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 polic