Holmes on Life and the Past

kw: Justice Holmes, life as art, the past

More from Oliver W. Holmes, Jr.

• To Lewis Einstein, Jul 23, 1906; on life: "...life is painting a picture not doing a sum." I have seen this elsewhere in his writings. It resonates with me, because of my tendency to look at the vicissitudes of life as problems to be solved rather than as part of a picture; if they trouble me, the best I can often do is manage them. They cannot be "solved."
• To Harold Laski, Aug 24, 1924; on judging the past: "If I may quote myself we must correct the judgment of posterity by that of the time."
• Obituary of George Otis Shattuck, 1897; the passage he quotes above: "People often speak of correcting the hudgment of time by that of posterity. I think it is quite true to say that we must correct the judgment of posterity by that of the time." How often we see people condemning past figures for actions and attitudes that seem offensive to some today, but were either perfectly reasonable in the context of their own times, or were indeed noble compared to the times.

I can think of no better example of the latter than the way certain folks condemn Jesus or one of his apostles for a saying about women or slaves. Such folks do not realize that Jesus did more in his time to elevate women above their chattel status. Nor that Paul, in particular, while exhorting slaves among the believers to refrain from struggling against their condition (for the alternative was imminent death), yet wrote a very touching letter to Philemon, whose runaway slave Onesimus had become a believer, in which he tugs every lever he can reach to persuade Philemon to release the slave. I am sure Onesimus was very wary of carrying this letter back to his master, but history attests that he was freed as a result. Paul was a practical abolitionist.