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
Doctor Holmes' daughter, who bore her mother's name, Amelia Jackson,
married the late John Turner Sargent. In her _Sketches and Reminiscences
of the Radical Club_, we have some pithy remarks of Doctor Holmes'. To
speak without premeditation, he says, on a carefully written essay, made
him feel as he should if, at a chemical lecture, somebody should pass
around a precipitate, and when the mixture had become turbid should
request him to give his opinion concerning it. The fallacies continually
rising in such a discussion from the want of a proper understanding of
terms, always made him feel as if quicksilver had been substituted for
the ordinary silver of speech. The only true way to criticize such an
essay was to take it home, slowly assimilate it, and not talk about it
until it had become a part of one's self.
Edward, the youngest son of Doctor Holmes, had chosen the same
profession as his brother.
It was at Mrs. Sargent's home, at Beverly Farms, that Doctor Holmes
passed most of his summers. The pretty, cream-colored house, with its
broad veranda in front, can be easily seen from the station; but to
appreciate the charms of this pleasant country home, one should catch a
glimpse of the cosey interior.
Robert Rantoul, John T. Morse and Henry Lee were neighbors of Doctor
Holmes at Beverly Farms, and Lucy Larcom's home was not far distant.
After eighteen years' residence at No. 8 Montgomery Place, Doctor Holmes
moved to 164 Charles street, where he lived about twelve years. His home
in Boston was at No. 296 Beacon street.
"We die out of houses," says the poet, "just as we die out of our
bodies.... The body has been called the house we live in; the house is
quite as much the body we live in.... The soul of a man has a series of
concentric envelopes around it, like the core of an onion, or the
innermost of a nest of boxes. First, he has his natural garment of flesh
and blood. Then his artificial integuments, with their true skin of
solid stuffs, their cuticle of lighter tissues, and their
variously-tinted pigments. Thirdly, his domicile, be it a single chamber
or a stately mansion. And then the whole visible world, in which Time
buttons him up as in a loose, outside wrapper.... Our houses shape
themselves palpably on our inner and outer nature. See a householder
breaking up and you will be sure of it. There is a shell fish which
builds all manner of smaller shells into the walls of its own. A house
is never a home until we have crusted it with the spoils of a hundred
lives besides those of our own past. See what these are and you can tell
what the occupant is."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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