To him, as is well known, we are indebted for numerous improvements in the stereoscope; and in microscopes also, he has done some original and important work.
Said an admirer of Doctor Holmes in referring to his career as a medical professor:
"He always makes people attentive, and I have been told that there is no professor whom the students so much like to listen to. In one of his books he says that every one of us is three persons, and I think that if the statement is true in regard to ordinary men and women, Doctor Holmes himself is at least half a dozen persons. He lectures so well on anatomy that his students never suspect him to be a poet, and he writes verses so well that most people do not suspect him of being an authority among scientific men. Though he illustrates his medical lectures by quotations of the most appropriate and interesting sort, from a wonderful variety of authors, he has never been known to refer to his own writings in that way."
In celebrating the silver anniversary year of his wedding with the Muse of the monthlies—meaning his reappearance in the Atlantic—he observed that during the larger part of his absence, his time had been in a great measure occupied with other duties. "I never forgot the advice of Coleridge," he said, "that a literary man should have a regular calling. I may say, in passing, that I have often given the advice to others, and too often wished that I could supplement it with the words, "And confine himself to it.'"
CHAPTER XIV.
THE HOLMES BREAKFAST.
AS the seventieth birthday of Doctor Holmes drew near, the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly resolved to give a "Breakfast" in his honor. The twenty-ninth of August, 1879, was, of course, the true anniversary, but knowing it would be difficult to bring together at that season of the year the friends and literary associates of Doctor Holmes, Mr. Houghton decided to postpone the invitations until the thirteenth of November. Upon that day a brilliant company assembled at noon in the spacious parlors of the Hotel Brunswick, in Boston.
Doctor Holmes and his daughter, Mrs. Sargent, received the guests, who numbered in all about one hundred. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Ralph Waldo Emerson and John G. Whittier assisted in this ceremony, and after a couple of hours spent in sparkling converse, the company adjourned to the dining-room, where a sumptuous "Breakfast" was served to the "Autocrat" and his friends.
At the six tables were seated writers of eminence in every department of literature. Grace was said by the Rev. Phillips Brooks, D.D., and after the cloth was removed, Mr. H.O. Houghton introduced the guest of the day in a few happily-chosen words.