Autographs
“Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul” Signed By Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Boston, Feb. 14th, 1866
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES SR. (1809-1894). American Physician, Professor, Lecturer, and Author.
February 14, 1866-Dated, Autograph Quotation Signed, “Oliver Wendell Holmes” penned upon an Octavo Autograph Leaf measuring 6.75” x 8.75” in finely written black ink, Choice Crisp Extremely Fine. Here, Holmes quotes from his Poem titled, “The Chambered Nautilus” and beautifully pens, in full:

"Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Boston, Feb. 14th, 1866."

The nautilus is a cephalopod of the Pacific and Indian oceans and adds a new chamber to its spiral shell each year; thus annually it moves into "more stately mansions". Holmes saw the shellfish's shell-building as a metaphor for man's ability to seek and find ever higher attainment. This poem was published in 1858, the same year as the Dred Scott decision, which confirmed the legitimacy of Slavery in the South and ruled the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thus bringing the issue to even greater national attention and strengthening the resolve of Yankee abolitionists. Exceptional in quality and superb for display.