic practice. The address (styled “ Cur- 
rents and Counter Currents in Medical 
Science”) was delivered at the meeting in 
Boston of the Massachusetts Medical Society, 
May 30, i860, and afterwards published in 304 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
book form. Its vigorous onslaught upon the 
excessive use of drugs in medical practice 
startled the learned members into a precipi 
tate resolution, “ That the society disclaim 
all responsibility for the sentiments contained 
in this annual address.” Yet it is safe to 
say that so much sound sense has rarely been 
compacted between the covers of a medical 
brochure as we find in this lecture of Dr. 
Holmes. It ought to, and doubtless will,, 
mark a turning-point, an epoch, in the medi- 
cal practice of Boston. We like the clear,, 
unequivocal ring of these pages. We like to 
see the ripe wisdom of thirty years’ medical 
study and practice drawn upon so fearlessly 
in the interests of truth. The following is 
an abstract of the work : — 
The community, says Dr. Holmes, is over- 
dosed, The best proof of it is that no 
families take so little medicine as the families 
of doctors (except those of apothecaries), and 
that old practitioners are more sparing in the 
use of medicines than are younger ones. The 
chief defect of the medical practice of the. 
day is that it neglects causes and quarrels 
with effects. The popular belief is that sick TEE SCIENTIST. 
305 
persons must feed on noxious and disagree 
able substances, and a physician who does 
not prescribe these is thought to be worth 
little. A Boston physician was called to see 
a man with a terribly sore mouth. On in- 
quiry he found that he had been taking a box 
of mercury pills that he had picked up in the 
street,— his idea being that all pills'were 
good for people. It is one of the supersti- 
tions of the medical practice that a coated 
tongue invariably shows that the stomach 
needs an evacuant. But the condition of the 
tongue is no guide to that of the stomach, 
which is covered with a different kind of 
epithelium, and furnished with entirely dif- 
ferent secretions. “ A silversmith will for a 
dollar make a small hoe, of solid silver, which 
will last for centuries, and will give a patient 
more comfort used for the removal of the 
accumulated epithelium and fungous growths 
which constitute the * fur,’ than many a pre- 
scription with a split-footed R before it, 
addressed to the parts out of reach.” The 
Doctor says he thinks more of this little tool, 
because the use of it, or something like it, 
saved the Plymouth Colony in 1623, when 306 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Edward Winslow, in attending the sick In- 
dian, Massasoit, scraped his tongue and gave 
him such other treatment as insured his re- 
covery and procured his gratitude to the 
extent of his revealing the Indian plot for 
the annihilation of the colony. 
Speaking of the too great trust of the em- 
inent Dr. Benjamin Rush in powerful and 
hasty remedies, our author says: “How 
could a people which has a revolution once 
in four years, which has contrived the bowie- 
knife and the revolver, which has chewed the 
juice out of all the superlatives in the lan- 
guage in Fourth of July orations, and so used 
up its epithets in the rhetoric of abuse, that 
it takes two great quarto dictionaries to sup- 
ply the demand ; which insists in sending 
out yachts and horses and boys to out-sail, 
out-fight, and checkmate all the rest of crea- 
tion — how could such a people be content 
with any but ' heroic' practice ? What won- 
der that the stars and stripes wave over doses 
of ninety grains of sulphate of quinine, and 
that the American eagle screams with delight 
to see three drachms of calomel given at a 
single mouthful ? ” THE SCIENTIST. 
All noxious medicines and appliances which 
are not natural food or stimulants drain from 
the patient, we will say, five per cent of his 
vital force, and “ in the game of life-or-death, 
rouge et ?ioir, as played between the doctor 
and the sexton, this five per cent., this cer- 
tain small injury entering into the chances,, 
is clearly the sexton’s perquisite for keeping 
the green table over which the game is 
played, and where he hoards up his gains.” 
Throw out opium, says Dr. Holmes; throw 
out a few specifics which a physician is hardly 
needed to apply ; throw out wine, which is a 
food, and the vapors of ether producing an- 
aesthesia, and then sink the whole materia 
medica, as now used, to the bottom of the 
sea ; the result would be all the better for 
mankind, and all the worse for the fishes. 
In a note the Doctor adds that by this start- 
ling assertion “ no denunciation of drugs as 
sparingly employed by a wise physician was 
or is intended ; but reference was had to the 
too abundant and injudicious use of such 
drugs as antimony, strychnine, acetate of 
lead, aloes, aconite, lobelia, lapis infemalis, 
stercus diaboli, tormentilla, and other such 
remedies. 308 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Holmes has expressed decided opinions on 
some other much-debated subjects besides 
theories of medical practice. In the North 
American Review for July, 1857, will be 
found a review by him of certain physiological 
works by Draper, Carpenter, Grove, and Met- 
calfe, in which the then newly-emerging doc- 
trines of evolution curiously jostle the old 
anthropomorphisms. The reviewer lays his 
hand on his heart, and makes many profound 
salaams to God, but keeps slyly thrusting him 
farther and farther back into the deeps of 
space to let the secondary forces do the main 
business of creation. 
After disposing of the theological aspect 
of his subject by expressing his belief in an 
immanent deity, and quoting approvingly 
Oken’s dictum, “The Universe is God rotat- 
ing,” he enters upon a discussion of the ques- 
tion of the existence or non-existence of a 
special creative vital force. He takes the neg- 
ative view, and in a cogent and solid review 
of the correlation of forces, and of the whole 
field of organic life, reaches the conclusion 
that as pre-existing materials were employed 
to form organic structures, so pre-existing THE SCIENTIST. 
309 
force or must have been employed to 
maintain organic actions, or unconscious life; 
that life is as necessary an attribute of a per- 
fect organism as gravity is of metal, or hard- 
ness of a diamond; that, in short, there is 
almost a complete parallelism between the 
mechanism of vital phenomena and the mech- 
anism of unvital phenomena. There is a 
strong probability that all forces (including, 
perhaps, matter as a force) are only different 
manifestations of one infinite incomprehens- 
ible force. Such a view simplifies our 
thinking, and satisfies the generalizing in- 
stinct. “Science is the art of packing knowl- 
edge.” 
Through Holmes’ brilliant Phi Beta Kappa 
lecture on “ Mechanism in Thought and 
Morals ” run two richly illustrated thoughts, 
namely, that the brain contains a material, 
hieroglyphic record of thought; and, secondly, 
that this material and transmissible record is 
not incompatible with freedom of willing in 
the sphere of morals, although for certain 
great classes of actions men are not respons- 
ible. 
There are some charming reminiscences 310 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
and antiquarian sketches by Holmes, to de- 
prive the reader of some account of which 
would be an injustice. Among the Win- 
throp papers was discovered a manuscript 
written about 1643, and labelled “Receipts, 
to cure Various Disorders.” The receipts 
are signed Edward Stafford. Here is one of 
them as deciphered by Dr. Holmes, and given 
by him in the Proceedings of the Massachu- 
setts Historical Society for February, 1862 : — 
“ My Black powder against y* plague, small 
pox : purples, all sorts of feavers : Poyson ; 
either by Way of prevention, or after Infection„ 
In the Moneth of March take Toades, as many 
as you will, alive ; putt them into an Plarthen 
pott, so y% it be halfe full; Cover it with a 
broad tyle or Iron plate ; then overwhelme the 
pott, so f y® bottome may be uppermost: putt 
charcoales round about it and over it, and in 
the open ayre, not in an house, sett it on fire 
and lett it burne out and extinguish of it self: 
When it is cold, take out the toades ; and in 
an Iron-morter pound them very well, and 
searce them : then in a Crucible calcine them 
so againe: pound and searce them againe. 
The first time, they will be a browne powder, THE SCIENTIST. 
the next time black. Of this you may give 
a dragme in a Vehiculum (or drinke) In- 
wardly in any Infection taken ; and let them 
sweat upon it in their bedds." 
In illustration of this remarkable recipe, 
and of the old and still-existing superstition 
that the toad is poisonous, Dr. Holmes refers 
to the story in Boccaccio of “Pasquino and 
Simona/' lovers, who perish by rubbing their 
teeth with the leaves of a sage bush. When 
the bush is plucked up by the roots, lo! a toad, 
to the poisonous qualities of which the death 
of the lovers is ascribed. That the toad has 
some unpleasant bodily peculiarities, the Doc- 
tor says he became convinced from an acci- 
dent that happened once to a young puppy in 
liis presence. The puppy was amusing himself 
by pushing a toad about with his nose, when 
suddenly he withdrew with marks of the most 
extreme disgust, and was at once attacked by 
such salivation as the Doctor had never seen 
before in man or beast. The dog never med- 
dled with a toad again as long as he lived. 
In giving some account of venerable Dr. 
Edward Augustus Holyoke (1728-1829) in 
the fourth volume of the Memorial His- 312 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
tory of Boston, Dr. Holmes tells a little in 
cident concerning him. He says that he one 
day took a student just beginning his medical 
education with him, —young James Jackson, 
— into the room where he kept his medicines. 
Pointing to the drawers and bottles ranged 
around the room, he said to the young man : 
“ I seem to have here a great number and 
variety of medicines ; but I may name four 
which are of more importance than all the 
rest put together, namely, Mercury, Anti- 
mony, Opium, and Peruvian Bark.” This 
worthy old centenarian had a great antipathy 
to cigars, as the following verses of his wit 
ness : — 
“And smoaked segars! 
Vile substitute for that white, slender tube 
Our fathers erst enjoy’d, in winter’s eve, 
When the facetious jest, or funny pun, 
Or tales of olden time, or Salem witch, 
Or quaint conundrum round the genial fire 
The social hour beguil’d.” 
Under the heading “ Personal Recollec- 
tions of Noted Physicians,” Dr. Holmes no- 
tices, among Cambridge doctors, picturesque THE SCIENTIST. 
313 
old Benjamin Waterhouse, with his “ pyramid 
of titles of great dimensions,” and famous for 
his introduction of vaccination in the West- 
ern World. Dr. Waterhouse vaccinated a 
great many persons, including the young 
Holmes, who afterwards described him as a 
brisk, dapper old gentleman, with hair tied 
in a ribbon behind, marching smartly about 
with his gold-headed cane, and upon his face 
a look of sagacity and oracular gravity. 
Lowell gives a delicious bit of description to 
fill out the picture : — 
“ His queue, slender and tapering, like the 
tail of a violet crab, held out horizontally by 
the high collar of his shepherd’s-gray over-, 
coat, whose style was of the latest when he 
studied at Leyden in his hot youth. ... He 
wore amazing spectacles fit to transmit no 
smaller image than the page of mightiest 
folios of Dioscorides or Hercules de Saxonia, 
and rising full-disked upon the beholder like 
those prodigies of two moons at once, por- 
tending change to monarchs. The great col- 
lar disallowing any independent rotation of 
the head, I remember he used to turn his 
whole person in order to bring their foci to 314 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
bear upon an object. One can fancy that 
terrified Nature would have yielded up her 
secrets at once without cross-examination, at 
their first glare.” 
Dr. Waterhouse’s granddaughters still oc- 
cupy his quaint old cottage in Cambridge, and 
the writer was told by them that half a cen- 
tury ago he had a great botanical garden in 
the rear of the cottage, where, like Dr. Rap- 
paccini, he was wont to walk and hold con- 
verse with his plants. It was he who was 
instrumental in founding the Harvard College 
Botanical Garden (remembering the fragrant 
garden of this kind he had known at Leyden). 
Mr John Owen once told the writer of these 
pages an amusing anecdote of Dr Water- 
house. Mr. Owen, being then a publisher in 
Cambridge, had provided a newspaper-room 
in the rear of his book-shop for the con- 
venience of himself and his customers. One 
day Dr. Waterhouse came in, and Mr. Owen, 
accosting him, politely informed him that he 
would be happy to offer him the use of his 
reading-room gratis. The fiery little doctor 
looked at him a moment with his keen eyes, 
and then said slowly and with a pause be- TEE SCIENTIST. 
tween each word: “Melasses— is good — 
to ketch — flies ! ” But this has nothing to. 
do with an account of the life and writings of 
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, you say. True, 
it is a digression. But “digressions,” say& 
Yorick, “ incontestably are the sunshine, 
they are the life, the soul of reading. Take 
them out of a book and one cold, eternal 
winter would reign in every page of it.” CHAPTER XI. 
AUTOCRATIANA.* 
THE INDIAN. 
An Indian is a few instincts on legs, and 
holding a tomahawk. 
READ “DON QUIXOTE.” 
When Sydenham was asked by Sir Richard 
Blackmore as to what medical books he should 
read, the answer was, “ Read ‘ Don Quixote.’ ” 
ILLUSION. 
There is nothing as real in this world as 
illusion. All other things may desert a man, 
but this fair angel never leaves him. She 
holds a star a billion miles over a baby’s head, 
and laughs to see him clawing and batting 
himself as he tries to reach it. 
* In this chapter are collected a number of brilliant 
paragraphs and mots, mostly gathered out of fugitive 
or uncopyrighted publications of Holmes. A UTOCRA TlANA. 
317 
THE AEOLIAN ATTACHMENT. 
In a letter of Dr. Holmes’, read at the Cen- 
tennial Dinner of the Massachusetts Medical 
Society, we find a Holmes mot: — 
If a doctor has the luck to find out a new 
malady, it is tied to his name like a tin kettle 
to a dog’s tail, and he goes clattering down 
the highway of fame to posterity with his 
aeolian attachment following at his heels. 
CRITICISM. 
If anything pleasant should be said about 
“the new edition,” you may snip it out of the 
papers and save it for me. If contrary opin- 
ions are expressed, be so good as not to mark 
with brackets, carefully envelop, and send to* 
me, as is the custom of many friends. — Pre- 
face to 1848 edition of Poems. 
OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES. 
As the wine of old vintages is gently de- 
canted out of its cobwebbed bottles with their 
rotten corks, into clean new receptacles, so 
the wealth of the New World is quietly empty- 
ing many of the libraries and galleries of the 318 
'OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
'Old World into its newly-formed collections 
and newly-raised edifices. 
INVALIDISM. 
invalidism is the normal state of many 
'organizations. It can be changed to disease, 
but ft'ever to absolute health by medicinal 
There are many ladies, ancient 
and receht* who are perpetually taking rem- 
edies for irremediable pains and aches. They 
*ught to have headaches and back-aches and 
stomach-aches; they are not well if they 
do not have them. To expect them to live 
without frequent twinges is like expecting 
a doctor’s old chaise to go without creak- 
ing ; if it did, we might be sure the springs 
were broken. 
EX NIHILO NIHIL FIT. 
Ex nihilo nihil fit. Given a half-starved 
■dyspeptic and a bloodless negative blonde as 
parents, Hercules or Apollo is an impos- 
sibility in their progeny, yet people look 
'With infinite expectations of health, strength, 
beauty, intellect, as the product of Ox—1 AV TOG RATI AN A. 
319 
OUR MORAL EXUVIAE. 
Is there no outlawry of an obsolete self- 
determination ? If the president of the So- 
ciety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 
impaled a fly on a pin when he was ten years 
©Id, is it to stand against him, crying for a 
stake through his body, in saecula saeculorumf 
In Swedenborg’s heaven, “ what we are will 
determine the company we are to keep, and 
not the avoirdupois weight of our moral ex- 
uviae, strapped on our.shoulders like a porter’s 
burden.” 
GUNPOWDER. 
Chemistry seals up a few dark grains ini 
iron vases, and lo! at the touch of a single 
spark, rises in smoke and flame a mightjr 
Afrit with a voice like thunder and an arm 
that shatters like an earthquake. 
APPLIED SCIENCE. 
Science and art have in our time so changed 
the aspect of everyday life that one of a cer- 
tain age might well believe himself on another 
planet or in another stage of existence. The 
wand of Prometheus is in our match-boxes ; 320 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
the rock of Horeb gushes forth its streams 
in our dressing-rooms ; the carpet of Arabian 
story is spread in our Pullman car; our words 
flash from continent to continent; our very 
accents are transmitted from city to city; 
the elements of forming worlds are analyzed 
in our laboratories ; and, most wonderful and 
significant of all, the despotic authority of 
tradition is unsceptred since the angel of 
anaesthesia has lifted from womanhood the 
burden of the primal malediction. 
EUTHANASIA. 
That euthanasia, often accorded by nature, 
sometimes prevented by want of harmony in 
the hesitating and awkwardly delaying func- 
tions, not rarely disturbed by intrusive influ- 
ences, is a right of civilized humanity. The 
anaesthetics mercifully granted to a world 
grown sensitive in proportion to its culture 
will never have' fulfilled their beneficent pur- 
pose until they have done for the scythe of 
death what they have done for the knife of 
the surgeon and the sharper trial hour of 
woman. JL UTOCRA TIANA. 
321 
THE SCHOLAR AND HIS BOOKS. 
The scholar’s mind is furnished with 
shelves like his library. Each book knows 
its place in the brain as well as against the 
wall or in the alcove. His consciousness is 
doubled by the books which encircle him, as 
the trees that surround a lake repeat them- 
selves in its unruffled waters. Men talk of 
the nerve that runs to the pocket, but one 
who loves his books, and has lived long with 
them, has a nervous filament which runs 
from his sensorium to every one of them. 
TRANSLATION. 
The translation of a poem from one lan- 
guage to another is in one sense an impos- 
sibility, — as much as it is to get a ripe peach 
from New Jersey to Boston ; to carry a full- 
blown rose from here to San Francisco; to 
waft the salt-sea odor of Nahant from here to 
St. Louis. 
THE UNKNOWN. 
Science is the topography of ignorance. 
From a few elevated points we triangulate 
vast spaces, enclosing infinite unknown de- OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
322 
tails. We cast the lead, and draw up a little 
sand from abysses we shall never reach with 
our dredges. 
The Pi-Utes and the Kickapoos of the 
wilderness are hard to reason with. But 
there is another tribe of irreclaimables, living 
in much larger wigwams and having all the 
look of civilized people, which is quite as in- 
tractable to the teachings of a new philoso- 
phy that upsets their ancestral totems. This 
is the tribe of the Pooh-Poohs, so called from 
the leading expression of their vocabulary,, 
which furnishes them a short and easy method 
of disposing of all novel doctrines, discoveries, 
and inventions of a character to interfere with 
their preconceived notions. 
THE POOH-POOHS. 
SLANG. 
The use of slang, or cheap generic terms, 
as a substitute for differentiated specific ex- 
pressions, is at once a sign and a cause of 
mental atrophy. It is the way in which a 
lazy adult shifts the trouble of finding any 
exact meaning in his (or her) conversation on A JJTOCRA TIANA. 
323 
the other party. If both talkers are indolent, 
all their talk lapses into the vague gener- 
alities of early childhood, with the disadvan- 
tage of a vulgar phraseology. It is a prevalent 
social vice of the time, as it has been of 
times that are past. 
UNPREMEDITATED CRITICISM. 
In Mrs. John T. Sargent’s “ Sketches and 
Reminiscences of the Radical Club,” Dr. 
Holmes is recorded as saying that, when he 
was invited to speak without preparation on 
a carefully written essay, he always felt as he 
should if, at a chemical lecture, somebody 
should pass around a precipitate, and when 
the mixture had become turbid, should re- 
quest him to give his opinion on it; besides, 
he added, the fallacies constantly arising in 
such a discussion from the lack of a proper 
definition of terms, always made him feel as 
if quicksilver had been substituted for the 
ordinary silver of speech. He declared that 
he preferred to take the essay home, slowly 
it, and not talk about it until it 
kad become a part of himself. 324 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
INDIAN SUMMER. 
To those who know the “ Indian Summer ” 
of our Northern States it is needless to de- 
scribe the influence it exerts on the senses 
and the soul. The stillness of the landscape 
in that beautiful time is as if the planet were 
sleeping, like a top, before it begins to rock 
with the storms of autumn. All natures seem 
to find themselves more truly in its light ; 
love grows more tender, religion more spirit- 
ual, memory sees farther back into the pastr 
grief revisits its mossy marbles, the poet har- 
vests the ripe thoughts which he will tie in 
sheaves of verse by his winter fireside. 
THE SPIRAL COROLLA. 
Look at the flower of a morning-glory the 
evening before the dawn which is to see it 
unfold. The delicate petals are twisted into 
a spiral, which at the appointed hour, when 
the sunlight touches the hidden springs of 
its life, will uncoil itself and let the day into 
the chamber of its virgin heart. But the 
spiral must unwind by its own law, and the 
hand that shall try to hasten the process will A VTOCRA TlANA. 
325 
only spoil the blossom which would have 
expanded in symmetrical beauty under the 
rosy fingers of morning. 
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH LETTER OF THE 
ALPHABET. 
In 1879 Indianapolis News published 
the following amusing note of the Autocrat, 
addressed to a young Quaker lady who had 
inquired about the twenty-seventh letter of 
the alphabet mentioned in “ Elsie Venner ” : 
Boston, March 4, 1861. 
My dear Miss Lavinia, — The twenty-seventh 
letter of the alphabet is pronounced by applying 
the lips of the person speaking it to the cheek of 
a friend, and puckering and parting the same with 
a peculiar explosive sound. “ Cousin Edward ” 
will show you how to speak this labial consonant, 
no doubt, and allow you to show your proficiency 
by practising it with your lips against his cheek. 
For further information you had better consult 
your gra’m’ma. Very truly yours, 
O. W. Holmes. 
P. S. — Are you any relation to “the lovely 
young Lavinia ” who “ once had friends,” men- 
tioned by Thomson in his “ Seasons ” ? 326 
OLIVER WENDELL EOLMES. 
A STRONG SMELL OF TURPENTINE. 
I once inhaled a pretty full dose of ether 
with the determination to put on record, at 
the earliest moment of regaining conscious- 
ness, the thought I should find uppermost in 
my mind. The mighty music of the tri- 
umphal march into nothingness reverberated 
through my brain, and filled me with a sense 
of infinite possibilities, which made me an 
archangel for the moment. The veil of eter- 
nity was lifted. The one great truth which 
underlies all human experience, and is the 
key to all the mysteries that philosophy has 
sought in vain to solve, flashed upon me in a 
sudden revelation. Henceforth all was clear ; 
a few words had lifted my intelligence to the 
level of the knowledge of the cherubim. As 
my natural condition returned, I remembered 
my resolution; and staggering to my desk, 
I wrote, in ill-shaped, straggling characters, 
the all-embracing truth still gleaming in my 
consciousness. The words were these (chil- 
dren may smile ; the wise will ponder): “ A 
strong smell of turpentine prevails through- AUTOC RATI ANA. 
327 
out'' [A narrow escape, Doctor! what if it 
had been sulphur ? ] 
MUTUAL UNDERVALUATION. 
I was passing through a somewhat obscure 
street at the west end of our city a year or 
two since when my attention was attracted 
to a narrow court by a sound of voices and a 
small crowd of listeners. From two open 
windows on the opposite sides of the court 
projected the heads and a considerable por- 
tion of the persons, of two of the female sex, 
— natives, both of them, apparently, of the 
green isle, famous for shamrocks and shilla- 
lahs. They were engaged in argument, if 
that is argument in which each of the two 
parties develops his argument without the 
least regard to what the other is at the same 
time saying. The question involved was the 
personal, social, moral, and, in short, total 
standing and merit of the two controversial- 
ists and their respective families. But the 
strange phenomenon was this : The two wo- 
men, as if by preconcerted agreement, like 
two instruments playing a tune in unison, 
were pouring forth simultaneously a calm, 328 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
steady, smooth-flowing stream of mutua. un- 
dervaluation, to apply a mild phrase to it: 
never stopping for punctuation, and barely 
giving themselves time to get breath between 
its long-drawn clauses. The dialogue included 
every conceivable taunt which might rouse 
the fury of a sensitive mother of a family, 
whose allegiance to her lord, and pride in her 
offspring, were points which it displeased her 
to have lightly handled. I stood and listened 
like the quiet groups in the more immediate 
neighborhood. I looked for some explosion 
of violence, for a screaming volley of oaths, 
for an hysteric burst of tears, perhaps for a 
missile of more questionable character than 
an epithet aimed at the head and shoulders 
projecting opposite. “ At any rate,” I thought, 
“ their tongues will soon run down ; for it is 
not in human nature that such a flow of scald- 
ing rhetoric can be kept up very long.” But 
I stood waiting until I was tired, and with 
labitur et labetur on my lips, I left them pur- 
suing the even tenor, or treble of their way 
in a duet which seemed as if it might go on 
until nightfall. A UTOGRA TIANA. 
329 
THE ONE-HOSS SHAY. 
In 1880 or 1881 Dr. Holmes was elected 
a member of the National Association of 
Carriage Builders, perhaps in reference to his 
famous poem, “ The One-Hoss Shay,” or 
“ Parson Turell’s Legacy.” He wrote them 
the following note: — 
Gentlemen, — I am sorry that I cannot slip 
over into the meeting at the Grand Pacific Hotel 
in Chicago next Thursday evening ; but the stride 
would be a long one, and the only vehicle I was 
ever concerned in building went to pieces one day 
very suddenly. Besides, I am just now working 
in harness as a lecturer, and if I should bolt or 
run away I do not know what would become of 
the college vehicle to which I am attached. I 
must therefore content myself with wishing the 
company a good time, everybody happy, and not 
one sulky. Yours very truly, 
O. W. Holmes. Appendix I. 
THE CHORUS OF THE PALANQUIN BEARERS; 
OR, 
Dr. Palmer’s Description of his Transit through 
COSSITOLLAH STREET IN CALCUTTA. 
“What is this? A close palkee, with a passen- 
ger; the bearers, with elbows sharply crooked, 
and calves all varicose, trotting to a monotonous, 
jerking ditty, which the sirdar, or leader, is impu- 
dently improvising, to the refrain of Putterum 
(‘ Easy now! ’), at the expense of their fare’s 
amour-propre. 
1 Out of the way there! 
Putterum. 
This is a Rajah! 
Putterum. 
Very small Rajah 1 
Putterum. 
Sixpenny Rajah! 
Putterum. 
Holes in his elbows! 
Putterum. 
Capitan Slipshod I 
Putterum. 
Son of a sea-cook! 
Putterum. 
Hush ! he will beat us I 
Putterum. APPENDIX /. 
331 
Hush ! he will kick us! 
Putterum. 
Kick us and curse us! 
Putterum. 
Not he, the greenhorn! 
Putterum. 
Don’t understand us! 
Putterum. 
Don’t know the lingo I 
Putterum. 
Let’s shake the palkee! 
Putterum. 
Rattle the pig’s bones ! 
Putterum. 
Set down the palkee 1 
Putterum. 
Call him a great lord! 
Putterum. 
Ask him for buksheesh 
Putterum” 
And so they do in this wise : — 
“ ‘ Buksheesh do, Sahib / buksheesh do / O 
favorite slave of the Lord ! O tender shepherd 
of the poor ! O sublime and beautiful Being. . . . 
Bestow upon thy abject and self-despising slave 
wherewithal to commemorate the golden hour 
when, by a blessed dispensation, he was permitted 
to lay his trembling forehead against thy victori- 
ous feet.’ ” 
An explosion of wrath and threats bursting forth 
from the palkee, they suddenly change their minds 
and their tune, and as they go along chant in this 
style : — OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
332 
“ ‘ Jeldie jou, jeldie 
(Trot up smartly I) 
Putterum. 
Carry him softly 1 
Putterum. 
Swiftly and smoothly I 
Putterum. 
He is a Rajah! 
Putterum. 
Rich little Rajah ! 
Putterum. 
Fierce little Rajah I 
Putterum. 
See how his eyes flash I 
Putterum. 
Hear how his voice roars P 
Putterum. 
He is a Tippoo 1 
Putterum. 
Capitan Tippoo! 
Putterum. 
Tremble before him! 
Putterum. 
Serve him and please him! 
Putterum. 
Please him and serve him! 
Putterum. 
He will reward us I 
Putterum. 
He will protect us! 
Putterum. 
He will enrich us I 
Putterum. 
Charity, Lird Sa’b! 
Putterum. 
Out of the way there 1 
Putterum. 
Way for the great . . • 
Putterum. APPENDIX I. 
333 
Rajah of ten crores! 
Putter . . . 
. . . Ten crores! 
Putter . . . 
Rajah 
Put . . . 
. . . LSrd 
Putter . . . 
Sa’b! 
.... rum? 
‘‘And so they have turned down Flag Street.” 
Atlantic Monthly, January, 1858. Appendix II. 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
Published Works to Date, including Contributions 
to Periodical Literature. With Notes. 
Poetical Illustrations of the Athenaeum Gallery of 
Paintings. [Joint Author.] Boston : True & 
Greene. 1827. 
This little volume consists of poems, chiefly satirical, written by 
John Osborne Sargent, Park Benjamin, and Holmes. 
The Harbinger: A May Gift, dedicated to the 
ladies who have so kindly aided the New Eng- 
land Institution for the Blind. [Joint Editor.] 
Boston: Carter, Hendee, & Co. 1833. nmo, 
pp. 96. 
A collection of poems edited by Holmes and John Osborne 
Sargent. 
Poems. Boston : Otis, Broaders, & Co. 1836. 
The first collected edition. 
Boylston Prize Dissertations for the years 1836 
and 1837. Boston : Charles C. Little & James 
Brown. 1838. 
Dedicated to Pierre Cha. Alex. Louis, Doctor of Medicine of the 
faculties of Paris and St. Petersburg. The dissertations are three 
in number: (1) On Indigenous Intermittent Fever in New Eng- 
land. (a) On Neuralgia. (3) On Direct Exploration. APPENDIX II. 
335 
Marshall Hall’s Principles of the Theory and 
Practice of Medicine. First American edition, 
revised and enlarged by Jacob Bigelow and 
O. W. Holmes. [Joint Editor.] Boston. 1839. 
Homoeopathy and its Kindred Delusions: Two 
Lectures delivered before the Boston Society for 
the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Boston: 
William D. Ticknor. 1842. 
The Position and Prospects of the Medical Stu- 
dent. An Address delivered before the Boyls- 
ton Medical Society of Harvard University, 
January 12, 1844. Boston: John Putnam, 
Printer. 1844. 
Urania: A Rhymed Lesson. Pronounced before 
the Mercantile Library Association. Boston. 
1846. 8 vo. 
Report of the Committee on Medical Literature. 
Published in Transactions of the American 
Medical Association, Volume I. 1847. 
An Introductory Lecture, delivered at the Massa- 
chusetts Medical College, November 3, 1847. 
Boston : William D. Ticknor & Co. 1847. 
See Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, xxxviii., 384 and 
408. 
Astraea: The Balance of Illusions. A Poem de- 
livered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of 336 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
Yale College, August 14, 1850. Boston : Tick, 
nor, Reed, & Fields. 1850. 
A slender volume bound in boards and salmon-colored paper. 
Poem, delivered at the dedication of the Pittsfield 
Cemetery, September 9, 1850. 
The Benefactors of the Medical School of Har- 
vard University; with a biographical sketch of 
the late Dr. George Parkman. An Introduc- 
tory Lecture delivered at the Massachusetts 
Medical College, November 7, 1850. Boston: 
Ticknor, Reed, & Fields. 1850. 
The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever. Read 
in 1843 before the Boston Society for Medical 
Improvement. Reprinted from New England 
Quarterly Journal of Medicine and Surgery. 
Boston. 1855. 
Oration delivered before the New England Society 
in the city of New York, at their Semi-Centen- 
nial Anniversary, December 22, 1855. New 
York : Wm, C. Bryant & Co. 
Published in the Society’s Report of the Semi-Centennial Cele- 
bration, New York, 1856. 
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. Every Man 
his own Boswell. Boston : Ticknor & Fields. 
1858. 
The first octavo edition had illustrations. The second — pub- 
lished in 1883—is furnished with a new preface and notes by Dr. 
Holmes. APPENDIX II. 
Valedictory Address to the Medical Graduates 
of Harvard University, March 10, 1858. Bos- 
ton : David Clapp, 184 Washington Street. 
1858. 
Also published in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 
Iviii, 149-159. 
The Professor at the Breakfast-Table ; with the 
story of Iris. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1859. 
Currents and Counter-Currents in Medical Sci* 
ence : An Address delivered before the Massa- 
chusetts Medical Society at the annual meeting, 
May 30, i860. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 
1860. 
Vive la France! Poem read by Dr. Holmes at the 
dinner given to H. I. H. the Prince Napoleon, 
September 25, 1861. Cambridge: Privately 
printed. 1861. 
Printed along with the address of Edward Everett, given on the 
same occasion, in a slender, cream-colored libret 
Elsie Venner: A Romance of Destiny. Boston : 
Ticknor & Fields. 1861. 
Songs in Many Keys. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 
1861. 
Dedicated to the poet’s mother. 
Border Lines of Knowledge in some Provinces of 
Medical Science. An Introductory Lecture 
delivered before the Medical Class of Harvard 338 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
University, November 6, 1861. Boston.;. Tick- 
nor & Fields. 1862. 
A class lecture which treats of the work of Chemistry and the 
Microscope in medicine and in physiology, accompanied by practical 
remarks addressed to the students. 
Edward Stafford’s Medical Directions written for 
Governor Winthrop in 1643, with Notes by 
O. W. Holmes. [Annotator.] Boston. 1862. 
Oration delivered before the City Authorities of 
Boston, on the Fourth of July, 1863. Boston: 
Ticknor & Fields. 1863. 
Reprinted in Philadelphia in 1863 for gratuitous distribution. 
Also republished in Holmes’ “ Soundings from the Atlantic.” 
Soundings from the Atlantic. Boston: Ticknor 
& Fields. 1863. 
Dedicated to Jacob Bigelow. 
Teaching from the Chair and at the Bedside. An 
Introductory Lecture delivered before the Medi- 
cal Class of Harvard University, November 6, 
1867. Boston : David Clapp & Son. 1867. 
The Guardian Angel. Boston : Ticknor & Fields. 
1867. 
Dedicated to James T. Fields. 
Atlantic Almanac for 1868. [Joint Editor with 
Donald G. Mitchell.] Boston: Ticknor & 
Fields, Office of the Atlantic Monthly. 1868.' 
This annual contains by Holmes “ The Seasons ” (1868," p. 2); 
and “ Talk concerning the Human Body and its Management ” 
(1869, p. 47). APPENDIX II. 
339 
The Medical Profession in Massachusetts. A 
Lecture read at the Lowell Institute, January 
29, 1869. 
Published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1869, in 
a volume entitled “ Lectures delivered in a Course before the Lowell 
Institute, in Boston, by Members of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society, on Subjects Relating to the Early History of Massachu- 
setts.” 
Valedictory Address, delivered to the Graduating 
Class of the Bellevue Hospital College, March 
2, 1871. New York. 1871. 
Reprinted from the New York Medical Journal, April, 1871. 
Mechanism in Thought and Morals. An Address 
delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of 
Harvard University, June 29, 1870, with Notes 
and Afterthoughts. Boston: Jas. R. Osgood & 
Co. 1871. 
The Claims of Dentistry. An Address delivered 
at the Commencement Exercises of the Dental 
Department in Harvard University, February 
14, 1872. Boston: Printed by Rand, Avery, 
& Co. 1872. 
The Poet at the Breakfast-Table. Boston : James 
R. Osgood & Co. 1873. 
Professor Jeffries Wyman. A Memorial Out- 
line reprinted from the Atlantic Monthly for 
November, 1874. Boston and Cambridge. 
1874. 340 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Songs of Many Seasons. 1862-1874. Boston: 
James R. Osgood & Co. 1874. 
An Address delivered at the Annual Meeting of 
the Boston Microscopical Society. Reprinted 
from Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, May 
24, 1877. Cambridge: The Riverside Press. 
i877- 
Visions: A Study of False Sight (Pseudopia). 
By Edward Hammond Clarke, M.D. With an 
Introduction and Memorial Sketch by Oliver 
Wendell Holmes, M.D. [Editor.] Boston : 
Houghton, Osgood, & Co. 1878. 
The School-Boy. Illustrated. Boston: Hough- 
ton, Osgood, & Co. 1878. 
John Lothrop Motley. A Memoir. Boston : 
Houghton, Osgood, & Co. 1878. 
The Iron Gate, and Other Poems. Boston: 
Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 1880. 
Address delivered at the Dedication of the Hall 
of the Boston Medical Library Association, 19 
Boylston Place, on December 3, 1878. Cam- 
bridge : The Riverside Press. 1881. 
Address on Emerson. Published in the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society’s “Tribute to Long- 
fellow and Emerson.” (Portraits.) Boston: 
A. Williams & Co. 1882. APPENDIX II. 
341 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO PERIODICAL LIT- 
ERATURE. 
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. 
Note. — Poems are marked with an *, and prose articles not else- 
where reprinted with a f. 
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,Vols. I. and 
II. (1857) ; f Homoeopathic Domestic Physician, I. 
250 (1857); f Agassiz’s Natural History, I. 320 
(1858) ; f Parthenia (Lee), I. 509 (1858); A Visit to 
Autocrat’s Landlady, II. 738 (1858) ; * The Last 
Look, II. 749 (1858) ; f Brief Expositions of 
Rational Medicine, II. 763 (1858); f The Auto- 
crat gives a Breakfast to the Public, II. 889 
(1858) ; | Mothers and Infants, Nurses and 
Nursing, III. 645 (1858); The Professor at the 
Breakfast-Table, III. and TV. (1859); The Ster- 
eoscope and the Stereograph, III. 738 (1859); 
fLove (Michelet), IV. 391 (1859); f The Undei- 
graduate, V. 382 (i860) ; The Professor’s Story, 
V. and VI. (i860); A Visit to the Asylum for 
Aged and Decayed Punsters, VII. 113 (1861); 
* Brother Jonathan’s Lament for Sister Caroline, 
VII. 613 (1861); * Army Hymn, VII. 757 (1861); 
Sun Painting and Sun Sculpture, VIII. 13 (1861); 
* Parting Hymn, VIII. 235 (1861); Bread and 
the Newspaper, VIII. 346 (1861); fThe Worm- 
wood Cordial of History, VIII. 507 (1861) ; 
* The Flower of Liberty, VIII. 550 (1861); 342 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
* Union and Liberty, VIII. 756 (1861); * Voy- 
age of the Good Ship Union, IX. 398 (1862); 
*The Poet to his Readers, X. 118 (1862); My 
Hunt after the Captain, X. 738 (1862) ; * “ Choose 
ye this Day whom ye will Serve,” XI. 288 (1863); 
The Human Wheel, its Spokes and Felloes, XI. 
567 (1863); Doings of the Sunbeam, XII. 1 (1863) ; 
The Great Instrument, XII. 637 (1863); fThe 
Minister Plenipotentiary, XIII. 106 (1864) > *The 
Last Charge, XIII. 244 (1864) ; * Our Classmate, 
XIII. 329 (1864) ; f Our Progressive Independ- 
ence, XIII. 497 (1864); * Shakespeare, XIII. 
762 (1864); f Hawthorne, XIV. 98 (1864) ; * In 
Memory of J. W. —R. W., XIV. 115 (1864); 
* Bryant’s Seventieth Birthday, XIV. 738 (1864); 
* God save the Flag, XV. 115 (1865); *Our 
Oldest Friend, XV. 340 (1865) ; * Our First 
Citizen. XV. 462 (1865) ; f Our Battle Laureate, 
XV. 589 (1865); * No Time like the Old Time, 
XVI. 398 (1865) ; * A Farewell to Agassiz, XVI. 
584 (1865); * My Annual, XVII. 395 (1866); 
The Guardian Angel, XIX. and XX. (1867); 
* All Here, 1829-1867, XIX. 323 (1867); * Chan- 
son without Music, XX. 543 (1867); * Once 
More, XXL 430 (1868); * Bill and Joe, XXII. 
313 (1868; f Cinders from the Ashes, XXIII. 
115 (1869) ; * Bonaparte, XXIV. 637 (1869) ; 
* Nearing the Snow-Line, XXV. 86 (1870) ; 
* Even-Song, XXV. 349 (1870) ; * Dorothy Q., 
XXVII. 120 (1871); f Life of Major John Andr£, appendix il. . 
343 
XXVIII. 121 (1871); The Poet at the Breakfast- 
Table, Vols. XXIX. and XXX. (187.2) ; * After 
the Fire, XXXI. 96 (1872); * The Fountain of 
Youth, XXXII. 209 (1873); * A Poem served to 
Order, XXXII. 296 (1873) ; t Sex in Education 
(Dr. Clarke), XXXII. 737 (1873) ; * An Old Year 
Song, XXXIII. 101 (1874); * A Ballad of the 
Boston Tea-Party, XXXIII. 2x9 (1874) ; Professor 
Jeffries Wyman, XXXIV. 6x1 (1874) ; t The 
Americanized European, XXXV. 75 (1875) ; 
f Crime and Automatism, XXXV. 466 (1875); 
* Old Cambridge, XXXVI. 237 (1876) ; f Exotics, 
XXXVI. 356 (1876); * A Familiar Letter (to 
several correspondents), XXXVII. 103 (1876) ; 
* “ Ad Amicos,” 1829-1876' XXXVII. 314 
(1876); * A Memorial Tribute (to Samuel G. 
Howe), XXXVII. 464 (1876); * How the Old 
Horse won the Bet, XXXVIII. 44 (1876) : 
* The First Fan, XXXIX. 659 (1877); * How 
Not to Settle It, XXXIX. 257 (1877); * My 
Aviary, XLI. r22 (1878); *The Silent .Melody, 
XLII. 335 (1878) ; * Vestigia Quinque Retrorsum, 
XLIV. 238 (1879) ? * The Coming Era, XLV. 84 
(1880) ; * The Archbishop and Gil Bias, XLVI. 
205 (1880); * Benjamin Peirce, XLVI. 824 
(1880) ; * Boston to Florence, XLVII. 412 
(1881) ; * Post-Prandial : Phi Beta Kappa, 1881, 
XLVIII. 365 (1881); * Our Dead Singer, XLIX. 
721 (1882) ; * Before the Curfew, XLIX. 386 
(1882) ; * At the Summit, L. 164 (1882) ; f An 344 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
After-Breakfast Talk, LI. 65 (1883) ; * Loving- 
Cup Song, LI. 349 (1883). 
Buckingham’s new England magazine. 
The volumes for 1831, 1832, and 1833 contain 
contributions by Holmes as follows : Vol. I. 
(1831), “To am-Insect ” ; “A Week of Frailty” 
(describes a little street flirtation) ; “ My Aunt ” 
(poem); “ The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table 
(I.). — Vol. II. (1832) contains: “ Old Books ” (a 
bit of sentimental bibliomania) ; “ The Autocrat 
of the Breakfast-Table ” (II.) ; “ The Destroyers ” 
(poem) ; “ The Ddbut.”— Vol. III. (1833) con- 
tains, in a humorous paper by the editors which is 
styled “ Report of the Editorial Department,” a 
poetical production by Holmes, headed “A New 
Year’s Address.” 
THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 
The “ Mechanism of Vital Actions ” was pub- 
lished in the North American Review for July, 
1857; the “Allston Exhibition” of paintings in 
the same for April, 1840; and “ The Pulpit and 
the Pew” in the same for February, 1881. 
THE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW. 
The essay on “Jonathan Edwards’’ appeared 
in the International Review, Vol. IX. p. i (1880). 
Edwin Arnold’s “ Light of Asia ” is reviewed in 
the same for October, 1879. APPENDIX II. 
345 
NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF MEDICINE 
AND SURGERY. 
Dr. Holmes’ “ Contagiousness of Puerperal 
Fever ” was first published in the New England 
Quarterly Journal of Medicine and Surgery, 1843, 
edited by Drs. Charles E. Ware and Samuel Park- 
man : only one volume of the periodical was pub- 
lished. 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 
The Proceedings of the American Academy of 
Arts and Sciences contains two communications 
from Dr. Holmes. Vol. II., pp. 326-332, has a 
paper “ On the Use of Direct Light in Micro- 
scopical Researches,” and a model by him of a 
newly-invented horizontal microscopical apparatus 
is figured. In Vol. IV., pp. 373-375, the term 
“ Reflex Vision ” is proposed as a phrase proper 
to certain original optical experiments, an account 
of which is given. 
BOSTON MEDICAL AND SURGICAL JOURNAL. 
Microscopic Preparations, XLVIII.337; Lines 
written for the Eighth Anniversary of the Ameri- 
can Medical Association, LII. 305; The Dental 
Cosmos (review of), VIII. (new series), No. I. p. 
99; Rip Van Winkle, M.D. : An After-Dinner 
Prescription, taken by the Massachusetts Medical 
at their meeting held May 25, 1870, 34& 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Address at Commencement Exercises of Dental 
Department in Harvard University, February 14, 
1877, IX. (new series), 9 ; The Physiology of Ver- 
sification, XCII. 6-9 ; Poem on Joseph Warren, 
XCII. 703; Letter on Dr. J. B. S. Jackson, 
XCV. 393-395 ; Letter to Dr. George E. Ellis, 
CIV. No. 25, p. 593 ; Poem written for the Cen- 
tennial Anniversary Dinner of the Massachusetts 
Medical Society, June 8, 1881, CIV. No. 25, pp. 
577-580; Speech on occasion of the Presenta- 
tion of a Portrait of Dr. J. B. S. Jackson to the 
Boston Medical Library Association, CIV. No. 
24, PP- 56o> 56i« 
THE KNICKERBOCKER MAGAZINE 
Contains a few youthful articles by Holmes which 
might perhaps be identified. 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 
The first edition of the poems was published in 
1836, by Otis, Broaders & Co., Boston. The first 
English edition was published in 1845. London: 
O. Rich & Sons, 12 Red Lion Square. In 1852 
Routledge published one edition, and another in 
1853- 
“Elsie Venner” has been translated and 
abridged (with notes) by E. D. Forgues, in the APPENDIX II. 
347 
Revue des Deux Mondes for June 15 and July i, 
1861. The poem “There’s no Time like the Old 
Time ” has been translated by Karl Knortz and 
published in his “ Amerikanisch6 Gedichte der 
Neuzeit.” Leipsic. 1882. 
A portion of the manuscript of “The Voyage 
of the Good Ship Union ” (poem) may be seen in 
a glass case in the engraving-room of the Harvard 
College Library. 
The “Story of Iris ” (from “The Professor at 
the Breakfast-Table ”) has been published in a 
separate form in Vol. XXX. of the Vest-Pocket 
Series of Modern Classics. 
A volume of “ Holmes Leaflets ” has been 
edited by Josephine E. Hodgson. 
Holmes’ “ Army Hymn ” was composed for 
solo and chorus by Dresel, on the occasion of 
the Beethoven Festival in Music Hall, March 1, 
1856. 
For articles in “ The Atlantic Almanac,” see the 
present Bibliography (1868). 
The manuscript of the poem, “ Bonaparte, Aug- 
ust 15, 1769—Humboldt, September 14, 1769,” 
may be seen in the Boston Public Library. 
The poem entitled “ Grandmother’s Story of the 
Bunker Hill Battle as she saw it from the Belfry,” 
was originally printed in a volume entitled “ Me- 
morial. Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775-1875, with 
illustrations by Harris M. Stevenson.” Boston : 
James R. Osgood & Co. 1875. A curiosity in 348 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
the typographical art is a folio copy of the above 
poem printed in mammoth type, — the lines being 
a foot across the page, — and to be seen at the 
Boston Public Library. It was privately printed, 
and only six copies were struck off. The one in 
the Public Library has written on it in pencil the 
words, “ For old eyes.” In a remarkable volume 
of autographic material on the battles of Lexing- 
ton, Concord, and Bunker Hill, which has been 
made by Judge Mellen Chamberlain, Librarian 
of the Boston Public Library, may be seen an 
entire manuscript copy of the just-mentioned 
poem. 
Dr. Holmes furnished an additional stanza (the 
fifth) for Francis Scott Key’s “ Star-Spangled 
Banner : Song and Chorus.” 
The “ Visit to the Asylum for Aged and Decayed 
Punsters ” (from “ Soundings from the Atlantic ”) 
may be found in Vol V. of Rossiter Johnson’s 
“Little Classics.” 
The Autocrat has two articles in “ The Harvard 
Book ” (Cambridge: Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 
1875), namely, “ The Medical School,” Vol. I., and 
“The Holmes Estate ’ » ol. II. 
As a member of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society he has made various spt ; nes and com- 
municated various papers which ?.;e printed in the 
Proceedings of the Society ano .nay be sought ir 
the indexes to the same. 
In Vol. III. of “The Boston Book” (1841) APPENDIX II. 
349 
was published Holmes’ poem, “ Departed Days,” 
and his “ Morning Visit.” 
Dr. Holmes’ Farewell Lecture before the stu- 
dents of the Harvard Medical School is published 
in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal for 
December 7, 1882 ; also in separate form by A. 
Williams & Co., Boston. 
In 1852 he delivered a course of lectures on 
“ The English Poets of the Nineteenth Century ” 
(still unpublished). 
In November, 1864, he gave a lecture in Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts, before the Dowse Institute, 
entitled “ New England’s Master-Key.” 
In The Token and Atlantic Souvenir (edited by 
S. G. Goodrich, Boston, 1838) will be found 
Holmes’ poem, “ The Only Daughter.” It accom- 
panies an engraving by J. Andrews, from a paint- 
ing by G. S. Newton. “The only daughter is rep- 
resented as an old-fashioned-looking child, with 
short hair and side-combs, enormous puffed sleeves 
to her dress, which is cut low in the neck and over 
which is tied a black silk apron with pockets, 
while for ornament she wears a long string of 
beads which goes twice around her neck, and is 
tucked in her belt.” 
The following poems have been set to music: 
Angel of Peace (Qt.), M. Keller; Army Hymn 
(for Solo and Chorus), Dresel; Evening Thought, 
Y. Van Antwerp; Hymn of Peace (Qt.), M. Kel- 
ler ; Song of a Clerk, A. J. Goodrich; There’s no 350 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
Time like the Old Time (Song and Chorus), 
A. B. Hutchinson ; Welcome to the Nations (Qt.), 
M. Keller. 
Dr. Holmes’ medical lectures have occasionally 
been reprinted in English journals, such as the 
London Lancet. INDEX. 
A. 
Advertiser, Boston Daily, 101, 
287. 
jEolian Attachment, the, 317. 
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 270. 
Allen, Col. Ethan, 44. 
Allopathy, 303-307. 
Alphabet, twenty-seventh letter 
of the, 325. 
American Monthly Magazine, 
108. 
Anaesthesia, discovery of, 196. 
Andrew, Governor, 152. 
Anglicism of Holmes’ style, 
284-289. 
“ Army Hymn,” 347. 
Art Gallery, 91. 
“ Artillery Election,” 66. 
Athenaeum Library, 91. 
Atlantic Almanac, 338. 
Atlantic Club, the, breakfast of, 
I35-I39- 
Atlantic Monthly, founded, 132- 
136; Breakfast to Holmes, 
215 sqq. 
“ Autocrat of the Breakfast- 
Table,” 133, 140-149. 
B. 
Back Bay, 153. 
Beecher, Henry Ward, 195. 
Benjamin, Park, 106, 109,1x3. 
Berkeley, Bishop, 296. 
Berkshire Region, 123-125. 
Beverly Farms, 116, 222-224. 
Biglow, William, 68. 
Boccaccio, 311. 
Books, 321. 
Books read by Holmes when a. 
boy, 67. 
Boston a half century ago, 112, 
113- 
Boston Book, the, 348. 
Boylston prizes, 1x3, 114. 
“ Boys, The,” 274. 
Bradstreet, Mrs. Anne Dudley, 
26-30. 
Bradstreets, the, 26-30. 
Breakfast, the Holmes, 215 sqq. 
Breitmann, Hans, 273. 
Bridgman, Thomas, 15. 
British, criticism of the, 197, 
198. 
Bugbee, E. Holmes, 31. 
Buixker Hill, 348. 
c. 
Channing, Dr. William Ellery, 
3°- 
Charles River, 152, 153, 203, 
204. 
Clarke, Dr. Edward Hammond, 
39- 352 
INDEX. 
Clarke, James Freeman, 100, 
209, 281. 
Clarke, Miss L., 209. 
Clarke, Rev. Pitt, 39. 
Clarke, Sarah Freeman, 91. 
Classmates, enumerated, 80,278; 
see also, 274-276. 
Class poems, 274-276. 
Class poet, 80. 
Collegian, The, 97-100. 
Commencement Day, 92-96. 
Cooper, the Rev. Dr. Samuel, 
205. 
Corolla, the Spiral, 324. 
Criticising, 317; Unpremedi- 
tated, 323. 
Curtis, Benjamin R., 80, 85. 
Curtis, George T., 108. 
Curtis, George William, 229, 
230. 
D. 
Daly, Chief Justice, 22, 23 
(note). 
“ Daughter, The Only,” 349. 
D’Estaing, Admiral, 22. 
Dixwell, E. S., 116. 
Dixwell, Miss Fanny, 116. 
“ Dorothy Q.,” 20, 205. 
E. 
Edwards, Jonathan, 264, 265. 
Eliot, President Charles W., 
122, 123. 
“Elsie Venner,” 156, 163-175) 
346. 
Emerson, Charles Chauncey, 82- 
Enferson, poem “ Brahma,” 13a 
(note), 221. 
“English Poets of the Nine- 
teenth Century,” 125. 
Euthanasia, 320. 
Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit, 318. 
“ Exotics,” 209. 
Exuviae, Our Moral, 319. 
F. 
Felton, C. C., 84. 
Fields, James T., 152. 
Folsom, the Hon. George, 146 
(note). 
Free Will, 166, 167. 
Fuller, Margaret, 70. 
G. 
Gambrel-roofed House, 39, 41, 
42, 46, 52-58, 102. 
Gannet, Ezra Styles, 84. 
Garden, the, 58-63. 
Goodale sisters, 125. 
“ Grandmother’s Story of Bun- 
ker Hill Battle,” 347, 348. 
“Guardian Angel, The,” 175- 
180. 
Gunpowder, 319. 
H. 
Hahnemann, 297, 298, 301. 
Hancock, John, 19. 
Harbinger, The, 106. 
Harper's Monthly Magazine, 
16. 
Harvard Book, articles in by 
Holmes, 348. INDEX. 
353 
Harvard Register, 83. 
Harvard Register (the first), 
100. 
Hawthorne’s burial, 199, 200. 
Higginson, Col. T. W., 41. 
Holmes, Abiel, 11, 19, 37-45, 
49- 
Holmes, Amelia Jackson, 1x6. 
Holmes, Edward, 116. 
Holmes family, 30-45. 
Holmes John, 65, 93; letters of, 
219, 220, 221. 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, stud- 
ies law, 96; studies medicine, 
96; in the pulpit, 97; con- 
tributes to the Collegian, 97; 
first poem, 98; studies medi- 
cine in Boston, 103, 104 ; bib- 
liophilism, 104-106; sails for 
Europe, 106; first volume of 
poems, 109-111; practising 
physician, in, 112; wins 
Boylston prizes, 114; pro- 
fessor at Dartmouth, 114; 
married, 115 ; at Montgom- 
ery Place, 115, 116; accepts 
chair in Harvard Medical 
School, 119; summerings at 
Pittsfield, 123; lectures on the 
English poets, 125 ; as a lec- 
turer, 126, 127 ; helps found 
The Atlantic, 135 ; visits Ir- 
ving, 150; removes to Charles 
Street, 152; attitude toward 
slavery, 181-184; his patriot- 
ism, 184, 190; removes to 
Beacon Street, 202; resigns 
position as Harvard professor, 
224; and delivers last lecture 
at Medical School, 225-228; 
humor, 237; egotism, 242, 
243; genius, 243, 244 ; indige- 
nous, 245, 246; love of nature, 
246-248; class feeling, or 
caste, 248-256 ;theplogy, 256- , 
266; religious nature, 261, 
266; class poems, 274-276; 
epochs in his poetical life, 
278, 279; condensation of 
thought, 280, 281; Anglicism 
of style, 284-289; as scien- 
tific writer, 292-315. 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., 
116-118. 
Holyoke, Dr. Edward Augustus, 
3n» 312- 
Homoeopathy, 295-303. 
Howe, Dr. Samuel G., 106. 
Hood, 287, 288. 
“ Human Wheel, The,” 194. 
I 
Illusion, 316. 
“ Independence, Our Progress- 
ive,” 195. 
Indian summer, 324. 
Indian, the, 316. 
“In Memoriam” stanza, the, 
40. 
Invalidism, 318. 
Iris, 154, 163, 283, 347. 
Irving, Washington, visited by 
Holmes, 150. 
J. 
Jackson, Dr. James, 103. 
Jackson, Mary, 19. 354 
INDEX. 
K. 
Key, Francis Scott, 348. 
Kirkland, President, 78. 
Koeymans’ man , 16. 
L. 
Leland, Charles G., 273. 
Lincoln, Abraham, no, hi, 
252. 
Louis, Pierre Cha. Alex., 226, 
334- 
Lowell, 50. 
M. 
Massachusetts Historical So- 
ciety, 348. 
McKenzie, Dr. Alex., 38 (note). 
Mechanism in Thought and 
Morals, 263, 309. 
Medical lectures, 122, 350. 
Medical School, 119-122; re- 
port of a recitation at, 120, 
121; farewell lecture at, 225- 
228, and 349. 
Memorial Hall, 46. 
Microscopical researches and 
studies, 293, 294. 
Miller, Joaquin, 252. 
Montgomery Place, 115, 116. 
Mother, The Poet’s, 14, 19, 39, 
337- 
Motley, 81, 82, 113. 
Music, poems set to, 349. 
N. 
Nancy, Aunt, 208. 
Nation, The, criticises Holmes, 
179, 180. 
“Negro Plot,” 57. 
“ New England’s Master-Key,* 
349- 
New England Magazine, 104. 
“ Nigger ’lection,” 66. 
Novels, general remarks on Dr. 
Holmes’, 157-163. 
o. 
Oken’s Dictum, 310. 
Old Corner Bookstore, 113. 
“ Old Ironsides,” 100, 102. 
Old Wine in New Bottles, 317. 
Oliver, Dr. James, 18, 24-26. 
Oliver family, 23-26. 
Oliver, General Henry K., 86, 
89, 90. 
Oliver, Sarah, 18. 
One-Hoss Shay, The, 329. 
Optical Researches, 293. 
Organ of Music Hall, 194. 
Otis, Mrs. H. Gray, 106. 
P. 
Palfrey, Cazneau, 85. 
Palmer, Dr. John Williamson, 
138, 139 (see Appendix I). 
Paris, Holmes in, 106, 107. 
Parker House, 252. 
Peabody, Dr. A. P., 87. 
Peirce, Professor Benjamin, 276- 
278. 
Pepys, 239, 240. 
Phi Beta Kappa, 107. 
Philadelphia, Swedes’ Church 
in, 15. 
Phillips family, 18. 
Phillips, Wendell, 30. INDEX. 
355 
Piano-playing, 206. 
Pittsfield, residence of Holmes 
at, 123. 
Poems, the best, 290, 291. 
“ Poet at the Breakfast-Table,” 
205, 209. 
Poetical Composition, descrip- 
tion of, 209-212. 
Pooh-Poohs, The, 322. 
Popkin, Professor, 90. 
“Post-Prandial,” 18, 273. 
Potter, Dr. Henry C., 22 (note), 
229. 
Prentiss, Dane, 67. 
Prescott, 198. 
Preston, Harriet, 248, 249. 
“Professor at the Breakfast- 
Table,” 154-156. 
“ Professor’s Story,” 163. 
“Puerperal Fever, Contagious- 
ness of,” 292, 293. 
Puns, 192-194. 
Q- 
Quincy, Dorothy (“ Dorothy 
Q.”), 20, 205. 
Quincy family, 20-23. 
Quixote, Don, 316. 
R. 
“ Rip,” 273. 
Rolfe, Benjamin, 75. 
Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 306. 
s. 
Sanborn, F. B., 16, 182. 
Sargent, Epes, 98. 
Sargent, Henry Winthrop, 84. 
Sargent, John Osborne, 83, 91, 
98, 106. 
Sargent, Mrs. John Turner, 
116. 
Saturday Club, 139. 
Science Applied, 319. 
Sewall family, 18. 
Slang, 322. 
Slavery, 181-184. 
Smith, Sydney, 37. 
“ Soundings from the Atlantic," 
190. 
Sparks, Jared, 45. 
Stackpole, J. L., 113. 
Stafford, Edward, quaint re- 
ceipt, 310. 
Stearns, Dr. Oliver, 78. 
Stearns, Rev. Samuel Horatio, 
73- 
Stiles, Ezra, 38, 43, 44. 
Stuart, Professor Moses, 74. 
Study of the Poet, 204, 205. 
Sumner, Charles, 81. 
T. 
Taylor, Bayard, 282. 
Thackeray, 239. 
Theology of the Poet, 256- 
266. 
“ There’s no Time like the Old 
Time,” 347. 
Tories of Beacon Street, 113. 
Tractors, The Metallic, 296, 
297- 
Translation, 321. 
Turpentine, 326. 356 
INDEX. 
u. 
Undervaluation, Mutual, 327, 
328. 
Underwood, Francis H., 133, 
i35. 136. 
“ Uncle Samuel and the Grind- 
ers,” 187-190. 
Unknown, The, 321. 
V. 
Verplancks, the, 16. 
Versification, the Physiology 
of, 212. 
“ Visit to the Asylum for Aged 
and Decayed Punsters,” 192, 
193. 348. 
Vital Principle, 308, 309. 
Voyage of the Good Ship 
Union,” 347. 
w 
Washington Corps, The Har- 
vard, 88. 
Waterhouse, Benjamin, 312- 
315- 
Way land, Dr., 109. 
Wendell, Jacob, 16, 18, 19, 
125. 
Wendell, Oliver, 19, 20. 
“Wendell P.” 18. 
Winslow, Edward, 306. 
Woodstock, Town of, 30. 
“Wormwood Cordial of His 
tory,” 186. 
Y. 
Yorick, 268 (note), 315