the consciousness of other people. I confess to a tender feeling
for my little brood of thoughts. When they have been welcomed and
praised, it has pleased me, and if at any time they have been rudely
handled and despitefully treated, it has cost me a little worry. I
don't despise reputation, and I should like to be remembered as having
said something worth lasting well enough to last."

There is much philosophy in "The Poet," and if it is less humorous
than "The Autocrat," it is more profound than either of its fellows in
the great trio. In it the doctor has said enough to make the
reputations of half a dozen authors.

"One Hundred Days in Europe," if written by anyone else save Dr.
Holmes, would, perhaps, go begging for a publisher. But he journeyed
to the old land with his heart upon his sleeve. He met nearly every
man and woman worth knowing, and the Court, Science, and Literature
received him with open arms. He had not seen England for half a
century. Fifty years before, he was an obscure young man, studying
medicine, and known by scarcely half a dozen persons. He returned in
1886, a man of world-wide fame, and every hand was stretched out to do
him honor, and to pay him homage. Lord Houghton,--the famous breakfast
giver of his time, certainly, the most successful since the princely
Rogers,--had met him in Boston years before, and had begged him again
and again to cross the ocean. Letters failing to move the poet,
Houghton tried verse upon him, and sent these graceful lines:--

"When genius from the furthest West,
Sierra's Wilds and Poker Flat,
Can seek our shores with filial zest,
Why not the genial Autocrat?

"Why is this burden on us laid,
That friendly London never greets
The peer of Locker, Moore, and Praed
From Boston's almost neighbor streets?

"His earlier and maturer powers
His own dear land might well engage;
We only ask a few kind hours
Of his serene and vigorous age.

"Oh, for a glimpse of glorious Poe!
His raven grimly answers 'never!'
Will Holmes's milder muse say 'no,'
And keep our hands apart forever?"

But he was not destined to see his friend. When Holmes arrived in
England, Lord Houghton was in his grave, and so was Dean Stanley,
whose sweetness of disposition had so charmed the autocrat, when the
two men had met in Boston a few years before. Ruskin he failed to meet
also, for the distinguished