New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-06-26
NEW PUBLICATIONS.

$685. 3. h Csseibo q ~
Thu modern rage for personal details ana inc
-. Io,,,,;,r 20 get ahead' of other people are
1o,h sxamnli6ed in this volume. Oid-issnioned
,,ronbers are content to wait until man Is ID
a.. orave before they begin TO write bis OBITUARY.
A. William Sloane Kennedy and his publlshers
prefer 10 turn dirty penny by anticloaIihg INC un
dartaker. When Mr.. Longfellow died. the struggle
- aoornv the market with immediate biographies
had a ghoulish air that Will not soon 20 Aor-
cottan The sort of employment III
which Mr. Kennedy disports himself IL even mort
indecent. That he praises his unfortunate suoJe0'
N some directions does not mend the matter II re-
,n,nas one of the South American vampire, which
vestIv fans ITS dreaming victims into deeper SUM
Der while it sucks their blood.
II goes without saying that life so full OF honor
beantv and use rs has been that of Dr.. Holmes fur
pisbes matter OF such abundant interest that 1t
,vould he hard to write dull biography OF him.
Mr.. Kennedy is at his best IN his entertaining &c
scrption of the New Englanders early years, oil MS
college life and of his mates. SO young, so
fresh in spirit is the witty Doctor still that one Is
surprised to remember how much OF the early New
England quaintness fingered In the boston a''u
Cambridge of his childhood and youth. All thaC
was picturesque in the learning and refinement o.
old-time society in that region met IN his surrouho
ipcs and spoke in his blood Mr. Kennedy deals
pleasantlv enough with these surroundings ana
inherjtances til he reaches their logical outcome
An Holmes's writings Then indeed he gives us to
understand that ne regards the Doctor as u shop
and that nc could much more heartily approve
of him If his thinking were less fastldouS ana MS
borizon were broader. He fluids in Holiness always
humorous and often saurcal references to the Bran
min caste OF material for pltYlng con-
tempt: he treats them, in truth, as IL tdey were
nersonal affronts. If to be snobbsh is to feel an
az
blood was pure whose lives were clean, and whose
learning was useful to their kind, then doubtless
DIR. Holmes is snobbish. But surely such pride In
brilliant and honest gentleman is as worthy as IS
that other auahty-what shall we call iti-in a
Western poet who is adIniringly mentioned
by Mr. Kennedy as having 3" got so nauseated
with artiiclaity one day in Boston that he went
down to the wharves selected two of the hungreSt-
looking men he could find. brought them to sue
Parker House and paid for their dinners solely Tor
the pleasure of seeing a genuine, unsophistlcated
act that should keep him sane until nc shoulu get
away from the city,"
Holiness failure to dash into the New-England
arena as hOt-headed reformer is
another manifestation of his "conventionaltyN
which has sorey afflicted Mr. Kennedy He gave
utterance TO some of the noblest and most effective
of patriotic declarations at critical periods during
the civil Uar-but, alack be made no antl-SlaVery
speeches He gave his eldest 10 the struggle
but he made no anti-savery speeches Moreover
ba writes of woman as woman and
takes an old-fashioned pleasure in paint
ing her as something apart and finer than
would-be mau. This is mistake. indeed, and a
woful example of what Mr.. Kennedy pcturesquely
calls Serago Philosophy" Ia thinks that 1T is
hard for the Doctor to grieve at the subjugaton OF
an inferior class; late as 1882 he was taken to
h., for a
in their efforts to free their threats from the
teeth of the British bulldog" If this
exacting biographer were to construct
an ideal DR.. Holmes it would apparently be as
brawny person in a red flannel shirt with an I'M
covered and hairy breast, boots fresh from stroll
in the barnyard, and a hot and deciamatory appre-
citation of the wrongs of women aud the woes OF
Ireland. 1t IS needless to say that Mr.. Kennedyls
warm adIuirer of the gentleman whom he calls THE
most powerful poetical genus 10 America" Our
delightful Doctor minor Whitman would ln-
deed be beautiful object for contemplation.
Inhiscritical estimate of Holiness literary abilities
Mr.. Kennedy expresses many mistaken and narrow
opinions and in somewhat supercilious tone, which
is hardly becoming from an inferior writer toward
a man of the Doctors years and achievements
Concerning his genius Mr.. Kennedy Is at least I'M
certain. :" He is purely a man of the world" be
saws; "a man Of dresscoats, and white neckties.
and drawing which your genius never 10;
he advises conformity to the world, is Mortified at
unconventional things, which genius never is he
abuses the great Richter, which no genius ever has
done or ever Will do he has little or no sympathy
for downtrodden aud inferior races but the one dis
tingushng feature of genius is its volcanic hatred
of oppression" Yet he has "a species of genius and
of the finest carat in its kind" These distinctions
are too fine for the ordinary mortal. 1t would take
Mir. Kennedy's ideal being, compounded of Walt
Whitman Joaquin Miller Mr. Wendell Phillips and
Governor Butler to understand them. Dir. Kennedy
has added to his volume some useful photography
and good index His collection of facts Will doubt
less be of use 70 future biographeTs more cOmpe-
tent for the task At present his obituary is super
Auous May it long remain SOL