e allowed to steal a leaf
out of the book of my adopted fellow-citizens in America; and while I
love my native country first, as is natural, I may be allowed to say I
love the country next best which I cannot say has adopted me, but which,
I will say, has treated me with such kindness, where I have met with
such universal kindness from all classes and degrees of people, that I
must put that country at least next in my affection.

I will not detain you longer. I know that the essence of speaking here
is to be brief, but I trust that I shall not lay myself open to the
reproach that in my desire to be brief I have resulted in making myself
obscure. [Laughter.] I hope I have expressed myself explicitly enough;
but I would venture to give another translation of Horace's words, and
say that I desire to be brief, and therefore I efface myself. [Laughter
and cheers.]

* * * * *

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT

[Speech of James Russell Lowell at the dinner of the Incorporated
Society of Authors, London, July 25, 1888, given to the "American Men
and Women of Letters" who happened to be in London on that date.]

MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--I confess that I rise
under a certain oppression. There was a time when I went to make an
after-dinner speech with a light heart, and when on my way to the dinner
I could think over my exordium in my cab and trust to the spur of the
moment for the rest of my speech. But I find as I grow older a certain
aphasia overtakes me, a certain inability to find the right word
precisely when I want it; and I find also that my flank becomes less
sensitive to the exhilarating influences of that spur to which I have
just alluded. I had pretty well made up my mind not to make any more
after-dinner speeches. I had an impression that I had made quite enough
of them for a wise man to speak, and perhaps more than it was profitable
for other wise men to listen to. [Laughter.] I confess that it was with
some reluctance that I consented to speak at all to-night. I had been
bethinking me of the old proverb of the pitcher and the well which is
mentioned, as you remember, in the proverb; and it was not altogether a
consolation to me to think that that pitcher, which goes once too often
to the well, belongs to the class which is taxed by another proverb with
too great length of ears. [Laughter.] But I could not resist. I
certainly felt that it was my duty not to refuse myse