LAST DAYS.
THE eighty-fifth birthday of Doctor Holmes was quietly spent at his pleasant country home in Beverly.
"The burden of years sits lightly upon me," he remarked to a friend that day, "but after fourscore years the encroachments of time make themselves felt with rapidly increasing progress. The twelfth septennial period has always seemed to me as one of the natural boundaries of life. One who has lived to complete his eighty-fourth year has had his full share, even of an old man's allowance. Whatever is granted over that is a prodigal indulgence of nature. When one can no longer hear the lark, when he can no longer recognize the faces he passes on the street, when he has to watch his steps, when it becomes more and more difficult for him to recall names, he is reminded at every moment that he must spare himself, or nature will not spare him the penalties she exacts for overtaxing his declining powers."
In spite of these words, that seem prophetic to us now, the sunny-hearted Autocrat declared he was "eighty-five years young" that day, and all the friends who came with loving gifts and congratulations fully agreed with him. His conversation sparkled with all the wit of his younger days, and he talked with animation of his daily walks through the town, and of his long drives into the country in search of "big trees." Near the base of "Woodbury's Hill" in Beverly, he had recently found a mammoth elm that he considered finer than all his other favorites in Essex county; for, in addition to its great size, the wide spreading branches were covered with unusually thick rich foliage.
"I call all trees mine," said the Autocrat, "that I have put my wedding-ring on—that is, my thirty-foot tape-measure!"
Having been slightly troubled with writers' cramp, Doctor Holmes was advised by one of his callers that day to try a typewriter. This remark brought forth a smile from the man who had moved the people of the world with his pen; and he said, with a merry laugh, that he did not propose to forsake an old friend for a new one at that late time in life.
In speaking of his birthday, Doctor Holmes alluded to the great men who were born that same year, 1809.
"Yes," he said, "I was particularly fortunate in being born the same year with four of the most distinguished men of the age, and I really feel flattered that it so happened. Now, in England, there were Tennyson, Darwin, and Gladstone—Gladstone being, I think, four months younger than myself. That is a most remarkable trio, isn't it? Just contemplate the greatness of those three men, and then remember that in the same year Abraham Lincoln was born in this country. Most remarkable!" And when the visitor added, "You have forgotten to mention the fifth, doctor; there was also Oliver Wendell Holmes," Doctor Holmes quickly retorted in his own inimitable way:
"Oh! that does not count; I 'sneaked in,' as it were!"
Doctor Holmes remained at his country home in Beverly until late in September, this last year of his life, and his health seemed steadily to improve with the bracing autumn weather.