CHAPTER XIX.

SAIDone of the medical students in Doctor Holmes' last class at Harvard:

"We always welcomed Professor Holmes with enthusiastic cheers when he came into the class room, and his lectures were so brimful of witty anecdotes that we sometimes forgot it was a lesson in anatomy we had come to learn. But the instruction—deep, sound and thorough—was there all the same, and we never left the room without feeling what a fund of knowledge and what a clear insight upon difficult points in medical science had been imparted to us through the sparkling medium!"

The position of Parkman Professor of Anatomy in Harvard University, was resigned by Doctor Holmes in the autumn of 1882, that he might give his time more exclusively to literary pursuits. He was immediately appointed ProfessorEmeritus by the college, and Doctor Thomas Dwight, a teacher in the Medical School, succeeded him in the active duties of the chair.

The last lecture of Doctor Holmes before his students, was delivered in the anatomical room, on the twenty-eighth of November. As he entered the room, a storm of applause greeted him, and then as it died away, one of the students came forward and presented him, in behalf of his last class, with an exquisite "Loving Cup." On one side of this beautiful souvenir was the happy quotation from his own writings: "Love bless thee, joy crown thee, God speed thy career."

Doctor Holmes was so deeply affected by this delicate token of esteem that, afterwards, in acknowledging the cup by letter, he said that the tribute was so unexpected it made him speechless. He was quite sure, however, that they did not mistakeaphasiaforacardia—his heart was in its right place, though his tongue forgot its office.

In the address to his class, the Professor gave an interesting review of his thirty-five years' connection with the school. Then he referred to his early college days, and to hisstudies in Paris, and added many delightful reminiscences of the famous French savants whose lectures he attended at that time. A full report of this address may be found in theBoston Medical and Surgical Journal, for December 7, 1882.

This, one of his most interesting essays, is also reprinted in one of Doctor Holmes' later volumes, entitledMedical Essays.

On the evening of April 12, 1883, a complimentary dinner was given Doctor Holmes at Delmonico's, by the medical profession of New York City. The reception opened at about half-past six, and soon after that hour Doctor Holmes entered the rooms with Doctor Fordyce Barker. The guests, numbering some two hundred and twenty-five in all, were seated at six tables, the table of honor occupying the upper end of the room, and decorated with banks of choice flowers.

Themenuswere cleverly arranged in the form of small books bound in various-colored plush. A dainty design in gilt, representing a scalpel and pen, surrounded by a laurel wreath, adorned the covers, and inside was the stanza:

A few can touch the magic string,And noisy fame is proud to win them,Alas, for those that never sing,But die with all their music in them.

At the top of the leaf containing the bill of fare were the lines:

You know your own degree; sit down; at first and last a hearty welcome.

at the end:

Prithee, no more; thou dost talk nothing to me.

A few minutes before the coffee was brought in, each guest received what purported to be a telegram from Boston, dated April 1, 1883. The message read as follows:

The dinner bell, the dinner bellIs ringing loud and clear,Through hill and plain, through street and laneIt echoes far and near.I hear the voice! I go, I go!Prepare your meat and wine;They little heed their future needWho pay not when they dine.—O.W.H.

The dinner bell, the dinner bellIs ringing loud and clear,Through hill and plain, through street and laneIt echoes far and near.

I hear the voice! I go, I go!Prepare your meat and wine;They little heed their future needWho pay not when they dine.—O.W.H.

The back of the despatch was decorated withtwo pictures; one showing Doctor Fordyce Barker ringing a dinner bell and brandishing a knife and fork, the other Doctor Holmes hurrying to answer the bell, with a pile of books under one arm and a bundle of bones under the other.

Among the guests present were George William Curtis, Hon. William M. Evarts, Bishop Clark, Whitelaw Reid, Doctors Post, Emmett, Sayre, Billing, Vanderpoel Metcalfe, Detmoold Draper, Doremus, Hammond, St. J. Roosa, Flint, Dana, Peabody, Ranney, Jacobi, Austin, and many others.

The first toast was as follows:

The hour's now come;The very minute bids thee ope thine earObey, and be attentive.—The Tempest.

After a few brief words of introduction, Doctor Barker called upon Doctor A.H. Smith to complete the greeting, which he did in the following happy lines:

You've heard of the deacon's one hoss shayWhich, finished in Boston the self-same dayThat the City of Lisbon went to pot,Did a century's service, and then was not.But the record's at fault which says that it burstInto simply a heap of amorphous dust,For after the wreck of that wonderful tubOut of the ruins they saved a hub;And the hub has since stood for Boston town,Hub of the universe, note that down.But an orderly hub as all will own,Must have something central to turn upon,And, rubber-cushioned, and true and brightWe have the axle here to-night.Thrice welcome then to our festal boardThe doctor-poet, so doubly storedWith science as well as with native wit,Poeta nascitur, you know,non fit,led to dissect with knife or penHis subjects dead or living men;With thought sublime on every pageTo swell the veins with virtuous rage,Or with a syringe to inject themWith sublimate to disinfect them;To show with demonstrator's artThe complex chambers of the heart,Or armed with a diviner skillTo make it pulsate at his will;With generous verse to celebrateThe loaves and fishes of some giver;And then proceed to demonstrateThe lobes and fissures of the liver;To soothe the pulses of the brainWith poetry's enchanting strain.Or to describe to class uproariousPes hippocampi accessorious;erve with fervor of appealThe sluggish muscles into steel,Or, pulling their attachments, showWhence they arise and where they go;To fire the eye by wit consummate,Or draw the aqueous humor from it;In times of peril give the toneTo public feeling, called backbone,Or to discuss that question solemn,The muscles of the spinal column.And now I close my artless dittyAs per agreement with committee,And making place for those more ableI leave the subject on the table.

The toast "Our Guest," was prefaced by the following quotation from Emerson:

"One would say here is a man with such an abundance of thought! He is never dull, never insincere, and has the genius to make the reader care for all that he cares for."

As Doctor Holmes rose, the room fairly shook with applause. Without any prefatory remarks, he then read the following poem:

Have I deserved your kindness? Nay, my friends;While the fair banquet its illusion lends,Let me believe it, though the blood may rushAnd to my cheek recall the maiden blushThat o'er it flamed with momentary blazeWhen first I heard the honeyed words of praise;Let me believe it while the roses wearTheir bloom unwithering in the heated air;Too soon, too soon their glowing leaves must fall,The laughing echoes leave the silent hall,Joy drop his garland, turn his empty cup,And weary labor take his burden up,—How weigh that burden they can tell aloneWhose dial marks no moment as their own.Am I your creditor? Too well I knowHow Friendship pays the debt it does not owe,Shapes a poor semblance fondly to its mind,Adds all the virtues that it fails to find,Adorns with graces to its heart's content,Borrows from love what nature never lent,Till what with halo, jewels, gilding, paint,The veriest sinner deems himself a saint.Thus while you pay these honors as my due,I owe my value's larger part to you;And in the tribute of the hour I seeNot what I am, but what I ought to be.Friends of the Muse, to you of right belongThe first staid footsteps of my square-toed song;Full well I know the strong heroic lineHas lost its fashion since I made it mine;But there are tricks old singers will not learn,And this grave measure still must serve my turn,So the old bird resumes the self-same noteHis first young summer wakened in his throat;The self-same tune the old canary sings,And all unchanged the bobolink's carol rings;When the tired songsters of the day are still,The thrush repeats his long-remembered trill;Age alters not the crow's persistent caw,The Yankee's "Haow," the stammering Briton's "Haw;"And so the hand that takes the lyre for youPlays the old tune on strings that once were new,Nor let the rhymester of the hour derideThe straight-backed measure with its stately stride;It gave the mighty voice of Dryden scope:It sheathed the steel-bright epigrams of Pope;In Goldsmith's verse it learned a sweeter strain,Byron and Campbell wore its clanking chain;I smile to listen while the critic's scornFlouts the proud purple kings have nobly worn;Bid each new rhymer try his dainty skillAnd mould his frozen phrases as he will;We thank the artist for his neat device—The shape is pleasing though the stuff is ice.Fashions will change—the new costume allures—Unfading still the better type endures;While the slashed doublet of the cavalierGave the old knight the pomp of chanticleer,Our last-hatched dandy with his glass and stickRecalls the semblance of a new-born chick(To match the model he is aiming atHe ought to wear an eggshell for a hat),Which of these objects would a painter choose,And which Velasquez or Vandyke refuse?When your kind summons reached my calm retreat,Who are the friends, I questioned, I shall meet?Some in young manhood, shivering with desireTo feel the genial warmth of Fortune's fire—Each with his bellows ready in his handTo puff the flame just waiting to be fanned;Some heads half-silvered, some with snow-white hair;A crown ungarnished glistening here and there,The mimic moonlight gleaming on the scalpsAs evening's empress lights the shining Alps.But count the crowds that throng your festal scenes—How few that knew the century in its teens!Save for the lingering handful fate befriends,Life's busy day the Sabbath decade ends;When that is over, how with what remainsOf Nature's outfit—muscle, nerve and brains?Were this a pulpit, I should doubtless preach;Were this a platform, I should gravely teach;But to no solemn duties I pretendIn my vocation at the table's end,So as my answer let me tell insteadWhat Landlord Porter—rest his soul—once said.A feast it was that none might scorn to share;Cambridge and Concord demigods were there—And who were they? You know as well as IThe stars long glittering in our Eastern sky—The names that blazon our provincial scrollRing round the world with Britain's drumbeat roll!Good was the dinner, better was the talk;Some whispered, devious was the homeward walk;The story came from some reporting spy—They lie, those fellows—Oh, how they do lie!Not ours those foot tracks in the new fallen snow—Poets and sages never zigzagged so!Now Landlord Porter, grave, concise, severe,Master, nay, monarch, in his proper sphere,Though to belles-lettres he pretended not,Lived close to Harvard, so knew what was what;And having bards, philosophers and suchTo eat his dinner, put the finest touchHis art could teach, those learned mouths to fillWith the best proofs of gustatory skill;And finding wisdom plenty at his board,Wit, science, learning, all his guests had stored,By way of contrast, ventured to produce,To please their palates, an inviting goose.Better it were the company should starveThan hands unskilled that goose attempt to carve;None but the master artist shall assailThe bird that turns the mightiest surgeon pale.One voice arises from the banquet hall,—The landlord answers to the pleading call;Of stature tall, sublime of port he stands,His blade and trident gleaming in his hands;Beneath his glance the strong-knit joints relaxAs the weak knees before the headsman's axe.And Landlord Porter lifts his glittering knifeAs some stout warrior armed for bloody strife;All eyes are on him; some in whispers ask—What man is he who dares this dangerous task?When, lo! the triumph of consummate art,With scarce a touch the creature drops apart!As when the baby in his nurse's lapSpills on the carpet a dissected map.Then the calm sage, the monarch of the lyre,Critics and men of science all admire,And one whose wisdom I will not impeach,Lively, not churlish, somewhat free of speech,Speaks thus: "Say, master, what of worth is leftIn birds like this, of breast and legs bereft?"And Landlord Porter, with uplifted eyes,Smiles on the simple querist, and replies—"When from a goose you've taken legs and breast,Wipe lips, thank God, and leave the poor the rest!"Kind friends, sweet friends, I hold it hardly fairWith that same bird your minstrel to compare,Yet in a certain likeness we agree—No wrong to him, and no offence to me;I take him for the moral he has lent,My partner—to a limited extent.When the stern landlord, whom we all obey,Has carved from life its seventh great slice away,Is the poor fragment left in blank collapseA pauper remnant of unvalued scraps?I care not much what Solomon has said,Before his time to nobler pleasures dead;Poor man! he needed half a hundred livesWith such a babbling wilderness of wives!But is there nothing that may well employLife's winter months—no sunny hour of joy?While o'er the fields the howling tempests rage,The prisoned linnet warbles in his cage;When chill November through the forest blowsThe greenhouse shelters the untroubled rose,Round the high trellis creeping tendrils twine,And the ripe clusters fill with blameless wine,We make the vine forget the winter's cold,But how shall age forget it's growing old?Though doing right is better than deceit,Time is a trickster it is fair to cheat;The honest watches ticking in your fobsTell every minute how the rascal robs.To clip his forelock and his scythe to hide,To lay his hour-glass gently on its side,To slip the cards he marked upon the shelf,And deal him others you have marked yourself,If not a virtue, cannot be a sin,For the old rogue is sure at last to win.What does he leave when life is well-nigh spentTo lap its evening in a calm content?Art, Letters, Science, these at least befriendOur day's brief remnant to its peaceful end—Peaceful for him who shows the setting sunA record worthy of his Lord's "well done!"When he, the Master whom I will not name,Known to our calling, not unknown to fame,At life's extremest verge half-conscious lay,Helpless and sightless, dying day by day,His brain, so long with varied wisdom fraught,Filled with the broken enginery of thought,A flitting vision often would illumeHis darkened world and cheer its deepening gloom,—A sunbeam struggling through the long eclipse,—And smiles of pleasure play around his lips.He loved the Art that shapes the dome and spire;The Roman's page, the ring of Byron's lyre,And oft, when fitful memory would returnTo find some fragment in her broken urn,Would wake to life some long-forgotten hour,And lead his thought to Pisa's terraced tower,Or trace in light before his rayless eyeThe dome-crowned Pantheon printed on the sky;Then while the view his ravished soul absorbsAnd lends a glitter to the sightless orbs,The patient watcher feels the stillness stirredBy the faint murmur of some classic word,Or the long roll of Harold's lofty rhyme,"Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime,"—Such were the dreams that soothed his couch of pain,The sweet nepenthe of the worn-out brain.Brothers in art, who live for others' needsIn duty's bondage, mercy's gracious deeds,Of all who toil beneath the circling sunWhose evening rest than yours more fairly won?Though many a cloud your struggling morn obscures,What sunset brings a brighter sky than yours?I, who your labors for a while have shared,New tasks have sought, with new companions fared,For Nature's servant far too often seenA loiterer by the waves of Hippocrene;Yet round the earlier friendship twines the new;My footsteps wander, but my heart is true,Nor e'er forgets the living or the deadWho trod with me the paths where science led.How can I tell you, O my loving friends,What light, what warmth, your joyous welcome lendsTo life's late hour? Alas! my song is sung,Its fading accents falter on my tongue.Sweet friends, if shrinking in the banquet's blaze,Your blushing guest must face the breath of praise,Speak not too well of one who scarce will knowHimself transfigured in its roseate glow;Say kindly of him what is—chiefly—true,Remembering always he belongs to you;Deal with him as a truant, if you will,But claim him, keep him, call him brother still!

Am I your creditor? Too well I knowHow Friendship pays the debt it does not owe,Shapes a poor semblance fondly to its mind,Adds all the virtues that it fails to find,Adorns with graces to its heart's content,Borrows from love what nature never lent,Till what with halo, jewels, gilding, paint,The veriest sinner deems himself a saint.Thus while you pay these honors as my due,I owe my value's larger part to you;And in the tribute of the hour I seeNot what I am, but what I ought to be.

Friends of the Muse, to you of right belongThe first staid footsteps of my square-toed song;Full well I know the strong heroic lineHas lost its fashion since I made it mine;But there are tricks old singers will not learn,And this grave measure still must serve my turn,So the old bird resumes the self-same noteHis first young summer wakened in his throat;The self-same tune the old canary sings,And all unchanged the bobolink's carol rings;When the tired songsters of the day are still,The thrush repeats his long-remembered trill;Age alters not the crow's persistent caw,The Yankee's "Haow," the stammering Briton's "Haw;"And so the hand that takes the lyre for youPlays the old tune on strings that once were new,Nor let the rhymester of the hour derideThe straight-backed measure with its stately stride;It gave the mighty voice of Dryden scope:It sheathed the steel-bright epigrams of Pope;In Goldsmith's verse it learned a sweeter strain,Byron and Campbell wore its clanking chain;I smile to listen while the critic's scornFlouts the proud purple kings have nobly worn;Bid each new rhymer try his dainty skillAnd mould his frozen phrases as he will;We thank the artist for his neat device—The shape is pleasing though the stuff is ice.

Fashions will change—the new costume allures—Unfading still the better type endures;While the slashed doublet of the cavalierGave the old knight the pomp of chanticleer,Our last-hatched dandy with his glass and stickRecalls the semblance of a new-born chick(To match the model he is aiming atHe ought to wear an eggshell for a hat),Which of these objects would a painter choose,And which Velasquez or Vandyke refuse?When your kind summons reached my calm retreat,Who are the friends, I questioned, I shall meet?Some in young manhood, shivering with desireTo feel the genial warmth of Fortune's fire—Each with his bellows ready in his handTo puff the flame just waiting to be fanned;Some heads half-silvered, some with snow-white hair;A crown ungarnished glistening here and there,The mimic moonlight gleaming on the scalpsAs evening's empress lights the shining Alps.But count the crowds that throng your festal scenes—How few that knew the century in its teens!

Save for the lingering handful fate befriends,Life's busy day the Sabbath decade ends;When that is over, how with what remainsOf Nature's outfit—muscle, nerve and brains?

Were this a pulpit, I should doubtless preach;Were this a platform, I should gravely teach;But to no solemn duties I pretendIn my vocation at the table's end,So as my answer let me tell insteadWhat Landlord Porter—rest his soul—once said.A feast it was that none might scorn to share;Cambridge and Concord demigods were there—And who were they? You know as well as IThe stars long glittering in our Eastern sky—The names that blazon our provincial scrollRing round the world with Britain's drumbeat roll!

Good was the dinner, better was the talk;Some whispered, devious was the homeward walk;The story came from some reporting spy—They lie, those fellows—Oh, how they do lie!Not ours those foot tracks in the new fallen snow—Poets and sages never zigzagged so!

Now Landlord Porter, grave, concise, severe,Master, nay, monarch, in his proper sphere,Though to belles-lettres he pretended not,Lived close to Harvard, so knew what was what;And having bards, philosophers and suchTo eat his dinner, put the finest touchHis art could teach, those learned mouths to fillWith the best proofs of gustatory skill;And finding wisdom plenty at his board,Wit, science, learning, all his guests had stored,By way of contrast, ventured to produce,To please their palates, an inviting goose.

Better it were the company should starveThan hands unskilled that goose attempt to carve;None but the master artist shall assailThe bird that turns the mightiest surgeon pale.

One voice arises from the banquet hall,—The landlord answers to the pleading call;Of stature tall, sublime of port he stands,His blade and trident gleaming in his hands;Beneath his glance the strong-knit joints relaxAs the weak knees before the headsman's axe.

And Landlord Porter lifts his glittering knifeAs some stout warrior armed for bloody strife;All eyes are on him; some in whispers ask—What man is he who dares this dangerous task?When, lo! the triumph of consummate art,With scarce a touch the creature drops apart!As when the baby in his nurse's lapSpills on the carpet a dissected map.

Then the calm sage, the monarch of the lyre,Critics and men of science all admire,And one whose wisdom I will not impeach,Lively, not churlish, somewhat free of speech,Speaks thus: "Say, master, what of worth is leftIn birds like this, of breast and legs bereft?"

And Landlord Porter, with uplifted eyes,Smiles on the simple querist, and replies—"When from a goose you've taken legs and breast,Wipe lips, thank God, and leave the poor the rest!"

Kind friends, sweet friends, I hold it hardly fairWith that same bird your minstrel to compare,Yet in a certain likeness we agree—No wrong to him, and no offence to me;I take him for the moral he has lent,My partner—to a limited extent.

When the stern landlord, whom we all obey,Has carved from life its seventh great slice away,Is the poor fragment left in blank collapseA pauper remnant of unvalued scraps?I care not much what Solomon has said,Before his time to nobler pleasures dead;Poor man! he needed half a hundred livesWith such a babbling wilderness of wives!But is there nothing that may well employLife's winter months—no sunny hour of joy?While o'er the fields the howling tempests rage,The prisoned linnet warbles in his cage;When chill November through the forest blowsThe greenhouse shelters the untroubled rose,Round the high trellis creeping tendrils twine,And the ripe clusters fill with blameless wine,We make the vine forget the winter's cold,But how shall age forget it's growing old?

Though doing right is better than deceit,Time is a trickster it is fair to cheat;The honest watches ticking in your fobsTell every minute how the rascal robs.To clip his forelock and his scythe to hide,To lay his hour-glass gently on its side,To slip the cards he marked upon the shelf,And deal him others you have marked yourself,If not a virtue, cannot be a sin,For the old rogue is sure at last to win.

What does he leave when life is well-nigh spentTo lap its evening in a calm content?Art, Letters, Science, these at least befriendOur day's brief remnant to its peaceful end—Peaceful for him who shows the setting sunA record worthy of his Lord's "well done!"

When he, the Master whom I will not name,Known to our calling, not unknown to fame,At life's extremest verge half-conscious lay,Helpless and sightless, dying day by day,

His brain, so long with varied wisdom fraught,Filled with the broken enginery of thought,A flitting vision often would illumeHis darkened world and cheer its deepening gloom,—A sunbeam struggling through the long eclipse,—And smiles of pleasure play around his lips.He loved the Art that shapes the dome and spire;The Roman's page, the ring of Byron's lyre,And oft, when fitful memory would returnTo find some fragment in her broken urn,Would wake to life some long-forgotten hour,And lead his thought to Pisa's terraced tower,Or trace in light before his rayless eyeThe dome-crowned Pantheon printed on the sky;Then while the view his ravished soul absorbsAnd lends a glitter to the sightless orbs,The patient watcher feels the stillness stirredBy the faint murmur of some classic word,Or the long roll of Harold's lofty rhyme,"Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime,"—Such were the dreams that soothed his couch of pain,The sweet nepenthe of the worn-out brain.

Brothers in art, who live for others' needsIn duty's bondage, mercy's gracious deeds,Of all who toil beneath the circling sunWhose evening rest than yours more fairly won?Though many a cloud your struggling morn obscures,What sunset brings a brighter sky than yours?

I, who your labors for a while have shared,New tasks have sought, with new companions fared,For Nature's servant far too often seenA loiterer by the waves of Hippocrene;Yet round the earlier friendship twines the new;My footsteps wander, but my heart is true,Nor e'er forgets the living or the deadWho trod with me the paths where science led.

How can I tell you, O my loving friends,What light, what warmth, your joyous welcome lendsTo life's late hour? Alas! my song is sung,Its fading accents falter on my tongue.Sweet friends, if shrinking in the banquet's blaze,Your blushing guest must face the breath of praise,Speak not too well of one who scarce will knowHimself transfigured in its roseate glow;Say kindly of him what is—chiefly—true,Remembering always he belongs to you;Deal with him as a truant, if you will,But claim him, keep him, call him brother still!

The next toast was to "The Clergy."

He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one, exceedingwise, fair-spoken and persuading.—King Henry VIII.

Bishop Clark of Rhode Island responded. "We honor," he said, "the high priesthood of science and art. We honor the man who has brought life and joy to many weary dwellings, and therefore we extend the right hand of fellowship to him." When after tracing the lineage ofthe guest, he reviewed his life, quoted from his writings, and said in conclusion, that he stood side by side with Oliver Goldsmith.

The toast to "The Bar"—

Why might that not be the skullOf a lawyer? Where be his quidet's now?—Hamlet.

was answered by Hon. Wm. M. Evarts, in a witty and characteristic address.

Doctor T. Gaillard Thomas responded to the toast, "The Medical Profession"—

She honors herself in honoring a favorite son,—

and George William Curtis followed in an address, answering to the toast "Literature"—

A kind of medicine in itself.—Measure for Measure.

All factions, he declared, claimed Oliver Wendell Holmes, and all peoples spoke of him in praise. He then mentioned many of the poet's songs, reciting a stanza occasionally and commenting on them in a touching manner. The next toast was "The Press"—

But words are things, and a small drop of inkFalling like dew upon a thought, producesThat which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.—Byron.

This was responded to by Whitelaw Reid in a humorous address in which he closely connected Doctor Holmes with the profession of journalism. It was a late hour when the company separated, and the last toast given, found a hearty, though silent response from all present—

Good-night, good-night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,That I shall say good-night till it be to-morrow.—Romeo and Juliet.

Before closing this long chapter of "honors to Doctor Holmes," we cannot refrain from giving the following cordial tribute from John Boyle O'Reilly:

"Oliver Wendell Holmes:—the wise, the witty, the many ideald, philosopher, poet, physician, novelist, essayist, professor, but, best of all, the kind, the warm heart. A man of unexpected tastes, ranging in all directions from song to science, and from theology to boatracing. Me met one day on Tremont street an acquaintance fond of athletic exercise, and he stopped himself with a pathetic little sigh.

"'Ah, you send me back fifty years,' he said. 'As you walked then with a swing, you reminded me of an old friend who was dead before you were born; and he was a good man with his hands, too.'

"Never was a more healthy, natural, lovable man than Doctor Holmes."

ITwas not until the spring of 1886 that Doctor Holmes made his second trip to Europe. A whole half century had elapsed since his return home from the three years spent abroad when he was completing his medical studies.

In this second European tour he was accompanied by his daughter, Mrs. Sargent; and he gives his own delightful account of it in "One Hundred Days in Europe," which first appeared as a serial in theAtlantic Monthly, and has since been published in book form, with a charming dedication to his daughter. "The Sailing of the Autocrat" was celebrated by T.B. Aldrich in a fine poem, from which we quote a few lines as embodying the tender love and ardent admiration of the whole American people:—

"O Wind and Wave, be kind to him!For him may radiant mornings breakFrom out the bosom of the deep,And golden noons above him bend,And fortunate constellations keepBright vigils to his journey's end!Take him, green Erin, to thy breast!Keep him, gray London—for a while!In him we send thee of our best,Our wisest word, our blithest smile—Our epigram, alert and pat,That kills with joy the folly hit—Our Yankee Tzar, our AutocratOf all the happy realms of wit!Take him and keep him—but forbearTo keep him more than half a year....His presence will be sunshine there,His absence will be shadow here!"

"O Wind and Wave, be kind to him!For him may radiant mornings breakFrom out the bosom of the deep,And golden noons above him bend,And fortunate constellations keepBright vigils to his journey's end!

Take him, green Erin, to thy breast!Keep him, gray London—for a while!In him we send thee of our best,Our wisest word, our blithest smile—Our epigram, alert and pat,That kills with joy the folly hit—Our Yankee Tzar, our AutocratOf all the happy realms of wit!Take him and keep him—but forbearTo keep him more than half a year....His presence will be sunshine there,His absence will be shadow here!"

We delight to recall with what distinguished honors he was received abroad from the highest dignitaries of church and state, as well as from his own literary compeers. It was during this visit in England that the LondonSpectatorwrote, "No literary American—unless it be Mr. Lowell, and we should not except even him—occupies precisely the same place as Doctor Holmes in Englishmen's regard. They have the feeling for him which they had for Charles Lamb, CharlesDickens, and John Leech, in which admiration somewhat blends into and is indistinguishable from affectionateness."

The Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, and Cambridge all conferred their honorary degrees upon him, and he has given us his own inimitable description of the manner in which he was entertained by Carlyle and by Tennyson.

At a club dinner given to him in London, he said to the bishop of Gloucester:

"I think we are all unconsciously conscious of each other's brain waves at times. The fact is that words and even signs are a very poor sort of language, compared with the direct telegraphy between souls. The mistake we make is to suppose that the soul is circumscribed and imprisoned by the body. Now, the truth is, I believe I extend a good way outside my body. Well, I should say at least three or four feet all round, and so do you, and it is our extensions that meet. Before words pass or we shake hands, our souls have exchanged impressions, and they never lie."

In reply to a toast at the farewell banquet given him in Liverpool by the Medical Society of London, he said:

"I cannot do justice to the manner in whichI have been everywhere received. Any phrase of mine would be a most inadequate return for the months of loving and assiduous attentions through which I have been living. You need not ask me, therefore, the almost stereotyped question, how I like England and Scotland. I cannot help loving both, and I only regret I could not accept the welcome awaiting me from my friends in warmhearted Ireland."

Fresh in mind still is the enthusiastic ovation given to our beloved Autocrat when the hundred days had passed, and "Wind and Wave" brought safely home again "our wisest word, our blithest smile."

But grim Death, that had "rained through every roof save his," was soon to send a cruel shaft into the poet's happy home. On the 6th of February, 1888, the dear companion and helpmeet of his life for nearly half a century—

"Stole with soft step the shining archway throughAnd left the past years' dwelling for the new."

Mrs. Holmes was a remarkably gifted woman, and singularly fitted to be the wife of a man of genius. She was devoted to her home and family, and the charm of her sweet womanliness will longbe remembered by those who had the privilege of knowing her intimately. Doctor Holmes has himself told us that her simple, reticent "I think so," was valued by him as a far more encouraging sanction for action, than the dogmatic advice of a more arbitrary adviser. When the Civil War broke out, Mrs. Holmes was one of the first Boston women to enter actively into the work of the United States Sanitary Commission.

"She impressed us all," says one of her fellow workers, "as being so strong, steady, clear, and firm. There was not one among the whole body with whom we were so united as with her. And the strange thing about her was that she really had the executive ability and the clear mind, as well as the gentle and amiable spirit. She shirked no labor, even of the most menial, and was one of those who gave up almost all her time to the work. Her eldest son was at this time in the war, and went through six battles; and this, although she never complained, was a constantly harrowing pain to her."

The younger son of Doctor Holmes, Edward Jackson Holmes, died in 1884, leaving one son who bears the same name; and in 1889, his only daughter, Mrs. Sargent, passed away. The aching void left in heart and home by these sad bereavements was felt still more keenly as, one after another, the old friends of his youth were laid to rest.

"I do not think," he said upon one of his last birthdays, "that one of the companions of my early years, of my boyhood, is left. When a man reaches my age, and then looks back fifty years, why, even that distance into the past to such a man leaves a pretty good gap behind it. Half a century from eighty years leaves a 'gap' of thirty years, and thirty years are a good many to most men."

At one of the Saturday Club dinners, when fewer members than usual were present, Doctor Holmes remarked,

"This room is full of ghosts to me. I can see so many faces here that used to be here years ago, and that have since passed from this life. They are all real to me here, and I think if I were the only living person at one of these dinners, I could sit here and talk to those I see about me, and dine pleasantly, even alone."

Bryant, Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier and Lowell—all lifelong friends of Holmes—had already "passed on." To other dearly-loved comrades, also, the great last summons had come. Ticknor, Prescott, Fields, Benjamin Pierce, James Freeman Clarke, Francis Parkman—all were gone.

"I feel," he often said with a sigh, "that I am living in another age and generation."

Little, indeed, did the young Oliver realize when he wrote that pathetic poem, "The Last Leaf," that he was the one of our five great poets destined to be the "last upon the tree!"

Upon his eightieth birthday, he remarked, "I have worn well, but you cannot cheat old age. The difficulty with me now in writing is that I don't like to start on anything. I always feel that people must be saying, 'Are you not rash at eighty years of age to write for young people who think a man old at forty?'"

But in his delightful series of papers, "Over the Teacups," we mark the same brilliant flashes of wit, the same keen intuition, the same warmhearted sympathy with all phases of human nature, that our beloved Autocrat showed in the Breakfast Table chats. As Doctor Holmes himself says:

"In sketching the characters, I have tried tomake just the difference one would naturally find in a breakfast and a tea table set."

Another volume of poems, "Before the Curfew," and a series of essays entitled "Our New Portfolio," were published soon after. The last poem of Doctor Holmes printed in theAtlantic Monthlywas written in his eighty-fourth year and dedicated to the memory of Francis Parkman. Some of its verses, however, pay a loving tribute also to his old friends Prescott and Motley:

"One wrought the record of a royal pairWho saw the great discoverer's sail unfurled,Happy his more than regal prize to share,The spoils, the wonders of the sunset world.There, too, he found his theme; upreared anewOur eyes beheld the vanished Aztec shrines,And all the silver splendors of PeruThat lured the conqueror to her fatal mines.Nor less remembered he who told the taleOf empire wrested from the strangling sea;Of Leyden's woe, that turned his readers pale,The price of unborn freedom yet to be;Who taught the new world what the old could teach;Whose silent hero, peerless as our own,By deeds that mocked the feeble breath of speechCalled up to life a State without a throne.As year by year his tapestry unrolled,What varied wealth its growing length displayed!What long processions flamed in cloth of gold!What stately forms their glowing robes arrayed!"

"One wrought the record of a royal pairWho saw the great discoverer's sail unfurled,Happy his more than regal prize to share,The spoils, the wonders of the sunset world.

There, too, he found his theme; upreared anewOur eyes beheld the vanished Aztec shrines,And all the silver splendors of PeruThat lured the conqueror to her fatal mines.

Nor less remembered he who told the taleOf empire wrested from the strangling sea;Of Leyden's woe, that turned his readers pale,The price of unborn freedom yet to be;

Who taught the new world what the old could teach;Whose silent hero, peerless as our own,By deeds that mocked the feeble breath of speechCalled up to life a State without a throne.

As year by year his tapestry unrolled,What varied wealth its growing length displayed!What long processions flamed in cloth of gold!What stately forms their glowing robes arrayed!"

Contrasting with Prescott's and Motley's the subject of Parkman's histories, the poet says,

"Not such the scenes our later craftsman drew,Not such the shapes his darker pattern held;A deeper shadow lent its sombre hue,A sadder tale his tragic task compelled.He told the red man's story; far and wideHe searched the unwritten records of his race;He sat a listener at the sachem's side,He tracked the hunter through his wildwood chase.* * * * * * *Soon o'er the horizon rose the cloud of strife,Two proud, strong nations battling for the prize;Which swarming host should mould a nation's life,Which royal banner flout the western skies.Long raged the conflict; on the crimson sodNative and alien joined their hosts in vain;The lilies withered where the lion trod,Till peace lay panting on the ravaged plain."

"Not such the scenes our later craftsman drew,Not such the shapes his darker pattern held;A deeper shadow lent its sombre hue,A sadder tale his tragic task compelled.

He told the red man's story; far and wideHe searched the unwritten records of his race;He sat a listener at the sachem's side,He tracked the hunter through his wildwood chase.

* * * * * * *

Soon o'er the horizon rose the cloud of strife,Two proud, strong nations battling for the prize;Which swarming host should mould a nation's life,Which royal banner flout the western skies.

Long raged the conflict; on the crimson sodNative and alien joined their hosts in vain;The lilies withered where the lion trod,Till peace lay panting on the ravaged plain."

In the extracts given from this fine poem, with its stately, majestic rhythm, it is plain to see that, even at the age of eighty-four, our autocrat poet had lost none of the vigor and fire of youth.

In the closing verses he speaks most tenderly of Parkman's patient, untiring energy,

"While through long years his burdening cross he bore,"

and concludes with this fine eulogy:

"A brave, bright memory! his the stainless shieldNo shame defaces and no envy mars!When our far future's record is unsealedHis name will shine among its morning stars."

It was in January, 1889, that Doctor Holmes sent to Doctor Richard M. Hodges, who was at that time president of the Boston Medical Library Association, the following characteristic letter:

My Dear Sir:I have transferred my medical library to the hall of the Boston Medical Library Association. Please accept it as a gift from its late president. As there is no provision for its reception, and as I liked the idea of keeping together the books which had been so long together, I have provided a new set of shelves in which they can be properly and conveniently arranged.Your very truly,O.W.Holmes.

My Dear Sir:

I have transferred my medical library to the hall of the Boston Medical Library Association. Please accept it as a gift from its late president. As there is no provision for its reception, and as I liked the idea of keeping together the books which had been so long together, I have provided a new set of shelves in which they can be properly and conveniently arranged.

Your very truly,O.W.Holmes.

To show how highly Doctor Holmes valued this library, which consisted of nine hundred and sixty-eight extremely rare volumes, Doctor Chadwick, the librarian, said: "All these books have been collected by him in his fifty years of experience, and it is fitting that we should realize it is the result of years of labor. He has been ready on every occasion to deliver addresses on topics having a wide scope. He carried off with honor three of the four Boylston prizes, and this alone shows the range of his studies. He has contributed to the funds of the association in various ways, and now gives us his most valuable library. In this act, as well as his continuing the position as president of the association several years after he had relinquished all other connection with the profession, he has designated our institution as the one in which he takes the greatest pride; in whose future he has the greatest confidence."

In reply, Doctor Holmes then said:

"The books I have offered the association, and which you have kindly accepted, constitute my own medical library, with the exception of a few volumes which, for several reasons, I have retained. It has grown by a slow process of accretion. The first volume of it was 'Bell'sAnatomy,' and the last was 'Elements of Pharmacy.' The oldest book was written in 1490, and the latest in 1887, so it can be seen that the library covers the space of four centuries."

After reviewing the better books of the library, and alluding to the private library that a practitioner should keep, Doctor Holmes added: "These books are dear to me; a twig from some one of my nerves runs to every one of them, and they mark the progress of my study and the stepping-stones of my professional life. If any of them can be to others as they have been to me, I am willing to part with them, even if they are such old and beloved companions."

Doctor Holmes' warm interest in everything connected with education was shown most emphatically in one of the last public addresses he delivered. It was at that memorable reception given at the Vendome, February 28, 1893, by the Boston publishers to Doctor Holmes and other authors, and to the members of the National Educational Association. Mrs. Elizabeth Phelps-Ward, with Mr. Henry O. Houghton and Mr. Edwin Ginn, gave welcome to the many distinguished guests.

When Doctor Holmes was called upon to address the large company assembled, he began:

"Surely the Autocrat never felt more powerless than he does at this moment. I meant to come here and say a few almost careless words. I was saying to myself, 'You know very well what you've got to talk about, and you can soon say it.' But," and here the Autocrat's bright face grew serious, "at half-past ten this morning there came to me an elegantly engraved copper-plate invitation to appear here, with a formality and a style about it which showed that I had deceived myself in thinking I could utter a few careless words. There was but one refuge for me, and that was the old one. I can only hold up a copy of verses," and he waved the manuscript deprecatingly.

"But not one word, not one thought of it was in my head before half-past ten to-day. There are things in literature," and here Dr. Holmes dropped his voice to a confidential key, "that are christened 'impromptus,' the authenticity of which I am inclined to doubt. I have the idea that a good many impromptus have cost their authors many sleepless nights.

"I shall tell you what I would have spoken about. I should have said, in the first place, that I have a great sympathy with instructors. I have been an instructor myself. I was for thirty-fiveyears professor in Harvard College, and two years before that professor in Dartmouth College. I enjoyed very much the relations I had with my students in both places. Many of them have lasted up to the present time, and it is pleasant for me every now and then to have a bald-headed man come up to me and tell me he was one of my boys thirty or forty years ago.

"A great many changes have taken place since that time, but two of them are especially interesting. One is the sub-division of teaching. There were six of us who taught the medical graduates of Harvard College during a considerable part of the time when I was professor there. There are now seventy. How much better they are taught I do not know. I presume they are taught well. But a wicked thought came into my head just now—it is not every animal that has the most legs who crawls the fastest. It reminds me of the sirloin of beef one day, which was mince-meat on the second."

All these pleasantries were given in the Autocrat's happiest manner, amidst many interruptions of laughter and applause from his audience.

"I don't mean, however," he added, "to deprecate that which I accomplished by the sub-division into specialties. What I say is rather playful than serious. The next point is the education of women, which I have regarded at a distance, to be sure. But, occasionally visiting Wellesley and the Cambridge Annex, it has been a great delight to me to see how the intellects of the fair sex matched with those of the sterner. I then thought I should say something of the importance of implanting ideas on all the most important subjects at a very early period of life, and I was going to recall my theology which came out of the little primer, and my patriotism which was kindled at the shrine of Dr. Dwight's 'Columbia, Queen of the World.' But all these things I would prefer to leave, and what else I would have said I will defer until the next occasion, I also wish to say here, personally, that it was most unwillingly that I appeared before an audience like this. I felt it was, at my age, more becoming that I should be a listener rather than a speaker." Here he was interrupted by cries of "No! No!" but he shook his head determinedly, saying, "I am speaking seriously now, however difficult it may be to do that. These little verses I have written, and which I am going to read, arereally impromptu. They are poorly scrawled, for my hand was unsteady."

Then in a clear, strong voice he read:

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