of his greatness.
Rather, it is the very thing that limits him, and I think that Doctor
Holmes appeared in the full measure of his generous personality to those
who did not and could not appreciate his circumstance, and not to those
who formed it, and who from life-long association were so dear and
comfortable to him. Those who best knew how great a man he was were
those who came from far to pay him their duty, or to thank him for some
help they had got from his books, or to ask his counsel or seek his
sympathy. With all such he was most winningly tender, most intelligently
patient. I suppose no great author was ever more visited by letter and
in person than he, or kept a faithfuler conscience for his guests. With
those who appeared to him in the flesh he used a miraculous tact, and I
fancy in his treatment of all the physician native in him bore a
characteristic part. No one seemed to be denied access to him, but it
was after a moment of preparation that one was admitted, and any one who
was at all sensitive must have felt from the first moment in his presence
that there could be no trespassing in point of time. If now and then
some insensitive began to trespass, there was a sliding-scale of
dismissal that never failed of its work, and that really saved the author
from the effect of intrusion. He was not bored because he would not be.

I transfer at random the impressions of many years to my page, and I
shall not try to observe a chronological order in these memories. Vivid
among them is that of a visit which I paid him with Osgood the publisher,
then newly the owner of the Atlantic Monthly, when I had newly become the
sole editor. We wished to signalize our accession to the control of the
magazine by a stroke that should tell most in the public eye, and we
thought of asking Doctor Holmes to do something again in the manner of
the Autocrat and the Professor at the Breakfast Table. Some letters had
passed between him and the management concerning our wish, and then
Osgood thought that it would be right and fit for us to go to him in
person. He proposed the visit, and Doctor Holmes received us with a mind
in which he had evidently formulated all his thoughts upon the matter.
His main question was whether at his age of sixty years a man was
justified in seeking to recall a public of the past, or to create a new
public in the present. He seemed to have looked the ground over not only
with a personal interest in the questio