CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE ACADEMY. H 



BY DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 



I feel, he said, as I felt some twenty or thirty years ago, when I was caught on the midnight 

 New York train in a heavy snow storm between Eramingham and Natick. All night we see- 

 sawed back and forward between those two towns. We naturally became somewhat hungry, and 

 some of us, perhaps, a little thirsty. Search was made for provender, and one lady produced a bag 



of crackers, and one gentleman a small flask containing a fluid — it was cold, I remember, and 1 

 think it must have been cold tea; but whatever it was, it was very welcome, and they dispensed it 

 in very small quantities. In place of the supper which we expected, that was the fare we got. 

 Now, I did not come prepared with anything for an assembly like this. I expected to be called up 

 at the table of the Academy, after the gastric exercises had put the audience in a pleasant state of 

 mind, and there to read a few verses to which I had been able to devote but a very little time. 

 To read them to an audience like this is somewhat trying to my sensibilities, but I will trust 

 implicitly to its good nature. 



As a basis for my theme I took up the first volume of the records of the Academy and ran over 

 a list of pa} >evs to see what the members were thinking and talking about in those times. 1 found 

 that Manasseh Cutler wrote on a transit of Mercury, in addition to his able botanical article, that 

 President Willard shed his light in an account of a recent eclipse, that Benjamin West — not the 

 great painter, but perhaps a great mathematician — gave some rides about the extraction of roots, 

 that Lowdoin contributed an elaborate article on an orb which surrounds the whole visible material 

 system, that Williams wrote on the darkness of May 19, 1780, another member on the effects of 

 lightning on a rock in Gloucester, and that many others discussed articles of a kindred nature. 

 The result of this search furnishes the argument of these verses. 



Sire, son and grandson ; so the century glides ; 



Three lives, three strides, three footprints in the sand; 

 Silent as midnights falling meteor slides 



Into the stillness of the far-off land ; 



How dim the space its little arc has spanned! 



See on this opening page the names renowned 

 Tombed in these records on our dusty shelves, 



Scarce on the scroll of living memory found, 

 Save where the wan-eyed antiquarian delves; 

 Shadows they seem ; ah, what are we ourselves ? 



Pale ghosts of Bowdoin, Winthrop, Willard, AVest, 

 Sages of busy brain and wrinkled brow, 



Searchers of Nature's secrets unconfessed, 



Asking of all things Whence and Why and How 

 What problems meet vour lamer vision now ? 



