ldhood, appreciate the delicate grace of girlhood, enjoy
the robust enthusiasm of young manhood, and pause with reverent
sympathy before the afflicted. Behind each character portrayed one
feels the healthful, generous throb of a humanity to which no ambition
of soul could seem foreign or no defect appeal in vain. Scattered
throughout the volumes are many charming verses, to some of
which Holmes owes his fame as a poet. In _The Autocrat at the
Breakfast-Table_ occurs, among others, the celebrated poem, _The
Chambered Nautilus_, which shows perhaps the highest point to which
Holmes's art as a poet has reached. This poem, founded upon the
many-chambered shell of the pearly nautilus, is made by the poet to
illustrate the progress of the soul in its journey through life; the
spiritual beauty of the verse shows it a genuine reflection of
that soul illumination which made of the poet's Puritan ancestors
a peculiar people. Many other poems bear the mark of this spiritual
insight, and stamp the author as possessing the highest poetic sense.
But it is perhaps in his humorous poems that Holmes has appealed to
the greatest number of readers. Throughout the verse of this class
runs the genuine Yankee humor, allied to high scholarship and the
finest literary art.

Many of the verses seem but an echo in rhyme of the half-serious,
half-whimsical utterances of the Breakfast-Table Series. Who but
the Autocrat himself could have given literary form to the exquisite
pathos of The _Last Leaf_, the delicious quaintness of _Dorothy Q_, or
the solemn drollery of _The Katy Did_?

Many of the more popular poems are simply _vers d'occasion_, written
for some class reunion, college anniversary, or state dinner. These
poems, collected under the title _Poems of the Class of '29_, show
Holmes in his most charming mood of reminiscence. Through all his
poetry shines here and there an intense sympathy with nature, for
running side by side with his appreciation of human interests we see
ever that deep love of nature which is the mark of the true poet.
Trees and flowers, the seasons, the meadows, rivers, clouds, and
the enchanting mysteries of twilight touch his heart to sympathetic
vibrations, and their beauty enters into and becomes a part of
himself. In this sense some of his most charming recollections cease
to be merely remembrance; they are the very air and sunlight which he
breathed and which became incorporated into his being. Thus the
old gard