THE HOME CIRCLE.
Doctor Holmes has two sons and one daughter. Oliver Wendell Holmes
Junior, his eldest child, was born in 1841. When a young lad, he
attended the school of Mr. E.S. Dixwell, in Boston, and it was here that
he met his future wife, Miss Fannie Dixwell. In his graduating year at
Harvard College (1861), he joined the Fourth Battalion of Infantry,
commanded by Major Thomas G. Stevenson. The company was at that time
stationed at Fort Independence, Boston Harbor, and it was there that
young Holmes wrote his poem for Class Day. He served three years in the
war, and was wounded first in the breast at Ball's Bluff, and then in
the neck at the Battle of Antietam.
In Doctor Holmes' _Hunt after the Captain_, we have not only a vivid
picture of war times, but a most touching revelation of fatherly love
and solicitude. The young captain was wounded yet again at Sharpsburgh,
and was afterwards brevetted as Lieutenant-Colonel. During General
Grant's campaign of 1864 he served as aide-de-camp to Brigadier-General
H.G. Wright. After the war he entered the Harvard Law School, and in
1866 received the degree of LL. B. Since then he has practised law in
Boston, and has written many valuable articles upon legal subjects.
His edition of Kent's _Commentaries on American Law_, to which he
devoted three years of careful labor, has received the highest
encomiums, and his volume on _The Common Law_ forms an indispensable
part of every law student's library.
In 1882, he was appointed Professor in the Harvard Law School, and a few
weeks later was elected Justice in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts.
At the Lawyers' Banquet, given January 30th, 1883, at the Hotel Vendome,
Honorable William G. Russell thus introduced the father of the
newly-appointed judge:
"We come now to a many-sided subject, and I know not on which side to
attack him with any hope of capturing him. I might hail him as our poet,
for he was born a poet; they are all born so. If he didn't lisp in
numbers, it was because he spoke plainly at a very early age. I might
hail him as physician, and a long and well-spent life in that profession
would justify it; but I don't believe it will ever be known whether he
has cured more cases of dyspepsia and blues by his poems or his powders
and his pills. I might hail him as professor, and as professor
_emeritus_ he has added a new wreath to his brow. I might hail him as
Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, for there he had a long reign. He will
defend himself with courage, for he never showed the white feather but
once, and that is, that he does not dare to be as funny as he can. A
tough subject, surely, and I must try him on the tender side, the
paternal. I give you the father who went in search of a captain, and,
finding him, presents to us now his son, the judge."
On rising, Doctor Holmes held up a sheet of paper, and said, "You see
before you" (referring to the paper) "all that you have to fear or
hope. For thirty-five years I have taught anatomy. I have often heard of
the roots of the tongue, but I never found them. The danger of a tongue
let loose you have had opportunity to know before, but the danger of a
scrap of paper like this is so trivial that I hardly need to apologize
for it."
His Honor's father yet remains,
His proud paternal posture firm in;
But, while his right he still maintains
To wield the household rod and reins,
He bows before the filial ermine.
What curious tales has life in store,
With all its must-bes and its may-bes!
The sage of eighty years and more
Once crept a nursling on the floor,--
Kings, conquerors, judges, all were babies.
The fearless soldier, who has faced
The serried bayonets' gleam appalling,
For nothing save a pin misplaced
The peaceful nursery has disgraced
With hours of unheroic bawling.
The mighty monarch, whose renown
Fills up the stately page historic,
Has howled to waken half the town,
And finished off by gulping down
His castor oil or paregoric.
The justice, who, in gown and cap,
Condemns a wretch to strangulation,
Has scratched his nurse and spilled his pap,
And sprawled across his mother's lap
For wholesome law's administration.
Ah, life has many a reef to shun
Before in port we drop our anchor,
But when its course is nobly run
Look aft! for there the work was done.
Life owes its headway to the spanker!
Yon seat of justice well might awe
The fairest manhood's half-blown summer;
There Parsons scourged the laggard law,
There reigned and ruled majestic Shaw,--
What ghosts to hail the last new-comer!
One cause of fear I faintly name,--
The dread lest duty's dereliction
Shall give so rarely cause for blame
Our guileless voters will exclaim,
"No need of human jurisdiction!"
What keeps the doctor's trade alive?
Bad air, bad water; more's the pity!
But lawyers walk where doctors drive,
And starve in streets where surgeons thrive,
Our Boston is so pure a city.
What call for judge or court, indeed,
When righteousness prevails so through it
Our virtuous car-conductors need
Only a card whereon they read
"Do right; it's naughty not to do it!"
The whirligig of time goes round,
And changes all things but affection;
One blessed comfort may be found
In heaven's broad statute which has bound
Each household to its head's protection.
If e'er aggrieved, attacked, accused,
A sire may claim a son's devotion
To shield his innocence abused,
As old Anchises freely used
His offspring's legs for locomotion.
You smile. You did not come to weep,
Nor I my weakness to be showing;
And these gay stanzas, slight and cheap,
Have served their simple use,--to keep
A father's eyes from overflowing.
Doctor Holmes' daughter, who bore her mother's name, Amelia Jackson,
married the late John Turner Sargent. In her _Sketches and Reminiscences
of the Radical Club_, we have some pithy remarks of Doctor Holmes'. To
speak without premeditation, he says, on a carefully written essay, made
him feel as he should if, at a chemical lecture, somebody should pass
around a precipitate, and when the mixture had become turbid should
request him to give his opinion concerning it. The fallacies continually
rising in such a discussion from the want of a proper understanding of
terms, always made him feel as if quicksilver had been substituted for
the ordinary silver of speech. The only true way to criticize such an
essay was to take it home, slowly assimilate it, and not talk about it
until it had become a part of one's self.
Edward, the youngest son of Doctor Holmes, had chosen the same
profession as his brother.
It was at Mrs. Sargent's home, at Beverly Farms, that Doctor Holmes
passed most of his summers. The pretty, cream-colored house, with its
broad veranda in front, can be easily seen from the station; but to
appreciate the charms of this pleasant country home, one should catch a
glimpse of the cosey interior.
Robert Rantoul, John T. Morse and Henry Lee were neighbors of Doctor
Holmes at Beverly Farms, and Lucy Larcom's home was not far distant.
After eighteen years' residence at No. 8 Montgomery Place, Doctor Holmes
moved to 164 Charles street, where he lived about twelve years. His home
in Boston was at No. 296 Beacon street.
"We die out of houses," says the poet, "just as we die out of our
bodies.... The body has been called the house we live in; the house is
quite as much the body we live in.... The soul of a man has a series of
concentric envelopes around it, like the core of an onion, or the
innermost of a nest of boxes. First, he has his natural garment of flesh
and blood. Then his artificial integuments, with their true skin of
solid stuffs, their cuticle of lighter tissues, and their
variously-tinted pigments. Thirdly, his domicile, be it a single chamber
or a stately mansion. And then the whole visible world, in which Time
buttons him up as in a loose, outside wrapper.... Our houses shape
themselves palpably on our inner and outer nature. See a householder
breaking up and you will be sure of it. There is a shell fish which
builds all manner of smaller shells into the walls of its own. A house
is never a home until we have crusted it with the spoils of a hundred
lives besides those of our own past. See what these are and you can tell
what the occupant is."
The poet's home on Beacon street well illustrates the above extract. I
shall not soon forget the charming picture that greeted me, one gray
winter day, as I was ushered into the poet's cheerful study. A blazing
wood fire was crackling on the hearth, and the ruddy glow was reflected
now on the stately features of "Dorothy Q.," now on the Copley portrait
of old Doctor Cooper, and now with a peculiar Rembrandt effect upon the
low rows of books, the orderly desk, and the kind, cordial face of the
poet himself. An "Emerson Calendar" was hanging over the mantel, and
after calling my attention to the excellent picture upon it of the old
home at Concord, Doctor Holmes began to talk of his brother poet in
terms of warmest affection.
[Illustration: Hand written Poem signed by Oliver Wendell Holmes]
As he afterwards remarked at the Nineteenth Century Club, the difference
between Emerson's poetry and that of others with whom he might naturally
be compared, was that of algebra and arithmetic. The fascination of his
poems was in their spiritual depth and sincerity and their all pervading
symbolism. Emerson's writings in prose and verse were worthy of all
honor and admiration, but his manhood was the noblest of all his high
endowments. A bigot here and there might have avoided meeting him, but
if He who knew what was in men had wandered from door to door in New
England, as of old in Palestine, one of the thresholds which "those
blessed feet" would have crossed would have been that of the lovely and
quiet home of Emerson.
The view from the broad bay window in Doctor Holmes' study, recalled his
own description:
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.
A microscopical apparatus placed under another window in the study,
reminds the visitor of the "man of science," while the books--
A mingled race, the wreck of chance and time
That talk all tongues and breathe of every clime--
speak in eloquent numbers of the "man of letters."
There is the Plato on the lower shelf, with the inscription, Ezra
Stiles, 1766, to which Doctor Holmes alludes in his tribute to the New
England clergy. Here is the hand-lens imported by the Reverend John
Prince, of Salem, and just before us, in the "unpretending row of local
historians," is Jeremy Belknap's _History of New Hampshire_, "in the
pages of which," says Doctor Holmes, "may be found a chapter contributed
in part by the most remarkable man in many respects, among all the older
clergymen,--preacher, lawyer, physician, astronomer, botanist,
entomologist, explorer, colonist, legislator in State and national
governments, and only not seated on the bench of the Supreme Court of a
Territory because he declined the office when Washington offered it to
him. This manifold individual," adds Doctor Holmes, "was the minister of
Hamilton, a pleasant little town in Essex County, Massachusetts, the
Reverend Manasseh Cutler."
[Illustration: DR. HOLMES' LIBRARY, BEACON ST.]
Here is the _Aetius_ found one never-to-be-forgotten rainy day, in that
dingy bookshop in Lyons, and here the vellum-bound _Tulpius_, "my only
reading," says Doctor Holmes, "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."
Here, too, is the _Schenckius_,--"the folio filled with _casus
rariores_, which had strayed in among the rubbish of the bookstall on
the boulevard--and here the noble old _Vesalius_, with its grand
frontispiece not unworthy of Titian, and the fine old _Ambroise Parie_,
long waited for even in Paris and long ago, and the colossal Spigelius,
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
_Berengarius Carpensis_," and many other rare volumes, dear to the heart
of every bibliophile.
Glancing again from the window, I catch a glimpse of the West Boston
Bridge, and recall the poet's description of the "crunching of ice at
the edges of the river as the tide rises and falls, the little cluster
of tent-like screens on the frozen desert, the excitement of watching
the springy hoops, the mystery of drawing up life from silent, unseen
depths." With his opera glass he watches the boys and men, black and
white, fishing over the rails of the bridge "as hopefully as if the
river were full of salmon." At certain seasons, he observes, there will
now and then be captured a youthful and inexperienced codfish, always,
however, of quite trivial dimensions. The fame of the exploit has no
sooner gone abroad than the enthusiasts of the art come flocking down to
the river and cast their lines in side by side, until they look like a
row of harp-strings for number. "That a codfish is once in a while
caught," says Doctor Holmes, "I have asserted to be a fact; but I have
often watched the anglers, and do not remember ever seeing one drawn
from the water, or even any unequivocal symptom of a bite. The spring
sculpin and the flabby, muddy flounder are the common rewards of the
angler's toil.
The silhouette figures on the white background enliven the winter
landscape, but now the blazing log on the hearthstone rolls over and the
whole study is aglow with light! Truly "winter _is_ a cheerful season to
people who have open fireplaces;" and who will not agree with our
poet-philosopher when he says, "A house without these is like a face
without eyes, and that never smiles. I have seen respectability and
amiability grouped over the air-tight stove; I have seen virtue and
intelligence hovering over the register; but I have never seen true
happiness in a family circle where the faces were not illuminated by the
blaze of an open fireplace."
A well-known journalist writes as follows of Doctor Holmes "at home."
"All who pay their respects to the distinguished Autocrat will find the
genial, merry gentleman whose form and kindly greeting all admirers have
anticipated while reading his sparkling poems. He is the perfect essence
of wit and hospitality--courteous, amiable and entertaining to a degree
which is more easily remembered than imparted or described. If the
caller expects to find blue-blood snobbishness at 296 Beacon street, he
will be disappointed. It is one of the most elegant and charming
residences on that broad and fashionable thoroughfare, but far less
pretentious, both inwardly and outwardly, than many of the others. For
an uninterrupted period of forty-seven years, Doctor Holmes has lived in
Boston, and for the last dozen years he has occupied his present
residence on Beacon street.
"The chief point of attraction in the present residence--for the
visitor as well as the host--is the magnificent and spacious library,
which may be more aptly termed the Autocrat's workshop. It is up one
flight, and seemingly occupies the entire rear half of the whole
building on this floor. It is a very inviting room in every respect, and
from the spacious windows overlooking the broad expanse of the Charles
River, there can be had an extensive view of the surrounding suburbs in
the northerly, eastern and western directions. On a clear day there can
be more or less distinctly described the cities and towns of Cambridge,
Arlington, Medford, Somerville, Malden, Revere, Everett, Chelsea,
Charlestown and East Boston. Even in the picture can be recognized the
lofty tower of the Harvard Memorial Hall, which is but a few steps from
the doctor's birthplace and first home. Arthur Gilman, in his admirable
pen and pencil sketches of the homes of the American poets, makes a
happy and appropriate allusion to the Autocrat's library. 'The ancient
Hebrew,' he says, 'always had a window open toward Jerusalem, the city
about which his most cherished hopes and memories clustered, and this
window gives its owner the pleasure of looking straight to the place of
his birth, and thus of freshening all the happy memories of a successful
life.'
"In renewing his old-time acquaintance with the _Atlantic_ family
circle, the Autocrat recognized the modern invention of the journalistic
interviewer, and submitted some plans for his regulation, to be
considered by the various local governments. His idea is that the
interviewer is a product of our civilization, one who does for the
living what the undertaker does for the dead, taking such liberties as
he chooses with the subject of his mental and conversational
manipulations, whom he is to arrange for public inspection. 'The
interview system has its legitimate use,' says Doctor Holmes, 'and is
often a convenience to politicians, and may even gratify the vanity and
serve the interests of an author.' He very properly believes, however,
that in its abuse it is an infringement of the liberty of the private
citizen to be ranked with the edicts of the council of ten, the decrees
of the star chamber, the _lettres de cachet_, and the visits of the
Inquisition. The interviewer, if excluded, becomes an enemy, and has the
columns of a newspaper at his service in which to revenge himself. If
admitted, the interviewed is at the mercy of the interviewer's memory,
if he is the best meaning of men; of his accuracy, if he is careless; of
his malevolence, if he is ill-disposed; of his prejudices, if he has
any, and of his sense of propriety, at any rate.
"Doctor Holmes humorously suggests the following restrictions: 'A
licensed corps of interviewers, to be appointed by the municipal
authorities, each interviewer to wear, in a conspicuous position, a
number and a badge, for which the following emblems and inscriptions are
suggested: Zephyrus, with his lips at the ear of Boreas, who holds a
speaking trumpet, signifying that what is said by the interviewed in a
whisper will be shouted to the world by the interviewer through that
brazen instrument. For mottoes, either of the following: _Faenum halct in
cornu_; _Hunc tu Romane caveto_. No person to be admitted to the corps
of interviewers without a strict preliminary examination. The candidate
to be proved free from color blindness and amblyopia, ocular and mental
strabismus, double refraction of memory, kleptomania, mendacity of more
than average dimensions, and tendency to alcholic endosmosis. His moral
and religious character to be vouched for by three orthodox clergymen of
the same belief, and as many deacons who agree with them and each other.
All reports to be submitted to the interviewed, and the proofs thereof
to be corrected and sanctioned by him before being given to the public.
Until the above provisions are carried out no record of an alleged
interview to be considered as anything more than the untrustworthy
gossip of an irresponsible impersonality.'"
"What business have young scribblers to send me their verses and ask my
opinion of the stuff?" said Doctor Holmes one day, annoyed by the
officiousness of certain would-be aspirants to literary fame. "They have
no more right to ask than they have to stop me on the street, run out
their tongues, and ask what the matter is with their stomachs, and what
they shall take as a remedy." At another time he made the remark:
"Everybody that writes a book must needs send me a copy. It's very good
of them, of course, but they're not all successful attempts at
bookmaking, and most of them are relegated to my hospital for sick books
up-stairs."
But once a young writer sent from California a sample of his poetry, and
asked Holmes if it was worth while for him to keep on writing. It was
evident that the doctor was impressed by something decidedly original in
the style of the writer, for he wrote back that he should keep on, by
all means.
Some time afterward a gentleman called at the home of Professor Holmes
in Boston and asked him if he remembered the incident. "I do, indeed,"
replied Holmes. "Well," said his visitor, who was none other than Bret
Harte, "I am the man."