he had not already found in Boston, since he seems to have found everything there. So there is no need of knowing how or where Dr. Holmes lived, or what books he read, to understand and enjoy his work. But all the same, one likes to know where he lived, from a warm, affectionate, personal interest in the man; just as we like to know of our dearest friends, not only that they dwell in a certain town, but that their parlor is furnished in red, and that the piano stands opposite the sofa. Of his earliest home, at Cambridge, he has himself told us in words which we certainly will not try to improve upon. Later came the home of his early married life in Montgomery Place, of which he has said: “When he entered that door, two shadows glided over the threshold; five lingered in the doorway when he passed through it for the last time, and one of the shadows was claimed by its owner to be longer than his own.” A few brief, half-mystical allusions such as this are all that we gain from his writings about his personal surroundings, as a few simple allusions to certain streets and buildings are all that localize the “Autocrat” as a Bostonian. For the man who has almost exceptionally looked into his own heart to write has found in his heart, as he has in his city, never what was personal or special, always what was human and universal. But it will be no betrayal of trust for us to follow out the dim outline a little, and tell how the five shadows flitted together from Montgomery Place to Charles Street. Then, after another dozen years, still another change seemed desirable. Dr. Holmes felt as few men do the charm of association, and the sacredness of what is endeared by age; but the very roundness of his nature which made him appreciate not only what is human, but everything that is human, made him keenly alive to the charm of what is new if it is beautiful. A rounded nature finds it hard to be consistent. He wrote once: “It is a great happiness to have been born in an old house haunted by recollections,” and he asserted more than once the dignity of having, not only ancestors, but ancestral homes; yet if we were to have reminded him of this in his beautiful new house with all the latest luxuries and improvements, we can imagine the kindly smile with which he would have gazed round the great, beautiful room, with its solid woods and plate-glass windows, and said gently: “I know I ought to like the other, and I do, but how can I help liking this, too?” Yes, the charming new architecture and the lovely new houses were too much for them; they would flit again--though with a sigh. Not out of New England--no, indeed! not away from Boston--certainly not. Hardly, indeed, out of Charles Street; for although a “very plain brown-stone front would do,” provided its back windows looked upon the river, the river they must have.