Mrs. Holmes was a remarkably gifted woman, and singularly fitted to be the wife of a man of genius. She was devoted to her home and family, and the charm of her sweet womanliness will long be remembered by those who had the privilege of knowing her intimately. Doctor Holmes has himself told us that her simple, reticent "I think so," was valued by him as a far more encouraging sanction for action, than the dogmatic advice of a more arbitrary adviser. When the Civil War broke out, Mrs. Holmes was one of the first Boston women to enter actively into the work of the United States Sanitary Commission.
"She impressed us all," says one of her fellow workers, "as being so strong, steady, clear, and firm. There was not one among the whole body with whom we were so united as with her. And the strange thing about her was that she really had the executive ability and the clear mind, as well as the gentle and amiable spirit. She shirked no labor, even of the most menial, and was one of those who gave up almost all her time to the work. Her eldest son was at this time in the war, and went through six battles; and this, although she never complained, was a constantly harrowing pain to her."
The younger son of Doctor Holmes, Edward Jackson Holmes, died in 1884, leaving one son who bears the same name; and in 1889, his only daughter, Mrs. Sargent, passed away. The aching void left in heart and home by these sad bereavements was felt still more keenly as, one after another, the old friends of his youth were laid to rest.
"I do not think," he said upon one of his last birthdays, "that one of the companions of my early years, of my boyhood, is left. When a man reaches my age, and then looks back fifty years, why, even that distance into the past to such a man leaves a pretty good gap behind it. Half a century from eighty years leaves a 'gap' of thirty years, and thirty years are a good many to most men."
At one of the Saturday Club dinners, when fewer members than usual were present, Doctor Holmes remarked,
"This room is full of ghosts to me. I can see so many faces here that used to be here years ago, and that have since passed from this life. They are all real to me here, and I think if I were the only living person at one of these dinners, I could sit here and talk to those I see about me, and dine pleasantly, even alone."
Bryant, Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier and Lowell—all lifelong friends of Holmes—had already "passed on." To other dearly-loved comrades, also, the great last summons had come. Ticknor, Prescott, Fields, Benjamin Pierce, James Freeman Clarke, Francis Parkman—all were gone.
"I feel," he often said with a sigh, "that I am living in another age and generation."
Little, indeed, did the young Oliver realize when he wrote that pathetic poem, "The Last Leaf," that he was the one of our five great poets destined to be the "last upon the tree!"
Upon his eightieth birthday, he remarked, "I have worn well, but you cannot cheat old age. The difficulty with me now in writing is that I don't like to start on anything. I always feel that people must be saying, 'Are you not rash at eighty years of age to write for young people who think a man old at forty?'"