THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE
By Oliver Wendell Holmes
Excerpt from The Autocrat's Autobiography
The interruption referred to in the first sentence of the first of
these papers was just a quarter of a century in duration.
Two articles entitled "The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table" will be
found in the "New England Magazine," formerly published in Boston
by J. T. and E. Buckingham. The date of the first of these articles
is November 1831, and that of the second February 1832. When "The
Atlantic Monthly" was begun, twenty-five years afterwards, and the
author was asked to write for it, the recollection of these crude
products of his uncombed literary boyhood suggested the thought
that it would be a curious experiment to shake the same bough
again, and see if the ripe fruit were better or worse than the
early windfalls.
So began this series of papers, which naturally brings those
earlier attempts to my own notice and that of some few friends who
were idle enough to read them at the time of their publication. The
man is father to the boy that was, and I am my own son, as it seems
to me, in those papers of the New England Magazine. If I find it
hard to pardon the boy's faults, others would find it harder. They
will not, therefore, be reprinted here, nor as I hope, anywhere.
But a sentence or two from them will perhaps bear reproducing, and
with these I trust the gentle reader, if that kind being still
breathes, will be contented.
-"It is a capital plan to carry a tablet with you, and, when you
find yourself felicitous, take notes of your own conversation."-
-When I feel inclined to read poetry I take down my Dictionary. The
poetry of words is quite as beautiful as that of sentences. The
author may arrange the gems effectively, but their shape and lustre
have been given by the attrition of ages. Bring me the finest
simile from the whole range of imaginative writing, and I will show
you a single word which conveys a more profound, a more accurate,
and a more eloquent analogy."-
-"Once on a time, a notion was started, that if all the people in
the world would shout at once, it might be heard in the moon. So
the projectors agreed it should be done in just ten years. Some
thousand shiploads of chronometers were distributed to the
selectmen and other great folks of all the different nations. For a
year beforehand, nothing else was talked about but the awful noise
that was to be made on the great occasion. When the time came,
everybody had their ears so wide open, to hear the universal
ejaculation of Boo, - the word agreed upon, - that nobody spoke
except a deaf man in one of the Fejee Islands, and a woman in
Pekin, so that the world was never so still since the creation."-
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