THE HOLMES BREAKFAST.
As the seventieth birthday of Doctor Holmes drew near, the publishers of
the _Atlantic Monthly_ resolved to give a "Breakfast" in his honor. The
twenty-ninth of August, 1879, was, of course, the true anniversary, but
knowing it would be difficult to bring together at that season of the
year the friends and literary associates of Doctor Holmes, Mr. Houghton
decided to postpone the invitations until the thirteenth of November.
Upon that day a brilliant company assembled at noon in the spacious
parlors of the Hotel Brunswick, in Boston.
Doctor Holmes and his daughter, Mrs. Sargent, received the guests, who
numbered in all about one hundred. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mrs.
Julia Ward Howe, Ralph Waldo Emerson and John G. Whittier assisted in
this ceremony, and after a couple of hours spent in sparkling converse,
the company adjourned to the dining-room, where a sumptuous "Breakfast"
was served to the "Autocrat" and his friends.
At the six tables were seated writers of eminence in every department of
literature. Grace was said by the Rev. Phillips Brooks, D.D., and after
the cloth was removed, Mr. H.O. Houghton introduced the guest of the day
in a few happily-chosen words.
The company then rose and drank the health of the poet, after which
Doctor Holmes read the following beautiful poem:
THE IRON GATE.
Where is the patriarch you are kindly greeting?
Not unfamiliar to my ear his name,
Not yet unknown to many a joyous meeting
In days long vanished,--is he still the same,
Or changed by years forgotten and forgetting,
Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech and thought,
Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fretting,
Where all goes wrong and nothing as it ought?
Old age, the gray-beard! Well, indeed, I know him,--
Shrunk, tottering, bent, of aches and ills the prey;
In sermon, story, fable, picture, poem,
Oft have I met him from my earliest day.
In my old AEsop, toiling with his bundle,--
His load of sticks,--politely asking Death,
Who comes when called for,--would he lug or trundle
His fagot for him?--he was scant of breath.
And sad "Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher,"
Has he not stamped the image on my soul,
In that last chapter, where the worn-out Teacher
Sighs o'er the loosened cord, the broken bowl?
Yes, long, indeed, I've known him at a distance,
And now my lifted door-latch shows him here;
I take his shrivelled hand without resistance,
And find him smiling as his step draws near.
What though of gilded baubles he bereaves us,
Dear to the heart of youth, to manhood's prime,
Think of the calm he brings, the wealth he leaves us,
The hoarded spoils, the legacies of time!
Altars once flaming, still with incense fragrant,
Passion's uneasy nurslings rocked asleep,
Hope's anchor faster, wild desire less vagrant,
Life's flow less noisy, but the stream how deep!
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 remembers,
Sits by the raked-up ashes of the past,
Spreads its thin hands above the whitening embers
That warm its creeping life-blood till the last.
Dear to its heart is every loving token
That comes unbidden ere its pulse grows cold,
Ere the last lingering ties of life are broken,
Its labors ended, and its story told.
Ah, while around us rosy youth rejoices,
For us the sorrow-laden breezes sigh,
And through the chorus of its jocund voices
Throbs the sharp note of misery's hopeless cry.
As on the gauzy wings of fancy flying
From some far orb I track our watery sphere,
Home of the struggling, suffering, doubting, dying,
The silvered globule seems a glistening tear.
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 wintery landscape and the summer skies.
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.
I come not here your morning hour to sadden
A limping pilgrim leaning on his staff,--
I, who have never deemed it sin to gladden
This vale of sorrows with a wholesome laugh.
If word of mine another's gloom has brightened,
Through my dumb lips the heaven-sent message came;
If hand of mine another's task has lightened,
It felt the guidance that it dares not claim.
But, O my gentle sisters, O my brothers,
These thick-sown snow-flakes hint of toil's release;
These feebler pulses bid me leave to others
The tasks once welcome; evening asks for peace.
Time claims his tribute; silence now is golden;
Let me not vex the too long suffering lyre;
Though to your love untiring still beholden,
The curfew tells me--cover up the fire.
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!
After the reading of the poem, the following reminiscence from Doctor
Holmes' pen, was read by Mr. Houghton:--
"The establishment of the _Atlantic Monthly_ was due to the liberal
enterprise of the then flourishing firm of Phillips & Sampson. Mr.
Phillips, more especially, was most active and sanguine. The publishers
were fortunate enough to secure the services of Mr. Lowell as editor.
Mr. Lowell had a fancy that I could be useful as a contributor, and woke
me from a kind of literary lethargy in which I was half slumbering, to
call me to active service. Remembering some crude contributions of mine
to an old magazine, it occurred to me that their title might serve for
some fresh papers, and so I sat down and wrote off what came into my
head under the title _The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_. This series
of papers was not the result of an express premeditation, but was, as I
may say, dipped from the running stream of my thoughts. Its very kind
reception encouraged me, and you know the consequences, which have
lasted from that day to this.
"But what I want especially to say here is, that I owe the impulse which
started my second growth, to the urgent hint of my friend Mr. Lowell,
and that you have him to thank, not only for his own noble contributions
to our literature, but for the spur which moved me to action, to which
you owe any pleasure I may have given, and I am indebted for the
crowning happiness of this occasion. His absence I most deeply regret
for your and my own sake, while I congratulate the country to which in
his eminent station he is devoting his services."
As Mr. Whittier had been obliged to leave the company before this, Mr.
James T. Fields read his fine poem entitled "Our Autocrat," from which
we quote the last verses:
What shapes and fancies, grave or gay,
Before us at his bidding come!
The Treadmill tramp, the "One Hoss Shay,"
The dumb despair of Elsie's doom!
The tale of Aris and the Maid,
The plea for lips that cannot speak,
The holy kiss that Iris laid
On Little Boston's pallid cheek!
Long may he live to sing for us
His sweetest songs at evening time,
And like his Chambered Nautilus
To holier heights of beauty climb!
Though now unnumbered guests surround
The table that he rules at will,
Its Autocrat, however crowned,
Is but our friend and comrade still.
The world may keep his honored name,
The wealth of all his varied powers;
A stronger claim has love than fame
And he himself is only ours!
Mr W.D. Howells then took the chair and was introduced to the company as
the representative of the "mythical editor."
In his remarks, Mr. Howells paid the following tribute to the Autocrat:
"The fact is known to you all, and I will not insist upon it, but it was
Oliver Wendell Holmes who not only named, but who made the _Atlantic_.
How did he do this? Oh, very simply! He merely invented a new kind of
literature, something so beautiful and rare and fine that while you were
trying to determine its character as monologue or colloquy, prose or
poetry, philosophy or humor, it was gradually penetrating your
consciousness with a sense that the best of all these had been fused in
one--a perfect form, an exquisite wisdom, an unsurpassable grace. This,
and much more than any poor words of mine can say, was the Autocrat,
followed by the Professor, and then by the Poet, at the same
Breakfast-Table. We pledge him by all these names to-day, not only with
the wine in our cups, but with the pride and love in our hearts, where
we have enshrined him immortally young, in spite of the birthdays that
come and go, and where we defy the future that lies in wait for our
precious things, to know his quality better, or value his genius more
highly than we."
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe was then called upon to respond to the toast, "The
girls we have _not_ left behind us," and after a few words in reply, she
read a fine poem in honor of the illustrious guest.
Charles Dudley Warner was then introduced, and after a short speech,
read a poem by H. H., "To Oliver Wendell Holmes, on his seventieth
birthday." In these charming lines almost every poem of Doctor Holmes is
mentioned with rare tact and skill.
At the close of the poem, President Eliot of Harvard, rose and said:
"It seems to me that it is my duty to remind all these poets, essayists
and story-tellers who are gathered here, that the main work of our
friend's life has been of an altogether different nature. I know him as
the professor of anatomy and physiology in the Medical School of Harvard
University for the last thirty-two years, and I know him to-day as one
of the most active and hard-working of our lecturers. Some of you
gentlemen, I observe, are lecturers by profession, at least during the
winter months. Doctor Holmes delivers four lectures every week for eight
months of the year. I am sure the lecturers by profession will
understand that this task requires an extraordinary amount of mental and
physical vigor. And I congratulate our friend on the weekly
demonstration of that vigor which he gives in our medical school. Most
of you have perhaps the impression that Doctor Holmes chiefly enjoys a
pretty couplet, a beautiful verse, an elegant sentence. It has fallen to
me to observe that he has other great enjoyments. I never heard any
other mortal exhibit such enthusiasm over an elegant dissection. And
perhaps you think it is the pen with which Doctor Holmes is chiefly
skilful. I assure you that he is equally skilful with scalpel and with
microscope. And I think that none of us can understand the meaning and
scope of Doctor Holmes' writing, unless we have observed that the daily
work of his life has been to study and teach a natural science, the
noble science of anatomy. It is his to know with absolute exactness the
form of every bone in this wonderful body of ours, the course of every
artery, and vein, and nerve, the form and function of every muscle, and
not only to know it, but to describe it with a fascinating precision and
enthusiasm. When I read his writings I find the traces of this life-work
of his on every page. There are three thousand men scattered through New
England at this moment who will remember Doctor Holmes through their
lives, and transmit to their children the memory of him, as student and
teacher of exact science. And let us honor him to-day, not
forgetting--they can never be forgotten--his poems and essays, as a
noble representative of the profession of the scientific student and
teacher."
Mr. S.L. Clemens (Mark Twain) followed President Eliot.
"I would have travelled," he began, "a much greater distance than I have
come to witness the paying of honors to Doctor Holmes, for my feeling
toward him has always been one of peculiar warmth. When one receives a
letter from a great man for the first time in his life, it is a large
event to him, as all of you know by your own experience. Well, the first
great man who ever wrote me a letter was our guest--Oliver Wendell
Holmes. He was also the first great literary man I ever stole anything
from, and that is how I came to write to him and he to me. When my first
book was new, a friend of mine said, 'The dedication is very neat.'
'Yes,' I said, 'I thought it was.' My friend said, 'I always admired it
even before I saw it in _The Innocents Abroad_.' I naturally said, 'What
do you mean? Where did you ever see it before?' 'Well, I saw it some
years ago, as Doctor Holmes' dedication to his _Songs in Many Keys_.' Of
course my first impulse was to prepare this man's remains for burial,
but upon reflection I said I would reprieve him for a moment or two and
give him a chance to prove his assertion if he could. We stepped into a
bookstore and he did prove it. I had really stolen that dedication
almost word for word. I could not imagine how this curious thing
happened, for I knew one thing for a dead certainty--that a certain
amount of pride always goes along with a teaspoonful of brains, and that
this pride protects a man from deliberately stealing other people's
ideas. That is what a teaspoonful of brains will do for a man, and
admirers had often told me I had nearly a basketful, though they were
rather reserved as to the size of the basket. However, I thought the
thing out and solved the mystery. Two years before I had been laid up a
couple of weeks in the Sandwich Islands, and had read and re-read Doctor
Holmes's poems till my mental reservoir was filled with them to the
brim. The dedication lay on top and handy, so by and by I unconsciously
stole it. Perhaps I unconsciously stole the rest of the volume, too, for
many people have told me that my book was pretty poetical in one way or
another. Well, of course I wrote Doctor Holmes and told him I hadn't
meant to steal, and he wrote back and said in the kindest way that it
was all right and no harm done; and added that he believed we all
unconsciously worked over ideas gathered in reading and hearing,
imagining they were original with ourselves. He stated a truth and did
it in such a pleasant way, and salved over my sore spot so gently and so
healingly that I was rather glad I had committed the crime, for the sake
of the letter. I afterward called on him and told him to make perfectly
free with any ideas of mine that struck him as being good protoplasm
for poetry. He could see by that that there wasn't anything mean about
me; so we got along right from the start.
"I have met Doctor Holmes many times since; and lately he said--however,
I am wandering away from the one thing which I got on my feet to do,
that is, to make my compliments to you, my fellow-teachers of the great
public, and likewise to say I am right glad to see that Doctor Holmes is
still in his prime and full of generous life; and as age is not
determined by years, but by trouble and by infirmities of mind and body,
I hope it may be a very long time yet before any one can truthfully say,
'He is growing old.'"
Mr. Howells then introduced Mr. J.W. Harper of New York, who gave in his
remarks a delightful pen portrait of Doctor Holmes, the lyceum lecturer,
which we have elsewhere quoted. Mr. E.C. Stedman followed Mr. Harper
with a brief speech and graceful poem. Mr. T.B. Aldrich spoke of the
"inexhaustible kindness of Doctor Holmes to his younger brothers in
literature," and Mr. William Winter paid his tribute to the honored
guest by "The Chieftain," a poem which he named for the occasion _Hearts
and Holmes_.
Mr. J.T. Trowbridge then read a poem entitled "Filling an Order," in
which Nature compounds for Miss Columbia "three geniuses A 1.," to grace
her favorite city. She concludes her mixture as follows:
Says she, "The fault I'm well aware, with genius is the presence
Of altogether too much clay with quite too little essence,
And sluggish atoms that obstruct the spiritual solution;
So now instead of spoiling these by over-much dilution
With their fine elements I'll make a single rare phenomenon,
And of three common geniuses concoct a most uncommon one,
So that the world shall smile to see a soul so universal,
Such poesy and pleasantry, packed in so small a parcel.
So said, so done; the three in one she wrapped, and stuck the label
_Poet, Professor, Autocrat of Wit's own Breakfast-Table._"
C.P. Cranch then read a fine sonnet, and Colonel T.W. Higginson followed
with felicitous remarks, a portion of which referring to the father of
Doctor Holmes we have quoted elsewhere in the book.
Letters of regrets were then read from R. B. Hayes, John Holmes, the
poet's brother, George William Curtis and George Bancroft.
Among others unable to be present, but who sent regrets, were Rebecca
Harding Davis, Carl Schurz, Edwin P. Whipple, Noah Porter, George
Ripley, Henry Watterson, George H. Boker, Frances Hodgson Burnett, L.
Maria Child, Gail Hamilton, Parke Godwin, Donald G. Mitchell, John J.
Piatt, Richard Grant White, D.C. Gilman, J.W. DeForest, Frederick
Douglass, J.G. Holland, George W. Childs, John Hay and W.W. Story.
Mr. James T. Fields was obliged to fulfil a lecture engagement soon
after the speaking began, else he would have read the following fairy
tale:--
Once upon a time a company of good-natured fairies assembled for a
summer moonlight dance on a green lawn in front of a certain picturesque
old house in Cambridge. They had come out for a midnight lark, and as
their twinkling feet flew about among the musical dewdrops they were
suddenly interrupted by the well-known figure of the village doctor,
which, emerging from the old mansion, rapidly made its way homeward.
"Another new mortal has alighted on our happy planet," whispered a fairy
gossip to her near companion.
"Evidently so," replied the tiny creature, smiling good-naturedly on the
doctor's footprints in the grass.
"That is the minister's house," said another small personage, with a
wink of satisfaction.
"Perhaps it is a boy," ejaculated Fairy Number One.
"I _know_ it is a boy!" said Fairy Number Two. I read it in the Doctor's
face when the moon lighted up his countenance as he shut the door so
softly behind him.
"It _is_ a boy!" responded the Fairy Queen, who always knew everything,
and that settled the question.
"If that is the case," cried all the fairies at once, "let us try what
magic still remains to us in this busy, bustling New England. Let us
make that child's life a happy and a famous one if we can."
"Agreed," replied the queen; "and I will lead off with a substantial
gift to the little new-comer. I will crown him with Cheerfulness, a
sunny temperament, brimming over with mirth and happiness."
"And I will second your Majesty's gift to the little man," said a
sweet-voiced creature, "and tender him the ever-abiding gift of Song. He
shall be a perpetual minstrel to gladden the hearts of all his
fellow-mortals."
"And I," said another, "will shower upon him the subtle power of Pathos
and Romance, and he shall take unto himself the spell of a sorcerer
whenever he chooses to scatter abroad his wise and beautiful fancies."
"And I," said a very astute-looking fairy, "will touch his lips with
Persuasion; he shall be a teacher of knowledge, and the divine gift of
eloquence shall be at his command, to uplift and instruct the people."
"And I," said a quaint, energetic little body, "will endow him with a
passionate desire to help forward the less favored sons and daughters of
earth, who are struggling for recognition and success in their various
avocations."
"And I," said a motherly-looking, amiable fairy, "will see that in due
time he finds the best among women for his companionship, a helpmeet
indeed, whose life shall be happily bound up in _his_ life."
"Do give me a chance," cried a beautiful young fairy "and I will answer
for his children, that they may be worthy of their father, and all a
mother's heart may pray that Heaven will vouchsafe to her."
And after seventy years have rolled away into space, the same fairies
assembled on the same lawn at the same season of the year, to compare
notes with reference to their now famous _protege_. And they declared
that their magic had been thoroughly successful, and that their charms
had all worked without a single flaw.
Then they took hands, and dancing slowly around the time-honored
mansion, sang this roundelay, framed in the words of their own beloved
poet:--
Strength to his hours of manly toil!
Peace to his star-lit dreams!
He loves alike the furrowed soil,
The music-haunted streams!
Sweet smiles to keep forever bright
The sunshine on his lips,
And faith that sees the ring of light
Round Nature's last eclipse!