o lucky as to come across it. I
confess that hard necessity, or, perhaps I may say, too soft good
nature, has compelled me to make so many unideal ones that I have almost
exhausted my natural stock of universally applicable sentiment and my
acquired provision of anecdote and allusion. I find myself somewhat in
the position of Heine, who had prepared an elaborate oration for his
first interview with Goethe, and when the awful moment arrived could
only stammer out that the cherries on the road to Weimar were uncommonly
fine. [Laughter.]

But, fortunately, the duty which is given to me to-night is not so
onerous as might be implied in the sentiment that has called me up. I am
consoled, not only by the lexicographer as to the meaning of the phrase
"to answer for," but also by an observation of mine, which is, that
speakers on an occasion like this are not always expected to allude
except in distant and vague terms to the subject on which they are
specially supposed to talk.

Now, I have a more pleasing and personal duty, it appears to me, on this
my first appearance before an English audience on my return to England.
It gives me great pleasure to think that, in calling upon me, you call
upon me as representing two things which are exceedingly dear to me, and
which are very near to my heart. One is that I represent in some sense
the unity of English literature under whatever sky it may be produced;
and the other is that I represent also that friendliness of feeling,
based on a better understanding of each other, which is growing up
between the two branches of the British stock. [Cheers.] I could wish
that my excellent successor here as American Minister could fill my
place to-night, for I am sure that he is as fully inspired as I ever was
with a desire to draw closer the ties of friendship between the mother
and the daughter, and could express it in a more eloquent and more
emphatic manner than even I myself could do--at any rate in a more
authoritative manner.

For myself, I have only to say that I come back from my native land
confirmed in my love of it and in my faith in it. I come back also full
of warm gratitude for the feeling that I find in England; I find in the
old home a guest-chamber prepared for me, and a warm welcome. [Cheers.]
Repeating what his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief has said, that
every man is bound in duty, if he were not bound in affection and
loyalty, to put his own country first, I may b