Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 8

Know her! Who knows not Uncle Tom And her he learned his gospel from Has never heard of Moses; Full well the brave black hand we know That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe That killed the weed that used to grow Among the Southern roses.

When Archimedes, long ago, Spoke out so grandly "_dos pou sto_,-- Give me a place to stand on, I'll move your planet for you, now,"

He little dreamed or fancied how The _sto_ at last should find its _pou_ For woman's faith to land on.

Her lever was the wand of art, Her fulcrum was the human heart Whence all unfailing aid is; She moved the earth! its thunders pealed, Its mountains shook, its temples reeled, The blood-red fountains were unsealed, And Moloch sunk to Hades.

All through the conflict, up and down Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown, One ghost, one form ideal, And which was false and which was true.

And which was mightier of the two, The wisest sibyl never knew, For both alike were real.

Sister, the holy maid does well Who counts her beads in convent cell, Where pale devotion lingers; But she who serves the sufferer's needs, Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds May trust the Lord will count her beads As well as human fingers.

When Truth herself was Slavery's slave Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave The rainbow wings of fiction.

And Truth who soared descends to-day Bearing an angel's wreath away, Its lilies at thy feet to lay With heaven's own benediction.

The following poem was read by Doctor Holmes at the Unitarian Festival, June 2, 1882.

The waves upbuild the wasting sh.o.r.e: Where mountains towered the billows sweep: Yet still their borrowed spoils restore And raise new empires from the deep.

So, while the floods of thought lay waste The old domain of chartered creeds, The heaven-appointed tides will haste To shape new homes for human needs.

Be ours to mark with hearts unchilled The change an outworn age deplores; The legend sinks, but Faith shall build A fairer throne on new-found sh.o.r.es, The star shall glow in western skies, That shone o'er Bethlehem's hallowed shrine, And once again the temple rise That crowned the rock of Palestine.

Not when the wondering shepherds bowed Did angels sing their latest song, Nor yet to Israel's kneeling crowd Did heaven's one sacred dome belong-- Let priest and prophet have their dues, The Levite counts but half a man, Whose proud "salvation of the Jews"

Shuts out the good Samaritan!

Though scattered far the flock may stray, His own the shepherd still shall claim,-- The saints who never learned to pray,-- The friends who never spoke his name.

Dear Master, while we hear thy voice, That says, "The truth shall make you free,"

Thy servant still, by loving choice, O keep us faithful unto Thee!

Doctor Holmes being unable to attend the annual reunion of the Harvard Club in New York City, February 21, 1882, sent the following letter and sonnet which were read at the banquet:

DEAR BROTHERS ALUMNI:

As I am obliged to deny myself the pleasure of being with you, I do not feel at liberty to ask many minutes of your time and attention.

I have compressed into the limits of a sonnet the feelings I am sure we all share that, besides the roof that shelters us we have need of some wider house where we can visit and find ourselves in a more extended circle of sympathy than the narrow ring of a family, and nowhere can we seek a truer and purer bond of fellowship than under the benignant smile of our _Alma Mater_. Let me thank you for the kindness which has signified to me that I should be welcome at your festival.

In all the rewards of a literary life none is more precious than the kindly recognition of those who have clung to the heart of the same nursing mother, and will always flee to each other in the widest distances of s.p.a.ce, and let us hope in those unbounded realms in which we may not utterly forget our earthly pilgrimage and its dear companions.

Very sincerely yours, OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

SONNET.

Yes, home is sweet! and yet we needs must sigh, Restless until our longing souls have found Some realm beyond the fireside's narrow bound, Where slippered ease and sleepy comfort lie, Some fair ideal form that cannot die, By age dismantled and by change uncrowned, Else life creeps circling in the self-same round, And the low ceiling hides the lofty sky.

Ah, then to thee our truant hearts return, Dear mother, Alma, Casta--spotless, kind!

Thy sacred walls a larger home we find, And still for thee thy wandering children yearn, While with undying fires thine altars burn, Where all our holiest memories rest enshrined.

POEM READ BY DOCTOR HOLMES AT THE WHITTIER CELEBRATION.

I believe that the copies of verses I've spun, Like Scheherazade's tales, are a thousand and one, You remember the story--those mornings in bed-- 'Twas the turn of a copper--a tale or a head.

A doom like Scheherazade's falls upon me In a mandate as stern as the Sultan's decree; I'm a florist in verse, and what _would_ people say If I came to a banquet without my bouquet?

It is trying, no doubt, when the company knows Just the look and the smell of each lily and rose, The green of each leaf in the sprigs that I bring, And the shape of the bunch and the knot of the string.

Yes, 'the style is the man,' and the nib of one's pen Makes the same mark at twenty, and threescore and ten; It is so in all matters, if truth may be told; Let one look at the cast he can tell you the mould.

How we all know each other! No use in disguise; Through the holes in the mask comes the flash of the eyes; We can tell by his--somewhat--each one of our tribe, As we know the old hat which we cannot describe.

Though in Hebrew, in Sanscrit, in Choctaw, you write, Sweet singer who gave us the Voices of Night, Though in buskin or slipper your song may be shod, Or the velvety verse that Evangeline trod.

We shall say, 'You can't cheat us--we know it is you-- There is one voice like that, but there cannot be two.

_Maestro_, whose chant like the dulcimer rings; And the woods will be hushed when the nightingale sings.

And he, so serene, so majestic, so true, Whose temple hypaethral the planets shine through, Let us catch but five words from that mystical pen We should know our one sage from all children of men.

And he whose bright image no distance can dim, Through a hundred disguises we can't mistake him, Whose play is all earnest, whose wit is the edge (With a beetle behind) of a sham-splitting wedge.

Do you know whom we send you, Hidalgos of Spain?

Do you know your old friends when you see them again?

Hosea was Sancho! you Dons of Madrid, But Sancho that wielded the lance of the Cid!

And the wood-thrush of Ess.e.x--you know whom I mean, Whose song echoes round us when he sits unseen, Whose heart-throbs of verse through our memories thrill Like a breath from the wood, like a breeze from the hill.

So fervid, so simple, so loving, so pure, We hear but one strain and our verdict is sure-- Thee cannot elude us--no further we search-- 'Tis Holy George Herbert cut loose from his church!

We think it the voice of a cherub that sings-- Alas! we remember that angels have wings-- What story is this of the day of his birth?

Let him live to a hundred! we want him on earth!

One life has been paid him (in gold) by the sun; One account has been squared and another begun; But he never will die if he lingers below Till we've paid him in love half the balance we owe!

CHAPTER XIII.

THE MAN OF SCIENCE.

"What decided me," says Doctor Holmes, "to give up Law and apply myself to Medicine, I can hardly say, but I had from the first looked upon my law studies as an experiment. At any rate, I made the change, and soon found myself introduced to new scenes and new companionships.

"I can scarcely credit my memory when I recall the first impressions produced upon me by sights afterwards become so familiar that they could no more disturb a pulse-beat than the commonest of every-day experiences. The skeleton, hung aloft like a gibbeted criminal, looked grimly at me as I entered the room devoted to the students of the school I had joined, just as the fleshless figure of Time, with the hour-gla.s.s and scythe, used to glare upon me in my childhood from the _New England Primer_. The white faces in the beds at the Hospital found their reflection in my own cheeks which lost their color as I looked upon them. All this had to pa.s.s away in a little time; I had chosen my profession, and must meet all its aspects until they lost their power over my sensibility....

"After attending two courses of lectures in the School of the University, I went to Europe to continue my studies. I can hardly believe my own memory when I recall the old pract.i.tioners and professors who were still going round the hospitals when I mingled with the train of students in the ecole de Medicine."

Of the famous Baron Boyer, author of a nine-volumed book on surgery, Doctor Holmes says, "I never saw him do more than look as if he wanted to cut a good collop out of a patient he was examining." Baron Larrey, the favorite surgeon of Napoleon, he describes as a short, square, substantial man, with iron-gray hair, red face, and white ap.r.o.n. To go round the Hotel des Invalides with Larrey was to live over the campaign of Napoleon, to look on the sun of Austerlitz, to hear the cannon of Marengo, to struggle through the icy waters of the Beresina, to shiver in the snows of the Russian retreat, and to gaze through the battle smoke upon the last charge of the red lancers on the redder field of Waterloo.

Then there was Baron Dupuytren, "_ce grand homme de lautre cote de la riviere_,--with his high, full-doomed head and oracular utterances; Lisfrance, the great drawer of blood and hewer of members; Velpeau, who, coming to Paris in wooden shoes, and starving, almost, at first, raised himself to great eminence as surgeon and author; Broussais, the knotty-featured, savage old man who reminded one of a volcano, which had well-nigh used up its fire and brimstone, and Gabriel Audral, the rapid, fluent, fervid and imaginative speaker.

"The object of our reverence, however, I might almost say idolatry,"

adds Doctor Holmes, "was Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis, a tall, rather spare, dignified personage, of serene and grave aspect, but with a pleasant smile and kindly voice for the student with whom he came into personal relations.

"If I summed up the lessons of Louis in two expressions, they would be these: First, always make sure that you form a distinct and clear idea of the matter you are considering. Second, always avoid vague approximations where exact estimates are possible....