Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 10

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 flouris.h.i.+ng 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 t.i.tle might serve for some fresh papers, and so I sat down and wrote off what came into my head under the t.i.tle _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 n.o.ble 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 ent.i.tled "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 unsurpa.s.sable 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 a.s.sure 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 n.o.ble 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.sertion 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 ent.i.tled "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 G.o.dwin, Donald G. Mitch.e.l.l, John J.

Piatt, Richard Grant White, D.C. Gilman, J.W. DeForest, Frederick Dougla.s.s, 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 a.s.sembled 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 gra.s.s.

"That is the minister's house," said another small personage, with a wink of satisfaction.

"Perhaps it is a boy," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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, br.i.m.m.i.n.g 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."