Chapter X: Part 10

This is a very unconventional after-dinner speech. Especially it will be thought strange that in returning thanks I should deliver something very much like a homily. But I have thought I could not better convey my thanks than by the expression of a sympathy which issues in a fear. If, as I gather, this intemperance in work affects more especially the Anglo-American part of the population, if there results an undermining of the physique not only in adults, but also in the young, who as I learn from your daily journals are also being injured by overwork--if the ultimate consequence should be a dwindling away of those among you who are the inheritors of free institutions and best adapted to them, then there will come a further difficulty in the working out of that great future which lies before the American nation. To my anxiety on this account you must please ascribe the unusual character of my remarks.

And now I must bid you farewell. When I sail by the Germanic on Saturday, I shall bear with me pleasant remembrances of my intercourse with many Americans, joined with regrets that my state of health has prevented me from seeing a larger number.

ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY

AMERICA VISITED

[Speech of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster, at the
breakfast given by the Century Club, New York City, November 2,
1878.]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--The hospitality shown to me has been no exception to that with which every Englishman meets in this country, in the endless repetition of kind words and the overwhelming pressure of genial entertainment which has been thrust upon me. That famous Englishman, Dr. Johnson, when he went from England to Scotland, which, at that time, was a more formidable undertaking than is a voyage from England to America at the present time, met at a reception at St. Andrew's a young professor who said, breaking the gloomy silence of the occasion: "I trust you have not been disappointed!" And the famous Englishman replied: "No; I was told that I should find men of rude manners and savage tastes, and I have not been disappointed." So, too, when I set out for your shores I was told that I should meet a kindly welcome and the most friendly hospitality. I can only say, with Dr. Johnson, I have not been disappointed.

But in my vivid though short experience of American life and manners, I have experienced not only hospitality, but considerate and thoughtful kindness, for which I must ever be grateful. I can find it in my heart even to forgive the reporters who have left little of what I have said or done unnoted, and when they have failed in this, have invented fabulous histories of things which I never did and sayings which I never uttered. Sometimes when I have been questioned as to my impressions and views of America, I have been tempted to say with an Englishman who was hard pressed by his constituents with absurd solicitations: "Gentlemen, this is the humblest moment of my life, that you should take me for such a fool as to answer all your questions." But I know their good intentions and I forgive them freely.

The two months which I have spent on these shores seem to me two years in actual work, or two centuries rather, for in them I have lived through all American history. In Virginia I saw the era of the earliest settlers, and I met John Smith and Pocahontas on the shores of the James River. In Philadelphia I lived with William Penn, but in a splendor which I fear would have shocked his simple soul. At Salem I encountered the stern founders of Massachusetts; at Plymouth I watched the Mayflower threading its way round the shoals and promontories of that intricate bay. On Lake George and at Quebec I followed the struggle between the English and the French for the possession of this great continent. At Boston and Concord I followed the progress of the War of Independence. At Mount Vernon I enjoyed the felicity of companionship with Washington and his associates. I pause at this great name, and carry my recollections no further. But you will understand how long and fruitful an experience has thus been added to my life, during the few weeks in which I have moved amongst the scenes of your eventful history.

And then, leaving the past for the present, a new field opens before me. There are two impressions which are fixed upon my mind as to the leading characteristics of the people among whom I have passed, as the almanac informs me, but two short months. On the one hand I see that everything seems to be fermenting and growing, changing, perplexing, bewildering. In that memorable hour--memorable in the life of every man, memorable as when he sees the first view of the Pyramids, or of the snow-clad range of the Alps--in the hour when for the first time I stood before the cataracts of Niagara, I seemed to see a vision of the fears and hopes of America. It was midnight, the moon was full, and I saw from the Suspension Bridge the ceaseless contortion, confusion, whirl, and chaos, which burst forth in clouds of foam from that immense central chasm which divides the American from the British dominion; and as I looked on that ever-changing movement, and listened to that everlasting roar, I saw an emblem of the devouring activity, and ceaseless, restless, beating whirlpool of existence in the United States. But into the moonlight sky there rose a cloud of spray twice as high as the Falls themselves, silent, majestic, immovable. In that silver column, glittering in the moonlight, I saw an image of the future of American destiny, of the pillar of light which should emerge from the distractions of the present--a likeness of the buoyancy and hopefulness which characterize you both as individuals and as a nation.

You may remember Wordsworth's fine lines on "Yarrow Unvisited," "Yarrow Visited," and "Yarrow Revisited." "America Unvisited"--that is now for me a vision of the past; that fabulous America, in which, before they come to your shores, Englishmen believe Pennsylvania to be the capital of Massachusetts, and Chicago to be a few miles from New York--that has now passed away from my mind forever. "America Visited"; this, with its historic scenes and its endless suggestions of thought, has taken the place of that fictitious region. Whether there will ever be an "America Revisited" I cannot say; but if there should be, it will then be to me not the land of the Pilgrim Fathers and Washington, so much as the land of kindly homes, and enduring friendships, and happy recollections, which have now endeared it to me. One feature of this visit I fear I cannot hope to see repeated, yet one without which it could never have been accomplished. My two friends, to whom such a pleasing reference has been made by Dr. Adams, who have made the task easy for me which else would have been impossible; who have lightened every anxiety; who have watched over me with such vigilant care that I have not been allowed to touch more than two dollars in the whole course of my journey--they, perchance, may not share in "America Revisited." But if ever such should be my own good fortune, I shall remember it as the land which I visited with them; where, if at first they were welcomed to your homes for my sake, I have often felt as the days rolled on that I was welcomed for their sake. And you will remember them. When in after years you read at the end of some elaborate essay on the history of music or on Biblical geography the name of George Grove, you will recall with pleasure the incessant questionings, the eager desire for knowledge, the wide and varied capacity for all manner of instruction, which you experienced in your conversations with him here. And when also hereafter there shall reach to your shores the fame of the distinguished physician, Dr. Harper, whether in England or in New Zealand, you will be the more rejoiced because it will bring before you the memory of the youthful and blooming student who inspected your hospitals with such keen appreciation, so impartially sifting the good from the evil.

I part from you with the conviction that such bonds of kindly intercourse will cement the union between the two countries even more than the wonderful cable, on which it is popularly believed in England that my friend and host, Mr. Cyrus Field, passes his mysterious existence appearing and reappearing at one and the same moment in London and in New York. Of that unbroken union there seemed to me a likeness, when on the beautiful shores of Lake George, the Loch Katrine of America, I saw a maple and an oak-tree growing together from the same stem, perhaps from the same root--the brilliant fiery maple, the emblem of America; the gnarled and twisted oak, the emblem of England. So may the two nations always rise together, so different each from each, and representing so distinct a future, yet each springing from the same ancestral root, each bound together by the same healthful sap, and the same vigorous growth.

HENRY MORTON STANLEY

THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT

[Speech of Henry M. Stanley at a dinner given in his honor by the
Lotos Club, New York City, November 27, 1886. Whitelaw Reid,
President of the Lotos Club, in welcoming Mr. Stanley, said: "Well,
gentlemen, your alarm of yesterday and last night was needless. The
Atlantic Ocean would not break even a dinner engagement for the man
whom the terrors of the Congo and the Nile could not turn back, and
your guest is here. [Applause.] It is fourteen years since you last
gave him welcome. Then he came to you fresh from the discovery of
Livingstone. The credulity which even doubted the records of that
adventurous march or the reality of his brilliant result had hardly
died out. Our young correspondent, after seeing the war end here
without his having a fair chance to win his spurs, had suddenly
made a wonderful hit out of the expedition which nobody had really
believed in and most people had laughed at. We were proud of him,
and right glad to see him, and a little bit uneasy, but vastly
amused over his peppery dealings with the Royal Geographers.
[Laughter.] In spite of our admiration for his pluck and his luck
we did not take him quite seriously. [Laughter.] In fact we did not
take anything very seriously in those days. The Lotos Club at first
was younger in that hearty enthusiastic reception to Stanley
fourteen years ago in that gay little clubhouse next to the Academy
of Music; we were thinking far more of a hearty greeting to the
comrade of the quill who had been having a hard time but had scored
'a big beat' [laughter] than of adequate recognition to the man
already well launched on a career that ranks him among the foremost
explorers of the century. [Loud cheers.] It is the character in
which you must welcome him now. The Royal Geographical Society has
no further doubt as to the credit to which he is entitled. He
brings its diploma of honorary membership ["Hear! Hear!"], he bears
the gold medal of Victor Emmanuel, the decorations of the Khedive,
the commission of the King of the Belgians. More than any of them
he cherishes another distinction--what American would not prize
it?--the vote of thanks of the Legislature and the recognition of
his work by our Government. The young war-correspondent has led
expeditions of his own--the man who set out merely to find
Livingstone, has himself done a work greater than Livingstone's.
[Applause.] He has explored Equatorial Africa, penetrated the Dark
Continent from side to side, mapped the Nile, and founded the Free
State on the Congo.' [Applause.] All honor to our returning guest!
The years have left their marks upon his frame and their honors
upon his name. Let us make him forget the fevers that have parched
him, the wild beasts and the more savage men that have pursued him.
["Hear! Hear!"] He is once more among the friends of his youth, in
the land of his adoption. Let us make him feel at home. [Applause.]
I give you the health of our friend and comrade."]

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE LOTOS CLUB: One might start a great many principles and ideas which would require to be illustrated and drawn out in order to present a picture of my feelings at the present moment. I am conscious that in my immediate vicinity there are people who were great when I was little. I remember very well when I was unknown to anybody, how I was sent to report a lecture by my friend right opposite, Mr. George Alfred Townsend, and I remember the manner in which he said: "Galileo said: 'The world moves round,' and the world does move round," upon the platform of the Mercantile Hall in St. Louis--one of the grandest things out. [Laughter and applause.] The next great occasion that I had to come before the public was Mark Twain's lecture on the Sandwich Islands, which I was sent to report. And when I look to my left here I see Colonel Anderson, whose very face gives me an idea that Bennett has got some telegraphic despatch and is just about to send me to some terrible region for some desperate commission. [Laughter.]

And, of course, you are aware that it was owing to the proprietor and editor of a newspaper that I dropped the pacific garb of a journalist and donned the costume of an African traveller. It was not for me, one of the least in the newspaper corps, to question the newspaper proprietor's motives. He was an able editor, very rich, desperately despotic. [Laughter.] He commanded a great army of roving writers, people of fame in the news-gathering world; men who had been everywhere and had seen everything from the bottom of the Atlantic to the top of the very highest mountain; men who were as ready to give their advice to National Cabinets [laughter] as they were ready to give it to the smallest police courts in the United States. [Laughter.] I belonged to this class of roving writers, and I can truly say that I did my best to be conspicuously great in it, by an untiring devotion to my duties, an untiring indefatigability, as though the ordinary rotation of the universe depended upon my single endeavors. [Laughter.] If, as some of you suspect, the enterprise of the able editor was only inspired with a view to obtain the largest circulation, my unyielding and guiding motive, if I remember rightly, was to win his favor by doing with all my might that duty to which according to the English State Church Catechism, "it had pleased God to call me." [Laughter and applause.]

He first despatched me to Abyssinia--straight from Missouri to Abyssinia! What a stride, gentlemen! [Laughter.] People who lived west of the Missouri River have scarcely, I think, much knowledge of Abyssinia, and there are gentlemen here who can vouch for me in that, but it seemed to Mr. Bennett a very ordinary thing, and it seemed to his agent in London a very ordinary thing indeed, so I of course followed suit. I took it as a very ordinary thing, and I went to Abyssinia, and somehow or other good-luck followed me and my telegrams reporting the fall of Magdala happened to be a week ahead of the British Government's. The people said I had done right well, though the London papers said I was an impostor. [Laughter.]

The second thing I was aware of was that I was ordered to Crete to run the blockade, describe the Cretan rebellion from the Cretan side, and from the Turkish side; and then I was sent to Spain to report from the Republican side and from the Carlist side, perfectly dispassionately. [Laughter.] And then, all of a sudden, I was sent for to come to Paris. Then Mr. Bennett, in that despotic way of his, said: "I want you to go and find Livingstone." As I tell you, I was a mere newspaper reporter. I dared not confess my soul as my own. Mr. Bennett merely said: "Go," and I went. He gave me a glass of champagne and I think that was superb. [Laughter.] I confessed my duty to him, and I went. And as good-luck would have it, I found Livingstone. [Loud and continued cheering.] I returned as a good citizen ought and as a good reporter ought and as a good correspondent ought, to tell the tale, and arriving at Aden, I telegraphed a request that I might be permitted to visit civilization before I went to China. [Laughter.] I came to civilization, and what do you think was the result? Why, only to find that all the world disbelieved my story. [Laughter.] Dear me! If I were proud of anything, it was that what I said was a fact ["Good!"]; that whatever I said I would do, I would endeavor to do with all my might, or, as many a good man had done before, as my predecessors had done, to lay my bones behind. That's all. [Loud cheering.] I was requested in an off-hand manner--just as any member of the Lotos Club here present would say--"Would you mind giving us a little résumé of your geographical work?" I said: "Not in the least, my dear sir; I have not the slightest objection." And do you know that to make it perfectly geographical and not in the least sensational, I took particular pains and I wrote a paper out, and when it was printed, it was just about so long [indicating an inch]. It contained about a hundred polysyllabic African words. [Laughter.] And yet "for a' that and a' that" the pundits of the Geographical Society--Brighton Association--said that they hadn't come to listen to any sensational stories, but that they had come to listen to facts. [Laughter.] Well now, a little gentleman, very reverend, full of years and honors, learned in Cufic inscriptions and cuneiform characters, wrote to "The Times" stating that it was not Stanley who had discovered Livingstone but that it was Livingstone who had discovered Stanley. [Laughter.]

If it had not been for that unbelief, I don't believe I should ever have visited Africa again; I should have become, or I should have endeavored to become, with Mr. Reid's permission, a conservative member of the Lotos Club. [Laughter.] I should have settled down and become as steady and as stolid as some of these patriots that you have around here, I should have said nothing offensive. I should have done some "treating." I should have offered a few cigars and on Saturday night, perhaps, I would have opened a bottle of champagne and distributed it among my friends. But that was not to be. I left New York for Spain and then the Ashantee War broke out and once more my good-luck followed me and I got the treaty of peace ahead of everybody else, and as I was coming to England from the Ashantee War a telegraphic despatch was put into my hands at the Island of St. Vincent, saying that Livingstone was dead. I said: "What does that mean to me? New Yorkers don't believe in me. How was I to prove that what I have said is true? By George! I will go and complete Livingstone's work. I will prove that the discovery of Livingstone was a mere fleabite. I will prove to them that I am a good man and true." That is all that I wanted. [Loud cheers.]

I accompanied Livingstone's remains to Westminster Abbey. I saw those remains buried which I had left sixteen months before enjoying full life and abundant hope. The "Daily Telegraph's" proprietor cabled over to Bennett: "Will you join us in sending Stanley over to complete Livingstone's explorations?" Bennett received the telegram in New York, read it, pondered a moment, snatched a blank and wrote: "Yes. Bennett." That was my commission, and I set out to Africa intending to complete Livingstone's explorations, also to settle the Nile problem, as to where the head-waters of the Nile were, as to whether Lake Victoria consisted of one lake, one body of water, or a number of shallow lakes; to throw some light on Sir Samuel Baker's Albert Nyanza, and also to discover the outlet of Lake Tanganyika, and then to find out what strange, mysterious river this was which had lured Livingstone on to his death--whether it was the Nile, the Niger, or the Congo. Edwin Arnold, the author of "The Light of Asia," said: "Do you think you can do all this?" "Don't ask me such a conundrum as that. Put down the funds and tell me to go. That is all." ["Hear! Hear!"] And he induced Lawson, the proprietor, to consent. The funds were put down, and I went.

First of all, we settled the problem of the Victoria that it was one body of water, that instead of being a cluster of shallow lakes or marshes, it was one body of water, 21,500 square miles in extent. While endeavoring to throw light upon Sir Samuel Baker's Albert Nyanza, we discovered a new lake, a much superior lake to Albert Nyanza--the dead Locust Lake--and at the same time Gordon Pasha sent his lieutenant to discover and circumnavigate the Albert Nyanza and he found it to be only a miserable 140 miles, because Baker, in a fit of enthusiasm had stood on the brow of a high plateau and looking down on the dark blue waters of Albert Nyanza, cried romantically: "I see it extending indefinitely toward the southwest!" Indefinitely is not a geographical expression, gentlemen. [Laughter.] We found that there was no outlet to the Tanganyika, although it was a sweet-water lake; we, settling that problem, day after day as we glided down the strange river that had lured Livingstone to his death, we were in as much doubt as Livingstone had been, when he wrote his last letter and said: "I will never be made black man's meat for anything less than the classic Nile."

After travelling 400 miles we came to the Stanley Falls, and beyond them, we saw the river deflect from its Nileward course toward the Northwest. Then it turned west, and then visions of towers and towns and strange tribes and strange nations broke upon our imagination, and we wondered what we were going to see, when the river suddenly took a decided turn toward the southwest and our dreams were put an end to. We saw then that it was aiming directly for the Congo, and when we had propitiated some natives whom we encountered, by showing them crimson beads and polished wire, that had been polished for the occasion, we said: "This is for your answer. What river is this?" "Why, it is _the_ river, of course." That was not an answer, and it required some persuasion before the chief, bit by bit digging into his brain, managed to roll out sonorously that, "It is the Ko-to-yah Congo." "It is the river of Congo-land." Alas for our classic dreams! Alas for Crophi and Mophi, the fabled fountains of Herodotus! Alas for the banks of the river where Moses was found by the daughter of Pharaoh! This is the parvenu Congo! Then we glided on and on past strange nations and cannibals--not past those nations which have their heads under their arms--for 1,100 miles, until we arrived at the circular extension of the river and my last remaining companion called it the Stanley Pool, and then five months after that our journey ended.

After that I had a very good mind to come back to America, and say, like the Queen of Uganda: "There, what did I tell you?" But you know, the fates would not permit me to come over in 1878. The very day I landed in Europe the King of Italy gave me an express train to convey me to France, and the very moment I descended from it at Marseilles there were three ambassadors from the King of the Belgians asked me to go back to Africa. "What! go back to Africa? Never! [Laughter.] I have come for civilization; I have come for enjoyment. I have come for love, for life, for pleasure. Not I. Go and ask some of those people you know who have never been to Africa before. I have had enough of it." "Well, perhaps, by and by?" "Ah, I don't know what will happen by and by, but, just now, never! never! Not for Rothschild's wealth!" [Laughter and applause.]

I was received by the Paris Geographical Society, and it was then I began to feel "Well, after all, I have done something, haven't I?" I felt superb [laughter], but you know I have always considered myself a Republican. I have those bullet-riddled flags, and those arrow-torn flags, the Stars and Stripes that I carried in Africa, for the discovery of Livingstone, and that crossed Africa, and I venerate those old flags. I have them in London now, jealously guarded in the secret recesses of my cabinet. I only allow my very best friends to look at them, and if any of you gentlemen ever happen in at my quarters, I will show them to you. [Applause.]

After I had written my book, "Through the Dark Continent," I began to lecture, using these words: "I have passed through a land watered by the largest river of the African continent, and that land knows no owner. A word to the wise is sufficient. You have cloths and hardware and glassware and gunpowder and these millions of natives have ivory and gums and rubber and dye-stuffs, and in barter there is good profit." [Laughter.]

The King of the Belgians commissioned me to go to that country. My expedition when we started from the coast numbered 300 colored people and fourteen Europeans. We returned with 3,000 trained black men and 300 Europeans. The first sum allowed me was $50,000 a year, but it has ended at something like $700,000 a year. Thus, you see, the progress of civilization. We found the Congo, having only canoes. To-day there are eight steamers. It was said at first that King Leopold was a dreamer. He dreamed he could unite the barbarians of Africa into a confederacy and called it the Free State, but on February 25, 1885, the Powers of Europe and America also ratified an act, recognizing the territories acquired by us to be the free and independent State of the Congo. Perhaps when the members of the Lotos Club have reflected a little more upon the value of what Livingstone and Leopold have been doing, they will also agree that these men have done their duty in this world and in the age that they lived, and that their labor has not been in vain on account of the great sacrifices they have made to the benighted millions of dark Africa. [Loud and enthusiastic applause.]

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN

TRIBUTE TO RICHARD HENRY STODDARD

[Speech of Edmund Clarence Stedman as chairman of the dinner given
by the Authors' Club to Richard Henry Stoddard, New York City,
March 26, 1897.]

GENTLEMEN:--The members of the Authors' Club are closely associated to-night with many other citizens in a sentiment felt by one and all--that of love and reverence for the chief guest of the evening. He has our common pride in his fame. He has what is, I think, of even more value to him, our entire affection. We have heard something of late concerning the "banquet habit," and there are banquets which make it seem to the point. But there are also occasions which transfigure even custom, and make it honored "in the observance." Nor is this a feast of the habitual kind, as concerns its givers, its recipient, and the city in which it is given. The Authors' Club, with many festivals counted in its private annals, now, for the first time, offers a public tribute to one of its own number; in this case, one upon whom it long since conferred a promotion to honorary membership. As for New York, warder of the gates of the ocean, and by instinct and tradition first to welcome the nation's visitors, it constantly offers bread and salt--yes, and speeches--to authors, as to other guests, from older lands, and many of us often have joined in this function. But we do not remember that it has been a habit for New York to tender either the oratorical bane or the gustatory antidote to her own writers. Except within the shade of their own coverts they have escaped these offerings, unless there has been something other than literary service to bring them public recognition. In the latter case, as when men who are or have been members of our club become Ambassadors, because they are undeniably fitted for the missions to Great Britain and France, even authors are made to sit in state. To-night's gathering, then, is, indeed, exceptional, being in public honor of an American author here resident--of "one of our own"--who is not booked for a foreign mission, nor leaving the country, nor returning, nor doing anything more unusual than to perform his stint of work, and to sing any song that comes to him--as he tells us,

"Not because he woos it long,
But because it suits its will,
Tired at last of being still."

Our homage is rendered, with love and enthusiasm, for his service to "mere literature"--for his indomitable devotion throughout half a century to the joy and toil of his profession, in which he has so fought the fight and kept the faith of a working man of letters. It is rendered to the most distinguished poet, of his country and generation, still remaining with us and still in full voice. It is rendered to the comrade--to the man who, with his modesty and fortitude and the absence of self-seeking--with the quips and quirks that cover his gravest moods, with his attachment for the city which has given him that which Lamb so loved, "the sweet security of streets"--it is rendered, I say, to the man who best preserves for us, in his living presence, the traditions of all that an English-speaking poet and book-fellow should be to constitute a satisfying type.

There is, perhaps, a special fitness in our gathering at this time. I sometimes have thought upon the possible career of our poet if his life had been passed in the suburbs of the down-east Athens, among serenities and mutualities so auspicious to the genius and repute of that shining group lately gathered to the past. One thing is certain, he would not have weathered his seventieth birthday, at any season, without receiving such a tribute as this, nor would a public dinner have reminded him of days when a poet was glad to get any dinner at all. Through his birth, Massachusetts claims her share in his distinction. But, having been brought to New York in childhood, he seems to have reasoned out for himself the corollary to a certain famous epigram, and to have thought it just as well to stay in the city which resident Bostonians keep as the best place to go to while still in the flesh. Probably he had not then realized the truth, since expressed in his own lines:--

"Yes, there's a luck in most things, and in none
More than in being born at the right time!"

His birthday, in fact, comes in midsummer, when New York is more inert than an analytic novel. This dinner, then, is one of those gifts of love which are all the more unstinted because by chance deferred.

It was in the order of things, and no cause for blame, that, after this town passed from the provincial stage, there was so long a period when it had to be, as De Quincey said of Oxford Street, a stony-hearted mother to her bookmen and poets; that she had few posts for them and little of a market. Even her colleges had not the means, if they had the will, to utilize their talents and acquirements. We do owe to her newspapers and magazines, and now and then to the traditional liking of Uncle Sam for his bookish offspring, that some of them did not fall by the way, even in that arid time succeeding the Civil War, when we learned that letters were foregone, not only inter arma, but for a long while afterward. Those were the days when English went untaught, and when publishers were more afraid of poetry than they now are of verse. Yet here is one who was able to live through it all, and now sees a changed condition, to the evolution of which he contributed his full share. But he is no more a child of the past than of the present, nor need he repine like Cato, as one who has to account for himself to a new generation. He is with us and of us, and in the working ranks, as ever.

For all this he began long enough ago to have his early poetry refused by Poe, because it was too good to be the work of an obscure stripling, and to have had Hawthorne for his sponsor and friend. His youth showed again how much more inborn tendency has to do with one's life than any external forces--such as guardianship, means, and what we call education. The thrush takes to the bough, wheresoever hatched and fledged. Many waters cannot quench genius, neither can the floods drown it. The story of Dickens's boyhood, as told by himself, is not more pathetic--nor is its outcome more beautiful--than what we know of our guest's experiences--his orphanage, his few years' meagre schooling, his work as a boy in all sorts of shifting occupations, the attempt to make a learned blacksmith of him, his final apprenticeship to iron-moulding, at which he worked on the East Side from his eighteenth to his twenty-first year. As Dr. Griswold put it, he began to mould his thoughts into the symmetry of verse while he moulded the molten metal into shapes of grace. Mr. Stoddard, however, says that a knowledge of foundries was not one of the learned Doctor's strong points. Yet the young artisan somehow got hold of books, and not only made poetry, but succeeded in showing it to such magnates as Park Benjamin and Willis. The kindly Willis said that he had brains enough to make a reputation, but that "writing was hard work to do, and ill paid when done." But the youth was bound to take the road to Arcady. He asked for nothing better than this ill-paid craft. His passion for it, doubtless was strengthened by his physical toil and uncongenial surroundings. For one I am not surprised that much of his early verse, which is still retained in his works, breathes the spirit of Keats, though where and how this strayed singer came to study that most perfect and delicate of masters none but himself can tell. The fact remains that he somehow, also, left his moulding and trusted to his pen. To use his own words, he "set resolutely to work to learn the only trade for which he seemed fitted--that of literature." From that time to this, a half century, he has clung to it. Never in his worst seasons did he stop to think how the world treated him, or that he was entitled to special providences. He accepted poverty or good-luck with an equal mind, content with the reward of being a reader, a writer, and, above all, a poet. He managed not to loaf, and yet to invite his soul--and his songs are evidence that the invitation was accepted. If to labor is to pray, his industry has been a religion, for I doubt if there has been a day in all these fifty years when, unless disabled bodily, he has not worked at his trade.

We all know with what results. He has earned a manly living from the first, and therewithal has steadily contributed a vital portion to the current, and to the enduring, literature of his land and language. There was one thing that characterized the somewhat isolated New York group of young writers in his early prime--especially himself and his nearest associates, such as Taylor and Boker, and, later, Aldrich and Winter. They called themselves squires of poesy, in their romantic way, but they had neither the arrogance nor the chances for a self-heralding, more common in these chipper modern days. They seem to have followed their art because they adored it, quite as much as for what it could do for them.

Of Mr. Stoddard it may be said that there have been few important literary names and enterprises, North or South, but he has "been of the company." If he found friends in youth, he has abundantly repaid his debt in helpful counsel to his juniors--among whom I am one of the eldest and most grateful. But I cannot realize that thirty-seven years of our close friendship have passed since I showed my first early work to him, and he took me to a publisher. Just as I found him then, I find him any evening now, in the same chair, in the same corner of the study, "under the evening lamp." We still talk of the same themes; his jests are as frequent as ever, but the black hair is silvered and the active movements are less alert. I then had never known a mind so stored with bookish lore, so intimate with the lives of rare poets gone by, yet to what it then possessed he, with his wonderful memory, has been adding ever since.

If his early verse was like Keats, how soon he came to that unmistakable style of his own--to the utterance of those pure lyrics, "most musical, most melancholy"--"to the perfection of his matchless songs," and again, to the mastery of blank verse, that noblest measure, in "The Fisher and Charon"--to the grace and limpid narrative verse of "The King's Bell," to the feeling, wisdom--above all, to the imagination--of his loftier odes, among which that on Lincoln remains unsurpassed. This is not the place to eulogize such work. But one thing may be noted in the progress of what in Berkeley's phrase may be called the planting of arts and letters in America. Mr. Stoddard and his group were the first after Poe to make poetry--whatever else it might be--the rhythmical creation of beauty. As an outcome of this, and in distinction from the poetry of conviction to which the New England group were so addicted, look at the "Songs of Summer" which our own poet brought out in 1857. For beauty pure and simple it still seems to me fresher and more significant than any single volume produced up to that date by any Eastern poet save Emerson. It was "poetry or nothing," and though it came out of time in that stormy period, it had to do with the making of new poets thereafter.

In conclusion, I am moved to say, very much as I wrote on his seventieth birthday, that our poet's laborious and nobly independent life, with all its lights and shadows, has been one to be envied. There is much in completeness--its rainbow has not been dissevered--it is a perfect arc. As I know him, it has been the absolute realization of his young desire, the unhasting, unresting life of a poet and student, beyond that of any other writer among us. Its compensations have been greater than those of ease and wealth. Even now he would not change it, though at an age when one might well have others stay his hands. He had the happiness to win in youth the one woman he loved, with the power of whose singular and forceful genius his own is inseparably allied. These wedded poets have been blessed in their children, in the exquisite memory of the dead, in the success and loyalty of the living. His comrades have been such as he pictured to his hope in youth--poets, scholars, artists of the beautiful, with whom he has "warmed both hands before the fire of life." None of them has been a more patient worker or more loved his work. To it he has given his years, whether waxing or waning; he has surrendered for it the strength of his right hand, he has yielded the light of his eyes, and complains not, nor need he, "for so were Milton and Mæonides." What tears this final devotion may have caused to flow, come from other eyes than his own. And so, with gratulation void of all regrets, let us drink to the continued years, service, happiness of our strong and tender-hearted elder comrade, our white-haired minstrel, Richard Henry Stoddard.

LESLIE STEPHEN

THE CRITIC

[Speech of Leslie Stephen at the annual banquet of the Royal
Academy, London, April 29, 1893, in response to the toast,
"Literature." Sir Frederic Leighton, President of the Academy,
spoke of Literature as "that in which is garnered up the heat that
feeds the spiritual life of men." In the vein of personal
compliment he said: "For literature I turn to a distinguished
writer whose acute and fearless mind finds a fit vehicle in clear
and vigorous English and to me seems winged by that vivid air which
plays about the Alpine peaks his feet have in the past so dearly
loved to tread--I mean my friend, Mr. Leslie Stephen."]

MR. PRESIDENT, YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN:--When a poet or a great imaginative writer has to speak in this assembly he speaks as to brethren-in-arms, to persons with congenial tastes and with mutual sympathies, but when, instead of the creative writer, the Academy asks a critic to speak to them, then nothing but your proverbial courtesy can conceal the fact that they must really think they are appealing to a natural enemy. I have the misfortune to be a critic [laughter], but in this assembly I must say I am not an art critic. Friends have made a presumptuous attempt to fathom the depth of my ignorance upon artistic subjects, and they have thought that in some respects I must be admirably qualified for art criticism. [Laughter.]

As a literary critic I have felt, and I could not say I was surprised to find how unanimously critics have been condemned by poets and artists of all generations. I need only quote the words of the greatest authority, Shakespeare, who in one of his most pathetic sonnets reckons up the causes of the weariness of life and speaks of the spectacle of--

"Art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly (doctor-like), controlling skill."

The great poet probably wrote these words after the much misrepresented interview with Lord Bacon in which the Chancellor explained to the poet how "Hamlet" should have been written, and from which it has been inferred that he took credit for having written it himself. [Laughter.] Shakespeare naturally said what every artist must feel; for what is an artist? That is hardly a question to be asked in such an assembly, where I have only to look round to find plenty of people who realize the ideal artist, persons who are simple, unconventional, spontaneous, sweet-natured [laughter], who go through the world influenced by impressions of everything that is beautiful, sublime, and pathetic. Sometimes they seem to take up impressions of a different kind [laughter]; but still this is their main purpose--to receive impressions of images, the reproduction of which may make this world a little better for us all. For such people a very essential condition is that they should be spontaneous; that they should look to nothing but telling us what they feel and how they feel it; that they should obey no external rules, and only embody those laws which have become a part of their natural instinct, and that they should think nothing, as of course they do nothing, for money; though they would not be so hard-hearted as to refuse to receive the spontaneous homage of the world, even when it came in that comparatively vulgar form. [Laughter.]

But what is a critic? He is a person who enforces rules upon the artist, like a gardener who snips a tree in order to make it grow into a preconceived form, or grafts upon it until it develops into a monstrosity which he considers beautiful. We have made some advance upon the old savage. The man who went about saying, "This will never do," has become a thing of the past. The modern critic if he has a fault has become too genial; he seems not to distinguish between the functions of a critic and the founder of a new religious sect. [Laughter.] He erects shrines to his ideals, and he burns upon them good, strong, stupefying incense. This may be less painful to the artist than the old-fashioned style; but it may be doubted whether it is not equally corrupting, and whether it does not stimulate a selfishness equally fatal to spontaneous production; whether it does not in the attempt to encourage originality favor a spurious type which consists merely in setting at defiance real common sense, and sometimes common decency.

I hope that critics are becoming better, that they have learned what impostors they have been, and that their philosophy has been merely the skilful manipulation of sonorous words, and that on the whole, they must lay aside their magisterial role and cease to suppose they are persons enforcing judicial decisions or experts who can speak with authority about chemical analysis. I hope that critics will learn to lay aside all pretension and to see only things that a critic really can see, and express genuine sympathy with human nature; and when they have succeeded in doing that they will be received as friends in such gatherings as the banquet of the Royal Academy. [Cheers.]

RICHARD SALTER STORRS

THE VICTORY AT YORKTOWN

[Speech of Rev. Dr. Richard S. Storrs at a banquet of the Chamber
of Commerce of the State of New York, given November 5, 1881, in
New York City, in honor of the guests of the nation, the French
diplomatic representatives in America, and members of the families
descended from our foreign sympathizers and helpers, General
Lafayette, Count de Rochambeau, Count de Grasse, Baron von Steuben
and others, who had been present at the centennial celebration of
the victory at Yorktown. The chairman, James M. Brown, vice
President of the Chamber of Commerce, proposed the toast to which
Dr. Storrs responded, "The Victory at Yorktown: it has rare
distinction among victories, that the power which seemed humbled by
it looks back to it now without regret, while the peoples who
combined to secure it, after the lapse of a century of years, are
more devoted than ever to the furtherance of the freedom to which
it contributed."]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE:--It is always pleasant to respond to your invitations and to join with you on these festival occasions. You remember the reply of the English lady [Lady Dufferin] perhaps, when the poet Rogers sent her a note saying: "Will you do me the favor to breakfast with me to-morrow?" To which she returned the still more laconic autograph, "Won't I?" [Laughter.]

Perhaps one might as well have that lithographed as his reply to your cordial and not infrequent invitations. [Laughter.] I do not know whether you are aware of it, on this side of the East River--perhaps you don't read the newspapers much--but in that better part of the great metropolis in which it is my privilege to live, we think of showing our appreciation of this Chamber of Commerce by electing for Mayor next week, one of your younger members, the son of one of your older and most distinguished members, my honored friend, Mr. Low. [Applause.]

It is certainly especially pleasant to be here this evening, Mr. President and gentlemen, when we meet together, men of commerce, men of finance, lawyers, journalists, physicians, clergymen, of whatever occupation, all of us, I am sure, patriotic citizens, to congratulate each other upon what occurred at Yorktown a hundred years ago, on the 19th of October, 1781, and to express our hearty honor and esteem for these distinguished descendants or representatives of the gallant men who then stood with our fathers as their associates and helpers. [Applause.]

It has always seemed to me one of the most significant and memorable things connected with our Revolutionary struggle, that it attracted the attention, elicited the sympathy, inspired the enthusiasm, and drew out the self-sacrificing co-operation of so many noble spirits, loving freedom, in different parts of Western and Central Europe. [Applause.] You remember that Lord Camden testified from his own observation in 1775, about the time of the battle of Concord Bridge, that the merchants, tradesmen, and common people of England were on the side of the Colonists, and that only the landed interest really sustained the Government. So the more distant Poland sent to us Count Pulaski of noble family, who had been a brilliant leader for liberty at home, who fought gallantly in our battles, and who poured out his life in our behalf in the assault upon Savannah. [Cheers.] And it sent another, whose name has been one to conjure with for freedom from that day to this; who planned the works on Bemis Heights, against which Burgoyne in vain hurled his assault; who superintended the works at West Point; who, returning to his own country, fought for Poland as long as there was a Poland to fight for; whom the very Empire against which he had so long and so fiercely contended on behalf of his country, honored and eulogized after his death--Thaddeus Kosciusko. [Cheers.]

Germany sent us Von Steuben; one, but a host, whose services in our war were of immense and continual aid to our troops; who fought gallantly at Yorktown; and who, chose afterwards, to finish his life in the country for which he had fearlessly drawn his sword. [Applause.] France sent us Lafayette [loud cheers], young, brilliant, with everything to detain him at home, who had heard of our struggle, at Metz, you remember, in a conversation with the Duke of Gloucester, in whom the purpose was there formed, in a flash, to identify himself with the fortunes of the remote, poor, unfriended, and almost unknown colonists; who came, against every opposition, in a ship which he had bought and fitted for the purpose, and whose name, as has well been said in the sentiment in which we have already united, will be joined imperishably with that of Washington, as long as the history of our country continues. [Applause.]

With him came John DeKalb, the intrepid Alsatian, who, after fighting gallantly through the war, up to the point of his death, fell at Camden, pierced at last by many wounds. [Cheers.] With them, or after them, came others, Gouvion, Duportail--some of their names are hardly now familiar to us--Duplessis, Duponceau, afterward distinguished in literature and in law, in the country in which he made his residence. There came great supplies of military equipment, important, we may say indispensable, aids of money, clothing, and of all the apparatus of war; and, finally, came the organized naval and military force, with great captains at the head, Rochambeau [loud cheers], Chastellux, De Choisy, De Lauzun, St. Simon, De Grasse--all this force brilliantly representative, as we know, of our foreign allies, in the victory at Yorktown. [Applause.]