Before closing this long chapter of "honors to Doctor Holmes," we cannot refrain from giving the following cordial tribute from John Boyle O'Reilly:
"Oliver Wendell Holmes:--the wise, the witty, the many ideald, philosopher, poet, physician, novelist, essayist, professor, but, best of all, the kind, the warm heart. A man of unexpected tastes, ranging in all directions from song to science, and from theology to boatracing. Me met one day on Tremont street an acquaintance fond of athletic exercise, and he stopped himself with a pathetic little sigh.
"'Ah, you send me back fifty years,' he said. 'As you walked then with a swing, you reminded me of an old friend who was dead before you were born; and he was a good man with his hands, too.'
"Never was a more healthy, natural, lovable man than Doctor Holmes."
It was not until the spring of 1886 that Doctor Holmes made his second trip to Europe. A whole half century had elapsed since his return home from the three years spent abroad when he was completing his medical studies.
In this second European tour he was accompanied by his daughter, Mrs. Sargent; and he gives his own delightful account of it in "One Hundred Days in Europe," which first appeared as a serial in the _Atlantic Monthly_, and has since been published in book form, with a charming dedication to his daughter. "The Sailing of the Autocrat" was celebrated by T.B. Aldrich in a fine poem, from which we quote a few lines as embodying the tender love and ardent admiration of the whole American people:--
"O Wind and Wave, be kind to him! For him may radiant mornings break From out the bosom of the deep, And golden noons above him bend, And fortunate constellations keep Bright vigils to his journey's end!
Take him, green Erin, to thy breast! Keep him, gray London--for a while! _In him we send thee of our best, Our wisest word, our blithest smile_-- Our epigram, alert and pat, That kills with joy the folly hit-- Our Yankee Tzar, our Autocrat Of all the happy realms of wit! Take him and keep him--but forbear To keep him more than half a year.... His presence will be sunshine there, His absence will be shadow here!"
We delight to recall with what distinguished honors he was received abroad from the highest dignitaries of church and state, as well as from his own literary compeers. It was during this visit in England that the London _Spectator_ wrote, "No literary American--unless it be Mr. Lowell, and we should not except even him--occupies precisely the same place as Doctor Holmes in Englishmen's regard. They have the feeling for him which they had for Charles Lamb, Charles Dickens, and John Leech, in which admiration somewhat blends into and is indistinguishable from affectionateness."