ture. There is a
sunrise and sunset. There is a transition from the light of the sun to
the gentler light of the moon. There is a rest in nature which seems
necessary in all her great operations. And so with all the great
operations of the human mind. But do not let us despond if we seem to
see a diminished efficacy in the production of what is essentially and
immortally great. Our sun is hidden only for a moment. It is like the
day-star of Milton:--

"Which anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore,
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky."

I rejoice in an occasion like this which draws the attention of the
world to topics which illustrate the union of art with literature and of
literature with science, because you have a hard race to run, you have a
severe competition against the attraction of external pursuits, whether
those pursuits take the form of business or pleasure. It is given to you
to teach lessons of the utmost importance to mankind, in maintaining the
principle that no progress can be real which is not equable, which is
not proportionate, which does not develop all the faculties belonging
to our nature. If a great increase of wealth in a country takes place,
and with that increase of wealth a powerful stimulus to the invention of
mere luxury, that, if it stands alone, is not, never can be, progress.
It is only that one-sided development which is but one side of
deformity. I hope we shall have no one-sided development. One mode of
avoiding it is to teach the doctrine of that sisterhood you have
asserted to-day, and confident I am that the good wishes you have
exprest on behalf of literature will be re-echoed in behalf of art
wherever men of letters are found.

ADDRESS OF WELCOME[1]

BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

Brothers of the Association of the Alumni:--It is your misfortune and
mine that you must accept my services as your presiding officer of the
day in the place of your retiring president. I shall not be believed if
I say how unwillingly it is that for the second time I find myself in
this trying position; called upon to fill, as I best may, the place of
one whose presence and bearing, whose courtesy, whose dignity, whose
scholarship, whose standing among the distinguished children of the
university, fit him alike to guide your councils and to grace your
festivals. The name of Winthrop has been so long associated with the
State and