Frank Preston Stearns, Cambridge Sketches

[160] seen or heard of in Longfellow's house. In the winter of 1878 he met Mrs. L. Maria Child for the first time at the Chestnut Street Club. It appears that she did not catch his name when he was introduced to her, and stranger still did not recognize his face. When the Doctor inquired concerning her literary occupation she replied that she considered herself too old to drive a quill any longer, and then fortunately added: “Now, there is Doctor Holmes, I think he shows his customary good judgment in retiring from the literary field in proper season.” What the Doctor thought of this is unknown, but he still continued to write.

At the age of seventy his alma mater conferred on Doctor Holmes an Ll.D., and this was followed soon afterwards by Oxford and Cambridge, in England; but why was it not given ten or fifteen years earlier, when Holmes was in his prime? Then it might have been a service and a satisfaction to him; but when a man is seventy such tributes have small value 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