I saw him once more, but only once, when a day or two later he drove up
by our hotel in Magnolia toward the cottage where his secretary was
lodging. He saw us from his carriage, and called us gayly to him, to
make us rejoice with him at having finally got that commemorative poem
off his mind. He made a jest of the trouble it had cost him, even some
sleeplessness, and said he felt now like a convalescent. He was all
brightness, and friendliness, and eagerness to make us feel his mood,
through what was common to us all; and I am glad that this last
impression of him is so one with the first I ever had, and with that
which every reader receives from his work.
That is bright, and friendly and eager too, for it is throughout the very
expression of himself. I think it is a pity if an author disappoints
even the unreasonable expectation of the reader, whom his art has invited
to love him; but I do not believe that Doctor Holmes could inflict this
disappointment. Certainly he could disappoint no reasonable expectation,
no intelligent expectation. What he wrote, that he was, and every one
felt this who met him. He has therefore not died, as some men die, the
remote impersonal sort, but he is yet thrillingly alive in every page of
his books. The quantity of his literature is not great, but the quality
is very surprising, and surprising first of all as equality. From the
beginning to the end he wrote one man, of course in his successive
consciousnesses.
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