HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL. 



As we look at the condition in which we find our- 

 selves on this 4th day of July, 1863, at the beginning 

 of the eighty-eighth year of American independence, 

 we may well ask ourselves what right we have to in- 

 dulge in public rejoicings. If the war in which we 

 are engaged is an accidental one, which might have 

 been avoided but for our fault ; if it is for any ambi- 

 tious or unworthy purpose on our part ; if it is hope- 

 less, and we are madly persisting in it ; if it is our 

 duty and in our power to make a safe and honorable 

 peace, and we refuse to do it ; if our free institutions 

 are in danger of becoming subverted and giving place 

 to an irresponsible tyranny ; if we are moving in the 

 narrow circles which are to ingulf us in national 

 ruin then we had better sing a dirge, and leave this 

 idle assemblage, and hush the noisy cannon which 

 are reverberating through the air, and tear down the 

 scaffolds which are soon to blaze with fiery symbols ; 

 for it is mourning and not joy that should cover the 

 land ; there should be silence and not the echo of 

 noisy gladness in our streets ; and the emblems with 

 which we tell our nation's story and prefigure its 

 future should be traced not in fire but in ashes. 



If, on the other hand, this war is no accident, but an 

 inevitable result of long-incubating causes inevi- 

 table as the cataclysms that swept away the monsters 

 of primeval JSature ; if it is for no mean, unworthy 

 end, but for national life, for liberty everywhere, for 

 humanity, for the kingdom of God on earth ; if it is 

 not hopeless, but only growing to such dimensions 

 that the world shall remember the final triumph of 

 right throughout all time ; if there is no safe and 

 honorable peace for us but a peace proclaimed from 

 the capital of every revolted province in the name of 

 the sacred, inviola'ble Union ; if the fear of tyranny 

 is a fantasm, conjured up by the imagination of the 

 weak, acted on by the craft of cunning ; if, so far 

 from circling inward to the gulf of our perdition, the 

 movement of past years is reversed, and every revo- 

 lution carries us farther and farther from 1 the center 

 of the vortex, until, by God's blessing, we shall soon 

 find ourselves freed 'from the outermost coil of the 

 accursed spiral ; if all these things are true, if we may 

 hope to make them seem true, or even probable, to 

 the doubting soul, in an hour's discourse then we 

 may join without madness in this day's exultant fes- 

 tivities. 



Then follows a searching into the reasons for 

 the inevitableness of the conflict, and a reason 

 for triumphant faith, which will stand in our 

 literature as an argument to which an American 

 who is proud of his land will love to turn. It 

 must have had far wider immediate effect than 

 it did if it had not happened that almost simul- 

 taneously with its delivery came news of the vic- 

 tory of Gettysburg and the capture of Vicksburg. 



Dr. Holmes gave his eldest son to the war he 



HONDURAS. 



357 



so nobly supported, 

 thrice wounded, and 



The young soldier was 

 one of the charming essays 

 of the father, entitled " My Hunt after the Cap- 

 tain," describes his search for the wounded youth 

 after the battle of Antietam. 



Dr. Holmes wrote three novels, of which 

 " Elsie Venner " is the best known. It appeared 

 as " The Professor's Story " in the " Atlantic 

 Monthly." In a second preface to it in book 

 form he says : " The real aim of the story is to 

 test the doctrine of ' original sin ' and human re- 

 sponsibility for the disordered volition coming 

 under that technical denomination." "A Mor- 

 tal Antipathy " is another psycho-medical novel, 

 which has found its class of readers, but has not 

 been popular or widely read. " The Guardian 

 Angel " is a third experiment of the same kind. 

 Dr. Holmes calls it a natural sequence to " Elsie 

 Venner," and he says that the two might be 



called "Studies of the Reflex Function in its 

 Higher Sphere." They were all written for a 

 purpose, and they may yet prove to be more 

 valuable to science and to literature than they 

 have as yet shown themselves, though they have 

 many admirers. 



A delightful and valuable book is his life of 

 Emerson. It sets Emerson at his truest, and re- 

 veals the personality of Holmes at the same time, 

 in the most fascinating fashion. 



In 1886 Dr. Holmes visited Europe in com- 

 pany with his daughter, and a pleasant volume 

 of semipersonal reminiscence is the result of 

 his journey of a hundred days. He was every- 

 where received with enthusiasm and marks of 

 affection. His own countrymen during the last 

 days of his life delighted to give him all the 

 quiet honors that he would accept. 



Dr. Holmes published three medical essays 

 (Boston, 1838) and (with Dr. Jacob Bigelow) 

 " Marshall Hall's Theory and Practice of Medi- 

 cine " (1839) ; " Lectures on Homoeopathy and 

 its Kindred Delusions " (1842) ; " Report on 

 Medical Literature " (1848) ; "Puerperal Fever 

 as a Private Pestilence " (1855) ; " Currents 

 and Countercurrents in Medical Science " 

 (1861) ; and " Border Lines in Some Provinces 

 of Medical Science " (1862). His separate small 

 volumes of poetry, published in 1846, 1850, 1861, 

 1875, and 1880. bore the titles " Urania," " As- 

 trea," " Songs in Many Keys," " Songs of Many 

 Seasons," ' The Iron Gate," etc., but they have 

 since been collected into three volumes without 

 other title than poetical works. " The Auto- 

 crat of the Breakfast Table " appeared in book 

 form in 1859, " The Professor at the Breakfast 

 Table" in 1860, and " The Poet at the Breakfast 

 Table " in 1872 ; " Elsie Venner " (1861) ; " The 

 Guardian Angel " (1868) ; " Soundings from the 

 Atlantic " (1864 ; reissued as " Pages from an 

 Old Volume of Life," 1891) ; " Memoir of John 

 Lothrop Motley '' (1878) ; " Life of Ralph Waldo 

 Emerson" (1884); "A Mortal Antipathy" 

 (1885) ; " Our Hundred Days in Europe" (1889) ; 

 " Over the Teacups " (1891). 



HONDURAS, a republic in Central America. 

 The Congress, under the Constitution of Nov. 1, 

 1880, is a single chamber of 44 members (1 to 

 10,000 inhabitants), elected for four years by di- 

 rect suffrage of male citizens 21 years of age. 



The President at the beginning of 1894 was 

 Gen. Domingo Vasquez, proclaimed in April, 

 1893, for the term ending in September, 1897. 



Area and Population. The area of the 

 republic is about 43,000 square miles. The 

 population of 1889 was 396,048, consisting 

 mainly of Indians interspersed in the chief 

 towns with descendants of the Spanish conquer- 

 ors and some white traders. Tegucigalpa, the 

 capital, has 12,600 inhabitants. 



Finances. The civil war of 1892-'93 wrought 

 new confusion in the finances, already thrown 

 into disorder by wars with the bordering repub- 

 lics. The revenue in 1892 was $1,764,137, and 

 the expenditure $2,603,650. On the foreign 

 debt, consisting of an English loan of 3,222,000 

 and a French loan of 2,176,570, no interest has 

 been paid since 1872. The internal debt in 1892 

 was $2,742,574. 



Commerce. The imports in 1892 were valued 

 at $2,005,000, and the exports at $1,873,000. 



