IT was not until the spring of 1886 that Doctor Holmes made his second trip to Europe. A whole half century had elapsed since his return home from the three years spent abroad when he was completing his medical studies.

In this second European tour he was accompanied by his daughter, Mrs. Sargent; and he gives his own delightful account of it in "One Hundred Days in Europe," which first appeared as a serial in the Atlantic Monthly, and has since been published in book form, with a charming dedication to his daughter. "The Sailing of the Autocrat" was celebrated by T.B. Aldrich in a fine poem, from which we quote a few lines as embodying the tender love and ardent admiration of the whole American people:—

We delight to recall with what distinguished honors he was received abroad from the highest dignitaries of church and state, as well as from his own literary compeers. It was during this visit in England that the London Spectator wrote, "No literary American—unless it be Mr. Lowell, and we should not except even him—occupies precisely the same place as Doctor Holmes in Englishmen's regard. They have the feeling for him which they had for Charles Lamb, Charles Dickens, and John Leech, in which admiration somewhat blends into and is indistinguishable from affectionateness."

The Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, and Cambridge all conferred their honorary degrees upon him, and he has given us his own inimitable description of the manner in which he was entertained by Carlyle and by Tennyson.

At a club dinner given to him in London, he said to the bishop of Gloucester:

"I think we are all unconsciously conscious of each other's brain waves at times. The fact is that words and even signs are a very poor sort of language, compared with the direct telegraphy between souls. The mistake we make is to suppose that the soul is circumscribed and imprisoned by the body. Now, the truth is, I believe I extend a good way outside my body. Well, I should say at least three or four feet all round, and so do you, and it is our extensions that meet. Before words pass or we shake hands, our souls have exchanged impressions, and they never lie."

In reply to a toast at the farewell banquet given him in Liverpool by the Medical Society of London, he said:

"I cannot do justice to the manner in which I have been everywhere received. Any phrase of mine would be a most inadequate return for the months of loving and assiduous attentions through which I have been living. You need not ask me, therefore, the almost stereotyped question, how I like England and Scotland. I cannot help loving both, and I only regret I could not accept the welcome awaiting me from my friends in warmhearted Ireland."

Fresh in mind still is the enthusiastic ovation given to our beloved Autocrat when the hundred days had passed, and "Wind and Wave" brought safely home again "our wisest word, our blithest smile."

But grim Death, that had "rained through every roof save his," was soon to send a cruel shaft into the poet's happy home. On the 6th of February, 1888, the dear companion and helpmeet of his life for nearly half a century—

Mrs. Holmes was a remarkably gifted woman, and singularly fitted to be the wife of a man of genius. She was devoted to her home and family, and the charm of her sweet womanliness will long be remembered by those who had the privilege of knowing her intimately. Doctor Holmes has himself told us that her simple, reticent "I think so," was valued by him as a far more encouraging sanction for action, than the dogmatic advice of a more arbitrary adviser. When the Civil War broke out, Mrs. Holmes was one of the first Boston women to enter actively into the work of the United States Sanitary Commission.

"She impressed us all," says one of her fellow workers, "as being so strong, steady, clear, and firm. There was not one among the whole body with whom we were so united as with her. And the strange thing about her was that she really had the executive ability and the clear mind, as well as the gentle and amiable spirit. She shirked no labor, even of the most menial, and was one of those who gave up almost all her time to the work. Her eldest son was at this time in the war, and went through six battles; and this, although she never complained, was a constantly harrowing pain to her."

The younger son of Doctor Holmes, Edward Jackson Holmes, died in 1884, leaving one son who bears the same name; and in 1889, his only daughter, Mrs. Sargent, passed away. The aching void left in heart and home by these sad bereavements was felt still more keenly as, one after another, the old friends of his youth were laid to rest.

"I do not think," he said upon one of his last birthdays, "that one of the companions of my early years, of my boyhood, is left. When a man reaches my age, and then looks back fifty years, why, even that distance into the past to such a man leaves a pretty good gap behind it. Half a century from eighty years leaves a 'gap' of thirty years, and thirty years are a good many to most men."

At one of the Saturday Club dinners, when fewer members than usual were present, Doctor Holmes remarked,

"This room is full of ghosts to me. I can see so many faces here that used to be here years ago, and that have since passed from this life. They are all real to me here, and I think if I were the only living person at one of these dinners, I could sit here and talk to those I see about me, and dine pleasantly, even alone."

Bryant, Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier and Lowell—all lifelong friends of Holmes—had already "passed on." To other dearly-loved comrades, also, the great last summons had come. Ticknor, Prescott, Fields, Benjamin Pierce, James Freeman Clarke, Francis Parkman—all were gone.

"I feel," he often said with a sigh, "that I am living in another age and generation."

Little, indeed, did the young Oliver realize when he wrote that pathetic poem, "The Last Leaf," that he was the one of our five great poets destined to be the "last upon the tree!"

Upon his eightieth birthday, he remarked, "I have worn well, but you cannot cheat old age. The difficulty with me now in writing is that I don't like to start on anything. I always feel that people must be saying, 'Are you not rash at eighty years of age to write for young people who think a man old at forty?'"

But in his delightful series of papers, "Over the Teacups," we mark the same brilliant flashes of wit, the same keen intuition, the same warmhearted sympathy with all phases of human nature, that our beloved Autocrat showed in the Breakfast Table chats. As Doctor Holmes himself says:

"In sketching the characters, I have tried to make just the difference one would naturally find in a breakfast and a tea table set."

Another volume of poems, "Before the Curfew," and a series of essays entitled "Our New Portfolio," were published soon after. The last poem of Doctor Holmes printed in the Atlantic Monthly was written in his eighty-fourth year and dedicated to the memory of Francis Parkman. Some of its verses, however, pay a loving tribute also to his old friends Prescott and Motley:

Contrasting with Prescott's and Motley's the subject of Parkman's histories, the poet says,

In the extracts given from this fine poem, with its stately, majestic rhythm, it is plain to see that, even at the age of eighty-four, our autocrat poet had lost none of the vigor and fire of youth.

In the closing verses he speaks most tenderly of Parkman's patient, untiring energy,

"While through long years his burdening cross he bore,"

and concludes with this fine eulogy:

It was in January, 1889, that Doctor Holmes sent to Doctor Richard M. Hodges, who was at that time president of the Boston Medical Library Association, the following characteristic letter:

My Dear Sir:

I have transferred my medical library to the hall of the Boston Medical Library Association. Please accept it as a gift from its late president. As there is no provision for its reception, and as I liked the idea of keeping together the books which had been so long together, I have provided a new set of shelves in which they can be properly and conveniently arranged.

Your very truly,
O.W. Holmes.

To show how highly Doctor Holmes valued this library, which consisted of nine hundred and sixty-eight extremely rare volumes, Doctor Chadwick, the librarian, said: "All these books have been collected by him in his fifty years of experience, and it is fitting that we should realize it is the result of years of labor. He has been ready on every occasion to deliver addresses on topics having a wide scope. He carried off with honor three of the four Boylston prizes, and this alone shows the range of his studies. He has contributed to the funds of the association in various ways, and now gives us his most valuable library. In this act, as well as his continuing the position as president of the association several years after he had relinquished all other connection with the profession, he has designated our institution as the one in which he takes the greatest pride; in whose future he has the greatest confidence."

In reply, Doctor Holmes then said:

"The books I have offered the association, and which you have kindly accepted, constitute my own medical library, with the exception of a few volumes which, for several reasons, I have retained. It has grown by a slow process of accretion. The first volume of it was 'Bell's Anatomy,' and the last was 'Elements of Pharmacy.' The oldest book was written in 1490, and the latest in 1887, so it can be seen that the library covers the space of four centuries."

After reviewing the better books of the library, and alluding to the private library that a practitioner should keep, Doctor Holmes added: "These books are dear to me; a twig from some one of my nerves runs to every one of them, and they mark the progress of my study and the stepping-stones of my professional life. If any of them can be to others as they have been to me, I am willing to part with them, even if they are such old and beloved companions."

Doctor Holmes' warm interest in everything connected with education was shown most emphatically in one of the last public addresses he delivered. It was at that memorable reception given at the Vendome, February 28, 1893, by the Boston publishers to Doctor Holmes and other authors, and to the members of the National Educational Association. Mrs. Elizabeth Phelps-Ward, with Mr. Henry O. Houghton and Mr. Edwin Ginn, gave welcome to the many distinguished guests.

When Doctor Holmes was called upon to address the large company assembled, he began:

"Surely the Autocrat never felt more powerless than he does at this moment. I meant to come here and say a few almost careless words. I was saying to myself, 'You know very well what you've got to talk about, and you can soon say it.' But," and here the Autocrat's bright face grew serious, "at half-past ten this morning there came to me an elegantly engraved copper-plate invitation to appear here, with a formality and a style about it which showed that I had deceived myself in thinking I could utter a few careless words. There was but one refuge for me, and that was the old one. I can only hold up a copy of verses," and he waved the manuscript deprecatingly.

"But not one word, not one thought of it was in my head before half-past ten to-day. There are things in literature," and here Dr. Holmes dropped his voice to a confidential key, "that are christened 'impromptus,' the authenticity of which I am inclined to doubt. I have the idea that a good many impromptus have cost their authors many sleepless nights.

"I shall tell you what I would have spoken about. I should have said, in the first place, that I have a great sympathy with instructors. I have been an instructor myself. I was for thirty-five years professor in Harvard College, and two years before that professor in Dartmouth College. I enjoyed very much the relations I had with my students in both places. Many of them have lasted up to the present time, and it is pleasant for me every now and then to have a bald-headed man come up to me and tell me he was one of my boys thirty or forty years ago.

"A great many changes have taken place since that time, but two of them are especially interesting. One is the sub-division of teaching. There were six of us who taught the medical graduates of Harvard College during a considerable part of the time when I was professor there. There are now seventy. How much better they are taught I do not know. I presume they are taught well. But a wicked thought came into my head just now—it is not every animal that has the most legs who crawls the fastest. It reminds me of the sirloin of beef one day, which was mince-meat on the second."

All these pleasantries were given in the Autocrat's happiest manner, amidst many interruptions of laughter and applause from his audience.

"I don't mean, however," he added, "to deprecate that which I accomplished by the sub-division into specialties. What I say is rather playful than serious. The next point is the education of women, which I have regarded at a distance, to be sure. But, occasionally visiting Wellesley and the Cambridge Annex, it has been a great delight to me to see how the intellects of the fair sex matched with those of the sterner. I then thought I should say something of the importance of implanting ideas on all the most important subjects at a very early period of life, and I was going to recall my theology which came out of the little primer, and my patriotism which was kindled at the shrine of Dr. Dwight's 'Columbia, Queen of the World.' But all these things I would prefer to leave, and what else I would have said I will defer until the next occasion, I also wish to say here, personally, that it was most unwillingly that I appeared before an audience like this. I felt it was, at my age, more becoming that I should be a listener rather than a speaker." Here he was interrupted by cries of "No! No!" but he shook his head determinedly, saying, "I am speaking seriously now, however difficult it may be to do that. These little verses I have written, and which I am going to read, are really impromptu. They are poorly scrawled, for my hand was unsteady."

Then in a clear, strong voice he read:

It will be remembered that the last time Doctor Holmes appeared in public to read a poem was on May 28, 1893, when he attended the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the reorganization of the Boston Young Men's Christian Union. The beautiful hymn he wrote for this occasion is the sweet, simple expression of his own lifelong creed: