Brethren, we whom these dumb faces on the wall make in imagination the contemporaries of eight generations of men, let us remember, and let us inculcate on those who are to fill the places that so soon shall know us no more, let us remember, I say, that if man seem to survive himself and to be mutely perpetuated in these fragile semblances, it is only the stamp of the soul that is eternally operative; it is only the image of ourselves that we have left in some sphere of intellectual or moral achievement, that is indelible, that becomes a part of the memory of mankind, reproductive and beneficent, inspiring and admonitory.
But, brethren, as Charles Lamb said of Coleridge's motto, Sermoni propriori, this is more proper for a sermon than for a dinner-table. But birthdays, after all, gentlemen, are serious things; and as the chance of many more of them becomes precarious, and the approaching birthday of the nation begets in all of us, I should hope, something of a grave and meditative mood, it would be an indecorum to break in upon it too suddenly with the licensed levity of festival. You are waiting to hear other voices, and I trust my example of gravity may act rather as a warning than as precedent to those who are to follow me.
Brethren, at our table there is always one toast, that by custom and propriety takes precedence of all others. It is, I admit, rather an arduous task to pay the most many-sided man a different compliment year after year, and the President of the University must pardon me for saying that he gives a good deal of trouble to the President of the Alumni, as he is apt to do in the case of inefficient persons generally. [Laughter and applause.] One eminent quality, however, I can illustrate in a familiar Latin quotation, which, with your permission, I will put in two ways, thus securing, I should hope, the understanding of the older and younger among you: "Justum et tenacem propositi virum." [Mr. Lowell evoked considerable laughter by pronouncing the Latin according to the continental method.] I give you the health of President Eliot.
THE STAGE
[Speech of James Russell Lowell at a breakfast given to American actors at the Savage Club, London, August, 1880. Charles Dickens [the son of the novelist] occupied the post of chairman and called upon Mr. Lowell to respond to the toast proposed in his honor: "The Health of the American Minister.">[
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen:—In listening to the kind words and still more in hearing the name of the gentleman who was kind enough to propose the toast to which I am replying, I cannot help recalling the words of one of your English poets:—
"Oh, for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!"
I was honored with the acquaintance, in some sort, I may say, with the friendship of the father of the gentleman who proposed my name, and before saying anything further you will allow me to remark that my countrymen are always ready to recognize the hereditary claims when based upon hereditary merit. ["Hear! Hear!">[
Gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to me to be here, but in some sense I regard it also as a kind of duty to be present on any occasion when the star-spangled banner and the red cross of England hang opposite each other, in friendly converse. May they never hang opposite each other in any other spirit. [Cheers.] I say so because I think it is the duty of any man who in any sense represents one of the English-speaking races, to be present on an occasion which indicates, as this does, that we are one in all those great principles which lie at the basis of civilized society—never mind what the form of government may be.