Oliver Wendell Holmes (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance)

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Oliver Wendell Holmes, by William Dean Howells
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Title: Oliver Wendell Holmes From "Literary Friends And Acquaintances"
Author: William Dean Howells
Release Date: October 22, 2004 [EBook #3395]
Language: English
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LITERARY FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES—Oliver Wendell Holmes
by William Dean Howells
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
Elsewhere we literary folk are apt to be such a common lot, with tendencies here and there to be a shabby lot; we arrive
from all sorts of unexpected holes and corners of the earth, remote, obscure; and at the best we do so often come up out
of the ground; but at Boston we were of ascertained and noted origin, and good part of us dropped from the skies.
Instead of holding horses before the doors of theatres; or capping verses at the plough-tail; or tramping over Europe with
nothing but a flute in the pocket; or walking up to the metropolis with no luggage but the MS. of a tragedy; or sleeping in
doorways or under the arches of bridges; or serving as apothecaries' 'prentices—we were good society from the
beginning. I think this was none the worse for us, and it was vastly the better for good society ...