The Guardian Angel

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Breaking the Fourth Wall in 1867

Much like Ebenezer Scrooge and the Christmas ghosts, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.’s The Guardian Angel makes it seem as though you and the author together are quietly standing side by side, watching the action unfold.

Holmes draws you in as a confidant.  Throughout this 19^th century novel, he continually addresses you directly.  As you both casually observe events, he’ll occasionally lean over and drop you a comment.  Often, his remarks seem to be accompanied with a wink. 

However, at other times, he seems to pull you gently away by the arm as though the events taking place are not your business.  For example, when one character decides to write a “Dear John” letter to a suitor, Holmes comments:

“It would seem like betraying Susan’s confidence to reveal the contents of this letter, but the reader may be assured that it was simple and sincere and very sweetly written…”

Holmes’ dry wit can sneak up on you at times. But there are also genuine laugh-out-loud moments scattered throughout the narrative.

The Guardian Angel is a happy book.  The journey is fun.  There is suspense, but without giving anything away, things turn out the way they should.  By and large, characters get what they deserve.  Those that want redemption get it.  And the heart-warming conclusion will please you.

Holmes was the dean of Harvard Medical School, the father of a future US Supreme Court justice, and a poet.  He wrote the classic poem “Old Ironside”.

But he was also an accomplished novelist with a unique talent for establishing a comfortable rapport with his “dear readers.”  The Guardian Angel will draw you in, make you comfortable, and have you looking forward to enjoying more of Holmes’ works.

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Quotes

A man over ninety is a great comfort to all his elderly neighbors:  he is a picket-guard at the extreme outpost; and the young folks of sixty and seventy feel that the enemy must get by him before he can come near their camp.

He had all the aspects of a man of books. His study, which was the best room in Mrs. Hopkins’s house, was filled with a miscellaneous-looking collection of volumes, which his curious literary taste had got together from the shelves of all the libraries that had been broken up during his long life as a scholar.  Classics, theology, especially of the controversial sort, statistics, politics, law, medicine, science, occult and overt, general literature—almost every branch of knowledge was represented.  His learning was very various, and of course mixed up, useful and useless, new and ancient, dogmatic and rational—like his library, in short; for a library gathered like his is a looking-glass in which the owner’s mind is reflected.

There are those who hold the opinion that truth is only safe when diluted—about one fifth to four fifths lies—as the oxygen of the air is with its nitrogen.  Else it would burn us all up.

He liked the pleasurable excitement of emotional relations with his pretty lambs, and enjoyed it under the name of religious communion.  here is a border land where one can stand on the territory of legitimate instincts and affections, and yet be so n ear, the pleasant garden of the Adversary, that his dangerous fruits and flowers are in easy reach.  Once tasted, the next step is like to be the scaling of the wall.  The Rev. Mr. Stoker was very fond of this border land.

To know whether a minister, young or still in flower, is in safe or dangerous paths, there are two psychometers, a comparison between which will give as infallible a return as the dry and web bulbs of the ingenious “Hygrodeik.” The first is the black broadcloth forming the knees of his pantaloons; the second, the patch of carpet before his mirror.  If the first is unworn and the second is frayed and threadbare, pray for him.  If the first is worn and shiny, while the second keeps its pattern and texture, get him to pray for you.

Subdivision of labor is one of the triumphs of modern civilization.  Labor was beautifully subdivided in this lady’s household.  It was old Ketchum’s business to make money, and he understood it.  It was Mrs. K’s business to spend money, and she knew how to do it.

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