Life of Oliver Wendell HolmesBrown, E. E. (Emma Elizabeth)
General
Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes
Brown, E. E. (Emma Elizabeth)
Authors, American -- 19th century -- Biography; Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894
In Doctor Holmes' _Hunt after the Captain_, we have not only a vivid
picture of war times, but a most touching revelation of fatherly love
and solicitude. The young captain was wounded yet again at Sharpsburgh,
and was afterwards brevetted as Lieutenant-Colonel. During General
Grant's campaign of 1864 he served as aide-de-camp to Brigadier-General
H.G. Wright. After the war he entered the Harvard Law School, and in
1866 received the degree of LL. B. Since then he has practised law in
Boston, and has written many valuable articles upon legal subjects.
His edition of Kent's _Commentaries on American Law_, to which he
devoted three years of careful labor, has received the highest
encomiums, and his volume on _The Common Law_ forms an indispensable
part of every law student's library.
In 1882, he was appointed Professor in the Harvard Law School, and a few
weeks later was elected Justice in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts.
At the Lawyers' Banquet, given January 30th, 1883, at the Hotel Vendome,
Honorable William G. Russell thus introduced the father of the
newly-appointed judge:
"We come now to a many-sided subject, and I know not on which side to
attack him with any hope of capturing him. I might hail him as our poet,
for he was born a poet; they are all born so. If he didn't lisp in
numbers, it was because he spoke plainly at a very early age. I might
hail him as physician, and a long and well-spent life in that profession
would justify it; but I don't believe it will ever be known whether he
has cured more cases of dyspepsia and blues by his poems or his powders
and his pills. I might hail him as professor, and as professor
_emeritus_ he has added a new wreath to his brow. I might hail him as
Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, for there he had a long reign. He will
defend himself with courage, for he never showed the white feather but
once, and that is, that he does not dare to be as funny as he can. A
tough subject, surely, and I must try him on the tender side, the
paternal. I give you the father who went in search of a captain, and,
finding him, presents to us now his son, the judge."
On rising, Doctor Holmes held up a sheet of paper, and said, "You see
before you" (referring to the paper) "all that you have to fear or
hope. For thirty-five years I have taught anatomy. I have often heard of
the roots of the tongue, but I never found them. The danger of a tongue
let loose you have had opportunity to know before, but the danger of a
scrap of paper like this is so trivial that I hardly need to apologize
for it."
His Honor's father yet remains,
His proud paternal posture firm in;
But, while his right he still maintains
To wield the household rod and reins,
He bows before the filial ermine.
What curious tales has life in store,
With all its must-bes and its may-bes!
The sage of eighty years and more
Once crept a nursling on the floor,--
Kings, conquerors, judges, all were babies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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