OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 199 of future punishment. The " Autocrat " was easily superior in freshness as in popularity. Two novels also appeared " Elsie Venner" and "The Guardian Angel." They have undoubted merits, showing the keen thought, the descriptive power, and the play of fancy which are so characteristic of the author, and each has a subtle motive to which the characteristic incidents are made subservient. But Dr. Holmes is not great as a novelist as he is great in other things. The stories in one aspect are ambulatory psychological problems, rather than fresh studies of characters conceived without favoritism, with blended good and evil, wisdom and weakness as God creates them. To produce new types, of universal interest, is given to few novelists. There have been scarcely more than a score of such creators since Cadmus. It was with some surprise that I read lately a lament that Dr. Holmes had not written " a great novel " a task which would have been as unsuitable to him as to Dr. Johnson or to Montaigne. It is not a question of a greater or less tal- ent, but of a wholly different talent as distinct as metaphysics and portrait- painting. The same critic complains because Holmes has not been " in earnest" like Carlyle. While the genius of that great writer is indisputable, -I submit that one Carlyle in a generation is enough ; another is impossible. That rugged Titan did his appointed work with fidelity. But is every author to lay about him with an iron flail ? Is there no place for playful satirists of manners, for essayists who dissolve philosophy and science, who teach truth, manliness, and courtesy by epi- gram, and who make life beautiful with the glow of poetry ? The magnolia can- not be the oak, although unhappy critics would have a writer be something which he is not. It is enough that Holmes has charmed myriads of readers who might never have felt his influence if he had been grimly in " earnest," and that he has inculcated high ideals of taste, character, and living. By the time Holmes had reached his fiftieth year he was nearing the summit of fame. His readers were the cultivated classes of the whole English-speaking world, and he was not merely admired, his genial humor had won for him uni- versal love ; his unique personality was as dear as his writings. There is not room in the limits allowed me to dwell on the style of the " Autocrat ; "" fortu- nately neither analysis nor eulogy is necessary. The variety of topics, the sure, swift touches in treatment, the frequent gleam of imagery, and the lovely vign- ette of verse, altogether form an attraction for which there are few parallels in literature. From the gay and jaunty verse of the poet's youth to his strong and passion- ate lyrics of the war there was a surpassing change, and it will be interesting to trace it in his life, and in the course of historic events. In his early manhood he took the world as he found it, and did not trouble himself about reforms or isms. He had only good-humored banter for the Abo- litionists, just as he had for non-resistants and spirit-rappers. When progressive people were in a ferment with the new transcendental philosophy (deduced from the preaching of Channing and the essays of Emerson), and were fascinated by
