Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes

by E. E. Brown

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 unsurpassable 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 illustrious 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 assure 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 noble 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 noble representative of the profession of the scientific student and teacher."

Mr. S.L. Clemens (Mark Twain) followed President Eliot.