SOURCE: "The Long Life and Broad Mind of Mr. Justice Holmes," in Life, Law and Letters: Essays and Sketches, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979, pp. 1-19.

In the following essay, Auchincloss provides an overview of Holmes's life and career.

Few men have seen as much of our history, and from such advantageous viewpoints, as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. As a boy in Massachusetts he met veterans of the Revolution. He went to school in a Boston shaken by abolition. He fought through the Civil War, and it is said to have been his voice that shouted the rough warning to Lincoln when the President exposed his high hat above the ramparts at Fort Stevens. With peace Holmes became a lawyer and a great scholar. He served as a judge for half a century, first on the high bench of Massachusetts and then on the United States Supreme Court. And at...