universally interested, and he studied the universe from himself. I do
not know how one is to study it otherwise; the impersonal has really no
existence; but with all his subtlety and depth he was of a make so
simple, of a spirit so naive, that he could not practise the feints some
use to conceal that interest in self which, after all, every one knows is
only concealed. He frankly and joyously made himself the starting-point
in all his inquest of the hearts and minds of other men, but so far from
singling himself out in this, and standing apart in it, there never was
any one who was more eagerly and gladly your fellow-being in the things
of the soul.




IV.

In the things of the world, he had fences, and looked at some people
through palings and even over the broken bottles on the tops of walls;
and I think he was the loser by this, as well as they. But then I think
all fences are bad, and that God has made enough differences between men;
we need not trouble ourselves to multiply them. Even behind his fences,
however, Holmes had a heart kind for the outsiders, and I do not believe
any one came into personal relations with him who did not experience this
kindness. In that long and delightful talk I had with him on my return
from Venice (I can praise the talk because it was mainly his), we spoke
of the status of domestics in the Old World, and how fraternal the
relation of high and low was in Italy, while in England, between master
and man, it seemed without acknowledgment of their common humanity.
"Yes," he said, "I always felt as if English servants expected to be
trampled on; but I can't do that. If they want to be trampled on, they