The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1879-08-07
Dr.. W. 0. Holmes on Read ing.

HIS SUGGESTIONS TO THE BOSTON ''soCIETY
ENCOURAGE STUDIES AT HOME'
The animal meeting of the Society to En-
courage Studies at Home, which took iplace
a few weeks since at the house Of the late
Mr.. George Ticknor has already been men,
toned in our columns. The students and
others present on that occasion had the good
fortune to listen to some remarks made by
DIR. Oliver Wendell Holmes in his unfialing
style Of speaking, humor and suggestion
We are now enabled to give our readers some
passages amounting to about half OF this
address:
Life for man is a sentence OF capital
punishment, with respite OF few scores
of years. For woman 1t the same, with
imprisonment during Large part Of the
period named. As daughter, sister, wife,
mother, aunt, grandmother, her work is, in
most cases, to great extent in door work.
There are no bars or bolts to her prison, but
she cannot escape from it, as the inmates OF
our Concord State prison when tired OF the
place. All prisoners find something to DO
or they will feed upon their own souls and
bodies. You may remember the story OF the
black pin which the lady wore as brooch,
but it will bear repeating. Her husband had
been confined in prison for some political Of
tense. He was left alone with his thoughts.
to torture him. No voice, no book, no i'm.
plement-sience, darkness, misery sleepless
seli-torment; and soon it must be madness.
All at cnce be thought of something to oc-
cupy these terrible unsleeping faculties. He
! took q pin from his neckcloth and threw it
| upon the floor. Then he CROPPED for it. 1t
was little object and the search was long
and laborious one. The eye Of the Almighty
says the Eastern story-teller, can see the
smallest emmett in the darkest night on the
blacklist stone. But the prisoner had not
the eye OF the Omniscient, and it took him
a great while to find the little object he was
in search of. At last he found it, and found
a certain sense OF satisfaction in difficulty
overcome. But he had found great deal
more than the pin-he had found an occu-
patton, and every day he would fling iI from
him and lose it, anG hunt for it, and find it,
and so he saved himself from going mad !;
and you will not wonder that when he was
set free and gave the little object to which
he owed his reason and perhaps his life to
his wife, she had it set round with pearls, land
wore it next her heart.
II was never in Jail as a prisoner myself,
but have been quite as badly off as it had
been shut up on short sentence-confined
in quarantine at Marseilles. What can be
worse than that ?-shut up as an infected
person, supposed to carry about with him,
not the OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES implements
of robber or burglar, not the jimmy and
the revolver, but the seeds of pestilence
4 which will decimste cities and devastate
whole countries, which makes one the enemy
of his race, who may be shot but not be
touched, whom one must get to the wind
ward of before speaking to him. and from
whom beggar would not take dollar I'm
less it bad been fumigated. Well. found
myself imprisoned within -four bare. walls
Ihad one book with me you know what
that book ought to have been, but it was mol
that. 1t was an old Latin book-villianous
Latin it was written ina history Of some two
er three hundred medical cases by Nichola!
Tulpus, whose portrait some OF you have
seen In famous picture Of Rembrandt, or
well-known engraving from it. How l die
read that one book was in my twentie
then, but remember many Of those case
as do not any others that 1 read at tina
period OF my life. doubt il any living mai
Knows them as we'll as I do. So much 10
being shut up and having but one book t.
read.
"a woman In captivity to her duties !
not reduced to such extremities as those
the unfortunates I have mentioned. He
household labors, whether of work or super
] intendence, are not varied enough In mos
cases to avoid uncomfortable monotony.-
Every woman has her needle. at any rate
or had, for have been told, but hope 1t
not true, that some young women OF tn
present day are entirely unschooled ii
its use. For the lesser troubles in life, whel
a.man takes to his pipe or cigar, If not II
some more potent and dangerous an@stheti
woman takes to her sewing or knitting
The needle-points are to her nervous irrita
bility what the lightning-rod is to the elet
/ tricity Of the storm cloud. But the work {
hemming handkerchiefs and towels, {
knitting mittens, and even afghans-this an
. those other household labors from which fe'
are wholly exempted, are not enough
}. take M all the mental energy Of the busie!