[Rarebooks] FS: Oliver Wendell Holmes Signed Quotation and Letter
Charles Agvent
chagvent at ptd.net
Tue Feb 23 15:32:23 EST 2010
From our new internet catalog--HAWTHORNE, HOLMES & MELVILLE--to be
posted on our website tomorrow. It contains 50 fine items, most newly
cataloged.
HOLMES, Oliver Wendell. AUTOGRAPH QUOTATION SIGNED and AUTOGRAPH LETTER
SIGNED. Boston, 7 March 1878. On a (6-7/8" x 9") piece of pape rthe
author has written the following seven-line stanza from one of his best
known poems "The Chambered Nautilus": "Build thee more stately mansions,
O my soul,/As the swift seasons roll!/Leave thy low-vaulted past!/Let
each new temple, nobler than the last,/Shut thee from heaven with a dome
more vast,/Till thou at length art free,/Leaving thine outgrown shell by
life’s unresting sea!" Below this he has SIGNED "Oliver Wendell
Holmes/Boston, March 10th 1888." On the verso of the paper (though not
on the exact reverse side of the poem, so that one could cut the paper
and have two separate autographed pieces), is a brief AUTOGRAPH LETTER
SIGNED by Holmes to a Miss Wright: "It gives one pleasure to comply with
our slight request. Pelase turn this leaf. Very truly yours OW Holmes.
Boston, March 10th 1888." Normal light creases. A Fine example from this
noted author and doctor.
The nautilus is a sea creature that lives inside a spiral shell. As it
grows, it makes new, larger chambers of its shell in which to live,
closing off the old chambers and gradually forming a spiral. Holmes uses
the nautilus as a metaphor for the human soul, emphasizing the idea that
humans expand their horizons until they achieve the spiritual freedom of
heaven or the afterlife. One of the most enduring nature poems of the
nineteenth century, "The Chambered Nautilus" was first published in the
periodical THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY and then in book form in Holmes's 1858
classic THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST TABLE. $1,000.00
--
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