353 



HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL. 



BIRTHPLACE OP OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 



school had been debated at great length. In spite of 

 powerful influence, the new movement had been de- 

 feated, chiefly through the determined opposition of 

 a great majority of the faculty. Dr. Holmes had in- 

 clined to the losing side, but I do not remember that 

 he ever showed much enthusiasm in the cause. On 

 this occasion, after speaking in his most perfect style 

 on woman as a nurse, with a pathos free from mawk- 

 ishness which Dickens rarely reached, he concluded : 

 " I have always felt that this was rather the vocation 

 of woman than general medical, and especially sur- 

 gical, practice." This was the signal for loud ap- 

 plause from the conservative side. When he could 

 resume he went on : " Yet I, myself, followed the 

 course of lectures given by the young Madame La- 

 chapelle in Paris, and if here and there an intrepid 

 woman insists on taking by storm the fortress of 

 medical education, I would have the gate flung open 

 to her, as if it were that of the citadel of Orleans and 

 she were Joan of Arc returning from the field of vic- 

 tory." The enthusiasm which this sentiment called 

 forth was so overwhelming that those of us who had 

 led the first applause felt, perhaps looked, rather fool- 

 ish. I have since suspected that Dr. Holmes, who 

 always knew his audience, had kept back the real 

 climax to lure us to our destruction. Any one who 

 has experience in lecturing recognizes that he must 

 decide whether he will address himself to the higher 

 or lower half of the class. Dr. Holmes lectured to 

 the latter. It was a part of his humanity to do so. 

 He felt a sympathy for the struggling lad preparing 

 to practice where work is hard and money scarce. 

 u I do not give the best lectures that I can give," he 

 said on several occasions ; " I should shoot over their 

 heads. I try to teach them a little and to teach it 

 well." His knowledge of anatomy was that of the 

 VOL. xxxiv. 23 A 



scholar rather than that of the practitioner. He de- 

 lighted in the old anatomists, and cared little for the 

 new. 



While Dr. Holmes recognized the necessity of 

 vivisection, it was a horror to him, and its abuse 

 roused all the gall in his soul. 



Literature was indeed his true career. His 

 pen was so busy that it is difficult to realize 

 that he found time for doing so much else and 

 doing it so well. His medical essays, of course, 

 were in the direct line of his profession ; but the 

 14 other goodly volumes that compose his works 

 attest his industry and his devotion to belles- 

 lettres. 



When the "Atlantic Monthly" was estab- 

 lished, in 1857, he was one of its first contribu- 

 tors. For that magazine he revived a series of 

 papers, begun twenty-five years before, and then, 

 as later, called by the title that has carried 

 Holmes's name to many lands and to myriads 

 of readers "The Autocrat of the Breakfast- 

 Table." The claim of Holmes to the title of 

 poet is indisputable ; but probably it is as an 

 essayist that he will be longest remembered. 

 The " Autocrat " has taken its place as an Eng- 

 lish classic; and its two successors, while not 

 yet so universally recognized as such, seem like- 

 ly to grow in the'matured esteem of good judges. 

 One thing that makes these volumes different 

 from any other literature of their class is that 

 the best poetry of the writer has been inwoven 



