Document citation: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., “Bread and the Newspaper,” Atlantic Monthly (Vol. 8: No. 47), September 1861.https://scholarworks.uni.edu/nhomefront/1011/thumbnail.jp

Hettle, Wallace

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Sr.

English

University of Northern Iowa

University of Northern Iowa UNI ScholarWorks Union Homefront: A History in Documents Department of History 5-2024 1861 - Bread and the Newspaper - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Wallace Hettle University of Northern Iowa Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Let us know how access to this document benefits you Copyright ©2024 Wallace Hettle Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/nhomefront  Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Hettle, Wallace and Holmes, Oliver Wendell Sr., "1861 - Bread and the Newspaper - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr." (2024). Union Homefront: A History in Documents. 12. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/nhomefront/12 This Magazine is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at UNI ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Union Homefront: A History in Documents by an authorized administrator of UNI ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact scholarworks@uni.edu. Offensive Materials Statement: Materials located in UNI ScholarWorks come from a broad range of sources and time periods. Some of these materials may contain offensive stereotypes, ideas, visuals, or language. — 12 —1861 - Bread and the Newspaper - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.Staudenbaur, R., Engraver, Notman, James, photographer.Oliver Wendell Holmes / photographed by Notman,Boston ; R. Staudenbaur sc. , 1886. June 5. Photograph.https://www.loc.gov/item/2012649668/.1861 - Bread and the Newspaper - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was a Boston physician and poet. A Harvard graduate and amember of New England’s literary elite, he was one of the founders of the widely respectedAtlantic Magazine. Five months into the war, he described the patriotic yet anxious mood onthe home front. He was amazed by the power of newspapers, as the people waited impatientlyfor the “almost hourly paragraphs, laden with truth or falsehood as the case may be.”Bread and the NewspaperThis is the new version of the Panem et Circuses [Bread and Circuses] of the Roman populace. Itis our ultimatum, as that was theirs. They must have something to eat, and the circus-shows tolook at. We must have something to eat, and the papers to read.Everything else we can give up. If we are rich, we can lay down our carriages, stay awayfrom Newport or Saratoga, and adjourn the trip to Europe sine die. If we live in a small way,there are at least new dresses and bonnets and every-day luxuries which we can dispense with….How this war is simplifying our mode of being! We live on our emotions, as the sick man is saidin the common speech to be nourished by his fever. Our ordinary mental food has becomedistasteful, and what would have been intellectual luxuries at other times, are now absolutelyrepulsive . . .So far we have noticed little more than disturbances of the nervous system as aconsequence of the war excitement in non-combatants. Take the first trifling example whichcomes to our recollection. A sad disaster to the Federal army was told the other day in thepresence of two gentlemen and a lady. Both the gentlemen complained of a sudden feeling at theepigastrium, or, less learnedly, the pit of the stomach, changed color, and confessed to a slighttremor about the knees. The lady had a “grande revolution,” as French patients say,--went home,and kept her bed for the rest of the day. Perhaps the reader may smile at the mention of suchtrivial indispositions, but a more sensitive nature’s death itself follows in some cases from no21861 - Bread and the Newspaper - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.more serious cause. An old gentlemen fell senseless in fatal apoplexy, on hearing Napoleon’sreturn from Elba. One of our early friends, who recently died of the same complaint, was thoughtto have had his attack mainly in consequence of the excitements of the time.We all know what the war fever is in our young men,--what a devouring passion itbecomes in those whom it assails. Patriotism is the fire of it, no doubt, but this is fed with fuel ofall sorts. The love of adventure, the contagion of example, the fear of losing the chance ofparticipating in the current events of the time, the desire of personal distinction, all help toproduce those singular transformations which we often witness, turning the most peaceful of ouryouth into the most ardent of our soldiers. But something of the same fever in a different formreaches a good many non-combatants, who have no thought of losing a drop of precious bloodbelonging to themselves or their families. Some of the symptoms we shall mention our almostuniversal; they are as plain in the people we meet everywhere as the marks of an influenza, whenthat is prevailing.The first is a nervous restlessness of a very peculiar character. Men cannot think, or write,or attend to their ordinary business. They stroll up and down the streets, or saunter out upon thepublic places. . . . [A] most eminent scholar told us in all simplicity that he had fallen into such astate that he could read the same telegraphic dispatches over and over again in different papers,as if they were new, until he felt as if he were an idiot. Who did not do just the same thing, anddoes not often do it still, now that the first flush of the fever is over? Another person always goesthrough the side streets on his way for the noon extra,--he is so afraid somebody will meet himand tell the news he wishes to read, first on the bulletin-board, and then in the great capitals andleaded type of the newspaper.***31861 - Bread and the Newspaper - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.Whatever miseries this war brings upon us, it is making us wiser, and, we trust, better.Wiser, for we are learning our weakness, our narrowness, our selfishness, our ignorance, inlessons of sorrow and shame. Better, because all that is noble in men and women is demanded bythe time, and our people are rising to the standard the time calls for. For this is the question thehour is putting to each of us: Are you ready, if need be, to sacrifice all that you have and hope forin this world, that the generations to follow you may inherit a whole country, whose naturalcondition shall be peace, and not a broken province which must live under the perpetual threat, ifnot in the constant, presence, of war and although war brings with it? If we are all ready for thissacrifice, battles may be lost, but the campaign and his grand object must be won.Heaven is very kind in its way of putting questions to mortals. We are not abruptly askedto give up all that we must care for, in view of the momentous issues before us. Perhaps weshould never be asked to give up all, but we have already been called upon to part with much thatis dear to us, and should be ready to yield the rest as it is called for. This time may come wheneven the cheap public print shall be a burden armies cannot support, and we can only listen in thesquare that was once the marketplace to the voices of those who proclaim defeat or victory. Thenthere will be only our daily food left. When we have nothing to read and nothing to eat, it will bea favorable moment to offer a compromise. At present we have all that nature absolutelydemands,— we can live on bread and the newspaper.Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., “Bread and the Newspaper,” Atlantic Monthly (Vol. 8: No. 47),September 1861.41861 - Bread and the Newspaper - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.Spenceley, J. Winfred , Engraver. Bookplate of Oliver Wendell Holmes. , ca. 1875. [Between and1894] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2007683254/.5

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1861 - Bread and the Newspaper - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

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