In the order here given, Dr. Holmes produced, as has been said, three pieces of fiction, — perhaps best styled psychological romances, with a definite underlying aim. The first and most striking was "Elsie Venner"; the others are "The Guardian Angel" and "A Mortal Antipathy," all of them published after he was fifty years of age, and the last (decidedly the weakest) when he was nearer eighty than seventy. They were all what is now called 'purpose novels," and that purpose to portray under a veil of fiction the workings of heredity. In writing to Harriet Beecher Stowe, he says of "Elsie Venner" that he wished "to write a story with enough of interest in its characters and incidents to attract a certain amount of popular attention. Under cover of this to stir that mighty question of automatic agency in its relation to self-determination." In thus dealing with the "mysterious borderland which lies between physiology and psychology," Holmes trespasses in some sort upon the domain of Hawthorne. In "Elsie Venner" the fact of heredity is portrayed in the powerful pre-natal influence of a snake upon a susceptible girl; a gruesome theme, full of suggestion and a certain kind of fascination. "The Guardian Angel," in which the inheritance is that of Indian blood, is lighter in its tone and a favorite for its mingled wit and satire. But the medical man, the scientist, is apparent in these books, to the injury of the novelist pure and simple; hence, interesting and able as they are, they belong in the second class of the author's creative work. It is only necessary to add that during his wonderfully active and long life as a writer, Dr. Holmes did a good deal of solid literary criticism, in which his graces of style lighted up the serious and what would have been, in some hands, the heavy matter of his theme; as well as producing much special work in the field of his chosen profession-one paper, that on puerperal fever, being regarded as a valuable addition to medical knowledge. The variety of his talent, the extent of his interests, the polydextrous display of his activity, are thus evidenced. No American author makes a more distinct personal impression than Oliver Wendell Holmes; none is more affectionately remembered. Perhaps in the last analysis it is just this personal attitude he bears to his audience that will keep his memory green. The true essayist has always the possibility of entering into this vital relation with his readers. One feels that there is something personal, almost private, in such an author's message to one's self, and this is part of his charm. Occasionally a writer seems to have a mission to draw mankind together in the social bond. This service Dr. Holmes performed, and (we think of the genial Autocrat as of a personal friend when we take his name on our lips. To be in literature a friend to countless men and women, beloved whether he be grave or gay, was the good fortune of the Little Man of Boston, who yet occupies so large a place among the New England writers. CHAPTER X WHITTIER ANOTHER New England country boy who became a wellloved singer is John Greenleaf Whittier, of all our bards most appropriately called a poet of the people. Nothing is more striking in the study of our elder men of letters than the frequency with which by sheer force of character and against whatever odds, they came to perform great services and win a noble fame. Thus, in their own persons, do they express the American idea. This leader of literature was of good family, using the phrase in the signification most worth while. His ancestors had dwelt in Eastern Massachusetts a hundred and fifty years when he was born. They were God-fearing, law-abiding, hard-working folk, tillers of the soil who did. yeoman service in this homely fashion for the commonwealth. His seventeenth-century ancestor, Thomas Whittier, was a man of large mental and moral stature, a giant, too, in body, who settled in 1638 in Salisbury, near Amesbury, Massachusetts, which was later to become the poet's home. In 1647 this elder Whittier removed to Haverhill and hewed the oaken beams for the homestead where John Greenleaf Whittier was born in December of 1807, two years before Poe's birth in Boston, hard by. His mother was a Greenleaf, of a race of farmers, with ancestors of genuine importance; and the boy seems to have derived his most marked traits from her. Indeed, it is worth remarking that in the study of great men again and again one is struck by the fact that the maternal influence what has been quaintly called the spindle side of the house is most potent to form character and shape destiny. Whittier's mother united strength and sweetness; she strove for her son's education, she fostered his early literary leanings, she was in close sympathy with the gifted boy, intellectually and in all ways. The father, on the other hand, was a forthright farmer, who desired his son to be a farmer, too. Whittier was frail-bodied and the long and busy life he led, though constantly hampered by ill-health, was, no doubt, the result of the care he took of himself, the fact that, unlike men of stronger build, he dared not take risks and abuse his health. The Whittier home in the east parish of Haverhill, Massachusetts, can still be visited, for it is preserved as a memorial, with the original furniture and many souvenirs of great interest. Of late it has been injured by fire, but the restoration was speedily effected. The house is picturesquely set in hills and woods and is a fine specimen of the plain, comfortable farmhouse of the better class common to old New England. From its big kitchen, reproduced so charmingly in "Snow-Bound," to the unfinished, dark-raftered room in the second story, where the boy Whittier slept, it makes real the early days of the poet as no words can. John took his part in the chores and farm duties, though his health kept him from the heavier work. He loved dogs, horses, and cattle, and got his share of fun, outdoors and in. In his own words, he "found about equal satisfaction in an old rural home, with the shifting panorama of the seasons, in reading a few books within my reach, and dreaming of something wonderful and good somewhere in the future." These few books comprised, of course, the Bible, and it entered into the very blood and bone of Whittier, as all his writings show. There was also a due proportion of books dealing with the literature of Quakerdom, — for the family had been Quakers since the seventeenth century. verses - For schooling, he attended the district school intermittently, and one of the teachers there put into his hands one day a volume of Burns's poetry and lo! the world of song was auspiciously opened to him. A wandering ballad-monger (type of the elder times) had recited Burns to him before this, so he was ready for the Scotch peoplepoet, whom his own work was in many ways to resemble. This district school stood for Whittier's education until he was nineteen; then certain editors of newspapers in neighboring towns to whose columns Whittier had contributed already he was rhyming — urged the not toowilling father to send him to the Haverhill academy, and his mother's influence was strong for the idea. So, for two terms, the young man had this chance of higher education, taking a turn at teaching between terms and making slippers at twenty-five cents the pair to help pay expenses. This experience gave him access to a town library, and he eagerly absorbed the best in English literature. This much schooling, meager enough one might say, constituted the formal education of John Greenleaf Whittier. But all his life he was a student, and in manhood he offered an excellent example of the self-made man, doubly appreciating his opportunities, and with his unconventional sheepskin signed by the wise head-master, Experience. |