ry man who
goes into public life has his price; teach all the boys to believe that
there is no man who enters public life anywhere that does not look out
for his own, and is not always scheming to do something for himself or
his friends, and seeking to prolong his power; teach every young man who
has a desire to go into political life, to think--because you have told
him so--that the way to succeed is to follow such arts, and by that kind
of talk you may ruin your country. [Applause.]

Now, gentlemen, as I have said, this is a matter for an evening oration.
I have barely touched some of the points. I have said the press has a
twofold duty and fortune: it is the leader, the educator, the director
of the people. It is, at the same time, the reflector of the people. I
could spend an hour upon the theme.

I cannot cease, however, without thanking the President of the St.
Patrick's Society [Denis MacMahon], the only gentleman who has mentioned
the word "centennial." When I was leaving Philadelphia, my wife warned
me not to use that word, knowing to what it might lead me [laughter];
and so I shall simply ask you all to come to Philadelphia next year, and
join in the great national exhibition, where you will have an
opportunity of seeing the progress which this nation has made under the
ideas of liberty, government, industry, and thrift which were instilled
by the Pilgrim Fathers. [Applause.]

JOHN HAY

OMAR KHAYYAM

[Speech of John Hay, American Ambassador to Great Britain, at a dinner
of the Omar Khayyam Club, London, December 8, 1897. Henry Norman,
President of the Club, took the chair and in introducing Colonel Hay,
as the guest of the evening, spoke of him as soldier, diplomatist,
scholar, poet and Omarian.]

GENTLEMEN:--I cannot sufficiently thank you for the high and
unmerited honor you have done me to-night. I feel keenly that on such an
occasion, with such company, my place is below the salt, but as you
kindly invited me it was not in human nature for me to refuse. Although
in knowledge and comprehension of the two great poets whom you are met
to commemorate I am the least among them, there is no one who regards
them with greater admiration, or reads them with more enjoyment than
myself. I can never forget my emotions when I first saw Fitzgerald's
translation of the Quatrains. Keats, in his sublime ode on Chapman's
Homer, has described the sensation once for all:--

"Then felt I like some w