Word: pollock
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
They wrote like two sage old Romans from twin centers of the later empire. Their interest was in philosophy, literature, in the arcana of their craft, in their misfortunes and ailments (once Holmes slipped on a piece of ice, again Pollock was struck by a bicyclist), in Washington heat and London fog, in the wonder that returning spring has for aging men. The year the Japanese sank the Russian fleet at Tsushima, Pollock dropped Holmes a postcard: "Certainly I believe you are as real as I am, but, as you are ejusdem generis with me, that does not make...
During the first 20 years, while their friendship was still somewhat stiff and formal, they wrote a good deal about the law. Even after their friendship mellowed, Pollock stuck sternly to his salutation-My dear Holmes. Holmes began to salute his correspondent occasionally as Dear F. P.; when Pollock was 82 he ventured to write My dear young Frederick, adding later "Frederick really is growing up." He seldom failed to send his love to "your Lady." Justice Holmes had a sharp eye for ladies, was once known to stare after a pretty girl and mutter: "Oh, to be 80 again...
Sometimes they ventured to tell each other stories. Pollock writes cautiously: "It is said-I don't vouch for it-that when President Wilson et ux. were here Mrs. W. asked the Queen what she thought about the Freedom of the Seas, and the Queen answered that she had not quite made up her mind about mixed bathing." Both men were insatiable readers; but books were not an end in themselves but a part of life, and they treated them with less formality than they treated one another. Typical Pollock treatment...
...Holmes wrote his last letter and last literary opinion to Pollock. Then to their 57-year-old correspondence he set this last line: "Is this enough of my gossip...
...greatness of letters is in the mind they reveal. Pollock's mind was keen, erudite, somewhat suspicious, drily humorous, shyly human. Holmes's mind had a larger quality. There is nothing like battle to mature the mind it does not destroy. The bullet that passed through Holmes's neck at Antietam lodged in his brain. He lived the rest of his life as if the words with which he closed his 90th birthday address were momently true: "Death plucks my ear and says Live-I am coming." He lived with the wise irreverence of a soldier...