:

"I, then, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Junior in Harvard University, am a
plumeless biped of the height of exactly five feet three inches when
standing in a pair of substantial boots made by Mr. Russell of this
town, having eyes which I call blue, and hair which I do not know what
to call.... Secondly, with regard to my normal qualities, I am rather
lazy than otherwise, and certainly do not study as hard as I ought to. I
am not dissipated and I am not sedate, and when I last ascertained my
college rank, I stood in the humble situation of seventeenth scholar."

After graduating from Harvard, Holmes entered the Dane Law School at
Cambridge. He did not feel at all sure, however, that he wished to be a
lawyer, and at the end of a year he had so far lost interest in his
studies that he gave them up. As the physician's calling seemed much
more to his liking, he took two courses of study in a private school of
medicine. This preparation was not, of course, sufficient to fit him for
a larger practice, so a trip to Europe where he could study under the
great professors of the School of Medicine at Paris became necessary.
Accordingly, his parents, at some sacrifice to themselves, provided him
with the required means, and he set sail from New York in the spring of
1833.

During the two years spent abroad, Holmes gave himself up wholly to his
chosen study. "I am more and more attached every day to the study of my
profession.... I am occupied from morning to night, and as every one is
happy when he is occupied, I enjoy myself as much as I could wish," he
wrote home. This period of hard work, however, was interrupted by summer
vacations spent in the countries along the Rhine, in England and in
Italy.

Early in 1836, the young physician established himself in Boston.
Perhaps it was that people thought him too much of a wit to take their
troubles seriously, or perhaps it was that he was better fitted to
teach than to practice the doctor's art. At any rate, his success was
very moderate. He was very glad, then, to be appointed Professor of
Anatomy at Dartmouth College in 1838, a position that he held until
1840. About this time, too, he received prizes for some _Medical Essays_
that are even to-day regarded as valuable. Thus he was gradually fitting
himself for the honorable office offered him in 1847, that of Professor
of Anatomy and Physiology in the Medical School of Harvard University.
For thirty-five years Holmes filled this posit