CHAPTER XIV. THE HOLMES BREAKFAST. As the seventieth birthday of Doctor Holmes drew near, the publishers of the _Atlantic Monthly_ resolved to give a "Breakfast" in his honor. The twenty-ninth of August, 1879, was, of course, the true anniversary, but knowing it would be difficult to bring together at that season of the year the friends and literary associates of Doctor Holmes, Mr. Houghton decided to postpone the invitations until the thirteenth of November. Upon that day a brilliant company assembled at noon in the spacious parlors of the Hotel Brunswick, in Boston. Doctor Holmes and his daughter, Mrs. Sargent, received the guests, who numbered in all about one hundred. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Ralph Waldo Emerson and John G. Whittier assisted in this ceremony, and after a couple of hours spent in sparkling converse, the company adjourned to the dining-room, where a sumptuous "Breakfast" was served to the "Autocrat" and his friends. At the six tables were seated writers of eminence in every department of literature. Grace was said by the Rev. Phillips Brooks, D.D., and after the cloth was removed, Mr. H.O. Houghton introduced the guest of the day in a few happily-chosen words. The company then rose and drank the health of the poet, after which Doctor Holmes read the following beautiful poem: THE IRON GATE. Where is the patriarch you are kindly greeting? Not unfamiliar to my ear his name, Not yet unknown to many a joyous meeting In days long vanished,--is he still the same, Or changed by years forgotten and forgetting, Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech and thought, Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fretting, Where all goes wrong and nothing as it ought? Old age, the gray-beard! Well, indeed, I know him,-- Shrunk, tottering, bent, of aches and ills the prey; In sermon, story, fable, picture, poem, Oft have I met him from my earliest day. In my old Æsop, toiling with his bundle,-- His load of sticks,--politely asking Death, Who comes when called for,--would he lug or trundle His fagot for him?--he was scant of breath. And sad "Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher," Has he not stamped the image on my soul, In that last chapter, where the worn-out Teacher Sighs o'er the loosened cord, the broken bowl? Yes, long, indeed, I've known him at a distance, And now my lifted door-latch shows him here; I take his shrivelled hand without resistance, And find him smiling as his step draws near. What though of gilded baubles he bereaves us, Dear to the heart of youth, to manhood's prime, Think of the calm he brings, the wealth he leaves us, The hoarded spoils, the legacies of time!