Letter by Oliver Wendell Holmes to Alexander Ireland

Letter by Oliver Wendell Holmes to Alexander Ireland

Correspondence

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894 (author)

Ireland, Alexander, 1810-1894

After the death of transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1882, Holmes was approached to write his biography for the “American Men of Letters” series. After publication, he received this letter from journalist Alexander Ireland (1810-1894), long a close friend of Emerson’s, who had himself printed a memorial volume and reminiscences of his visits to England in 1882. Holmes wrote of his own efforts, “I considered the task more than difficult…. The difference in the estimate of his writings is so great that any analysis of them with comments, interpretations, judgments, must fail to satisfy some, must exceed the estimate of others. I tried to be fair; I endeavored to follow as well as I might the course of Emerson’s thoughts and to reach as far as in me lay the inner nature of the man. On the whole I have been satisfied with the verdicts passed upon my book.”

Letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) to Alexander Ireland concerning Holmes' biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894

1885 November 02

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Hawes Vault Manuscripts

text

excerpt (1 page)

English

text

DigID0002206

Purchased for the Library of Harvard Medical School, 1972