in earnest when she makes a woman,' says Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Rather, she takes herself seriously when she makes the average spiritual
woman: as seriously as that woman takes herself when she makes a novel.
And in a like mood Nature made New England and endowed her with purpose,
with mortuary frivolities, with long views, with energetic provincialism.

If we remember best _The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay_, we do so in
spite of the religious and pathetic motive of the greater part of Dr.
Holmes's work, and of his fancy, which should be at least as conspicuous
as his humour. It is fancy rather than imagination; but it is more
perfect, more definite, more fit, than the larger art of imagery, which
is apt to be vague, because it is intellectual and adult. No grown man
makes quite so definite mental images as does a child; when the mind ages
it thinks stronger thoughts in vaguer pictures. The young mind of Dr.
Holmes has less intellectual imagination than intelligent fancy. For
example: 'If you ever saw a crow with a king-bird after him, you will get
an image of a dull speaker and a lively listener. The bird in sable
plumage flaps heavily along his straightforward course, while the other
sails round him, over him, under him, leaves him, comes back again,
tweaks out a black feather, shoots away once more, never losing sight of
him, and finally reaches the crow's perch at the same time the crow
does;' but the comparison goes on after this at needless length, with
explanations. Again: 'That blessed clairvoyance which sees into things
without opening them: that glorious licence which, having shut the door
and driven the reporter from the keyhole, calls upon Truth, majestic
Virgin! to get off from her pedestal and drop her academic _poses_.' And
this, of the Landlady: 'She told me her story once; it was as if a grain
that had been ground and bolted had tried to individualise itself by a
special narrative.' 'The riotous tumult of a laugh, which, I take it, is
the mob-law of the features.' 'Think of the Old World--that part of it