<p>In 'The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,' Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. weaves a tapestry of discourse through a series of essays that marry the philosophical with the mundane. These are expressed as a predominantly one-way conversation amidst the quaint setting of a New England boarding house. Holmes's seriocomic masterpiece is rich with Yankee candor and permeates a sense of convivial wisdom as it delves into varied subject matters, from the une...