ten something, which really deserved your
approbation. [Applause.] To be serious, I am, of course, aware why this
great privilege has been conferred upon me. It is because you have
associated me with those great men with whom I was in happy intercourse,
that you have made my heart glad to-night.

It has ever been my ambition to blend my life, as the great painter does
his colors, "with brains, sir;" and I venture to think that such a
yearning is a magnificent proof that we are not wholly destitute of this
article, as when the poor wounded soldier exclaimed, on hearing the
doctor say that he could see his brains: "Oh, please write home and tell
father, for he has always said I never had any." [Laughter.] Be that as
it may, my appreciation of my superiors has evoked from them a
marvellous sympathy, has led to the formation of very precious
friendships, and has been my elevator unto the higher abodes of
brightness and freshness, as it is to-night.

Yes, my brothers, it is delightful to dwell "with brains, sir,"
condensed in books in that glorious world, a library--a world which we
can traverse without being sick at sea or footsore on land; in which we
can reach heights of science without leaving our easy-chair, hear the
nightingales, the poets, with no risk of catarrh, survey the great
battle-fields of the world unscathed; a world in which we are surrounded
by those who, whatever their temporal rank may have been, are its true
kings and real nobility, and which places within our reach a wealth more
precious than rubies, "for all things thou canst desire are not to be
compared with it." In this happy world I met Washington Irving, Fenimore
Cooper, Hawthorne, Willis, Longfellow, Whittier and all your great
American authors, historical, poetical, pathetic, humorous; and ever
since I have rejoiced to hold converse with them. Nevertheless, it is
with our living companions, with our fellow-men who love books as we do,
that this fruition is complete, and so it comes to pass in the words of
one whose name I speak with a full heart, Oliver Wendell Holmes, that "a
dinner-table made up of such material as this is the last triumph of
civilization over barbarism." [Applause.]

We feel as our witty Bishop (afterward Archbishop) Magee described
himself, when he said: "I am just now in such a sweet, genial
disposition, that even a curate might play with me." [Great laughter.]
We are bold to state with Artemus Ward, of his regiment compo