Chapter 7
The removal from Montgomery Place, where he had lived some years, to Charles Street was a matter of great concern. He says in the "Autocrat" that "he had no idea until he pulled up his domestic establishment what an enormous quantity of roots he had been making during the years he had been planted there." Before announcing his intention, he came early one morning, with his friend Lothrop Motley, to inspect our house, which was similar to the one he thought of buying. I did not know his intention at the time, but I was delighted with his enthusiasm for the view over Charles River Bay, which in those days was wider and more beautiful than it can ever be again. Nothing would satisfy him but to go to the attic, which he declared, if it were his, he should make his study.
Shortly after, the doctor took possession of his new house, but characteristically made no picturesque study in which to live. He passed many long days and evenings, even in summer, in a lower room opening on the street, which wore the air of a physician's office, and solaced his love for the picturesque by an occasional afternoon at his early home in Cambridge. Of a visit to this latter house I find the following description in my note-book: "Drove out in the afternoon and overtook Professor Holmes" (he liked to be called "Professor" then), "with his wife and son, who were all on their way to his old homestead in Cambridge. They asked us to go there with them, as it was only a few steps from where we were. The professor went to the small side door, and knocked with a fine brass knocker which had just been presented to him from the old Hancock House. It was delightful to see his pleasure in everything about the old house. There hung a portrait of his father, Abiel Holmes, at the age of thirty-one,--a beautiful face it was; there also a picture of the reverend doctor's first wife, fair, and perhaps a trifle coquettish, or what the professor called 'a little romantic;' the old chairs from France were still there; but no modern knickknacks interfered with the old-fashioned, quiet effect of the whole. He has taken for his writing-room the former parlor looking into the garden. He loves to work there, and he and his wife evidently spend a good deal of time at the old place. There is a legend that Washington spent three nights there, and that Dr. Bradshaw stepped from the door to make a prayer upon the departure of the troops from that point. Behind the house are some fine trees where we sat in the shade talking until the shadows grew long upon the grass."
During the very last years of Dr. Holmes's life he used to talk often of the old Cambridge home and the days of his childhood there. "I can remember, when I shut my eyes," he said one day, "just as if it were yesterday, how beautiful it was looking out of the windows of my father's house, how bright and sunshiny the Common was in front, and the figures which came and went of persons familiar to me. One day some one said, 'There go Russell Sturgis and his bride;' and I looked, and saw what appeared to me then two radiant beings! All this came back to me as I read a volume of his reminiscences lately privately printed, not published, by his children."
Dr. Holmes's out-of-door life was not limited, however, to his excursions to Cambridge. Early in the morning, sometimes before sunrise, standing at my bedroom window overlooking the bay, I have seen his tiny skiff moving quickly over the face of the quiet water; or, later, drifting down idly with the tide, as if his hour of exercise was over, and he was now dreamily floating homeward while he drank in the loveliness of the morning. Sometimes the waves were high and rough, and adventures were to be had; then every muscle was given a chance, and he would return to breakfast tired but refreshed. There was little to be learned about a skiff and its management which he did not acquire. He knew how many pounds a boat ought to weigh, and every detail respecting it. In the "Autocrat" he says,--"My present fleet on the Charles River consists of three rowboats: 1. A small flat-bottomed skiff of the shape of a flat-iron, kept mainly to lend to boys. 2. A fancy 'dory' for two pairs of sculls, in which I sometimes go out with my young folks. 3. My own particular water-sulky, a 'skeleton' or 'shell' race-boat, twenty-two feet long, with huge outriggers, which boat I pull with ten-foot sculls, alone, of course, as it holds but one, and tips him out if he does not mind what he is about." The description is all delightful, and a little later on there is a reference to such a morning as I have already attempted to recall. "I dare not publicly name the rare joys," he says, "the infinite delights, that intoxicate me on some sweet June morning when the river and bay are smooth as a sheet of beryl-green silk, and I run along ripping it up with my knife-edged shell of a boat, the rent closing after me, like those wounds of angels which Milton tells of, but the seam still shining for many a long rood behind me.... To take shelter from the sunbeams under one of the thousand-footed bridges, and look down its interminable colonnades, crusted with green and oozy growths, studded with minute barnacles, and belted with rings of dark muscles, while overhead streams and thunders that other river whose every wave is a human soul flowing to eternity as the river below flows to the ocean,--lying there, moored unseen, in loneliness so profound that the columns of Tadmor in the desert could not seem more remote from life, --the cool breeze on one's forehead,--... why should I tell of these things!"
Since the Autocrat has himself told the story of this episode so beautifully, no one else need attempt it. He drank in the very wine of life with the air of those summer mornings.
Returning to some of Dr. Holmes's early letters, written before he moved to Charles Street, I find him addressing his correspondent from Pittsfield, where for seven years he enjoyed a country house in summer. "But," he said one day many years later, "a country house, you will remember, has been justly styled by Balzac '_une plaie ouverte_.' There is no end to the expenses it entails. I was very anxious to have a country retreat, and when my wife had a small legacy of about two thousand dollars a good many years ago, we thought we would put up a perfectly plain shelter with that money on a beautiful piece of ground we owned in Pittsfield. Well, the architect promised to put the house up for that. But it cost just twice as much, to begin with; that wasn't much! Then we had to build a barn; then we wanted a horse and carryall and wagon; so one thing led to another, and it was too far away for me to look after it, and at length, after seven years, we sold it. I couldn't bear to think of it or to speak of it for a long time. I loved the trees, and while our children were little it was a good place for them; but we had to sell it; and it was better in the end, although I felt lost without it for a great while." Here is a letter from Pittsfield which describes him there upon his arrival one year in spring:--
PITTSFIELD, June 13, 1852.
MY DEAR MR. FIELDS,--I have just received your very interesting note, and the proof which accompanied it. I don't know when I ever read anything about myself that struck me so piquantly as that story about the old gentleman. It is almost too good to be true, but you are not in the habit of quizzing. The trait is so naturelike and Dickens-like, no American--no living soul but a peppery, crotchety, good-hearted, mellow old John Bull--could have done such a thing. God bless him! Perhaps the verses are not much, and perhaps he is no great judge whether they are or not: but what a pleasant thing it is to win the hearty liking of any honest creature who is neither your relation nor compatriot, and who must fancy what pleases him for itself and nothing else!
I will not say what pleasure I have received from Miss Mitford's kind words. I am going to sit down, and write her a letter with a good deal of myself in it, which I am quite sure she will read with indulgence, if not with gratification. If you see her, or write to her, be sure to let her know that she must make up her mind to such a letter as she will have to sit down to.
I am afraid I have not much of interest for you. It is a fine thing to see one's trees and things growing, but not so much to tell of. I have been a week in the country now, and am writing at this moment amidst such a scintillation of fireflies and chorus of frogs as a cockney would cross the Atlantic to enjoy. During the past winter I have done nothing but lecture, having delivered between seventy and eighty all round the country from Maine to western New York, and even confronted the critical terrors of the great city that holds half a million and P---- M----. All this spring I have been working on microscopes, so that it is only within a few days I have really got hold of anything to read--to say nothing of writing, except for my lyceum audiences. I had a literary rencontre just before I came away, however, in the shape of a dinner at the Revere House with Griswold and Epes Sargent. What a curious creature Griswold is! He seems to me a kind of naturalist whose subjects are authors, whose memory is a perfect fauna of all flying, running, and creeping things that feed on ink. Epes has done mighty well with his red-edged school-book, which is a very creditable-looking volume, to say the least.
It would be hard to tell how much you are missed among us. I really do not know who would make a greater blank if he were abstracted. As for myself, I have been all lost since you have been away in all that relates to literary matters, to say nothing of the almost daily aid, comfort, and refreshment I imbibed from your luminous presence. Do come among us as soon as you can; and having come, stay among your devoted friends, of whom count
O. W. HOLMES.
From this letter also we get a glimpse of the literary world of New England at that time, and an idea of his own occupations.
By degrees, as the intimacy between the two friends and neighbors grew closer, we find the publisher asking his opinion of certain manuscripts. I have no means of knowing who was the author of the poems frankly described in the following note, [Footnote: The name of the writer has been sent to me kindly. He was George H. Miles, Professor of English Literature at St. Mary's (Catholic) College, Baltimore, Maryland.] but one can only wish that writers, especially young writers, could sometimes see themselves in such a glass--not darkly!
8 MONTGOMERY PLACE, July 24, 1857.
MY DEAR MR. FIELDS,--I return the three poems you sent me, having read them with much gratification. Each of them has its peculiar merits and defects, as it seems to me, but all show poetical feeling and artistic skill.
"Sleep On!" is the freshest and most individual in its character. You will see my pencil comment at the end of it. "Inkerman" is comparatively slipshod and careless, though not without lyric fire and vivid force of description.
"Raphael Sanzio" would deserve higher praise if it were not so closely imitative.
In truth, all these poems have a genuine sound; they are full of poetical thought, and breathed out in softly modulated words. The music of "Sleep On!" is very sweet, and I have never seen heroic verse in which the rhyme was less obtrusive or the rhythm more diffluent. Still it would not be fair to speak in these terms of praise without pointing out the transparent imitativeness which is common to all these poems.
"Inkerman" is a poetical Macaulay stewed. The whole flow of its verse and resonant passion of its narrative are borrowed from the "Lays of Ancient Rome." There are many crashing lines in it, and the story is rather dashingly told; but it is very inferior in polish, and even correctness, to both the other poems. I have marked some of its errata.
"Raphael," good as it is, is nothing more than Browning browned over. Every turn of expression, and the whole animus, so to speak, is taken from those poetical monologues of his. _Call it_ an imitation, and it is excellent.
The best of the three poems, then, is "Sleep On!" I see Keats in it, and one or both of the Brownings; but though the form is borrowed, the passion is genuine--the fire has passed along there, and the verse has followed before the ashes were quite cool.
Talent, certainly; taste very fine for the melodies of language; deep, quiet sentiment. Genius? If beardless, yea; if in sable silvered,--and I think this cannot be a very young hand,--why, then ... we will suspend our opinion.
Faithfully yours, O. W. HOLMES.
I find several amusing personal letters of this period which are characteristic enough to be preserved. Among them is the following:
21 CHARLES STREET, July 6, 8:33 A. M. Barometer at 30-1/10.
MY DEAR FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR,--Your most unexpected gift, which is not a mere token of remembrance, but a permanently valuable present, is making me happier every moment I look at it. It is so pleasant to be thought of by our friends when they have so much to draw their thoughts away from us; it is so pleasant, too, to find that they have cared enough about us to study our special tastes,--that you can see why your beautiful gift has a growing charm for me. Only Mrs. Holmes thinks it ought to be in the parlor among the things for show, and I think it ought to be in the study, where I can look at it at least once an hour every day of my life.
I have observed some extraordinary movements of the index of the barometer during the discussions that ensued, which you may be interested enough to see my notes of.
BAROMETER.
_Mrs. H._
My dear, we shall of course keep this beautiful barometer in the parlor. _Fair._
_Dr. H._
Why, no, my clear; the study is the place. _Dry._
_Mrs. H._
I'm sure it ought to go in the parlor. It's too handsome for your old den. _Change._
_Dr. H._
I shall keep it in the study. _Very dry._
_Mrs. H._
I don't think that's fair. _Rain._
_Dr. H._
I'm sorry. Can't help it. _Very dry._
_Mrs. H._
It's--too--too--ba-a-ad. _Much rain._
_Dr. H._
(Music omitted.) 'Mid pleas-ures and paaal-a-a-c-es. _Set Fair._
_Mrs. H._
I _will_ have it! You horrid-- _Stormy._
You see what a wonderful instrument this is that you have given me. But, my dear Mr. Fields, while I watch its changes it will be a constant memorial of unchanging friendship; and while the dark hand of fate is traversing the whole range of mortal vicissitudes, the golden index of the kind affections shall stand always at SET FAIR. Yours ever,
O. W. HOLMES.
There are many notes also showing how the two friends played into each other's hands. This one is a sample:--
21 CHARLES STREET, July 17, 1864.
MY DEAR MR. FIELDS,--_Can_ you tell me anything that will get this horrible old woman of the C---- California off from my shoulders? Do you know anything about this pestilent manuscript she raves about? This continent is not big enough for me and her together, and if she doesn't jump into the Pacific I shall have to leap into the Atlantic --I mean the original damp spot so called. Yours always,
O. W. HOLMES.
P. S. To avoid the necessity of the latter, I have written to her, cordially recommending suicide as adapted to her case.
Surely there must have been something peculiarly exasperating about this applicant for literary honors, because Dr. Holmes erred, if at all, in the opposite direction. He was far more apt to write and to behave as the following note recommends: "Will you read this young lady's story, and let me know what you propose to do with it? A young woman of tender feelings, I think, and to be treated very kindly." Again: "Will it be too late for a few paragraphs about Forcey the Willson? If not, in what paper? And can you tell me anything? Will you do it yourself?"
The number of these notes is legion, bringing every variety of form and subject and problem to his friend as editor or publisher, or for private advice. In one of them he says, "Please give me your grandpaternal council." But I have quoted enough upon this head to give an idea of the kind and busy brain not too deeply immersed in its own projects to have a tender regard for those of others. Meanwhile his own work was continually progressing. Lowell had already made him feel that he was the mainspring of the "Atlantic," which at the time of the war attained the height of its popularity, and achieved a position where it found no peer. The care which Dr. Holmes bestowed upon the finish of his work, the endless labor over its details, are almost inconceivable when we remember that "this power of taking pains," which Carlyle calls one of the attributes of genius, was combined with a gay, mercurial temperament ready to take fire at every chance spark.
One Sunday afternoon in the sad spring of 1864, during the terrible days of the war, he came in to correct a poem. "I am ashamed," he said, "to be troubled by so slight a thing when battles are raging about us; but I have written:--
Where Genoa's deckless caravels were blown.
Now Columbus sailed from Palos, and I must change the verse before it is too late."
This habit of always doing his best is surely one of the fine lessons of his life. It has given his prose a perfection which will carry it far down the shores of time. The letter sent during the last summer of his life to be read at the celebration of Bryant's birthday was a model of simplicity in the expression of feeling. It was brief, and at another time would have been written and revised in half a day; but in his enfeebled condition it was with the utmost difficulty that he could satisfy himself. He worked at it patiently day after day, until his labor became a pain; nevertheless, he continued, and won what he deserved--the applause of men practiced in his art who were there to listen and appreciate.
Any record of Dr. Holmes's life would be imperfect which contained no mention of the pride and pleasure he felt in the Saturday Club. Throughout the forty years of its prime he was not only the most brilliant talker of that distinguished company, but he was also the most faithful attendant. He was seldom absent from the monthly dinners either in summer or in winter, and he lived to find himself at the head of the table where Agassiz, Longfellow, Emerson, and Lowell had in turn preceded him. Could a shorthand writer have been secretly present at those dinners, what a delightful book of wise talk and witty sayings would now lie open before us! Fragments of the good things were sometimes brought away, as loving parents bring sugar- plums from a feast to the children at home; but they are only fragments, and bear out but inefficiently the reputation which has run before them. The following pathetic incident, related on one of those occasions by Dr. Holmes, need not, however, be omitted:--
"Just forty years ago," he said one day, "I was whipped at school for a slight offense--whipped with a ferule right across my hands, so that I went home with a blue mark where the blood had settled, and for a fortnight my hands were stiff and swollen from the blows. The other day an old man called at my house and inquired for me. He was bent, and could just creep along. When he came in he said: 'How do you do, sir; do you recollect your old teacher Mr. ----?' I did, perfectly! He sat and talked awhile about indifferent subjects, but I saw something rising in his throat, and I knew it was that whipping. After a while he said, 'I came to ask your forgiveness for whipping you once when I was in anger; perhaps you have forgotten it, but I have not.' It had weighed upon his mind all these years! He must be rid of it before lying down to sleep peacefully."
Speaking of dining at Taft's, an excellent eating-house at Point Shirley for fish and game, Dr. Holmes said: "The host himself is worth seeing. He is the one good _un_cooked thing at his table."
He had been to Philadelphia with one of his lectures, but he did not have a free chance at any conversation afterward. "I did go to Philadelphia," he said, "with _one_ remark, but I brought it back unspoken. It struck in."
Soon after Dr. Holmes's removal to Charles Street began a long series of early morning breakfasts at his publisher's house--feasts of the simplest kind. Many strangers came to Boston in those days, on literary or historical errands--men of tastes which brought them sooner or later to the "Old Corner" where the "Atlantic Monthly" was already a power. Of course one of the first pleasures sought for was an interview with Dr. Holmes, the fame of whose wit ripened early-- even before the days of the "Autocrat." It came about quite naturally, therefore, that they should gladly respond to any call which gave them the opportunity to listen to his conversation; and the eight-o'clock breakfast hour was chosen as being the only time the busy guests and host could readily call their own. Occasionally these breakfasts would take place as frequently as two or three times a week. The light of memory has a wondrous gift of heightening most of the pleasures of this life, but the conversation of those early hours was far more stimulating and inspiring than any memory of it can ever be. There were few men, except Poe, famous in American or English literature of that era who did not appear once at least. The unexpectedness of the company was a great charm; for a brief period Boston enjoyed a sense of cosmopolitanism, and found it possible, as it is really possible only in London, to bring together busy guests with full and eager brains who are not too familiar with one another's thought to make conversation an excitement and a source of development.
Of Dr. Holmes's talk on these occasions it is impossible to give any satisfactory record. The simple conditions of his surroundings gave him a sense of perfect ease, and he spoke with the freedom which marked his nature. It was one of the charms by which he drew men to himself that he not only wore a holiday air of finding life full and interesting, but that he believed in freedom of speech for himself, and therefore wished to find it in others. This emancipation in expression did not extend altogether into the practical working of his life. Conventionalities had a strong hold upon him. He loved to avoid the great world when it was inconvenient, and to get a certain freedom outside of it; but once in the current, the manners of the Romans were his own. He reminded one sometimes of Hawthorne's saying that "in these days men are born in their clothes," although Dr. Holmes's conventions were more easily shuffled off than a casual observer would believe. Nothing could be farther from the ordinary idea of the romantic "man of genius" than was his well-trimmed little figure, and nothing more surprising and delightful than the way in which his childlikeness of nature would break out and assert itself. He declared one morning that he had discovered the happiest animal in creation-- "next to a poet, of course, if we may call him an animal; it is the acheron, the parasite of the honey-bee. And why? Because he attaches himself to the wing of the bee, is carried without exertion to the sweetest flowers, where the bee gathers the honey while the acheron eats it; and all the while the music of the bee attends him as he is borne through the air."
He met Hawthorne for the first time, I think, in this informal way. Holmes had been speaking of Renan, whose books interested him.