Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v2.djvu/251

The Breakfast-Table Series 235 nineteenth century, he was really a survivor from the eight- eenth century ; and his prose like his verse has the eighteenth- century characteristics, despite the fact that he himself was ever alert to apprehend the new scientific spirit of the century in which he lived. The real novelty of the Autocrat was in its content, that is to say, in Holmes himself, the master talker of the Breakfast- Table, in the skill with which the accent of conversation is caught. The other characters are responsible for an occasional remark not without individuality and point ; but the Autocrat himself tends to be a monopolist and to intermit his discourse only that his adversary in the verbal combat may lay himself open to a series of sharp thrusts in retort. This is as it should be, since the others who gather about the breakfast table were but ordinary mortals, after all, whereas the Autocrat was an extraordinary mortal, an artist in conversation, gifted by nature and trained by long experience, a man who had thought widely if not deeply about life, who had read the records of the past and who could revive them to shed light on the present, a physician abreast of modern science and swift to bring its new discoveries to bear on the old problems of life. In reading the Breakfast-Table series in swift succession the reader cannot help remarking the frequency with which Holmes draws on his professional experience; he sees men and women through the clear spectacles of the family physician; — and perhaps one reason why he arrogates to himself the major part of the conversation is in revenge for the silence imposed on the practi- tioner by the tedious and interminable talk of his patients about themselves to which the family physician has perforce to sub- mit. Holmes used medical analogies and dropped into the: terminology of the anatomist and physiologist with the same frequency that Shakespeare employed the vocabulary of the theatre, even in incongruous situations finding material for figures of speech in his own experience on the stage. Holmes is not only a man of science and. a man of the world, he is also a humorist and a wit, — a wit. who has no antipathy even to the humble but useful pun, — a humorist abounding in whimsy. And as a result of this fourfold equip- ment his talk, is excellent merely as talk. It has the flavour of the spoken word; it is absolutely unacademic and totally