Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-10-08
Funeral Services to Be Held on
Wednesday.
LAST OF A GREAT QUINTET
Tributes to His Worth by Those
Who Knew Him Best.
EULOGIES OVER THE SEA


BOSTON, Mass, October S-Judge Oliver
Wendell Holmes. jr, the poets only surviv-
ing son. Mrs. Oliver Wendell Holmes, jr..
and Mr.. Edward J. Holmes. grandson Of
the poet, the only three remaining members
of the Holmes family watched at the bedside
of the poet. who breathed his last at 1918
O'Clock yesterday afternoon. The end came
peacefully, quietly, calmly, and the brilliant,
weii-trained mind lighted the philosophers
way down to the very brink Of the dark
river.
DIR. Holmes seemed to have believed that
his eighty-fifth birthday was his last. On
August 20. when that event was being cele-
DRAFTED, he dictated these sentences to a
reporter, the last utterances he ever gave
for publication:
The burden of years sits lightly upon me,
but after four score years the encroach-
ments of time make themselves felt with
rapidly increasing progress. The twelfth,
septennial, period. has always seemed to
me as one of the natural boundaries of life
one who has lived to complete his eighty
fourth year has had his full share, even of
an old mans allowance. Whatever is
granted over that Is prodigal Indulgence
of nature.
when one can no longer hear the lark,
when he can no longer recognize the faces
he passes in the street, when he has to
Vatch ms steps, when 1t becomes more and
more difi1cult for him to recall names he Is
reminded at every moment that he must
spare himself, or nature will not spare him
the penalties she exacts for oyertaxing his
declining powers"
President EIiors Tribute.
President Eliot Of Harvard University
says of DR.. Holmes connection with the
university.
DIR. Holmes was a hard and faithful
worker off,
ever lectured at the medical school, He
did great deal to make the school what it
mas become. He lectured regularly five
times week throughout the school year.
ana never tailed to be on hand. He was
the most careful of men in preparation of
his lectures, and very painstaking In his ex-
perlments and very exact in dissections.
DE- Holmes greatest contribution to the
world.s medical knowledge was the discov-
cry of the fact that puerperal fever is con-
taSlous. He contended SO for years, and
that with all sorts of ridicule. 1t is now, of
course, an axiom OF medical knowledge. l
once heard DIR. Osler of Baltimore say that
this IS one of the greatest contributions
that New England physician ever made
to medical science"
Prof. Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard,
DR.. Holmes most intimate friend, said:
DIR. Holmes was light-hearted, genial,
pleasant writer, though keen; he was a wit
rather than humorist He was inclined
also to be sentimental. But his writing was
a deep thinker. He was no philosopher, yet
had uncommon good sense. He often
amazed you by the wisdom of some little
phrase, that would seem at first thought
trivial enough. His novels are very good.
'Elc!e Nenner' was probably as good as any
r.,!el produced in this country-at least of
any physiological novel that dealt with
more intimate relations of life One of the
best things about DIR. Holmes was that he
realized his own limits. He would never
have been the man to write the COM
memoration ode. Lowell was the only one
who could fill that place"
His Literary Methods.
Mr.. Henry o. Houshton Of Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., DIR. Holmes friend and pub
Usher, said of his literary methods: His
copy was always written on common white
letter paper, in a very clear hand. and most
carefully prepared, with very few inter-
lneations, and these were only put in after
the greatest elaboration. He used to bring
his copy to the office himself, and would
afterward come and get the proof which
he most carefully and painstakingiy cor
rected, frequently making additional changes
and corrections therein when a line in cold
type did not exactly suit him..
Today the city of his pride and love Is
buried in grief at the death of the genial
autocrat. The city now mourns Emerson.
Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes and Lowell.
They were of about the same age, Emer-
son was born in 1903, Longfellow and Whit
tier In 1907, Holmes in 1909 and Lowell in
1919; but Holmes was the last to reach his
best Whittier had become known in 1S29;
Longfellow began to sing in 1887, and in
1871 was In the full tide of his career Low
ellis "Bigelow Papers" were household
words by 1850. But it was not until 1851
that the 'autocrat' began his farmers
papers in the Atlantic.
The funeral will be from Kings Chapel
next Wednesday at noon. Rev. Stepford
w. Brooke will probably be the officiating
clergyman.
Few Knew of His Critical Illness.
BOSTON, October S.-Until the news of
DR.. Holmes death appeared in the papers
today few people, beyond the immediate
family Of the venerable poet knew that his
illness was critical. Though he had been a
sufferer from asthma for some time, and
the struggle with this disease had left him
in weakened condition, it was not until
noon yesterday that the first decided mark
of deaths coming was seen. In a brief
quarter of an hour the great poet was no
more.
To outward appearances there is nothing
about the residence on Beacon street to
indicate that the domestic serenity within
has been ruthlessly and suddenly broken
SSENDE AIRED ,rA-