Model Speeches For Practise Part 2

ENGLAND, MOTHER OF NATIONS

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen:--It is pleasant to me to meet this great and brilliant company, and doubly pleasant to see the faces of so many distinguished persons on this platform. But I have known all these persons already. When I was at home, they were as near to me as they are to you. The arguments of the League and its leader are known to all friends of free trade. The gaieties and genius, the political, the social, the parietal wit of "Punch" go duly every fortnight to every boy and girl in Boston and New York. Sir, when I came to sea, I found the "History of Europe" on the ship's cabin table, the property of the captain;--a sort of program or play-bill to tell the seafaring New Englander what he shall find on landing here. And as for Dombey, sir, there is no land where paper exists to print on, where it is not found; no man who can read, that does not read it, and, if he can not, he finds some charitable pair of eyes that can, and hears it.

But these things are not for me to say; these compliments tho true, would better come from one who felt and understood these merits more. I am not here to exchange civilities with you, but rather to speak on that which I am sure interests these gentlemen more than their own praises; of that which is good in holidays and working-days, the same in one century and in another century. That which lures a solitary American in the woods with the wish to see England, is the moral peculiarity of the Saxon race,--its commanding sense of right and wrong,--the love and devotion to that,--this is the imperial trait, which arms them with the scepter of the globe. It is this which lies at the foundation of that aristocratic character, which certainly wanders into strange vagaries, so that its origin is often lost sight of, but which, if it should lose this, would find itself paralyzed; and in trade, and in the mechanic's shop, gives that honesty in performance, that thoroughness and solidity of work, which is a national characteristic. This conscience is one element, and the other is that loyal adhesion, that habit of friendship, that homage of man to man, running through all cla.s.ses,--the electing of worthy persons to a certain fraternity, to acts of kindness and warm and staunch support, from year to year, from youth to age,--which is alike lovely and honorable to those who render and those who receive it;--which stands in strong contrast with the superficial attachments of other races, their excessive courtesy, and short-lived connection.

You will think me very pedantic, gentlemen, but holiday tho it be, I have not the smallest interest in any holiday, except as it celebrates real and not pretended joys; and I think it just, in this time of gloom and commercial disaster, of affliction and beggary in these districts, that on these very accounts I speak of, you should not fail to keep your literary anniversary. I seem to hear you say that, for all that is come and gone, yet we will not reduce by one chaplet or one oak-leaf the braveries of our annual feast. For I must tell you, I was given to understand in my childhood that the British island, from which my forefathers came, was no lotus-garden, no paradise of serene sky and roses and music and merriment all the year round, no, but a cold, foggy, mournful country, where nothing grew well in the open air, but robust men and virtuous women and these of a wonderful fiber and endurance; that their best parts were slowly revealed; their virtues did not come out until they quarrelled; they did not strike twelve the first time; good lovers, good haters, and you could know little about them till you had seen them long, and little good of them till you had seen them in action; that in prosperity they were moody and dumpish, but in adversity they were grand.

Is it not true, sir, that the wise ancients did not praise the ship parting with flying colors from the port, but only that brave sailor which came back with torn sheets and battered sides, stript of her banners, but having ridden out the storm? And so, gentlemen, I feel in regard to this aged England, with the possessions, honors and trophies, and also with the infirmities of a thousand years gathering around her, irretrievably committed as she now is to many old customs which can not be suddenly changed; pressed upon by the transitions of trade, and new and all incalculable modes, fabrics, arts, machines and competing populations,--I see her not dispirited, not weak, but well remembering that she has seen dark days before; indeed with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day, and that in storm of battle and calamity, she has a secret vigor and a pulse like a cannon. I see her in her old age, not decrepit, but young, and still daring to believe in her power of endurance and expansion. Seeing this, I say, All hail!

mother of nations, mother of heroes, with strength still equal to the time; still wise to entertain and swift to execute the policy which the mind and heart of mankind require in the present hour, and thus only hospitable to the foreigner, and truly a home to the thoughtful and generous who are born in the soil. So be it! so be it! If it be not so, if the courage of England goes with the chances of a commercial crisis, I will go back to the capes of Ma.s.sachusetts, and my own Indian stream, and say to my countrymen, the old race are all gone and the elasticity and hope of mankind must henceforth remain on the Alleghany ranges, or nowhere.

THE AGE OF RESEARCH

BY WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE

Mr. Chairman, Your Royal Highness, My Lords and Gentlemen:--I think no question can be raised as to the just claims of literature to stand upon the list of toasts at the Royal Academy, and the sentiment is one to which, upon any one of the numerous occasions of my attendance at your hospitable board, I have always listened with the greatest satisfaction until the present day arrived, when I am bound to say that that satisfaction is extremely qualified by the arrangement less felicitous, I think, than any which preceded it that refers to me the duty of returning thanks for Literature. However, obedience is the principle upon which we must proceed, and I have at least the qualification for discharging the duty you have been pleased to place in my hands--that no one has a deeper or more profound sense of the vital importance of the active and constant cultivation of letters as an essential condition of real progress and of the happiness of mankind, and here every one at once perceives that that sisterhood of which the poet spoke, whom you have quoted, is a real sisterhood, for literature and art are alike the votaries of beauty. Of these votaries I may thankfully say that as regards art I trace around me no signs of decay, and none in that estimation in which the Academy is held, unless to be sure, in the circ.u.mstance of your poverty of choice of one to reply to this toast.

During the present century the artists of this country have gallantly and n.o.bly endeavored to maintain and to elevate their standard, and have not perhaps in that great task always received that a.s.sistance which could be desired from the public taste which prevails around them.

But no one can examine even superficially the works which adorn these walls without perceiving that British art retains all its fertility of invention, and this year as much as in any year that I can remember, exhibits in the department of landscape, that fundamental condition of all excellence, intimate and profound sympathy with nature.

As regards literature one who is now beginning at any rate to descend the hill of life naturally looks backward as well as forward, and we must be becoming conscious that the early part of this century has witnessed in this and other countries what will be remembered in future times as a splendid literary age. The elder among us have lived in the lifetime of many great men who have pa.s.sed to their rest--the younger have heard them familiarly spoken of and still have their works in their hands as I trust they will continue to be in the hands of all generations. I am afraid we can not hope for literature--it would be contrary to all the experience of former times were we to hope that it should be equally sustained at that extraordinarily high level which belongs, speaking roughly, to the first fifty years after the peace of 1815. That was a great period--a great period in England, a great period in Germany, a great period in France, and a great period, too, in Italy.

As I have said, I think we can hardly hope that it should continue on a perfect level at so high an elevation. Undoubtedly the cultivation of literature will ever be dear to the people of this country; but we must remember what is literature and what is not. In the first place we should be all agreed that bookmaking is not literature. The business of bookmaking I have no doubt may thrive and will be continued upon a constantly extending scale from year to year. But that we may put aside.

For my own part if I am to look a little forward, what I antic.i.p.ate for the remainder of the century is an age not so much of literature proper--not so much of great, permanent and splendid additions to those works in which beauty is embodied as an essential condition of production, but rather look forward to an age of research. This is an age of great research--of great research in science, great research in history--an age of research in all the branches of inquiry that throw light upon the former condition whether of our race, or of the world which it inhabits; and it may be hoped that, even if the remaining years of the century be not so brilliant as some of its former periods, in the production of works great in themselves, and immortal,--still they may add largely to the knowledge of mankind; and if they make such additions to the knowledge of mankind, they will be preparing the materials of a new tone and of new splendors in the realm of literature. There is a sunrise and sunset. There is a transition from the light of the sun to the gentler light of the moon. There is a rest in nature which seems necessary in all her great operations. And so with all the great operations of the human mind. But do not let us despond if we seem to see a diminished efficacy in the production of what is essentially and immortally great. Our sun is hidden only for a moment. It is like the day-star of Milton:--

"Which anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore, Flames in the forehead of the morning sky."

I rejoice in an occasion like this which draws the attention of the world to topics which ill.u.s.trate the union of art with literature and of literature with science, because you have a hard race to run, you have a severe compet.i.tion against the attraction of external pursuits, whether those pursuits take the form of business or pleasure. It is given to you to teach lessons of the utmost importance to mankind, in maintaining the principle that no progress can be real which is not equable, which is not proportionate, which does not develop all the faculties belonging to our nature. If a great increase of wealth in a country takes place, and with that increase of wealth a powerful stimulus to the invention of mere luxury, that, if it stands alone, is not, never can be, progress.

It is only that one-sided development which is but one side of deformity. I hope we shall have no one-sided development. One mode of avoiding it is to teach the doctrine of that sisterhood you have a.s.serted to-day, and confident I am that the good wishes you have exprest on behalf of literature will be re-echoed in behalf of art wherever men of letters are found.

ADDRESS OF WELCOME[1]

BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

Brothers of the a.s.sociation of the Alumni:--It is your misfortune and mine that you must accept my services as your presiding officer of the day in the place of your retiring president. I shall not be believed if I say how unwillingly it is that for the second time I find myself in this trying position; called upon to fill, as I best may, the place of one whose presence and bearing, whose courtesy, whose dignity, whose scholarship, whose standing among the distinguished children of the university, fit him alike to guide your councils and to grace your festivals. The name of Winthrop has been so long a.s.sociated with the State and with the college that to sit under his mild empire is like resting beneath one of these wide-branching elms the breadth of whose shade is only a measure of the hold its roots have taken in the soil. In the midst of civil strife we, the children of this our common mother, have come together in peace. And surely there never was a time when we more needed a brief respite in some chosen place of refuge, some unviolated sanctuary, from the cares and anxieties of our daily existence than at this very hour. Our life has grown haggard with excitement. The rattle of drums, the march of regiments, the gallop of squadrons, the roar of artillery, seem to have been continually sounding in our ears day and night, sleeping and waking, for two long years and more. How few of us have not trembled and shuddered with fear over and over again for those whom we love. Alas! how many that hear me have mourned over the lost--lost to earthly sight, but immortal in our love and their country's honor! We need a little breathing-s.p.a.ce to rest from our anxious thoughts, and, as we look back to the tranquil days we pa.s.sed in this still retreat, to dream of that future when in G.o.d's good time, and after his wise purpose is fulfilled, the fair angel who has so long left us shall lay her hand upon the leaping heart of this embattled nation and whisper, "Peace! be still!"

Here of all places in the world we may best hope to find the peace we seek for. It seems as if nothing were left undisturbed in New England except here and there an old graveyard, and these dear old College buildings, with the trees in which they are embowered. The old State House is filled with those that sell oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money. The Hanc.o.c.k house, the umbilical scar of the cord that held our city to the past, is vanishing like a dimple from the water.

But Ma.s.sachusetts, venerable old Ma.s.sachusetts, stands as firm as ever; Hollis, this very year a centenarian, is waiting with its honest red face in a glow of cordiality to welcome its hundredth set of inmates; Holden Chapel, with the skulls of its Doric frieze and the unpunishable cherub over its portals, looks serenely to the sunsets; Harvard, within whose ancient walls we are gathered, and whose morning bell has murdered sleep for so many generations of drowsy adolescents, is at its post, ready to startle the new-fledged freshmen from their first uneasy slumbers. All these venerable edifices stand as they did when we were boys,--when our grandfathers were boys. Let not the rash hand of innovation violate their sanct.i.ties, for the cement that knits these walls is no vulgar mortar, but is tempered with a.s.sociations and memories which are stronger than the parts they bind together!

We meet on this auspicious morning forgetting all our lesser differences. As we enter these consecrated precincts, the livery of our special tribe in creed and in politics is taken from us at the door, and we put on the court dress of our gracious Queen's own ordering, the academic robe, such as we wore in those bygone years scattered along the seven last decades. We are not forgetful of the honors which our fellow students have won since they received their college "parts,"--their orations, dissertations, disquisitions, colloquies, and Greek dialogs.

But to-day we have no rank; we are all first scholars. The hero in his laurels sits next to the divine rustling in the dry garlands of his doctorate. The poet in his crown of bays, the critic, in his wreath of ivy, clasp each other's hands, members of the same happy family. This is the birthday feast for every one of us whose forehead has been sprinkled from the font inscribed "_Christo et Ecclesioe_." We have no badges but our diplomas, no distinctions but our years of graduation. This is the republic carried into the university; all of us are born equal into this great fraternity.

Welcome, then, welcome, all of you, dear brothers, to this our joyous meeting! We must, we will call it joyous, tho it comes with many saddening thoughts. Our last triennial meeting was a festival in a double sense, for the same day that brought us together at our family gathering gave a new head to our ancient household of the university. As I look to-day in vain for his stately presence and kindly smile, I am reminded of the touching words spoken by an early president of the university in the remembrance of a loss not unlike our own. It was at the commencement exercises of the year 1678 that the Reverend President Urian Oakes thus mourned for his friend Thomas Shepard, the minister of Charlestown, an overseer of the college: "_Dici non potest quam me perorantem, in comitiis, conspectus ejus, multo jucundissimus, recrearit et refecerit. At non comparet hodie Shepardus in his comitiis; oculos huc illuc torqueo; quoc.u.mque tamen inciderint, Platonem meum intanta virorum ill.u.s.trium frequentia requirunt; nusquam amic.u.m et pernecessarium meum in hac solenni panegyric, inter nosce Reverendos Theologos, Academiae Curatores, reperire aut oculis vestigare possum_."

Almost two hundred years have gone by since these words were uttered by the fourth president of the college, which I repeat as no unfitting tribute to the memory of the twentieth, the rare and fully ripened scholar who was suddenly ravished from us as some richly freighted argosy that just reaches her harbor and sinks under a cloudless sky with all her precious treasures.

But the great conflict through which we are pa.s.sing has made sorrow too frequent a guest for us to linger on an occasion like this over every beloved name which the day recalls to our memory. Many of the children whom our mother had trained to arts have given the freshness of their youth or the strength of their manhood to arms. How strangely frequent in our recent record is the sign interpreted by the words "_E vivis cesserunt stelligeri!_" It seems as if the red war-planet had replaced the peaceful star, and these pages blushed like a rubric with the long list of the martyr-children of our university. I can not speak their eulogy, for there are no phrases in my vocabulary fit to enshrine the memory of the Christian warrior,--of him--

"Who, doomed to go in company with Pain And Fear and Bloodshed, miserable train, Turns his necessity to glorious gain--"

"Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth Forever, and to n.o.ble deeds give birth, Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame, And leave a dead, unprofitable name, Finds comfort in himself and in his cause; And while the mortal mist is gathering, draws His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause."

Yet again, O brothers! this is not the hour for sorrow. Month after month until the months became years we have cried to those who stood upon our walls: "Watchmen, what of the night?" They have answered again and again, "The dawn is breaking,--it will soon be day." But the night has gathered round us darker than before. At last--glory be to G.o.d in the highest!--at last we ask no more tidings of the watchmen, for over both horizons east and west bursts forth in one overflowing tide of radiance the ruddy light of victory!

We have no parties here to-day, but is there one breast that does not throb with joy as the banners of the conquering Republic follow her retreating foes to the banks of the angry Potomac? Is there one heart that does not thrill in answer to the drum-beat that rings all over the world as the army of the west, on the morning of the nation's birth, swarms over the silent, sullen earthworks of captured Vicksburg,--to the reveille that calls up our Northern regiments this morning inside the fatal abatis of Port Hudson? We are scholars, we are graduates, we are alumni, we are a band of brothers, but beside all, above all, we are American citizens. And now that hope dawns upon our land--nay, bursts upon it in a flood of glory,--shall we not feel its splendors reflected upon our peaceful gathering, peaceful in spite of those disturbances which the strong hand of our citizen-soldiery has already strangled?

Welcome then, thrice welcome, scholarly soldiers who have fought for your and our rights and honor! Welcome, soldierly scholars who are ready to fight whenever your country calls for your services! Welcome, ye who preach courage as well as meekness, remembering that the Prince of Peace came also bringing a sword! Welcome, ye who make and who interpret the statutes which are meant to guard our liberties in peace, but not to aid our foes in war! Welcome, ye whose healing ministry soothes the anguish of the suffering and the dying with every aid of art and the tender accents of compa.s.sion! Welcome, ye who are training the generous youths to whom our country looks as its future guardians! Welcome, ye quiet scholars who in your lonely studies are unconsciously shaping the thought which law shall forge into its shield and war shall wield as its thunder-bolt!

And to you, Mr. President, called from one place of trust and honor to rule over the concerns of this our ancient and venerated inst.i.tution, to you we offer our most cordial welcome with all our hopes and prayers for your long and happy administration.

I give you, brothers, "The a.s.sociation of the Alumni"; the children of our common mother recognize the man of her choice as their new father, and would like to hear him address a few words to his numerous family.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Delivered at an Alumni Dinner, Cambridge, July 16, 1863.

GOOD WILL TO AMERICA[2]

BY SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

Gentlemen:--Small as are the pretensions which, on any account, I can have to present myself to the attention of this remarkable a.s.semblage, I have had no hesitation in answering the call which is just been made upon me by discharging a duty which is no less gratifying to me than I know it will be agreeable to you--that of proposing that the thanks of this meeting be offered to the chairman for his presidence over us to-day. Every one who admires Mr. Garrison for the qualities on account of which we have met to do him honor on this occasion, must feel that there is a singular appropriateness in the selection of the person who has presided here to-day. No one can fail to perceive a striking similarity--I might almost say a real parallelism of greatness--in the careers of these two eminent persons. Both are men who, by the great qualities of their minds, and the uncompromising spirit of justice which has animated them, have signally advanced the cause of truth and vindicated the rights of humanity. Both have been fortunate enough in the span of their own lifetime to have seen their efforts in the promotion of great ends crowned by triumphs as great as they could have desired, and far greater than they could have hoped. There is no cause with which the name of Mr. Bright has been a.s.sociated which has not sooner or later won its way to victory.

I shall not go over the ground which has been so well dealt with by those who have preceded me. But tho there have been many abler interpreters of your wishes and aspirations to-day than I can hope to be, may I be permitted to join my voice to those which have been raised up in favor of the perpetual amity of England and America. It seems to me that with nations, as well as with individuals, greatness of character depends chiefly on the degree in which they are capable of rising above thee low, narrow, paltry interests of the present, and of looking forward with hope and with faith into the distance of a great futurity. And where, I will ask, is the future of our race to be found?

I may extend the question--where is to be found the future of mankind?

Who that can forecast the fortunes of the ages to come will not answer--it is in that great nation which has sprung from our loins, which is flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. The stratifications of history are full of the skeletons of ruined kingdoms and of races that are no more. Where are a.s.syria and Egypt, the civilization of Greece, the universal dominion of Rome? They founded empires of conquest, which have perished by the sword by which they rose. Is it to be with us as with them? I hope not--I think not. But if the day of our decline should arise, we shall at least have the consolation of knowing that we have left behind us a race which shall perpetuate our name and reproduce our greatness. Was there ever parent who had juster reason to be proud of its offspring? Was there ever child that had more cause for grat.i.tude to its progenitor? From whom but us did America derive those inst.i.tutions of liberty, those instincts of government, that capacity of greatness, which have made her what she is, and which will yet make her that which she is destined to become? These are things which it becomes us both to remember and to think upon. And, therefore, it is that, as our distinguished guest, with innate modesty, has already said, this is not a mere personal festivity--this is no occasional compliment. We see in it a deeper and wider significance. We celebrate in it the union of two nations. While I ask you to return your thanks to our chairman I think I may venture also to ask of our guest a boon which he will not refuse us.

We have a great message to send, and we have here a messenger worthy to bear it. I will ask Mr. Garrison to carry back to his home the prayer of this a.s.sembly and of this nation that there may be forever and forever peace and good will between England and America. For the good will of America and England is nothing less than the evangel of liberty and of peace. And who more worthy to preside over such a gospel than the chairman to whom I ask you to return your thanks to-day? I beg to propose that the thanks of the meeting be given to Mr. Bright.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] Speech at breakfast held in London in honor of Mr. Garrison, June 29, 1867.