ew York,
and you will give me some credit for having aided such a man as Artemus
Ward. But I am growing gossipy. I say all this, however, just to show
that I have some claim to call myself a New Yorker. I was here for a
long time, and here some of my best work was done. But what can I say to
thank you for the kind manner in which you have received me?

Before I left London a gentleman said to me: "The two greatest honors of
your country are to get a degree from Harvard, and to be a guest of the
Lotos Club;" for you must know that they talk a great deal about you.
[Laughter.] This was said to me by an English gentleman of letters, for,
as I said, you are extremely well known over there, and your hospitality
is so celebrated that to have received the stamp of it is to be
distinguished.

I said it was very strange, but the last thing that happened to me
before leaving America was to receive the degree of A. M. from
Cambridge, but I did not venture to aspire to the other one. And now the
first thing that happens to me on my return is to receive your
invitation. Gentlemen, ambition can no further go. [Laughter.] As Horace
says, a man may change his skies, but not his disposition, and I wish to
show you that I have not forgotten my manners while abroad; and, in this
connection, that a good speech should have a short answer. A very
excellent speech preceded mine. I have made my answer altogether too
long. Thanking you from my heart, for your courteous kindness, I now take
my seat. [Applause.]

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

CENTRAL IDEAS OF THE REPUBLIC

[Fragment of a speech of Abraham Lincoln at the Republican banquet in
Chicago, December 10, 1856. The rest of this speech, if it was ever
reported, is presumably no longer extant, as it is not published in
any collection of Lincoln's speeches.]

GENTLEMEN:--We have another annual presidential message. Like a
rejected lover making merry at the wedding of his rival, the President
felicitates himself hugely over the late presidential election. He
considers the result a signal triumph of good principles and good men,
and a very pointed rebuke of bad ones. He says the people did it. He
forgets that the "people," as he complacently calls only those who voted
for Buchanan, are in a minority of the whole people by about four
hundred thousand votes--one full tenth of all the votes. Remembering
this, he might perceive that the "rebuke" may not be quite as durable as
he seems t