hide Sorting

You can sort these results in two ways:

By entity
Chronological order for dates, alphabetical order for places and people.
By position (current method)
As the entities appear in the document.

You are currently sorting in ascending order. Sort in descending order.

hide Most Frequent Entities

The entities that appear most frequently in this document are shown below.

Entity Max. Freq Min. Freq
Charles Sumner 350 0 Browse Search
Ralph Waldo Emerson 210 0 Browse Search
Samuel Longfellow 187 13 Browse Search
John A. Andrew 166 0 Browse Search
Elizur Wright 139 1 Browse Search
Julian Hawthorne 98 0 Browse Search
George L. Stearns 96 0 Browse Search
Abraham Lincoln 94 0 Browse Search
James Russell Lowell 83 1 Browse Search
W. T. G. Morton 74 0 Browse Search
View all entities in this document...

Browsing named entities in a specific section of Frank Preston Stearns, Cambridge Sketches. Search the whole document.

Found 196 total hits in 91 results.

... 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Cervantes (search for this): chapter 9
h out aloud. He says that a tedious preacher or lecturer, with an alert listener in the audience, resembles a crow followed by a king-bird,--a spectacle which of itself is enough to make one smile; and as for an elevated comparison, what could be more so, unless we were to seek one in the moon. There is a threefold wit in it; but the full force of this can only be appreciated in the original text. Nature commonly sets her own stamp on the face of a humorist. The long pointed nose of Cervantes is indicative of immeasurable fun, and there have been many similar noses on the faces of less distinguished wits. Doctor Holmes ridiculed phrenology as an attempt to estimate the money in a safe by the knobs on the outside, but he evidently was a believer in physiognomy, and he exemplified this in his own case. His face had a comical expression from boyhood; its profile reminded one of those prehistoric images which Di Cesnola brought from Cyprus. As if he were conscious of this he ass
Froude (search for this): chapter 9
nt, Emerson and Hawthorne certainly deserved it much more. Let us be thankful that no such mischief was contemplated. If honorary degrees are to be given in order to attract attention to a university, or worse still, for the purpose of obtaining legacies, they had better be abolished altogether. During his last visit to England Doctor Holmes was the guest of F. Max Muller at Oxford, and years afterwards Professor Muller wrote to an American correspondent concerning him and others: Froude was a dear friend of mine, related to my wife; so was Kingsley-dear soul. Renan used to fetch books for me when we first met at the Bibliothique Royale. Emerson stayed at my house on his last visit here. But the best of all my American friends was Wendell Holmes. When he left us he said, I have talked to thousands of people-you are the only one with whom I have had a conversation. We had talked about Zzz-the world as the logos, as the thought of God. What a pure soul his was — a real S
Nathaniel Hawthorne (search for this): chapter 9
for him. There had been an Atlantic breakfast for Doctor Holmes in Boston, and a Holmes breakfast in New York. He was in the public eye, and by honoring him the University honored itself. So Harvard conferred an Ll.D. on General Winfield Scott just before the fatal battle of Bull Run,--instead of after his brilliant Mexican campaign. If the degree was not conferred on Holmes for his literary work, what reason could be assigned for it; and if he deserved it on that account, Emerson and Hawthorne certainly deserved it much more. Let us be thankful that no such mischief was contemplated. If honorary degrees are to be given in order to attract attention to a university, or worse still, for the purpose of obtaining legacies, they had better be abolished altogether. During his last visit to England Doctor Holmes was the guest of F. Max Muller at Oxford, and years afterwards Professor Muller wrote to an American correspondent concerning him and others: Froude was a dear frien
Charles T. Jackson (search for this): chapter 9
s doubtful if he could have been excelled in his own specialty. His ready fund of wit often served to revive the drooping spirits of his audience, and many of his jests have become a kind of legendary lore at the Medical-School. Most of them, however, were of a too anatomical character to be reproduced in print. So the years rolled over Doctor Holmes's head; living quietly, working steadily, and accumulating a store of proverbial wisdom by the way. In June, 1840, he married Amelia Lee Jackson, of Boston, an alliance which brought him into relationship with half the families on Beacon Street, and which may have exercised a determining influence on the future course of his life. Doctor Holmes was always liberally inclined, and ready to welcome such social and political improvements as time might bring; but he never joined any of the liberal or reformatory movements of his time. Certain old friends of Emerson affirmed, when Holmes published his biography of the Concord sage in 18
Hoss Shay (search for this): chapter 9
slightly humorous, but it is a perfect work of art, and the line, Soft and low is a maiden's Yes, has the beautiful hush of a sanctuary in it. A finer verse could not be written. Also for a comic piece nothing equal to The wonderful one-hoss Shay has appeared since Burns's Tam O'Shanter. It is based on a logical illusion which brings it down to recent times; and the gravity with which the story is narrated makes its impossibility all the more amusing. The building of the chaise is descriimber,--they couldn't sell 'em; Never an axe had seen their chips, And the wedges flew from between their lips, Their blunt ends frizzled like celerly-tips; I believe that even cultivated readers have found more real satisfaction in the One-Hoss Shay than in many a more celebrated lyric. Doctor Holmes lived amid a comparatively narrow circle of friends and acquaintances. He attended the Saturday Club, but Lowell appears to have been the only member of it with whom he was on confidential
John Holmes (search for this): chapter 9
Doctor Holmes. I have often been inside the old Holmes house in Cambridge. It served as a bory, which seems to have been encouraged by Doctor Holmes himself, is a misconception. It was a two ell on the right side of the front door. Doctor Holmes says: Gambrel, gambrel; let me beg You wil James Freeman Clarke,--but I think it was Doctor Holmes's class-poems that gave it its chief celebon the natural bridge of American literature. Holmes did not come before the public until years aftuced in print. So the years rolled over Doctor Holmes's head; living quietly, working steadily, fluence on the future course of his life. Doctor Holmes was always liberally inclined, and ready t Certain old friends of Emerson affirmed, when Holmes published his biography of the Concord sage inrson from the author of Society and Solitude. Holmes had already composed one of the fairest tributconciliation might take place. Meanwhile Doctor Holmes pursued the even tenor of his way. Concord[5 more...]
Abraham Lincoln (search for this): chapter 9
not an ignis fatuus. When the Autocrat of the breakfast table first appeared few were in the secret of its authorship and everybody asked: Who is this new luminary It was exactly what the more intelligent public wanted, and Holmes jumped at once into the position in literature which he has held ever since. Readers were delighted with his wit, surprised at his originality and impressed by his proverbial wisdom. It was the advent of a sound, healthy intelligence, not unlike that of President Lincoln, which could deal with common-place subjects in a significant and characteristic manner. The landlady's daughter, the schoolmistress, little Boston, and the young man called John, are as real and tangible as the dramatis personae in one of Moliere's plays. They seem more real to us than many of the distinguished men and women whom we read of in the newspapers. Doctor Holmes is the American Sterne. He did not seek a vehicle for his wit in the oddities and mishaps of English middle
E. R. Hoar (search for this): chapter 9
ut he was the great magnet of the age, and the world could not help being attracted by him. It modified its course, and Emerson also modified his, so that the final reconciliation might take place. Meanwhile Doctor Holmes pursued the even tenor of his way. Concord does not appear to have been attractive to him. He had a brother, John Holmes, who was reputed by his friends to be as witty as the Autocrat himself, but who lived a quiet, inconspicuous life. John was an intimate friend of Hon. E. R. Hoar and often went to Concord to visit him; but I never heard of the Doctor being seen there, though it may have happened before my time. He does not speak over-much of Emerson in his letters, and does not mention Hawthorne, Thoreau or Alcott, so far as we know, at all. They do not appear to have attracted his attention. We are indebted to Lowell for all that Doctor Holmes has given us. The Doctor was forty-eight when the Atlantic Monthly appeared before the public, and according to his
Washburn (search for this): chapter 9
at the seat of Government. He is an out-and-out immediate emancipationist,believes that is the only way to break the strength of the South; that the black man is the life of the South; that they dread work above all things, and cling to the slave as the drudge that makes life tolerable to them. I do not know if his opinion is worth much. This was a meeting of the Bird Club which Doctor Holmes attended and the dingy-linened friends of progress were such men as Dr. Samuel G. Howe, Governor Washburn, Governor Claflin, Dr. Estes Howe, and Frank B. Sanborn. It has always been a trick of fashionable society, a trick as old as the age of Pericles, to disparage liberalism by accusing it of vulgarity; but we regret to find Doctor Holmes falling into line in this particular. He always speaks of Sumner in his letters with something like a slur — not to Motley, for Motley was Sumner's friend, but to others who might be more sympathetic. This did not, however, prevent him from going to S
Andrew Johnson (search for this): chapter 9
had become like children again, and were ready to credit anything that was told in a confident manner. But Doctor Holmes's digressions are infectious. The Autocrat of the breakfast table is an irregular panorama of human life without either a definite beginning or end,--unless the autocrat's offering himself to the schoolmistress (an incident which only took place on paper) can be considered so; but it is by no means a patchwork. He talks of horse-racing, the Millerites, elm trees, Doctor Johnson, the composition of poetry and much else; but these subjects are introduced and treated with an adroitness that amounts to consummate art. He is always at the boarding-house, and if his remarks sometimes shoot over the heads of his auditors, this is only because he intends that they should. The first ten or fifteen pages of the Autocrat are written in such a cold, formal and pedantic manner that the wonder is that Lowell should have published it. After that the style suddenly changes a
... 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10