collection for any other
charitable occasion [laughter], I could not help thinking that the
Anglo-Saxon race--if you will allow me to use an expression which is
sometimes criticised--that the Anglo-Saxon race has misinterpreted a
familiar text of Scripture and reads it: "Out of the fulness of the
mouth the heart speaketh." I confess that if Alexander, who once offered
a reward for a new pleasure, were to come again upon earth, I should
become one of the competitors for the prize, and I should offer for his
consideration a festival at which there were no speeches. [Laughter.]
The gentlemen of your profession have in one sense a great advantage
over the rest of us. Your speeches are prepared for you by the cleverest
men of your time or by the great geniuses for all time. You can be witty
or wise at much less expense than those of us who are obliged to fall
back upon our own resources. Now I admit that there is a great deal in
the spur of the moment, but that depends very much upon the flank of the
animal into which you dig it. There is also a great deal in that
self-possessed extemporaneousness which a man carries in his pocket on a
sheet of paper. It reminds one of the compliment which the Irishman paid
to his own weapon, the shillalah, when he said: "It's a weapon which
never misses fire." But then it may be said that it applies itself more
directly to the head than to the heart. I think I have a very capital
theory of what an after-dinner speech should be; we have had some
examples this afternoon and I have made a great many excellent ones
myself; but they were always on the way home, and after I had made a
very poor one when I was on my legs. [Laughter.] My cabman has been the
confidant of an amount of humor and apt quotations and clever sayings
which you will never know, and which you will never guess. But something
in what has been said by one of my countrymen recalls to my mind a
matter of graver character. As a man who has lived all his life in the
country, to my shame be it said I have not been an habitual
theatre-goer. I came too late for the elder Kean. My theatrical
experience began with Fanny Kemble--I forget how many years ago, but
more than I care to remember--and I recollect the impression made upon
me by her and by her father. I was too young to be critical; I was young
enough to enjoy; but I remember that what remained with me and what
remains with me still of what I heard and saw, and especially with
reg