The Clarksburg telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1874-1926, 1894-10-19
The AdtoCrat Dead
The Foremost Figure in Lit
erature Through a Long
Life.
From the \. Y Pres. /

4
October Is DIR. Oliver Wendell
Holmes death was painless.
Froma nephew of DR.. Holmes it
is learned that the poet was sit
ting in his study in his easy
chair, chatting with his son
Judge Holmes. when death came
upon him without a moments
notice. No one but Judge Hol-
mes, his wife and the servants
were in the house. DR.. Holmes
had passed a comfortable sum
mer. He had been suffering for
a week from a bad cold, but his
death was entirely unexpected.
even by the nearest members of
his family.
HOLMES LIFE AND WRITINGS.
The mourning which will at
tend the death of DR.. Holmes.
must be greater the more that
that death is considered. It's
not only that a perfect gentle!
man of letters has passed away,
nor that the widest known and
best loved, if not the greatest of
American humorists and essay
lists, is gone, but it is also that
in DR.. Holmes dies the last
American writer whose works
from any literary point of view
can be considered classic.
Nature was a long time IN
closing out" that prodigality of
stock with which New Eng
lands shelves were loaded in the
first years of the century, but
the last of it goes with Holmes.
The molds are broken.
The 'lastleaf' has fallen from
the barred and trembling bough.
The kindly sage and singer has
gone home to those he loved and
those who loved him. That
goodly company, SO long as the
pride of our Republic of Letters,
is reunited. The round table of
those knights whose pens,
mightier than swords, broke the
shackles of evil and oppression
and pointed the way to larger
light and liberty is once more
complete. Holmes is with Emer-
son and Hawthorne, with Long.
fellow, whose tender song fell on
weary hearts like a benediction,
with Bryant, who read Natures
inmost soul and interpreted it to
man. with Whittier. whose harp
throbbed with the pulse of hu-
mainly.
How great a work these men
accomplished, how much of the
intellectual progress of our coun-
try is due to them, will perhaps
never be appreciated fully until
the generation that knew them
face to face. has gone from the
stage, and another generation,
looking back with critical and
unimpassioned eye, shall measure
the mental stature of America
when these found II, and shall
mark how far it developed under
the inspiration which they gave.
1t is of such men that the highest
glory of nations consists. They
have given New England, that
nursery of statesmen, of teachers
and of poets, a luster in history
that shall never grow dim; and
among them there was none
more helpful. none more wise,
none more cheerful and benign
ant than the genial Autocrat who
reigned by a divine right which
was gladly acknowledged by all
those who ever felt the magic
influence of his voice and pen.
There are thousands of house
holds in thisland day in which
there is a feeling of distinct per-
sonal loss because Oliver Wen
dell Holmes is dead. There are
tens of thousands of men and
women-gray haired, many of
them, with sons and daughters of
of their own-who feel that in
his departure there has gone
from the world an inspirer,
counselor and friend.
America never held citizen
more essentially and Loyalty
American in the very core and
fiber OF his being than this son