Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 20

"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 pa.s.ses 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 Ess.e.x 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.

On his return to the city, however, he had a severe attack of the asthmatic trouble from which he had suffered all his life. A severe cold, and the "weight of years" aggravated what seemed at first but a slight indisposition; and the poet, with his accurate medical knowledge, realized that the end was not far distant.

But as he grew weaker and weaker, his sunshiny spirit shone all the brighter. With playful jests he tried to soothe the sad hearts of his dear ones, and to make them feel that the pain of parting was the only sting of death. He seldom, indeed, made any reference to the dark shadow he felt so near; but one morning, three or four days before his death, he said to his son:

"Well, Wendell, what is it? King's Chapel?"

"Oh, yes, father," said Judge Holmes.

"Then I am satisfied. That is all I am going to say about it."

On Sunday morning, October 7th, he seemed so much easier that his physician and intimate friend, Doctor Charles P. Putnam, went out of town to make a professional visit, leaving his brother, Doctor James Putnam, in charge.

About noon Doctor Holmes had a sudden spasm, and his breathing became so labored that he asked to be moved into his favorite armchair.

"That is better, thank you. That rests me more," he said to his son, who stood beside him.

These were his last words. Painlessly and peacefully, with all the dear ones of his home around him, his life flowed away like the ebbing of a tide.

To the world outside, the tidings of Doctor Holmes' death, that bright October day, came with a terrible shock. As late as Thursday of the preceding week he had been down town, and was intending to be present at the meeting of the Sat.u.r.day Morning Club. Not even his nearest friends realized that the end was so near.

"It is as if a long accustomed element had gone out of the air!"

exclaimed one Boston citizen. "While Doctor Holmes lived we felt as if we were still bound by a living tie to the t.i.tanic age of American literature."

"The death of Doctor Holmes," said Charles Eliot Norton, "marks the close of an epoch in American literature. He was the sole survivor of the five great New England authors, and he has no successor. This group was a remarkable one. They grew up, as it were, together, and are the product of our New England life in the first half century. Their writings were contemporaneous, and they were bound in the closest ties of friendship. Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Holmes--no other section of the country can show such a group."

"Boston without Doctor Holmes!" exclaimed another friend. "What will it be like? There has been but one 'Autocrat,'--there will never be another!"

Yet not only Boston--the whole world mourned the departure of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Within his domain his genius was imperial, and his bright cheery nature endeared him to all humanity.

It seemed fitting that Nature herself should weep on the sad burial day of one whose life had embodied her sunshine!

The wind mourned, the rain fell continuously, as loving hands bore into King's Chapel, upon Wednesday, October 10, all that was mortal of our famous poet. The simple funeral rites began just at noon. The casket, upon which rested wreaths of pansies and laurels, was borne up the aisle to the wailing organ strains of Handel's "Dead March in Saul." Rev.

Edward Everett Hale led the sad procession, reciting in his clear, sympathetic voice, "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."

All the seats upon the middle aisle were reserved and occupied by the poet's immediate family and intimate friends, members of the Ma.s.sachusetts Medical Society, representatives of Harvard College, and delegations from the numerous other societies of which the poet and physician was a member.

A beautiful wreath of laurel hung from the south gallery, marking with mute eloquence the vacant pew of the dead poet.

The Chapel was filled with a notable a.s.sembly, representing the best life of Boston--its intellect, culture, and heart. And probably never at one time had the ancient church held so many venerable personages. Rev.

S.F. Smith, the author of "America," and Rev. Samuel May of Leicester, the only surviving cla.s.smates of Doctor Holmes, were present, in spite of the inclement weather. Judge Rockwood h.o.a.r, fast nearing the fourscore milestone, Doctor Bartol, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe--all the great poet's friends and contemporaries were there to pay their last tribute.

After the reading of pa.s.sages from the Bible, and a prayer by Rev.

Edward Everett Hale, a selection from Mendelssohn's "Elijah," "Oh, rest in the Lord," was sung by Miss Lena Little, followed by a chant, "The Lord is my Shepherd," and a hymn, "O Paradise," by the choir.

Then the strains of the "Dead March" again rolled from the organ, and the funeral procession left the Chapel.

The services at the grave were attended by only the relatives and most intimate friends. It was the wish of Doctor Holmes and his family that he should rest beside his wife in the Jackson lot at Mt. Auburn. It is in the immediate vicinity of the Holmes' lot, amidst the beautiful oaks that the poet loved; and only a few yards distant rest Longfellow and James Russell Lowell.

The life of Oliver Wendell Holmes spanned nearly the whole nineteenth century; and to the very last he kept abreast of the feeling, the thought, the movement, of the day. He was one of the few men of our generation who raised the American name in the esteem of the whole world.

Comparing Doctor Holmes with his four ill.u.s.trious contemporaries in literature, Professor Norton says:--

"Emerson was the deepest thinker of them all; Longfellow possessed in a rare degree the power of felicitous expression, and gave us thoughts couched in the most beautiful poetry; Whittier was the apostle of freedom, fearless, and moved by an untiring purpose; Lowell was a man of versatile genius, as great in the field of poetry as he was in that of prose.

"Holmes was one who wrote without effort. His was a ready genius. His thoughts came unbidden, and he had but to give them expression in words.

Apt, vivacious, animated, pure, happy, he always was at once a wit and a humorist, but greater in his wit than in his humor. Whatever his subject, he wrote of it with equal ability, and his books are remarkable for the variety of topics which he has treated so easily."

Of all his poems, Doctor Holmes ranked "The Chambered Nautilus" highest.

"I wrote that poem," he said, "at white heat. When it was finished I took it to my wife, who was sewing in an adjoining room, and said, 'I think I have the best poem here that I have ever written.' And I have never changed my mind about it."

By universal consent, indeed, "The Chambered Nautilus" is considered the gem of Doctor Holmes' beautiful lyrics. The poet always kept in his study specimens of the nautilus sh.e.l.l, cut entirely across, to show the spiral ascent of its curious inhabitant. He delighted to show these sh.e.l.ls to his visitors; and, as he replaced them on the shelves, he would often repeat the last stanza of his beautiful poem:--

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll; Leave thy low-vaulted past; Let each new temple, loftier than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine out-grown sh.e.l.l by life's unresting sea.

Among the poems of Oliver Wendell Holmes are seven that may truly be called "Hymns;" and it is well to remember that the test of the use and value of a hymn is not the occasion for which it was written, but its adoption into hymnal collections, and its use thereafter.

"We were singing one of Doctor Holmes' hymns in our church," said Rev.

Minot Savage, "that Sunday morning when the great singer was pa.s.sing into the higher choir.

"Doctor Holmes was manly in his religion, and his songs show the bright and n.o.ble spirit that dominated his life. He was worshipful and trustful, and always hopeful. He was a firm, even pa.s.sionate, believer in an existence after death, and found the ground of his trust in the dissecting-room. As a scientist he faced everything, and then believed that the soul was more than the body."

Of these seven hymns of Doctor Holmes', the familiar one beginning,--

Lord of all being, throned afar, Thy glory flames from star to star,

the poet appropriately characterized his "Sunday Hymn." It first appeared in the _Atlantic Monthly_ of December, 1859, and the "Professor" prefaced it with these words:--

"Peace be to all such as may have been vexed by any utterance the pages have repeated. They will doubtless forget for the moment the difference in the lines of truth we look at through our human prisms, and join in singing (inwardly) this hymn to the Source of the Light we all need to lead us, and the warmth which alone can make us all brothers."