Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 6

_The Guardian Angel_ while a deep study of the Reflex Function in its higher sphere, is not without its lighter, more mirthful side. Says _The London News_, "the story is exceedingly humorous and comic in the less serious chapters. There is no such minor poet in the whole range of fiction as the immortal Gifted Hopkins. In the character of Hopkins all the foibles and vanities of the literary nature are exemplified in the most mirthful manner. If Doctor Holmes has more characters like Gifted Hopkins in his mind, the hilarity of two continents is not in much danger of being extinguished."

Here is a glimpse of the young poet when racked with jealousy:

"He retired pensive from the interview, and flinging himself at his desk, attempted wreaking his thoughts upon expression, to borrow the language of one of his brother bards, in a pa.s.sionate lyric which he began thus:

Another's!

Another's! O the pang, the smart!

Fate owes to Love a deathless grudge-- The barbed fang has rent a heart Which--which--

judge--judge--no, not judge. Budge, drudge, fudge--what a disgusting language English is! Nothing fit to couple with such a word as grudge!

And an impa.s.sioned moment arrested in full flow, stopped short, corked up, for want of a paltry rhyme! Judge--budge--drudge nudge--oh!--smudge--misery!--fudge. In vain--futile--no use--all up for to-night!'"

The next day the dejected poet "wandered about with a dreadfully disconsolate look upon his countenance. He showed a falling-off in his appet.i.te at tea-time, which surprised and disturbed his mother.... The most touching evidence of his unhappiness--whether intentional on the result of accident was not evident--was a _broken heart_, which he left upon his plate, the meaning of which was as plain as anything in the language of flowers. His thoughts were gloomy, running a good deal on the more picturesque and impressive methods of bidding a voluntary farewell to a world which had allured him with visions of beauty only to s.n.a.t.c.h them from his impa.s.sioned gaze. His mother saw something of this, and got from him a few disjointed words, which led her to lock up the clothes-line and hide her late husband's razors--an affectionate, yet perhaps unnecessary precaution, for self-elimination contemplated from this point of view by those who have the natural outlet of verse to relieve them is rarely followed by a casualty. It may be considered as implying a more than average chance for longevity; as those who meditate an imposing finish naturally save themselves for it, and are therefore careful of their health until the time comes, and this is apt to be indefinitely postponed so long as there is a poem to write or a proof to be corrected."

Gifted Hopkins survives the ordeal, and completes his volume of poems, _Blossoms of the Soul_. Good old master Gridley, who foresees what the end will be, offers to accompany the young poet in his visit to the city publisher. What a world of pathos there is in the fond mother's preparations for the momentous journey: She brings down from the garret "a capacious trunk, of solid wood, but covered with leather, and adorned with bra.s.s-headed nails, by the cunning disposition of which, also, the paternal initials stood out on the rounded lid, in the most conspicuous manner. It was his father's trunk, and the first thing that went into it, as the widow lifted the cover, and the smothering shut-up smell struck an old chord of a.s.sociations, was a single tear-drop. How well she remembered the time when she first unpacked it for her young husband, and the white s.h.i.+rt bosoms showed their snowy plaits! O dear, dear!

"But women decant their affections, sweet and sound, out of the old bottles into the new ones--off from the lees of the past generation, clear and bright, into the clean vessels just made ready to receive it.

Gifted Hopkins was his mother's idol, and no wonder. She had not only the common attachment of a parent for him, as her offspring, but she felt that her race was to be rendered ill.u.s.trious by his genius, and thought proudly of the time when some future biographer would mention her own humble name, to be held in lasting remembrance as that of the mother of Hopkins."

The description of the various articles that went into the trunk is humorous enough.

"Best clothes and common clothes, thick clothes and thin clothes, flannels and linens, socks and collars, with handkerchiefs enough to keep the pickpockets busy for a week, with a paper of gingerbread and some lozenges for gastralgia, and 'hot drops,' and ruled paper to write letters on, and a little Bible and a phial with _hiera piera_, and another with paregoric, and another with 'camphire' for sprains and bruises. Gifted went forth equipped for every climate from the tropic to the pole, and armed against every malady from ague to zoster."

The poet's interview with the publisher is one of the best things in the book, but to be thoroughly enjoyed, it must be read entire.

The genial, kindly nature of Doctor Holmes is strikingly shown throughout the whole volume. Good, quaint Byles Gridley endears himself more and more to the reader, Gifted Hopkins finds in his heart's choice an appreciative, admiring audience of at least one, Cyprian Eveleth and young Doctor Hurlbut are most happily disposed of, Clement Lindsay receives his reward, Myrtle Hazard emerges from the conflict of mingled lives in her blood with the dross of her nature burned away, aunt Silence throws off her melancholy, Miss Cynthia Badlam repents of her evil manoeuvrings and dies "with the comfortable a.s.surance that she is going to a better world," the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker learns to appreciate his patient wife--even Murray Bradshaw, the acknowledged villain of the book, is not without a few redeeming traits, and we close the volume with a sense of hearty goodwill and fervent charity toward all mankind.

CHAPTER XI.

FURTHER ACQUAINTANCE.

Between the writing of _Elsie Venner_ and _The Guardian Angel_, Doctor Holmes wrote a number of essays for the _Atlantic Monthly_, some of which were afterwards collected in the volume ent.i.tled _Soundings from the Atlantic_.

_Currents and Counter-currents_ was published in 1861, and _Border-lines of Knowledge_ in 1862. The two latter books deal with scientific subjects, but are written in such an attractive style that they have been extremely popular not only with students but with the whole reading public. _Songs in many Keys_, a volume of poems dedicated to his mother, was published by Doctor Holmes in 1862. _Mechanism in Thoughts and Morals_ appeared in 1871, the same year that _The Poet at the Breakfast-Table_ was running as a serial in the _Atlantic Monthly_, and numerous stray poems were also written in this prolific decade. In 1872 the poet's breakfast talk was published in book form. It is interesting to compare these three volumes--The Autocrat, the Professor, and the Poet. As a series they are as necessary to one another as the three strands of a cable, and yet each volume is, in a certain way, completed in itself. Where in the whole range of the English language, or indeed, of any language, will you find such an overflow of spontaneous wit and humor? While in no sense a story or even a narrative, the breakfast talk is enlivened by wonderfully life-like characters. We can easily imagine ourselves sitting beside them at the social table, and just as it is in real life, these chance acquaintances touch us at different points, awaken various degrees of interest, and are at all times quite distinct from the observer's own individuality.

There is not a page without its sparkle of humor, and nugget of sound philosophy beneath, which the reader appropriates to himself in a delightfully unconscious manner--for the time being, it is he who is the Autocrat, the Professor, the Poet! As some one has truly said, "It is our thoughts which Doctor Holmes speaks; it is our humor to which he gives expression; it is the pictures of our own fancy that he clothes in words, and shows us what we ourselves thought, and only lacked the means of expressing. We never realized until he taught us by his magic power over us, how much each of us had of genius and invention and expression."

Each book has its little romance, and the "Poet" introduces a poor gentlewoman whose story interests us quite as much as does that of the two lovers.

"In a little chamber," he says, "into which a small thread of suns.h.i.+ne finds its way for half an hour or so every day during a month or six weeks of the spring or autumn, at all other times obliged to content itself with ungilded daylight, lives this boarder, whom, without wronging any others of our company, I may call, as she is very generally called in the household, the Lady....

"From an aspect of dignified but undisguised economy which showed itself in her dress as well as in her limited quarters, I suspected a story of s.h.i.+pwrecked fortune, and determined to question our Landlady. That worthy woman was delighted to tell the history of her most distinguished boarder. She was, as I had supposed, a gentlewoman whom a change of circ.u.mstances had brought down from her high estate.--Did I know the Goldenrod family?--Of course I did.--Well, the lady was first cousin to Mrs. Midas Goldenrod. She had been here in her carriage to call upon her--not very often.--Were her rich relations kind and helpful to her?--Well, yes; at least they made her presents now and then. Three or four years ago they sent her a silver waiter, and every Christmas they sent her a bouquet--it must cost as much as five dollars, the Landlady thought.

"And how did the Lady receive these valuable and useful things?

"Every Christmas she got out the silver waiter and borrowed a gla.s.s tumbler and filled it with water, and put the bouquet in it and set it on the waiter. It smelt sweet enough and looked pretty for a day or two, but the Landlady thought it wouldn't have hurt 'em if they'd sent a piece of goods for a dress, or at least a pocket handkercher or two, or something or other that she could 'a' made use of....

"What did she do?--Why, she read, and she drew pictures, and she did needlework patterns, and played on an old harp she had; the gilt was mostly off, but it sounded very sweet, and she sung to it, sometimes, those old songs that used to be in fas.h.i.+on twenty or thirty years ago, with words to 'em that folks could understand....

"Poor Lady! She seems to me like a picture that has fallen face downward on the dusty floor. The picture never was as needful as a window or a door, but it was pleasant to see it in its place, and it would be pleasant to see it there again, and I for one, should be thankful to have the Lady restored by some turn of fortune to the position from which she has been so cruelly cast down."

Before the Poet closes his breakfast talk, the poor Lady has, through the efforts of another boarder, the Register of Deeds, recovered her property. Mrs. Midas Goldenrod makes frequent and longer calls--"the very moment her relative, the Lady of our breakfast table, began to find herself in a streak of suns.h.i.+ne she came forward with a lighted candle to show her which way her path lay before her.

"The Lady saw all this, how plainly, how painfully! yet she exercised a true charity for the weakness of her relative. Sensible people have as much consideration for the frailties of the rich as for those of the poor.

"The Lady that's been so long with me is going to a house of her own,"

said the Landlady, "one she has bought back again, for it used to belong to her folks. It's a beautiful house, and the sun s.h.i.+nes in at the front windows all day long. She's going to be wealthy again, but it doesn't make any difference in her ways. I've had boarders complain when I was doing as well as I knowed how for them, but I never heerd a word from her that wasn't as pleasant as if she'd been talking to the Governor's lady."

The strange little man, denominated "Scarabee," who had grown to look so much like the beetles he studied; the "Member of the House" with his Down East phrases; the little "Scheherazade" who furnishes a new story each week for the newspapers;--the good looking, rosy-cheeked salesman "of very polite manners, only a little more brisk than the approved style of carriage permits, as one in the habit of springing with a certain alacrity at the call of a customer;" the good old Master of Arts who makes so many sage remarks;--the young Astronomer with his heart confessions in the _Wind-clouds and Star-drifts_--all these are new acquaintances whom we are loth to part with, when the Landlady announces her intention of giving up the famous boarding-house, and the Poet drops the curtain. Would that the Old Master could yet be induced to give to the public those "notes and reflections and new suggestions" of his marvellous "interleaved volume!"

CHAPTER XII.

FAVORITES OF SONG.

When we come to consider Doctor Holmes on the poet side of his many-sided nature, his own words at the famous Breakfast-Table are vividly brought to mind:

"The works of other men live, but their personality dies out of their labors; the poet, who reproduces himself in his creation, as no other artist does or can, goes down to posterity with all his personality blended with whatever is imperishable in his song.... A single lyric is enough, if one can only find in his soul and finish in his intellect one of those jewels fit to sparkle on the stretched forefinger of all time."

In the poems of Doctor Holmes we are quite sure there are many just such lyrics that the world will not willingly let die. _The Last Leaf, The Voiceless, The Chambered Nautilus, The Two Armies, The Old Man's Dream, Under the Violets, Dorothy Q._--but where shall we stop in the long enumeration of popular favorites like these?

Oliver Wendell Holmes touches the heart as well as the intellect, and that aside from his power as a humorist, is one great secret of his success.

Listen, for instance, to this exquisite bit:

Yes, dear departed, cherished days Could Memory's hand restore Your Morning light, your evening rays From Time's gray urn once more,-- Then might this restless heart be still, This straining eye might close, And Hope her fainting pinions fold, While the fair phantoms rose.

But, like a child in ocean's arms, We strive against the stream, Each moment farther from the sh.o.r.e Where life's young fountains gleam;-- Each moment fainter wave the fields, And wider rolls the sea; The mist grows dark,--the sun goes down,-- Day breaks,--and where are we?

And what a dainty touch is given to this _Song of the Sun-Wors.h.i.+pper's Daughter_!

Kiss mine eyelids, beauteous Morn Blus.h.i.+ng into life new born!

Send me violets for my hair And thy russet robe to wear, And thy ring of rosiest hue Set in drops of diamond dew!

Kiss my lips, thou Lord of light, Kiss my lips a soft good-night!

Westward sinks thy golden car; Leave me but the evening star And my solace that shall be Borrowing all its light from thee.

And where will you find a more pathetic picture than that of the old musician in _The Silent Melody_?