The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table | Page 2

armful of failures in the attempt to achieve a perfect tie. This son of mine, whom I have
not seen for these twenty-five years, generously counted, was a self-willed youth, always
too ready to utter his unchastised fancies. He, like too many American young people, got
the spur when he should have had the rein. He therefore helped to fill the market with that
unripe fruit which his father says in one of these papers abounds in the marts of his native
country. All these by- gone shortcomings he would hope are forgiven, did he not feel sure
that very few of his readers know anything about them. In taking the old name for the

new papers, he felt bound to say that he had uttered unwise things under that title, and if
it shall appear that his unwisdom has not diminished by at least half while his years have
doubled, he promises not to repeat the experiment if he should live to double them again
and become his own grandfather.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. BOSTON. Nov. 1st 1858.

CHAPTER I

I was just going to say, when I was interrupted, that one of the many ways of classifying
minds is under the heads of arithmetical and algebraical intellects. All economical and
practical wisdom is an extension or variation of the following arithmetical formula:
2+2=4. Every philosophical proposition has the more general character of the expression
a+b=c. We are mere operatives, empirics, and egotists, until we learn to think in letters
instead of figures.
They all stared. There is a divinity student lately come among us to whom I commonly
address remarks like the above, allowing him to take a certain share in the conversation,
so far as assent or pertinent questions are involved. He abused his liberty on this occasion
by presuming to say that Leibnitz had the same observation.--No, sir, I replied, he has not.
But he said a mighty good thing about mathematics, that sounds something like it, and
you found it, NOT IN THE ORIGINAL, but quoted by Dr. Thomas Reid. I will tell the
company what he did say, one of these days.
- If I belong to a Society of Mutual Admiration?--I blush to say that I do not at this
present moment. I once did, however. It was the first association to which I ever heard
the term applied; a body of scientific young men in a great foreign city who admired their
teacher, and to some extent each other. Many of them deserved it; they have become
famous since. It amuses me to hear the talk of one of those beings described by
Thackeray -
"Letters four do form his name" -
about a social development which belongs to the very noblest stage of civilization. All
generous companies of artists, authors, philanthropists, men of science, are, or ought to
be, Societies of Mutual Admiration. A man of genius, or any kind of superiority, is not
debarred from admiring the same quality in another, nor the other from returning his
admiration. They may even associate together and continue to think highly of each other.
And so of a dozen such men, if any one place is fortunate enough to hold so many. The
being referred to above assumes several false premises. First, that men of talent
necessarily hate each other. Secondly, that intimate knowledge or habitual association
destroys our admiration of persons whom we esteemed highly at a distance. Thirdly, that
a circle of clever fellows, who meet together to dine and have a good time, have signed a
constitutional compact to glorify themselves and to put down him and the fraction of the
human race not belonging to their number. Fourthly, that it is an outrage that he is not
asked to join them.
Here the company laughed a good deal, and the old gentleman who sits opposite said,
"That's it! that's it!"
I continued, for I was in the talking vein. As to clever people's hating each other, I think a

LITTLE extra talent does sometimes make people jealous. They become irritated by
perpetual attempts and failures, and it hurts their tempers and dispositions. Unpretending
mediocrity is good, and genius is glorious; but a weak flavor of genius in an essentially
common person is detestable. It spoils the grand neutrality of a commonplace character,
as the rinsings of an unwashed wineglass spoil a draught of fair water. No wonder the
poor fellow we spoke of, who always belongs to this class of slightly flavored
mediocrities, is puzzled and vexed by the strange sight of a dozen men of capacity
working and playing together in harmony. He and his fellows are always fighting. With
them familiarity naturally breeds contempt. If they ever praise each other's bad drawings,
or broken-winded novels, or spavined verses,