The little gentleman is one of Holmes's most spirited characters, and makes a very convenient organ for the utterance of opinions not to be turned into serious dogmas—but also not to be overlooked. Boston is an ideal as well as a real city; it represents 'the American principle,' whatever that may precisely be. It is the three-hilled city as opposed to the seven-hilled city or reason against Rome. Democratic America has a different humanity from feudal Europe, 'and so must have a new divinity.' Religion has to be 'Americanised,' and Boston is in the van of the struggle.
This might suggest a good many remarks to which Holmes would, perhaps, leave his deformed gentleman to reply. He has not committed himself to an unreserved support of a personage who reflects only one of his moods. One point, however, has to be noticed. Holmes, like others, had revolted against Calvinism as represented by the Westminster Confession. Many pages in his essays are directed against the old-fashioned creed; and, as we are told, made him the object of warm denunciations by the orthodox. Young people, Mr. Morse informs us, were forbidden to read the Autocrat, and Elsie Venner was regarded as a
