Lowell, whom I welcome once more to this country, as
one not led to it to-day by mere hap and chance of diplomatic need,
but drawn, I would fain believe, as by the memory of many friends."]

YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESSES, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN:--I think that I
can explain who the artist might have been who painted the reversed
rainbow of which the Professor[11] has just spoken. I think, after
hearing the too friendly remarks made about myself, that he was probably
some artist who was to answer for his art at a dinner of the Royal
Society; and, naturally, instead of painting the bow of hope, he painted
the reverse, the bow of despair. [Laughter.] When I received your
invitation, Mr. President, to answer for "Literature," I was too well
aware of the difficulties of your position not to know that your choice
of speakers must be guided much more by the necessities of the occasion
than by the laws of natural selection. [Laughter and cheers.] I
remembered that the dictionaries give a secondary meaning to the phrase
"to answer for," and that is the meaning which implies some expedient
for an immediate necessity, as, for example, when one takes shelter
under a tree from shower he is said to make the tree answer for shelter.
[Laughter.] I think even an umbrella in the form of a tree has certainly
one very great advantage over its artificial namesake--viz., that it
cannot be borrowed, not even for the exigencies for which the instrument
made of twilled silk is made use of, as those certainly will admit who
have ever tried it during one of those passionate paroxysms of weather
to which the Italian climate is unhappily subject. [Laughter.]

I shall not attempt to answer for Literature, for it appears to me that
Literature, of all other things, is the one which most naturally is
expected to answer for itself. It seems to me that the old English
phrase with regard to a man in difficulties, which asks: "What is he
going to do about it?" perhaps should be replaced in this period of
ours, when the foundations of everything are being sapped by universal
discussion, with the more pertinent question: "What is he going to say
about it?" ["Hear! Hear!" and laughter.] I suppose that every man sent
into the world with something to say to his fellow-men could say it
better than anyone else if he could only find out what it was. I am sure
that the ideal after-dinner speech is waiting for me somewhere with my
address upon it, if I could only be s