Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes

by E. E. Brown

The spendthrift Crocus, bursting through the mould,
Naked and shivering with his cup of gold.

He is also known as the writer of many pieces which wear a serious look until they break out into a laugh at the end, perhaps in the last line, as with those on Lending a Punch Bowl, a cunning way of the writer's; just as the knot is tied in the whip cord at the end of the lash to enhance the smack.

"But neither of these kinds of verse prepared us for anything so good, so sustained, so national, and yet so akin to our finest humorists, as The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table; a very delightful book—a handy book for the breakfast table. A book to conjure up a cosey winter picture of a ruddy fire and singing kettle, soft hearth-rug, warm slippers, and easy chair; a musical chime of cups and saucers, fragrance of tea and toast within, and those flowers of frost fading on the windows without as though old Winter just looked in, but his cold breath was melted, and so he passed by. A book to possess two copies of; one to be read and marked, thumbed and dog-eared; and one to stand up in its pride of place with the rest on the shelves, all ranged in shining rows, as dear old friends, and not merely as nodding acquaintances.

"Not at all like that ponderous and overbearing autocrat, Doctor Johnson, is our Yankee friend. He has more of Goldsmith's sweetness and lovability. He is as true a lover of elegance and high bred grace, dainty fancies, and all pleasurable things, as was Leigh Hunt; he has more wordly sense without the moral languor; but there is the same boy-heart beating in a manly breast, beneath the poet's singing robe. For he is a poet as well as a humorist. Indeed, although this book is written in prose, it is full of poetry, with the 'beaded bubbles' of humor dancing up through the true hippocrene and 'winking at the brim' with a winning look of invitation shining in their merry eyes.

"The humor and the poetry of the book do not lie in tangible nuggets for extraction, but they are there; they pervade it from beginning to end. We cannot spoon out the sparkles of sunshine as they shimmer on the wavelets of water; but they are there, moving in all their golden life and evanescent grace.

"Holmes may not be so recognizably national as Lowell; his prominent characteristics are not so exceptionally Yankee; the traits are not so peculiar as those delineated in the Biglow Papers. But he is national. One of the most hopeful literary signs of this book is its quiet nationality. The writer has made no straining and gasping efforts after that which is striking and peculiar, which has always been the bane of youth, whether in nations or individuals. He has been content to take the common, homespun, everyday humanity that he found ready to hand—people who do congregate around the breakfast table of an American boarding-house; and out of this material he has wrought with a vivid touch and truth of portraiture, and won the most legitimate triumph of a genuine book....

"Holmes has the pleasantest possible way of saying things that many people don't like to hear. His tonics are bitter and bland. He does not spare the various foibles and vices of his countrymen and women. But it is done so good-naturedly, or with a sly puff of diamond dust in the eyes of the victims, who don't see the joke which is so apparent to us. As good old Isaak Walton advises respecting the worm, he impales them tenderly as though he loved them."

How vividly every personage around that delightful "Breakfast-Table" is photographed upon the reader's mind! Can you not see the dear "Old Gentleman" just opposite the "Autocrat," as he suddenly surprises the company by repeating a beautiful hymn he learned in childhood? And the pale sweet "Schoolmistress" in her modest mourning dress? no wonder the eyes of the Autocrat frequently wandered to that part of the table and certain remarks are addressed to her alone! To tell the truth, we can't help falling in love with her ourselves! What a fine foil to this "soft-voiced little woman," is the landlady's daughter—that "tender-eyed blonde, with her long ringlets, cameo pin, gold pencil-case on a chain, locket, bracelet, album, autograph book, and accordion—who says 'Yes?' when you tell her anything, and reads Byron, Tupper, and Sylvanus Cobb Junior, while her mother makes the puddings!" Then there is the "poor relation" from the country—"a somewhat more than middle-aged female, with parchment forehead and a dry little frizette shingling it, a sallow neck with a necklace of gold beads, and a black dress too rusty for recent grief." Can you not hear the very tones of her high-pitched voice as she remarks that "Buckwheat is skerce and high."

"The Professor" under chloroform—"the young man whom they call John," appropriating the three peaches in illustration of the Autocrat's metaphysics—the boy, Benjamin Franklin, poring over his French exercises—the Poet, who had to leave town when the anniversaries came round—and the divinity student whose head the Autocrat tries occasionally, "as housewives try eggs," all these are so real to the reader that he can but feel they were something more than imaginary characters to the writer.

Among the poems that close each number of the Autocrat, are some of the finest in our language. The Chambered Nautilus, The Living Temple, The Voiceless, and The Two Armies, are full of inspiring thought and deep pathos, while The Deacon's Masterpiece, Parson Turell's Legacy, The Old Man's Dream, and Contentment, sparkle with the Autocrat's own peculiar humor.