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D.W.] + + + + + +LITERARY FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES--Oliver Wendell Holmes + +by William Dean Howells + + + +OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + +Elsewhere we literary folk are apt to be such a common lot, with +tendencies here and there to be a shabby lot; we arrive from all sorts of +unexpected holes and corners of the earth, remote, obscure; and at the +best we do so often come up out of the ground; but at Boston we were of +ascertained and noted origin, and good part of us dropped from the skies. +Instead of holding horses before the doors of theatres; or capping verses +at the plough-tail; or tramping over Europe with nothing but a flute in +the pocket; or walking up to the metropolis with no luggage but the MS. +of a tragedy; or sleeping in doorways or under the arches of bridges; or +serving as apothecaries' 'prentices--we were good society from the +beginning. I think this was none the worse for us, and it was vastly the +better for good society. + +Literature in Boston, indeed, was so respectable, and often of so high a +lineage, that to be a poet was not only to be good society, but almost to +be good family. If one names over the men who gave Boston her supremacy +in literature during that Unitarian harvest-time of the old Puritanic +seed-time which was her Augustan age, one names the people who were and +who had been socially first in the city ever since the self-exile of the +Tories at the time of the Revolution. To say Prescott, Motley, Parkman, +Lowell, Norton, Higginson, Dana, Emerson, Channing, was to say patrician, +in the truest and often the best sense, if not the largest. Boston was +small, but these were of her first citizens, and their primacy, in its +way, was of the same quality as that, say, of the chief families of +Venice. But these names can never have the effect for the stranger that +they had for one to the manner born. I say had, for I doubt whether in +Boston they still mean all that they once meant, and that their +equivalents meant in science, in law, in politics. The most famous, if +not the greatest of all the literary men of Boston, I have not mentioned +with them, for Longfellow was not of the place, though by his sympathies +and relations he became of it; and I have not mentioned Oliver Wendell +Holmes, because I think his name would come first into the reader's +thought with the suggestion of social quality in the humanities. + +Holmes was of the Brahminical caste which his humorous recognition +invited from its subjectivity in the New England consciousness into the +light where all could know it and own it, and like Longfellow he was +allied to the patriciate of Boston by the most intimate ties of life. +For a long time, for the whole first period of his work, he stood for +that alone, its tastes, its prejudices, its foibles even, and when he +came to stand in his 'second period, for vastly, for infinitely more, +and to make friends with the whole race, as few men have ever done, +it was always, I think, with a secret shiver of doubt, a backward look of +longing, and an eye askance. He was himself perfectly aware of this at +times, and would mark his several misgivings with a humorous sense of the +situation. He was essentially too kind to be of a narrow world, too +human to be finally of less than humanity, too gentle to be of the finest +gentility. But such limitations as he had were in the direction I have +hinted, or perhaps more than hinted; and I am by no means ready to make a +mock of them, as it would be so easy to do for some reasons that he has +himself suggested. To value aright the affection which the old Bostonian +had for Boston one must conceive of something like the patriotism of men +in the times when a man's city was a man's country, something Athenian, +something Florentine. The war that nationalized us liberated this love +to the whole country, but its first tenderness remained still for Boston, +and I suppose a Bostonian still thinks of himself first as a Bostonian +and then as an American, in a way that no New-Yorker could deal with +himself. The rich historical background dignifies and ennobles the +intense public spirit of the place, and gives it a kind of personality. + + + + +II. + +In literature Doctor Holmes survived all the Bostonians who had given the +city her primacy in letters, but when I first knew him there was no +apparent ground for questioning it. I do not mean now the time when I +visited New England, but when I came to live near Boston, and to begin +the many happy years which I spent in her fine, intellectual air. +I found time to run in upon him, while I was there arranging to take my +place on the Atlantic Monthly, and I remember that in this brief moment +with him he brought me to book about some vaunting paragraph in the +'Nation' claiming the literary primacy for New York. He asked me if I +knew who wrote it, and I was obliged to own that I had written it myself, +when with the kindness he always showed me he protested against my +position. To tell the truth, I do not think now I had any very good +reasons for it, and I certainly could urge none that would stand against +his. I could only fall back upon the saving clause that this primacy was +claimed mainly if not wholly for New York in the future. He was willing +to leave me the connotations of prophecy, but I think he did even this +out of politeness rather than conviction, and I believe he had always a +sensitiveness where Boston was concerned, which could not seem ungenerous +to any generous mind. Whatever lingering doubt of me he may have had, +with reference to Boston, seemed to satisfy itself when several years +afterwards he happened to speak of a certain character in an early novel +of mine, who was not quite the kind of Bostonian one could wish to be. +The thing came up in talk with another person, who had referred to my +Bostonian, and the doctor had apparently made his acquaintance in the +book, and not liked him. "I understood, of course," he said, "that he +was a Bostonian, not the Bostonian," and I could truthfully answer that +this was by all means my own understanding too. + +His fondness for his city, which no one could appreciate better than +myself, I hope, often found expression in a burlesque excess in his +writings, and in his talk perhaps oftener still. Hard upon my return +from Venice I had a half-hour with him in his old study on Charles +Street, where he still lived in 1865, and while I was there a young man +came in for the doctor's help as a physician, though he looked so very +well, and was so lively and cheerful, that I have since had my doubts +whether he had not made a pretext for a glimpse of him as the Autocrat. +The doctor took him upon his word, however, and said he had been so long +out of practice that he could not do anything for him, but he gave him +the address of another physician, somewhere near Washington Street. +"And if you don't know where Washington Street is," he said, with a gay +burst at a certain vagueness which had come into the young man's face, +"you don't know anything." + +We had been talking of Venice, and what life was like there, and he made +me tell him in some detail. He was especially interested in what I had +to say of the minute subdivision and distribution of the necessaries, +the small coins, and the small values adapted to their purchase, +the intensely retail character, in fact, of household provisioning; +and I could see how he pleased himself in formulating the theory that the +higher a civilization the finer the apportionment of the demands and +supplies. The ideal, he said, was a civilization in which you could buy +two cents' worth of beef, and a divergence from this standard was towards +barbarism. + +The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is +universally interested, and this was, above all, the secret of the charm +that Doctor Holmes had for every one. No doubt he knew it, for what that +most alert intelligence did not know of itself was scarcely worth +knowing. This knowledge was one of his chief pleasures, I fancy; he +rejoiced in the consciousness which is one of the highest attributes of +the highly organized man, and he did not care for the consequences in +your mind, if you were so stupid as not to take him aright. I remember +the delight Henry James, the father of the novelist, had in reporting to +me the frankness of the doctor, when he had said to him, "Holmes, you are +intellectually the most alive man I ever knew." "I am, I am," said the +doctor. "From the crown of my head to the sole of my foot, I'm alive, +I'm alive!" Any one who ever saw him will imagine the vivid relish he +had in recognizing the fact. He could not be with you a moment without +shedding upon you the light of his flashing wit, his radiant humor, and +he shone equally upon the rich and poor in mind. His gaiety of heart +could not withhold itself from any chance of response, but he did wish +always to be fully understood, and to be liked by those he liked. He +gave his liking cautiously, though, for the affluence of his sympathies +left him without the reserves of colder natures, and he had to make up +for these with careful circumspection. He wished to know the character +of the person who made overtures to his acquaintance, for he was aware +that his friendship lay close to it; he wanted to be sure that he was a +nice person, and though I think he preferred social quality in his +fellow-man, he did not refuse himself to those who had merely a sweet and +wholesome humanity. He did not like anything that tasted or smelt of +Bohemianism in the personnel of literature, but he did not mind the scent +of the new-ploughed earth, or even of the barn-yard. I recall his +telling me once that after two younger brothers-in-letters had called +upon him in the odor of an habitual beeriness and smokiness, he opened +the window; and the very last time I saw him he remembered at eighty-five +the offence he had found on his first visit to New York, when a +metropolitan poet had asked him to lunch in a basement restaurant. + + + + +III. + +He seemed not to mind, however, climbing to the little apartment we had +in Boston when we came there in 1866, and he made this call upon us in +due form, bringing Mrs. Holmes with him as if to accent the recognition +socially. We were then incredibly young, much younger than I find people +ever are nowadays, and in the consciousness of our youth we felt, to the +last exquisite value of the fact, what it was to have the Autocrat come +to see us; and I believe he was not displeased to perceive this; he liked +to know that you felt his quality in every way. That first winter, +however, I did not see him often, and in the spring we went to live in +Cambridge, and thereafter I met him chiefly at Longfellow's, or when I +came in to dine at the Fieldses', in Boston. It was at certain meetings +of the Dante Club, when Longfellow read aloud his translation for +criticism, and there was supper later, that one saw the doctor; and his +voice was heard at the supper rather than at the criticism, for he was no +Italianate. He always seemed to like a certain turn of the talk toward +the mystical, but with space for the feet on a firm ground of fact this +side of the shadows; when it came to going over among them, and laying +hold of them with the band of faith, as if they were substance, he was +not of the excursion. It is well known how fervent, I cannot say devout, +a spiritualist Longfellow's brother-in-law, Appleton, was; and when he +was at the table too, it took all the poet's delicate skill to keep him +and the Autocrat from involving themselves in a cataclysmal controversy +upon the matter of manifestations. With Doctor Holmes the inquiry was +inquiry, to the last, I believe, and the burden of proof was left to the +ghosts and their friends. His attitude was strictly scientific; he +denied nothing, but he expected the supernatural to be at least as +convincing as the natural. + +There was a time in his history when the popular ignorance classed him +with those who were once rudely called infidels; but the world has since +gone so fast and so far that the mind he was of concerning religious +belief would now be thought religious by a good half of the religious +world. It is true that he had and always kept a grudge against the +ancestral Calvinism which afflicted his youth; and he was through all +rises and lapses of opinion essentially Unitarian; but of the honest +belief of any one, I am sure he never felt or spoke otherwise than most +tolerantly, most tenderly. As often as he spoke of religion, and his +talk tended to it very often, I never heard an irreligious word from him, +far less a scoff or sneer at religion; and I am certain that this was not +merely because he would have thought it bad taste, though undoubtedly he +would have thought it bad taste; I think it annoyed, it hurt him, to be +counted among the iconoclasts, and he would have been profoundly grieved +if he could have known how widely this false notion of him once +prevailed. It can do no harm at this late day to impart from the secrets +of the publishing house the fact that a supposed infidelity in the tone +of his story The Guardian Angel cost the Atlantic Monthly many +subscribers. Now the tone of that story would not be thought even mildly +agnostic, I fancy; and long before his death the author had outlived the +error concerning him. + +It was not the best of his stories, by any means, and it would not be too +harsh to say that it was the poorest. His novels all belonged to an +order of romance which was as distinctly his own as the form of +dramatized essay which he invented in the Autocrat. If he did not think +poorly of them, he certainly did not think too proudly, and I heard him +quote with relish the phrase of a lady who had spoken of them to him as +his "medicated novels." That, indeed, was perhaps what they were; a +faint, faint odor of the pharmacopoeia clung to their pages; their magic +was scientific. He knew this better than any one else, of course, and if +any one had said it in his turn he would hardly have minded it. But what +he did mind was the persistent misinterpretation of his intention in +certain quarters where he thought he had the right to respectful +criticism in stead of the succession of sneers that greeted the +successive numbers of his story; and it was no secret that he felt the +persecution keenly. Perhaps he thought that he had already reached that +time in his literary life when he was a fact rather than a question, +and when reasons and not feelings must have to do with his acceptance or +rejection. But he had to live many years yet before he reached this +state. When he did reach it, happily a good while before his death, +I do not believe any man ever enjoyed the like condition more. He loved +to feel himself out of the fight, with much work before him still, +but with nothing that could provoke ill-will in his activities. He loved +at all times to take himself objectively, if I may so express my sense of +a mental attitude that misled many. As I have said before, he was +universally interested, and he studied the universe from himself. I do +not know how one is to study it otherwise; the impersonal has really no +existence; but with all his subtlety and depth he was of a make so +simple, of a spirit so naive, that he could not practise the feints some +use to conceal that interest in self which, after all, every one knows is +only concealed. He frankly and joyously made himself the starting-point +in all his inquest of the hearts and minds of other men, but so far from +singling himself out in this, and standing apart in it, there never was +any one who was more eagerly and gladly your fellow-being in the things +of the soul. + + + + +IV. + +In the things of the world, he had fences, and looked at some people +through palings and even over the broken bottles on the tops of walls; +and I think he was the loser by this, as well as they. But then I think +all fences are bad, and that God has made enough differences between men; +we need not trouble ourselves to multiply them. Even behind his fences, +however, Holmes had a heart kind for the outsiders, and I do not believe +any one came into personal relations with him who did not experience this +kindness. In that long and delightful talk I had with him on my return +from Venice (I can praise the talk because it was mainly his), we spoke +of the status of domestics in the Old World, and how fraternal the +relation of high and low was in Italy, while in England, between master +and man, it seemed without acknowledgment of their common humanity. +"Yes," he said, "I always felt as if English servants expected to be +trampled on; but I can't do that. If they want to be trampled on, they +must get some one else." He thought that our American way was infinitely +better; and I believe that in spite of the fences there was always an +instinctive impulse with him to get upon common ground with his fellow- +man. I used to notice in the neighborhood cabman who served our block on +Beacon Street a sort of affectionate reverence for the Autocrat, which +could have come from nothing but the kindly terms between them; if you +went to him when he was engaged to Doctor Holmes, he told you so with a +sort of implication in his manner that the thought of anything else for +the time was profanation. The good fellow who took him his drives about +the Beverly and Manchester shores seemed to be quite in the joke of the +doctor's humor, and within the bounds of his personal modesty and his +functional dignity permitted himself a smile at the doctor's sallies, +when you stood talking with him, or listening to him at the carriage- +side. + +The civic and social circumstance that a man values himself on is +commonly no part of his value, and certainly no part of his greatness. +Rather, it is the very thing that limits him, and I think that Doctor +Holmes appeared in the full measure of his generous personality to those +who did not and could not appreciate his circumstance, and not to those +who formed it, and who from life-long association were so dear and +comfortable to him. Those who best knew how great a man he was were +those who came from far to pay him their duty, or to thank him for some +help they had got from his books, or to ask his counsel or seek his +sympathy. With all such he was most winningly tender, most intelligently +patient. I suppose no great author was ever more visited by letter and +in person than he, or kept a faithfuler conscience for his guests. With +those who appeared to him in the flesh he used a miraculous tact, and I +fancy in his treatment of all the physician native in him bore a +characteristic part. No one seemed to be denied access to him, but it +was after a moment of preparation that one was admitted, and any one who +was at all sensitive must have felt from the first moment in his presence +that there could be no trespassing in point of time. If now and then +some insensitive began to trespass, there was a sliding-scale of +dismissal that never failed of its work, and that really saved the author +from the effect of intrusion. He was not bored because he would not be. + +I transfer at random the impressions of many years to my page, and I +shall not try to observe a chronological order in these memories. Vivid +among them is that of a visit which I paid him with Osgood the publisher, +then newly the owner of the Atlantic Monthly, when I had newly become the +sole editor. We wished to signalize our accession to the control of the +magazine by a stroke that should tell most in the public eye, and we +thought of asking Doctor Holmes to do something again in the manner of +the Autocrat and the Professor at the Breakfast Table. Some letters had +passed between him and the management concerning our wish, and then +Osgood thought that it would be right and fit for us to go to him in +person. He proposed the visit, and Doctor Holmes received us with a mind +in which he had evidently formulated all his thoughts upon the matter. +His main question was whether at his age of sixty years a man was +justified in seeking to recall a public of the past, or to create a new +public in the present. He seemed to have looked the ground over not only +with a personal interest in the question, but with a keen scientific zest +for it as something which it was delightful to consider in its generic +relations; and I fancy that the pleasure of this inquiry more than +consoled him for such pangs of misgiving as he must have had in the +personal question. As commonly happens in the solution of such problems, +it was not solved; he was very willing to take our minds upon it, and to +incur the risk, if we thought it well and were willing to share it. + +We came away rejoicing, and the new series began with the new year +following. It was by no means the popular success that we had hoped; +not because the author had not a thousand new things to say, or failed to +say them with the gust and freshness of his immortal youth, but because +it was not well to disturb a form associated in the public mind with an +achievement which had become classic. It is of the Autocrat of the +Breakfast Table that people think, when they think of the peculiar +species of dramatic essay which the author invented, and they think also +of the Professor at the Breakfast Table, because he followed so soon; +but the Poet at the Breakfast Table came so long after that his advent +alienated rather than conciliated liking. Very likely, if the Poet had +come first he would have had no second place in the affections of his +readers, for his talk was full of delightful matter; and at least one of +the poems which graced each instalment was one of the finest and greatest +that Doctor Holmes ever wrote. I mean "Homesick in Heaven," which seems +to me not only what I have said, but one of the most important, the most +profoundly pathetic in the language. Indeed, I do not know any other +that in the same direction goes so far with suggestion so penetrating. +The other poems were mainly of a cast which did not win; the metaphysics +in them were too much for the human interest, and again there rose a +foolish clamor of the creeds against him on account of them. The great +talent, the beautiful and graceful fancy, the eager imagination of the +Autocrat could not avail in this third attempt, and I suppose the Poet at +the Breakfast Table must be confessed as near a failure as Doctor Holmes +could come. It certainly was so in the magazine which the brilliant +success of the first had availed to establish in the high place the +periodical must always hold in the history of American literature. +Lowell was never tired of saying, when he recurred to the first days of +his editorship, that the magazine could never have gone at all without +the Autocrat papers. He was proud of having insisted upon Holmes's doing +something for the new venture, and he was fond of recalling the author's +misgivings concerning his contributions, which later repeated themselves +with too much reason, though not with the reason that was in his own +mind. + + + + +V. + +He lived twenty-five years after that self-question at sixty, and after +eighty he continued to prove that threescore was not the limit of a man's +intellectual activity or literary charm. During all that time the work +he did in mere quantity was the work that a man in the prime of life +might well have been vain of doing, and it was of a quality not less +surprising. If I asked him with any sort of fair notice I could rely +upon him always for something for the January number, and throughout the +year I could count upon him for those occasional pieces in which he so +easily excelled all former writers of occasional verse, and which he +liked to keep from the newspapers for the magazine. He had a pride in +his promptness with copy, and you could always trust his promise. The +printer's toe never galled the author's kibe in his case; he wished to +have an early proof, which he corrected fastidiously, but not overmuch, +and he did not keep it long. He had really done all his work in the +manuscript, which came print-perfect and beautifully clear from his pen, +in that flowing, graceful hand which to the last kept a suggestion of the +pleasure he must have had in it. Like all wise contributors, he was not +only patient, but very glad of all the queries and challenges that proof- +reader and editor could accumulate on the margin of his proofs, and when +they were both altogether wrong he was still grateful. In one of his +poems there was some Latin-Quarter French, which our collective purism +questioned, and I remember how tender of us he was in maintaining that in +his Parisian time, at least, some ladies beyond the Seine said "Eh, +b'en," instead of "Eh, bien." He knew that we must be always on the +lookout for such little matters, and he would not wound our ignorance. +I do not think any one enjoyed praise more than he. Of course he would +not provoke it, but if it came of itself, he would not deny himself the +pleasure, as long as a relish of it remained. He used humorously to +recognize his delight in it, and to say of the lecture audiences which +in earlier times hesitated applause, "Why don't they give me three times +three? I can stand it!" He himself gave in the generous fulness he +desired. He did not praise foolishly or dishonestly, though he would +spare an open dislike; but when a thing pleased him he knew how to say so +cordially and skilfully, so that it might help as well as delight. +I suppose no great author has tried more sincerely and faithfully to +befriend the beginner than he; and from time to time he would commend +something to me that he thought worth looking at, but never insistently. +In certain cases, where he had simply to ease a burden, from his own to +the editorial shoulders, he would ask that the aspirant might be +delicately treated. There might be personal reasons for this, but +usually his kindness of heart moved him. His tastes had their +geographical limit, but his sympathies were boundless, and the hopeless +creature for whom he interceded was oftener remote from Boston and New +England than otherwise. + +It seems to me that he had a nature singularly affectionate, and that it +was this which was at fault if he gave somewhat too much of himself to +the celebration of the Class of '29, and all the multitude of Boston +occasions, large and little, embalmed in the clear amber of his verse, +somewhat to the disadvantage of the amber. If he were asked he could not +deny the many friendships and fellowships which united in the asking; +the immediate reclame from these things was sweet to him; but he loved +to comply as much as he loved to be praised. In the pleasure he got he +could feel himself a prophet in his own country, but the country which +owned him prophet began perhaps to feel rather too much as if it owned +him, and did not prize his vaticinations at all their worth. Some polite +Bostonians knew him chiefly on this side, and judged him to their own +detriment from it. + + + + +VI. + +After we went to live in Cambridge, my life and the delight in it were so +wholly there that in ten years I had hardly been in as many Boston +houses. As I have said, I met Doctor Holmes at the Fieldses', and at +Longfellow's, when he came out to a Dante supper, which was not often, +and somewhat later at the Saturday Club dinners. One parlous time at the +publisher's I have already recalled, when Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe and +the Autocrat clashed upon homeopathy, and it required all the tact of the +host to lure them away from the dangerous theme. As it was, a battle +waged in the courteous forms of Fontenoy, went on pretty well through the +dinner, and it was only over the coffee that a truce was called. I need +not say which was heterodox, or that each had a deep and strenuous +conscience in the matter. I have always felt it a proof of his extreme +leniency to me, unworthy, that the doctor was able to tolerate my own +defection from the elder faith in medicine; and I could not feel his +kindness less caressing because I knew it a concession to an infirmity. +He said something like, After all a good physician was the great matter; +and I eagerly turned his clemency to praise of our family doctor. + +He was very constant at the Saturday Club, as long as his strength +permitted, and few of its members missed fewer of its meetings. +He continued to sit at its table until the ghosts of Hawthorne, +of Agassiz, of Emerson, of Longfellow, of Lowell, out of others less +famous, bore him company there among the younger men in the flesh. +It must have been very melancholy, but nothing could deeply cloud his +most cheerful spirit. His strenuous interest in life kept him alive to +all the things of it, after so many of his friends were dead. The +questions which he was wont to deal with so fondly, so wisely, the great +problems of the soul, were all the more vital, perhaps, because the +personal concern in them was increased by the translation to some other +being of the men who had so often tried with him to fathom them here. +The last time I was at that table he sat alone there among those great +memories; but he was as gay as ever I saw him; his wit sparkled, his +humor gleamed; the poetic touch was deft and firm as of old; the serious +curiosity, the instant sympathy remained. To the witness he was +pathetic, but to himself he could only have been interesting, as the +figure of a man surviving, in an alien but not unfriendly present, the +past which held so vast a part of all that had constituted him. If he +had thought of himself in this way, it would have been without one +emotion of self-pity, such as more maudlin souls indulge, but with a love +of knowledge and wisdom as keenly alert as in his prime. + +For three privileged years I lived all but next-door neighbor of Doctor +Holmes in that part of Beacon Street whither he removed after he left his +old home in Charles Street, and during these years I saw him rather +often. We were both on the water side, which means so much more than the +words say, and our library windows commanded the same general view of the +Charles rippling out into the Cambridge marshes and the sunsets, and +curving eastward under Long Bridge, through shipping that increased +onward to the sea. He said that you could count fourteen towns and +villages in the compass of that view, with the three conspicuous +monuments accenting the different attractions of it: the tower of +Memorial Hall at Harvard; the obelisk on Bunker Hill; and in the centre +of the picture that bulk of Tufts College which he said he expected to +greet his eyes the first thing when he opened them in the other world. +But the prospect, though generally the same, had certain precious +differences for each of us, which I have no doubt he valued himself as +much upon as I did. I have a notion that he fancied these were to be +enjoyed best in his library through two oval panes let into the bay there +apart from the windows, for he was apt to make you come and look out of +them if you got to talking of the view before you left. In this pleasant +study he lived among the books, which seemed to multiply from case to +case and shelf to shelf, and climb from floor to ceiling. Everything was +in exquisite order, and the desk where he wrote was as scrupulously neat +as if the sloven disarray of most authors' desks were impossible to him. +He had a number of ingenious little contrivances for helping his work, +which he liked to show you; for a time a revolving book-case at the +corner of his desk seemed to be his pet; and after that came his +fountain-pen, which he used with due observance of its fountain +principle, though he was tolerant of me when I said I always dipped mine +in the inkstand; it was a merit in his eyes to use a fountain pen in +anywise. After you had gone over these objects with him, and perhaps +taken a peep at something he was examining through his microscope, he sat +down at one corner of his hearth, and invited you to an easy chair at the +other. His talk was always considerate of your wish to be heard, but the +person who wished to talk when he could listen to Doctor Holmes was his +own victim, and always the loser. If you were well advised you kept +yourself to the question and response which manifested your interest in +what he was saying, and let him talk on, with his sweet smile, and that +husky laugh he broke softly into at times. Perhaps he was not very well +when you came in upon him; then he would name his trouble, with a +scientific zest and accuracy, and pass quickly to other matters. As I +have noted, he was interested in himself only on the universal side; and +he liked to find his peculiarity in you better than to keep it his own; +he suffered a visible disappointment if he could not make you think or +say you were so and so too. The querulous note was not in his most +cheerful register; he would not dwell upon a specialized grief; though +sometimes I have known him touch very lightly and currently upon a slight +annoyance, or disrelish for this or that. As he grew older, he must have +had, of course, an old man's disposition to speak of his infirmities; but +it was fine to see him catch himself up in this, when he became conscious +of it, and stop short with an abrupt turn to something else. With a real +interest, which he gave humorous excess, he would celebrate some little +ingenious thing that had fallen in his way, and I have heard him +expatiate with childlike delight upon the merits of a new razor he had +got: a sort of mower, which he could sweep recklessly over cheek and chin +without the least danger of cutting himself. The last time I saw him he +asked me if he had ever shown me that miraculous razor; and I doubt if he +quite liked my saying I had seen one of the same kind. + +It seemed to me that he enjoyed sitting at his chimney-corner rather as +the type of a person having a good time than as such a person; he would +rather be up and about something, taking down a book, making a note, +going again to his little windows, and asking you if you had seen the +crows yet that sometimes alighted on the shoals left bare by the ebb-tide +behind the house. The reader will recall his lovely poem, "My Aviary," +which deals with the winged life of that pleasant prospect. I shared +with him in the flock of wild-ducks which used to come into our neighbor +waters in spring, when the ice broke up, and stayed as long as the +smallest space of brine remained unfrozen in the fall. He was graciously +willing I should share in them, and in the cloud of gulls which drifted +about in the currents of the sea and sky there, almost the whole year +round. I did not pretend an original right to them, coming so late as I +did to the place, and I think my deference pleased him. + + + + +VII. + +As I have said, he liked his fences, or at least liked you to respect +them, or to be sensible of them. As often as I went to see him I was +made to wait in the little reception-room below, and never shown at once +to his study. My name would be carried up, and I would hear him +verifying my presence from the maid through the opened door; then there +came a cheery cry of wellcome: "Is that you? Come up, come up!" and I +found him sometimes half-way down the stairs to meet me. He would make +an excuse for having kept me below a moment, and say something about the +rule he had to observe in all cases, as if he would not have me feel his +fence a personal thing. I was aware how thoroughly his gentle spirit +pervaded the whole house; the Irish maid who opened the door had the +effect of being a neighbor too, and of being in the joke of the little +formality; she apologized in her turn for the reception-room; there was +certainly nothing trampled upon in her manner, but affection and +reverence for him whose gate she guarded, with something like the +sentiment she would have cherished for a dignitary of the Church, but +nicely differenced and adjusted to the Autocrat's peculiar merits. + +The last time I was in that place, a visitant who had lately knocked at +my own door was about to enter. I met the master of the house on the +landing of the stairs outside his study, and he led me in for the few +moments we could spend together. He spoke of the shadow so near, and +said he supposed there could be no hope, but he did not refuse the cheer +I offered him from my ignorance against his knowledge, and at something +that was thought or said he smiled, with even a breath of laughter, so +potent is the wont of a lifetime, though his eyes were full of tears, and +his voice broke with his words. Those who have sorrowed deepest will +understand this best. + +It was during the few years of our Beacon Street neighborhood that he +spent those hundred days abroad in his last visit to England and France. +He was full of their delight when he came back, and my propinquity gave +me the advantage of hearing him speak of them at first hand. He +whimsically pleased himself most with his Derby-day experiences, and +enjoyed contrasting the crowd and occasion with that of forty or fifty +years earlier, when he had seen some famous race of the Derby won; +nothing else in England seemed to have moved him so much, though all that +royalties, dignities, and celebrities could well do for him had been +done. Of certain things that happened to him, characteristic of the +English, and interesting to him in their relation to himself through his +character of universally interested man, he spoke freely; but he has said +what he chose to the public about them, and I have no right to say more. +The thing that most vexed him during his sojourn apparently was to have +been described in one of the London papers as quite deaf; and I could +truly say to him that I had never imagined him at all deaf, or heard him +accused of it before. "Oh, yes," he said, "I am a little hard of hearing +on one side. But it isn't deafness." + +He had, indeed, few or none of the infirmities of age that make +themselves painfully or inconveniently evident. He carried his slight +figure erect, and until his latest years his step was quick and sure. +Once he spoke of the lessened height of old people, apropos of something +that was said, and "They will shrink, you know," he added, as if he were +not at all concerned in the fact himself. If you met him in the street, +you encountered a spare, carefully dressed old gentleman, with a clean- +shaven face and a friendly smile, qualified by the involuntary frown of +his thick, senile brows; well coated, lustrously shod, well gloved, in a +silk hat, latterly wound with a mourning-weed. Sometimes he did not know +you when he knew you quite well, and at such times I think it was kind to +spare his years the fatigue of recalling your identity; at any rate, I am +glad of the times when I did so. In society he had the same vagueness, +the same dimness; but after the moment he needed to make sure of you, he +was as vivid as ever in his life. He made me think of a bed of embers on +which the ashes have thinly gathered, and which, when these are breathed +away, sparkles and tinkles keenly up with all the freshness of a newly +kindled fire. He did not mind talking about his age, and I fancied +rather enjoyed doing so. Its approaches interested him; if he was going, +he liked to know just how and when he was going. Once he spoke of his +lasting strength in terms of imaginative humor: he was still so intensely +interested in nature, the universe, that it seemed to him he was not like +an old man so much as a lusty infant which struggles against having the +breast snatched from it. He laughed at the notion of this, with that +impersonal relish which seemed to me singularly characteristic of the +self-consciousness so marked in him. I never heard one lugubrious word +from him in regard to his years. He liked your sympathy on all grounds +where he could have it self-respectfully, but he was a most manly spirit, +and he would not have had it even as a type of the universal decay. +Possibly he would have been interested to have you share in that analysis +of himself which he was always making, if such a thing could have been. + +He had not much patience with the unmanly craving for sympathy in others, +and chiefly in our literary craft, which is somewhat ignobly given to it, +though he was patient, after all. He used to say, and I believe he has +said it in print,--[Holmes said it in print many times, in his three +novels and scattered through the "Breakfast Table" series. D.W.]--that +unless a man could show a good reason for writing verse, it was rather +against him, and a proof of weakness. I suppose this severe conclusion +was something he had reached after dealing with innumerable small poets +who sought the light in him with verses that no editor would admit to +print. Yet of morbidness he was often very tender; he knew it to be +disease, something that must be scientifically rather than ethically +treated. He was in the same degree kind to any sensitiveness, for he was +himself as sensitive as he was manly, and he was most delicately +sensitive to any rightful social claim upon him. I was once at a dinner +with him, where he was in some sort my host, in a company of people whom +he had not seen me with before, and he made a point of acquainting me +with each of them. It did not matter that I knew most of them already; +the proof of his thoughtfulness was precious, and I was sorry when I had +to disappoint it by confessing a previous knowledge. + + + + +VIII. + +I had three memorable meetings with him not very long before he died: one +a year before, and the other two within a few months of the end. The +first of these was at luncheon in the summer-house of a friend whose +hospitality made it summer the year round, and we all went out to meet +him, when he drove up in his open carriage, with the little sunshade in +his hand, which he took with him for protection against the heat, and +also, a little, I think, for the whim of it. He sat a moment after he +arrived, as if to orient himself in respect to each of us. Beside the +gifted hostess, there was the most charming of all the American +essayists, and the Autocrat seemed at once to find himself singularly at +home with the people who greeted him. There was no interval needed for +fanning away the ashes; he tinkled up before he entered the house, and at +the table he was as vivid and scintillant as I ever saw him, if indeed I +ever saw him as much so. The talk began at once, and we had made him +believe that there was nothing egotistic in his taking the word, or +turning it in illustration from himself upon universal matters. I spoke +among other things of some humble ruins on the road to Gloucester, which +gave the way-side a very aged look; the tumbled foundation-stones of poor +bits of houses, and "Ah," he said, "the cellar and the well?" He added, +to the company generally, "Do you know what I think are the two lines of +mine that go as deep as any others, in a certain direction?" and he began +to repeat stragglingly certain verses from one of his earlier poems, +until he came to the closing couplet. But I will give them in full, +because in going to look them up I have found them so lovely, and because +I can hear his voice again in every fondly accented syllable: + + "Who sees unmoved, a ruin at his feet, + The lowliest home where human hearts have beat? + Its hearth-stone, shaded with the bistre stain, + A century's showery torrents wash in vain; + Its starving orchard where the thistle blows, + And mossy trunks still mark the broken rows; + Its chimney-loving poplar, oftenest seen + Next an old roof, or where a roof has been; + Its knot-grass, plantain,--all the social weeds, + Man's mute companions following where he leads; + Its dwarfed pale flowers, that show their straggling heads, + Sown by the wind from grass-choked garden-beds; + Its woodbine creeping where it used to climb; + Its roses breathing of the olden time; + All the poor shows the curious idler sees, + As life's thin shadows waste by slow degrees, + Till naught remains, the saddening tale to tell, + Save home's last wrecks--the CELLAR AND THE WELL!" + +The poet's chanting voice rose with a triumphant swell in the climax, and +"There," he said, "isn't it so? The cellar and the well--they can't be +thrown down or burnt up; they are the human monuments that last longest +and defy decay." He rejoiced openly in the sympathy that recognized with +him the divination of a most pathetic, most signal fact, and he repeated +the last couplet again at our entreaty, glad to be entreated for it. +I do not know whether all will agree with him concerning the relative +importance of the lines, but I think all must feel the exquisite beauty +of the picture to which they give the final touch. + +He said a thousand witty and brilliant things that day, but his pleasure +in this gave me the most pleasure, and I recall the passage distinctly +out of the dimness that covers the rest. He chose to figure us younger +men, in touching upon the literary circumstance of the past and present, +as representative of modern feeling and thinking, and himself as no +longer contemporary. We knew he did this to be contradicted, and we +protested, affectionately, fervently, with all our hearts and minds; and +indeed there were none of his generation who had lived more widely into +ours. He was not a prophet like Emerson, nor ever a voice crying in the +wilderness like Whittier or Lowell. His note was heard rather amid the +sweet security of streets, but it was always for a finer and gentler +civility. He imagined no new rule of life, and no philosophy or theory +of life will be known by his name. He was not constructive; he was +essentially observant, and in this he showed the scientific nature. +He made his reader known to himself, first in the little, and then in the +larger things. From first to last he was a censor, but a most winning +and delightful censor, who could make us feel that our faults were other +people's, and who was not wont + + "To bait his homilies with his brother worms." + +At one period he sat in the seat of the scorner, as far as Reform was +concerned, or perhaps reformers, who are so often tedious and ridiculous; +but he seemed to get a new heart with the new mind which came to him when +he began to write the Autocrat papers, and the light mocker of former +days became the serious and compassionate thinker, to whom most truly +nothing that was human was alien. His readers trusted and loved him; few +men have ever written so intimately with so much dignity, and perhaps +none has so endeared himself by saying just the thing for his reader that +his reader could not say for himself. He sought the universal through +himself in others, and he found to his delight and theirs that the most +universal thing was often, if not always, the most personal thing. + +In my later meetings with him I was struck more and more by his +gentleness. I believe that men are apt to grow gentler as they grow +older, unless they are of the curmudgeon type, which rusts and crusts +with age, but with Doctor Holmes the gentleness was peculiarly marked. +He seemed to shrink from all things that could provoke controversy, or +even difference; he waived what might be a matter of dispute, and rather +sought the things that he could agree with you upon. In the last talk I +had with him he appeared to have no grudge left, except for the puritanic +orthodoxy in which he had been bred as a child. This he was not able to +forgive, though its tradition was interwoven with what was tenderest and +dearest in his recollections of childhood. We spoke of puritanism, and +I said I sometimes wondered what could be the mind of a man towards life +who had not been reared in its awful shadow, say an English Churchman, or +a Continental Catholic; and he said he could not imagine, and that he did +not believe such a man could at all enter into our feelings; puritanism, +he seemed to think, made an essential and ineradicable difference. I do +not believe he had any of that false sentiment which attributes virtue of +character to severity of creed, while it owns the creed to be wrong. + +He differed from Longfellow in often speaking of his contemporaries. He +spoke of them frankly, but with an appreciative rather than a censorious +criticism. Of Longfellow himself he said that day, when I told him I had +been writing about him, and he seemed to me a man without error, that he +could think of but one error in him, and that was an error of taste, of +almost merely literary taste. It was at an earlier time that he talked +of Lowell, after his death, and told me that Lowell once in the fever of +his anti-slavery apostolate had written him, urging him strongly, as a +matter of duty, to come out for the cause he had himself so much at +heart. Afterwards Lowell wrote again, owning himself wrong in his +appeal, which he had come to recognize as invasive. "He was ten years +younger than I," said the doctor. + +I found him that day I speak of in his house at Beverly Farms, where he +had a pleasant study in a corner by the porch, and he met me with all the +cheeriness of old. But he confessed that he had been greatly broken up +by the labor of preparing something that might be read at some +commemorative meeting, and had suffered from finding first that he could +not write something specially for it. Even the copying and adapting an +old poem had overtaxed him, and in this he showed the failing powers of +age. But otherwise he was still young, intellectually; that is, there +was no failure of interest in intellectual things, especially literary +things. Some new book lay on the table at his elbow, and he asked me if +I had seen it, and made some joke about his having had the good luck to +read it, and have it lying by him a few days before when the author +called. I do not know whether he schooled himself against an old man's +tendency to revert to the past or not, but I know that he seldom did so. +That morning, however, he made several excursions into it, and told me +that his youthful satire of the 'Spectre Pig' had been provoked by a poem +of the elder Dana's, where a phantom horse had been seriously employed, +with an effect of anticlimax which he had found irresistible. Another +foray was to recall the oppression and depression of his early religious +associations, and to speak with moving tenderness of his father, whose +hard doctrine as a minister was without effect upon his own kindly +nature. + +In a letter written to me a few weeks after this time, upon an occasion +when he divined that some word from him would be more than commonly dear, +he recurred to the feeling he then expressed: "Fifty-six years ago--more +than half a century--I lost my own father, his age being seventy-three +years. As I have reached that period of life, passed it, and now left it +far behind, my recollections seem to brighten and bring back my boyhood +and early manhood in a clearer and fairer light than it came to me in my +middle decades. I have often wished of late years that I could tell him +how I cherished his memory; perhaps I may have the happiness of saying +all I long to tell him on the other side of that thin partition which I +love to think is all that divides us." + +Men are never long together without speaking of women, and I said how +inevitably men's lives ended where they began, in the keeping of women, +and their strength failed at last and surrendered itself to their care. +I had not finished before I was made to feel that I was poaching, and +"Yes," said the owner of the preserve, "I have spoken of that," and he +went on to tell me just where. He was not going to have me suppose I had +invented those notions, and I could not do less than own that I must have +found them in his book, and forgotten it. + +He spoke of his pleasant summer life in the air, at once soft and fresh, +of that lovely coast, and of his drives up and down the country roads. +Sometimes this lady and sometimes that came for him, and one or two +habitually, but he always had his own carriage ordered, if they failed, +that he might not fail of his drive in any fair weather. His cottage was +not immediately on the sea, but in full sight of it, and there was a +sense of the sea about it, as there is in all that incomparable region, +and I do not think he could have been at home anywhere beyond the reach +of its salt breath. + +I was anxious not to outstay his strength, and I kept my eye on the clock +in frequent glances. I saw that he followed me in one of these, and I +said that I knew what his hours were, and I was watching so that I might +go away in time, and then he sweetly protested. Did I like that chair I +was sitting in? It was a gift to him, and he said who gave it, with a +pleasure in the fact that was very charming, as if he liked the +association of the thing with his friend. He was disposed to excuse the +formal look of his bookcases, which were filled with sets, and presented +some phalanxes of fiction in rather severe array. + +When I rose to go, he was concerned about my being able to find my way +readily to the station, and he told me how to go, and what turns to take, +as if he liked realizing the way to himself. I believe he did not walk +much of late years, and I fancy he found much the same pleasure in +letting his imagination make this excursion to the station with me that +he would have found in actually going. + +I saw him once more, but only once, when a day or two later he drove up +by our hotel in Magnolia toward the cottage where his secretary was +lodging. He saw us from his carriage, and called us gayly to him, to +make us rejoice with him at having finally got that commemorative poem +off his mind. He made a jest of the trouble it had cost him, even some +sleeplessness, and said he felt now like a convalescent. He was all +brightness, and friendliness, and eagerness to make us feel his mood, +through what was common to us all; and I am glad that this last +impression of him is so one with the first I ever had, and with that +which every reader receives from his work. + +That is bright, and friendly and eager too, for it is throughout the very +expression of himself. I think it is a pity if an author disappoints +even the unreasonable expectation of the reader, whom his art has invited +to love him; but I do not believe that Doctor Holmes could inflict this +disappointment. Certainly he could disappoint no reasonable expectation, +no intelligent expectation. What he wrote, that he was, and every one +felt this who met him. He has therefore not died, as some men die, the +remote impersonal sort, but he is yet thrillingly alive in every page of +his books. The quantity of his literature is not great, but the quality +is very surprising, and surprising first of all as equality. From the +beginning to the end he wrote one man, of course in his successive +consciousnesses. Perhaps every one does this, but his work gives the +impression of an uncommon continuity, in spite of its being the effect of +a later and an earlier impulse so very marked as to have made the later +an astonishing revelation to those who thought they knew him. + + + + +IX. + +It is not for me in such a paper as this to attempt any judgment of his +work. I have loved it, as I loved him, with a sense of its limitations +which is by no means a censure of its excellences. He was not a man who +cared to transcend; he liked bounds, he liked horizons, the constancy of +shores. If he put to sea, he kept in sight of land, like the ancient +navigators. He did not discover new continents; and I will own that I, +for my part, should not have liked to sail with Columbus. I think one +can safely affirm that as great and as useful men stayed behind, and +found an America of the mind without stirring from their thresholds. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Appeal, which he had come to recognize as invasive +Appeared to have no grudge left +Could make us feel that our faults were other people's +Hard of hearing on one side. But it isn't deafness +Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Autocrat clashed upon homeopathy +He was not bored because he would not be +He was not constructive; he was essentially observant +His readers trusted and loved him +Men's lives ended where they began, in the keeping of women +Not a man who cared to transcend; he liked bounds +Not much patience with the unmanly craving for sympathy +Old man's disposition to speak of his infirmities +Old man's tendency to revert to the past +Person who wished to talk when he could listen +Reformers, who are so often tedious and ridiculous +Secret of the man who is universally interesting +Sought the things that he could agree with you upon +Spare his years the fatigue of recalling your identity +Study in a corner by the porch +Those who have sorrowed deepest will understand this best +Times when a man's city was a man's country +Turn of the talk toward the mystical +Work gives the impression of an uncommon continuity + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Oliver Wendell Holmes +by William Dean Howells + |