CHAPTER XI

A FEW STRAY FACTS

In 1858 Holmes moved from his house in Montgomery Place to 21 Charles street, near the Charles River; and here he was neighbor to Governor Andrew, the war governor of Massachusetts, and James T. Fields, the publisher. He afterward occupied another house on Charles street, and finally, in 1871, moved to Beacon street, where was his home to the end of his life.

In 1882 he resigned his professorship at Harvard and devoted himself to literary work, writing, after this, his last book of table talks, which he called “Over the Teacups.” In 1886 he visited Europe. With the exception of the journey which he took when a young man studying medicine, this was his only trip abroad. He was gone only four months, including the voyage both ways, and spent most of his time in the little isle of Britain. It seemed as if he disliked being long away from home, or even away from Boston.

Dr. Holmes was an ingenious man, and had many fads and fancies. He was the inventor of the small stereoscope for hand use,—such as those used for looking at photographs. The first one he made himself entirely, all but the lenses, and he often used to say that he might have made a fortune out of this invention if he had patented it. Yet, he seems never to have regretted that he had not done so, thinking perhaps that the public had been the gainer by his loss.

A life-long hobby of his was photography—beginning in the days when this art was not so easy and common as it is now. He became a really skillful artist in it, and made many pictures of the old gambrel-roofed house and scenes about Harvard College, which have been preserved and may prove useful to future historians.

Once he thought he could learn to play on the violin. As a matter of fact, he had no ear for harmony, and could never produce music. Still, he shut himself up in his study and scraped away hour after hour, for two or three winters. At the end of that time he could play two or three simple tunes so that they could be recognized; then he gave it up and never played any more.

One of his fads was the measuring of large trees. When he traveled about the country he always had a measuring tape in his pocket, and this he would stretch around the trunk of every big tree he saw. When he went to England he pulled out his bit of string to see if the giant trees of Old England were as big as the giant trees of New England. He tells with what bated breath and beating, fearful heart he measured one tree in particular in England with a string on which he had measured off the trunk of another big tree in America. “Twenty feet, and a long piece of string left!” he exclaims, when telling of it. “Twenty-one feet—twenty-two—twenty-three,—an extra heart-beat or two,—twenty-four—twenty-five, and six inches over!!”

He finally became so noted as an authority on big trees that he was consulted even by the famous botanist, Professor Asa Gray.

In “The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table” you may read of a slice of a hemlock tree, going straight to the center, and showing three hundred and forty-two rings, each ring representing a year of life. Holmes really had this tree section, and spent much time sticking pins in at the various rings, each pin tagged with the date of some event that was taking place when the ring was forming.

We have already spoken of his love for old books. In the “Autocrat” he says: “I like books—I was born and bred among them, and have the easy feelings, when I get into their presence, that a stable-boy has among horses. I don’t think I undervalue them, either as companions or instructors.” He was not only an expert in judging an old and beautiful book, but he understood the art of bookbinding, and sometimes practiced it. Here is a sentence of his about books that we should all remember: “Some books are edifices, to stand as they are built; some are hewn stones, ready to form a part of future edifices; some are quarries, from which stones are to be split for shaping and after use.”

Any one who has read the stirring ballad of “Old Blue,” entitled “How the Old Horse Won the Bet,” will guess that Holmes knew something about horse-racing. What could be more vivid than this:

“Go!”—Through his ears the summons stung As if a battle-trump had rung; The slumbering instincts long unstirred Started at the old familiar word; It thrills like flame through every limb,— What means his twenty years to him? The savage blow his rider dealt Fell on his hollow flanks unfelt; The spur that pricked his staring hide Unheeded tore his bleeding side; Alike to him are spur and rein,— He steps a five-year-old again!

One of his most cherished memories was that of seeing the famous steed Plenipotentiary win the Derby; this was when Holmes was in England as a young man; and indeed he knew “a neat, snug hoof, a delicate pastern, a broad haunch, a deep chest, a close ribbed-up barrel, as well as any other man in the town.”

Besides these things, he was fond of boxing, of boating, and other forms of sport; and he knew the fine points about all of these manly pastimes.

You must not think, however, that Holmes was not a hard worker and a careful student. He wrote easily and freely, but revised with the greatest care; and he prepared his college lectures over every year, keeping them up to date while he was constantly studying and reading and learning new things about his profession.