HOLMES 



HOLOTHURIAN8 



749 



tu its fresh, unconventional tone, its playful wit 

 and wisdom, mid to the lovely vignettes of verse. 

 \pait from the, merit* of thought mill style, tin- 

 pages have the charm of personal coniiilenceH ; the 

 reader becomes at on<-e a pupil ami mi int imate 

 friend. The tonn assumed i-i i-goti>tieal, l>ut the 

 force and the comedy (as every man with imagina- 

 ti.ni sees) are bound uu in that assumption. Tin' 

 I'rnfrssor at the Break/cut Tnt>l,-. (1858 59) \\a- 

 written ii| M .11 the name linen and has uualities equal 

 to those of its predecessor, but it deals with deeper 

 question** and in a less familiar way. The Poet at 

 th> I '-,<, kftst TnUi: ( 1872) takes the reader into the 

 region of religious and philosophical ideas. 'God 

 is Love' is the keynote of its doctrine. His first 

 effort in fiction was Elsie Vcnner ( 1859-60), a study 

 of hereditary impressions and tendencies. The 

 Guardian Angel (1867) is a picture of rural New 

 England. A Mortal Antipathy was written in 

 1 y >^">. It ia scarcely a novel as the term is generally 

 und.-rstood, hut there is a thread of story on which 

 the author hangs his observations, as he had done 

 before in the Autocrat. The introduction to this 

 book ia autobiographical and historical, and gives 

 a delightful view of 'Cambridge as it was in the 

 author's boyhood, and a sadly amusing account of 

 early American literature. The works before named 

 api>eared in tho Atlantic Monthly, of which he was 

 one of the founders. He wrote for it also many 

 occasional essays and poems. Besides the early 

 volume ( 1836), ne published Songs in Many Keys 

 (1862), Songs of Many Seasons (1875), The Iron 

 Gate (1880), and Before the Curfew (1888). His 

 other ( prose ) works are Currents and Counter-cur- 

 rent* (1861), Soundings from the Atlantic (1864), 

 Border Lines of Knowledge (1862), Mechanism in 

 Thought and Morals ( 1871 ), Over the Teacups ( 1890), 

 and Memoirs of Motley ( 1879) and Emerson ( 1885). 

 <>n i- Hundred Days in Europe ( 1887 ) is an account 

 of a visit made in 1886, during which he received 

 honours from the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, 

 and Edinburgh. The article EMERSON in this work 

 is from his pen. Universally beloved, he died peace- 

 fully in his arm-chair in his library overlooking 

 Cambridge, on October 7, 1894. 



It is difficult to make a summary of the traits of a 

 writer so versatile. By his own generation he will be 

 remembered as a great talker, in the highest sense. 

 His intellect was keen and powerful ; his observation 

 instinctive ; and his enthusiasm and energy would 

 have carried through a man of less brilliant parts. 

 Hi- verse is melodious, compact, and rounded by 

 art ; its Gallic liveliness tempered by the even 

 measure, and enforced by the point, of the 18th 

 century. There is not in it a trace of the manner 

 of recent English poets. Still, in its thought, its 

 humanity, and its suggestions of science, it is seen 

 that he is a man of his own century, and among the 

 most advanced. Among specimens of his varied 

 powers may be cited ' The Last Leaf,' already men- 

 tioned, 'The Chambered Nautilus,' 'Grandmother's 

 Story' (of the battle of Bunker's Hill), 'Sun and 

 Shadow,' ' For the Burns Centennial,' ' On lending 

 a Punch-bowl,' and 'The One-boss Shay.' He is 

 especially happy in his tribute's to brother poets - 

 as to Longfellow and Lowell, and to Whittier on 

 his seventieth birthday. During the civil war he 



ilways 



self in contact with ;i strong mind, full of the fruit 

 of reading, and with a character that is full of sur- 

 prises. The choice of words is directed by a poet's 

 inevitable instinct, and the general treatment i- 

 both precise and delicate. In the essay upon 

 Mechanism, in Thought miff Mm-n/.t then- is an 



acuteneM and subtlety which might have made a 

 metaphysician ; only that might have deprived the 

 world of one of its moHt original and delightful 

 eaaayints. There urn degree* of value in hi* workn, 

 but it apjx-ars that his fame will rent chiefly ujori 

 The Autocrat, The Professor, and r.-rt.-- ; n "of hi* 

 IMM-IIIS. Of his writings in general it should 1*; caid 

 that, though his sparkling wit and (lowing humour 

 an- evident to the most casual reader, a cloner 

 study reveals other qualities which give him a 

 place among the great writers of the time. 



The collected ( ' Kiveraide ' ) edition of IUM works ex- 

 tends to 13voU. (1891-92). There are Liven by W. 8. 

 Kennedy (1883), Emma E. Brown (1884), and J. T. 

 Morse, jun. (2 vola. 1896). 



Holocephali. See CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 



Holofernes. See JUDITH. 



Holograph. See DEED. 



llolontychillS (Gr. holox, 'all,' and ptyrhe, 

 'wrinkle ), an extinct genus of Ganoid fishes from 

 Devonian and Carboniferous strata, type of a family 

 the members of which are remarkable for their 

 sculptured or wrinkled scales and extraordinary 

 labyrinthine tooth structure. 



Holotlltirians (Holothurioidea), a class of 

 animals belonging to the sub-kingdom Echinoder- 

 inata (q.v.), from the other memlierH of which they 

 are readily distinguished by a more or less worm -like 

 appearance. They are popularly known as Sea- 

 cucumbers or Sea-slugs. The word holothourion was 

 used by Aristotle for a marine animal which we are 

 now unable to identify, and the Latinised form was 



of the adult body is apparently pentagonal, but, 

 instead of presenting the appearance of rays diverg- 

 ing in one plane from a common centre, these are 

 bands running along the sides of a cylinder. Very 

 frequently they are not equidistant from each other, 

 mm then the radiate symmetry passes over into a 

 bilateral one. The most common arrangement is 

 for three rays to be approximated to each other on 

 the ventral and two on the dorsal aspect. The 

 body of a Holothurian consists of a sac of leathery- 

 consistency ( whence the name Scy todermata some- 

 times used for them ). made up of a cuticle, layers 

 of cells, connective tissue, nerve-fibres, and calcare- 

 ous plates and muscles. The calcareous plates are 

 the sole remnants of the skeleton which is so largely 

 developed in other Echinoderms. They are of vari- 

 ous shapes, resembling wheels in Chirodota, plates 

 and anchors in Synapta, and spines in some other 

 genera ; in Psoliis there are overlapping scales. 

 The mouth is ordinarily at one end of tne body, but 

 occasionally on the ventral surface ; it is surrounded 

 by a ring of tentacles whose number is some 

 multiple of five, and opens into a gullet surrounded 

 by a circle of calcareous plates. Tlie digest ive tract 

 is ordinarily disposed in a loop ; the last portion 

 before the vent (cloaca) is a large space, which has 

 been observed to contract rhythmically. To it are 

 appended (except in two subdivisions) a pair of 

 branched outgrowths, the respiratory trees, and 

 eertain j.roces-es of unknown function, known as 

 the Cuvierian organs. 



The gullet is surrounded by the ring shajed cen- 

 tral nervous system, and also by a tuU- In-longing 

 to the ambulacra! or water- vascular system, which 

 i- -o generally distributed among the Echinoder- 

 inaia. It gives oil' a branch forwards to each ten 

 lai-le. and sends one backwards along each of the 

 five radii of the Ixwly, to supply the tube-feet, tin- 

 principal lucomotoroVgans. The annular tube bears 

 also a reservoir, the Polian vesicle, and communi- 

 caie- either \vith the Inxly-cavity, or sometimes 

 with the outride 1>\ means of a canal. The sense- 



