“Our dead brothers still live for us,”
by BeijingIrish (2024-02-25 10:30:04)
Edited on 2024-02-25 10:56:15
Cannot Reply Return to Political

“and bid us think of life, not death…”. These lines are taken from a speech delivered by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Jr. on Memorial Day, 1884, commemorating the Civil War dead. The passage is summoned by the author of book review in yesterday’s WSJ (“Review” section, page C8). The book, entitled The World Will Never See the Like (John L. Hopkins, Savas Beatie, 2024) is an account of the reunion in 1913 of veterans, men from both sides, who fought at Gettysburg. The reviewer suggests that in view of the polarization that characterizes our lives in these days, Hopkins’ account is topical. It sounds interesting, and I’ll try to find the book (Savas Beatie is a small California-based publisher that specializes in military history).

The review prompted me to read the Holmes speech. I had not read it in years. Among other things I was reminded how the Civil War inspired soaring eloquence on the part of late-19th century American writers—Holmes and Walt Whitman among others. Eloquence—now there’s a skill that’s been lost. Yesterday’s Journal also contains an editorial piece by Peggy Noonan who points out that the SOTU address is only days away. She exhorts Biden, one not known for eloquence, to keep it short. He won’t heed her advice, of course. Last year, he droned on for 73 minutes, and no one remembers a word he said.


Hard to even imagine the carnage Holmes witnessed
by sprack  (2024-02-26 12:54:51)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

He was wounded three times, including a bullet in the neck at Antietam, and was at Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg and the Wilderness as well, among other battles.

I first read about his war service in fifth or sixth grade in one of those Catholic comic books we used to get in school. I was fascinated by his story. Who says you can't learn anything from comic books? I don't think it covered any of his famous dissents, though. Maybe that was in volume 2.

Anyway, I read all I could find on Holmes in the encyclopedia. My dad had a book of "101 Famous Poems" which had his father's "The Deacon's Masterpiece" (aka "The One-Hoss Shay") so I knew of the father but nothing of the son, but soon found out he was one of the greatest men this country has ever produced.

On an unrelated side note, I'm not a poetry guy by any means, but that poem from Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. has always stuck with me due to it's unique cadence. I'll be traveling to Portugal for the first time in April, and have had these words in my head for a very, very long time:

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus was then alive, —
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down

So if you ever want to know when the great Lisbon earthquake was, I'm your guy.



Thanks for your post & Ulf's link. Exceptional! *
by Hickster  (2024-02-26 11:28:15)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

Link inside
by ufl  (2024-02-25 12:42:07)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

...in our youth, our hearts were touched with fire..