happened to nobody excepting Emerson.
When John Milton died, there was nobody left who could have done such
a thing; certainly nobody did do it, or tried to do it. I must say, I
think it is rather hard that when such a gift as that has been given
to the people of any country, that people, while boasting of its
seventy millions of numbers, and its thousands of billions of acres,
should not have one critical journal of which it is the business to
say at length, and in detail, whether Doctor Holmes has done his duty
well by the prophet, or whether, indeed, he has done it at all.

[Illustration: O. W. HOLMES AND E. E. HALE. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN
DOCTOR HOLMES'S STUDY, MAY 22, 1893.]

When we left Doctor Holmes, he and his household were looking forward
to the annual escape to Beverly. Somebody once wrote him a letter
dated from "Manchester-by-the-Sea," and Holmes wrote his reply under
the date "Beverly-by-the-Depot." And here let me stop to tell one of
those jokes for which the English language and Doctor Holmes were
made. A few years ago, in a fit of economy, our famous Massachusetts
Historical Society screwed up its library and other offices by some
fifteen feet, built in the space underneath, and rented it to the city
of Boston. This was all very well for the treasurer; but for those of
us who had passed sixty years, and had to climb up some twenty more
iron stairs whenever we wanted to look at an old pamphlet in the
library, it was not so great a benefaction. When Holmes went up, for
the first time, to see the new quarters of the Society, he left his
card with the words, "O. W. Holmes. High-story-call Society." We
understood then why the councils of the Society had been over-ruled by
the powers which manage this world, to take this flight towards
heaven.

I ought to have given a hint above of his connection and mine with the
society of "People who Think we are Going to Know More about Some
Things By and By." This society was really formed by my mother, who
for some time, I think, was the only member. But one day Doctor Holmes
and I met in the "Old Corner Bookstore," when the Corner had been
moved to the corner of Hamilton Place, and he was telling me one of
the extraordinary coincidences which he collects with such zeal. I
ventured to trump his story with another; and, in the language of the
ungodly, I thought I went one better than he. This led to a talk about
coincidences, and I said that my mother had long s