,
and mildly lit up with eyes full of kindness, and softened by sorrow. In
his last year, Mr. Swinburne wrote to Dr. Brown this sonnet, in which
there seems something of the poet's prophetic gift, and a voice sounds as
of a welcome home:--

"Beyond the north wind lay the land of old,
Where men dwelt blithe and blameless, clothed and fed
With joy's bright raiment, and with love's sweet bread,--
The whitest flock of earth's maternal fold,
None there might wear about his brows enrolled
A light of lovelier fame than rings your head,
Whose lovesome love of children and the dead
All men give thanks for; I, far off, behold
A dear dead hand that links us, and a light
The blithest and benignest of the night,--
The night of death's sweet sleep, wherein may be
A star to show your spirit in present sight
Some happier isle in the Elysian sea
Where Rab may lick the hand of Marjorie."

CHAPTER IV: OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

Never but once did I enjoy the privilege of meeting the author of "Elsie
Venner"--Oliver Wendell Holmes. It was at a dinner given by Mr. Lowell,
and of conversation with Dr. Holmes I had very little. He struck me as
being wonderfully erect, active, and vivacious for his great age. He
spoke (perhaps I should not chronicle this impression)--he spoke much,
and freely, but rather as if he were wound up to speak, so to say--wound
up, I mean, by a sense of duty to himself and kindness to strangers, who
were naturally curious about so well-known a man. In his aspect there
was a certain dryness, and, altogether, his vivacity, his ceaselessness,
and a kind of equability of tone in his voice, reminded me of what Homer
says concerning the old men around Priam, above the gate of Troy, how
they "chirped like cicalas on a summer day." About the matter of his
talk I remember nothing, only the manner remains with me, and mine may
have been a false impression, or the manner may have been accidental, and
of the moment: or, again, a manner appropriate for conversation with
strangers, each coming up one after the other, to view respectfully so
great a lion. Among his friends and intimates he was probably a
different man, with a tone other and more reposeful.

He had a long, weary task before him, then, to talk his way, ever
courteous, alert, attentive, through part of a London season. Yet, when
it was all over, he seems to have enjoyed