Augustine Birrell made the speech of introduction, closing with this paragraph:
Mark Twain is a man whom Englishmen and Americans do well to honor.
He is a true consolidator of nations. His delightful humor is of
the kind which dissipates and destroys national prejudices. His
truth and his honor—his love of truth and his love of honor
—overflow all boundaries. He has made the world better by his
presence, and we rejoice to see him here. Long may he live to reap
a plentiful harvest of hearty honest human affection.
The toast was drunk standing. Then Clemens rose and made a speech which delighted all England. In his introduction Mr. Birrell had happened to say, “How I came here I will not ask!” Clemens remembered this, and looking down into Mr. Birrell's wine-glass, which was apparently unused, he said:
“Mr. Birrell doesn't know how he got here. But he will be able to get away all right—he has not drunk anything since he came.”
He told stories about Howells and Twichell, and how Darwin had gone to sleep reading his books, and then he came down to personal things and company, and told them how, on the day of his arrival, he had been shocked to read on a great placard, “Mark Twain Arrives: Ascot Cup Stolen.”
No doubt many a person was misled by those sentences joined together
in that unkind way. I have no doubt my character has suffered from
it. I suppose I ought to defend my character, but how can I defend
it? I can say here and now that anybody can see by my face that I
am sincere—that I speak the truth, and that I have never seen that
Cup. I have not got the Cup, I did not have a chance to get it. I
have always had a good character in that way. I have hardly ever
stolen anything, and if I did steal anything I had discretion enough
to know about the value of it first. I do not steal things that are
likely to get myself into trouble. I do not think any of us do
that. I know we all take things—that is to be expected; but really
I have never taken anything, certainly in England, that amounts to
any great thing. I do confess that when I was here seven years ago
I stole a hat—but that did not amount to anything. It was not a
good hat it was only a clergyman's hat, anyway. I was at a
luncheon-party and Archdeacon Wilberforce was there also. I dare say
he is archdeacon now—he was a canon then—and he was serving in the
Westminster Battery, if that is the proper term. I do not know, as
you mix military and ecclesiastical things together so much.
He recounted the incident of the exchanged hats; then he spoke of graver things. He closed:
I cannot always be cheerful, and I cannot always be chaffing. I
must sometimes lay the cap and bells aside and recognize that I am
of the human race. I have my cares and griefs, and I therefore
noticed what Mr. Birrell said—I was so glad to hear him say it
—something that was in the nature of these verses here at the top
of the program:
He lit our life with shafts of sun
And vanquished pain.
Thus two great nations stand as one
In honoring Twain.
I am very glad to have those verses. I am very glad and very grateful for what Mr. Birrell said in that connection. I have received since I have been here, in this one week, hundreds of letters from all conditions of people in England, men, women, and children, and there is compliment, praise, and, above all, and better than all, there is in them a note of affection.
Praise is well, compliment is well, but affection—that is the last and final and most precious reward that any man can win, whether by character or achievement, and I am very grateful to have that reward. All these letters make me feel that here in England, as in America, when I stand under the English or the American flag I am not a stranger, I am not an alien, but at home.