"When we think of the familiar confidences of the Autocrat," says Underwood, "we might liken him to Montaigne. But when the parallel is being considered, we come upon passages so full of tingling hits or of rollicking fun, that we are sure we are mistaken, and that he resembles no one so much as Sidney Smith. But presently he sounds the depths of our consciousness, explores the concealed channels of feeling, flashes the light of genius upon our half-acknowledged thoughts, and we see that this is what neither the great Gascon nor the hearty and jovial Englishman could have attempted, ... when the world forgets the sallies that have set tables in a roar, and even the lyrics that have set a nation's heart on fire, Holmes' picture of the ship of pearl will preserve his name forever."
CHAPTER X.
ELSIE VENNER.
THE Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table was followed in 1859 by The Professor, a series of similar essays, in which we are introduced to "Iris" and "Little Boston," and begin to realize Doctor Holmes' inimitable skill in dramatic effect as well as in character painting. The Story of Iris has been printed by itself in Rossiter Johnson's Little Classics, and reads like an exquisite prose poem; but after all, we like best to follow the delicate thread of narrative just as the professor himself has introduced it—a dainty aria whose harmony runs under and over and all through the deep philosophy and sparkling table talk of the book.
It prepares us, too, for Elsie Venner, the "Professor's Story"—a novel whose weird conception holds us spell-bound from beginning to end, in spite of the sadness—"the pity of it." At the very first introduction to Elsie we have a hint of the strange hereditary curse that throws its blight over her whole nature:
"Who and what is that," asks the new master, "sitting a little apart there—that strange, wild-looking girl?"
The lady teacher's face changed; one would have said she was frightened or troubled. She looked at the girl doubtfully, as if she might hear the master's question and its answer. But the girl did not look up; she was winding a gold chain about her wrist, and then uncoiling it, as if in a kind of reverie.
Miss Dailey drew close to the master and placed her hand so as to hide her lips.
"Don't look at her as if we were talking about her," she whispered softly, "that is Elsie Venner."