Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-06-08
Oliver wendell Holmes.

Letter In San Francisco Post.
Last week / saw the singular state
ment made by q newspaper correspond
emit that DR.. Oliver Wendell Holmes is
somewhat over the medium in height.
Now, the truth of the matter Is that
DR.. Holmes is quite under middle
height; he is confessedly short And
never see him that am not reminded
of what Sydney Smith once said when
speaking of small-sized men. "Why,
there's -, who will be arrested
some day for indecent exposure; his
body is not large enough to cover his
intellect" Yet the very smallness of
the man renders him more attractive
in his brisk way of getting about.
Here one minute and there the next,
there IS an absolute fascination about
Prof. Holmes, and have several times
regretted that 1 am not a student in
the Harvard Medical school, where, as
professor of anatomy, the doctor lect-
ures four times a week. Such rich
stories as some of those boys have
brought over to mel
A young lady who sat next me at
dinner the other day asked in a sort of
awe-struck tone, as though she had
suspicious of her idolized statue being
after all somewhat faulty and irregu-
lar, as it true that DIR. Holmes is
brusque and rude to people whom he
meets?" And told her no; did not
think it was exactly true. The poet
has, of course, a worldwide reputation,
and, unlike Whittier and Longfellow,
who are as modest and gifted, Holmes
shows a self consciousness that is dis
tressing. We are always willing to
bow down before genius, but we do
not want to have the talent and its
accompaniment thrust in our faces.
Holmes can be genial and full of good
humor at times, and is so, but he has
an unfortunate voice, a harsh-perhaps
dictatorial-style, that has made more
than one gentle woman say to me 81
wish had never seen Holmes. for my
illusion is destroyed" "What business
have young scribblers to send me their
verses and ask my opinion of the
stuff p he asked one day. "They have
no more right to ask me that than they
have to stop me on the street, run out
their tongues, and ask what is the
matter with their stomachs and what
they shall take as a remedy" And
then again, on another day, he made
the remark. Everybody that writes
book must needs send me copy
It's very good of them, of course. but
they're not all successful attempts at
book making, and most of them are
RELOCATED to my hospital for sick books
upstairs"
Once young writer sent from Cali
fornia a sample of his poetry, and asked
Holmes if it was worth while for him
to keep on writing. The doctor was
struck by something decidedly original
in the style of the writer, and wrote
back that he should keep on, by all
means. A long while afterward gen.
tleman called at the home of Prof.
Holmes, in Boston, and asked his host
if he remembered the incident. Holmes
replied. Il do, indeed" "Well," said
his visitor, 81 am the man." and it was
Bret Harte. The autocrat las Holmes
is generally called in BOSTON, was some
what remarkably favored in the way
of school and college companions-R
III. Dana, the author of Two Years
Before the Mast" and who recently
died in Rome, was one Of his gchnO
mates-and Margaret Fuller, too, wal
companion, and Holmes told me of
her, that in those days, although she
was tall and very awkward in her ap-
pearance, Margaret Fuller even then
was girl of precocious intelligence.
In college, Judge B. r. Curtis, Chief
Justice Bigelow, Prof. Benjamin
Pierce, Rev. James Freeman Clark and
other men of note were members of his
class.
What a mine of recellections the po-
ct must have at his command. 1t
seems to me that if he has kept diary
we may expect rich treat one of these
days. And this reminds me that l
once said to celebrated actress, who
is, to say the least, not young and girl
ish enough to make an acceptable Juli-
ct, and is quite too much troubled by
embonpoint to be longer a graceful
impersonatOr-I said to this actress
"How delightful it must be for you to
look back over your past successes, and
think of how many audiences you have
entertained" eyes" was the reply,
cit will be. have not yet reached the
point where it is necessary to look
back. He shows it now in his poems
that carry tinge of sadness-the sad
ness of old age. And yet he is as live
ly as ever; gets over the same ground,
and about as rapidly as he used to do.
Whittier said to me once; mo, can
not go out to dinners and receptions
now. LOngfellow and Emerson do
not, either; but Holmes. Oh, Holmes
will never be an old man. He couldn't,
If he tried, but will be young as long
as be livesI Yet the poet says:
"Old age, the graybeard, well indeed i
know him,
Shrunk, tot;ering, bent, of aches and ills
the prey;
In sermon, story, fable, picture. poem
Oft have L met him from my earliest
day"