Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.Despite his
many accomplishments, Oliver
Wendell Homes, Sr. is best remembered today as the father of the great Supreme Court
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., he of the impressive mustachio and beneficiary of a bestselling fictionalized biography and an even more fanciful MGM movie. The father, who evidently
did not engage a good press agent, would probably have been
both proud and amused.
The famous son, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The senior
Holmes was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on August 29, 1809.
Like his nearly exactly contemporary,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, he was the son of noted liberal minister and a descendent
of poet Anne Bradstreet.
Unlike Emerson, he felt no call to
the ministry.
Instead, he studied medicine at Harvard and
launched a highly successful practice.
The high regard for his professional abilities was demonstrated
when he was appointed Harvard’s chair of anatomy and physiology.
Holmes’ intellect, however, was broader than the sciences.
He was a revered wit and wide ranging conversationalist. He pursued literature as a second career. In 1857 he co-founded The Atlantic Monthly with
James Russell Lowell. His literary output was marked by amazing versatility.
A collection of his humorous essays The
Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table was published to great success in
1858. Among his contributions
to the American language was Boston
Brahmins to describe the largely Unitarian elite like himself who dominated
the Hub City both culturally
and politically.
The first edition of Holmes' hugely popular book of humorous essays, The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.
He also wrote
novels, which were popular in their day but are now largely forgotten and scholarly biography. Holmes’
biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1885 is a classic of the genre.
Over his long
life he frequently contributed poetry
to newspapers and journals, which led to his greatest public acclaim. His work ranged from the whimsical, The Deacon’s Masterpiece or the
Wonderful One-Hoss Shay, to transcendental
musings, The Chambered Nautilus, to the unabashedly patriotic, Old Ironsides. The latter
poem was credited with saving
the famous frigate USS
Constitution from the scrap yard.
It floats today in Boston Harbor, a tribute
to the power of Holmes’s words.
Holmes died
on October 7, 1894 in Boston at the age 84.
He is best remembered for Old Ironsides, but his wit is best displayed in another poem. Note that decades before the local color writers supposedly invented it, Holmes was capturing the
old New England accent and attitude of Massachusetts villages.
Plates from Holms's Wonderful One-Hoss Shay.
The Deacon’s Masterpiece or the Wonderful One-Hoss
Shay
Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
That
was built in such a logical way
It
ran a hundred years to a day,
And
then of a sudden it — ah, but stay,
I’ll
tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring
the parson into fits,
Frightening
people out of their wits, –
Have
you ever heard of that, I say?
Seventeen
hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius
Secundus was then alive, –
Snuffy
old drone from the German hive.
That
was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw
the earth open and gulp her down,
And
Braddock’s army was done so brown,
Left
without a scalp to its crown.
It
was on that terrible Earthquake-day
That
the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.
Now
in building of shaises, I tell you what,
There
is always a weakest spot, –
In
hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In
pannel or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In
screw, bolt, throughbrace, — lurking still,
Find
it somewhere you must and will, –
Above
or below, or within or without, –
And
that’s the reason, beyond a doubt,
That
a chaise breaks down, but doesn’t wear out.
But
the Deacon swore (as deacons do,
With
an “I dew vum,” or an I tell yeou”)
He
would build one shay to beat the taown
‘n’
the keounty ‘n’ all the kentry raoun’;
It
should be so built that it couldn’ break daown:
“Fer,”
said the Deacon, “’t's mighty plain
Thut
the weakes’ place mus’ stan’ the strain;
‘n’
the way t’ fix it, uz I maintain, is only jest
‘T’
make that place uz strong uz the rest.”
So
the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where
he could find the strongest oak,
That
couldn’t be split nor bent nor broke, –
That
was for spokes and floor and sills;
He
sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The
crossbars were ash, from the the straightest trees
The
pannels of whitewood, that cuts like cheese,
But
lasts like iron for things like these;
The
hubs of logs from the “Settler’s ellum,” –
Last
of its timber, — they couldn’t sell ‘em,
Never
no axe had seen their chips,
And
the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their
blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step
and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring,
tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel
of the finest, bright and blue;
Throughbrace
bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot,
top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found
in the pit when the tanner died.
That
was the way he “put her through,”
“There!”
said the Deacon, “naow she’ll dew!”
Do!
I tell you, I rather guess
She
was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts
grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon
and deaconess dropped away,
Children
and grandchildren — where were they?
But
there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As
fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!
EIGHTEEN
HUNDRED; — it came and found
The
Deacon’s masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen
hindred increased by ten; –
“Hahnsum
kerridge” they called it then.
Eighteen
hundred and twenty came; –
Running
as usual; much the same.
Thirty
and forty at last arive,
And
then come fifty and FIFTY-FIVE.
Little
of all we value here
Wakes
on the morn of its hundredth year
Without
both feeling and looking queer.
In
fact, there’s nothing that keeps its youth,
So
far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This
is a moral that runs at large;
Take
it. — You’re welcome. — No extra charge.)
FIRST
OF NOVEMBER, — the Earthquake-day, –
There
are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A
general flavor of mild decay,
But
nothing local, as one may say.
There
couldn’t be, — for the Deacon’s art
Had
made it so like in every part
That
there wasn’t a chance for one to start.
For
the wheels were just as strong as the thills
And
the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And
the panels just as strong as the floor,
And
the whippletree neither less or more,
And
the back-crossbar as strong as the fore,
And
the spring and axle and hub encore.
And
yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In
another hour it will be worn out!
First
of November, fifty-five!
This
morning the parson takes a drive.
Now,
small boys get out of the way!
Here
comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn
by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
"Huddup!"
said the parson. — Off went they.
The
parson was working his Sunday’s text, –
Had
got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At
what the — Moses — was coming next.
All
at once the horse stood still,
Close
by the meet’n'-house on the hill.
First
a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then
something decidedly like a spill, –
And
the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At
half past nine by the meet’n'-house clock, –
Just
the hour of the earthquake shock!
What
do you think the parson found,
When
he got up and stared around?
The
poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As
if it had been to the mill and ground!
You
see, of course, if you’re not a dunce,
How
it went to pieces all at once, –
All
at once, and nothing first, –
Just
as bubbles do when they burst.
End
of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic
is logic. That’s all I say.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
Note: Adapted from the Biographical
Notes accompanying my reader’s theater piece Four Hundred Years of Unitarian
and Universalist Poetry—From John Milton to Sylvia Plath.
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