I did not know that I was going to be called upon today, or I should
certainly have tried to fortify myself, as the old darky in Virginia
said when his master sent him down to another part of the plantation
to see if the rebels were fortifying the place: "Massa, they am not
only fortyfying it; they am fiftyfying it!"
I am glad that our Chancellor here to my right said that the speeches
were to be brief. I think that an after-dinner speaker who makes a
long speech ought to have about the same punishment that the member of
parliament mentioned when he introduced a bill, "The only way to stop
suicide is to make it a capital offense, punishable by death."
But I have always tried to avoid redundancy of expression. I would
never say a "wealthy plumber," nor a "poor poet," nor for that matter
a "poor professor."
"Vessels of wrath, we pedagogues;
Better we were dead,
Who, by the wrath of Peleus' son,
Must earn our daily bread."
Nor would I say an "interesting Menorah Association meeting." That
they are interesting goes without saying, if we can judge from the
one we had last night.
I am exceedingly interested in real culture, and being an American,
and knowing, as I do, what the Jews in America can do for the
advancement of learning, of knowledge and of the humanities, I am
interested in the Menorah movement, which will tend to bring this
about; and it is when we reflect upon the war in Europe today, with
all its sickening horrors and what that means to culture (we can
hardly comprehend it yet), what an obstacle to learning, that we may
exclaim with that old bibliophile, Richard de Bury:
"O pacis auctor et amator altissime! dissipa gentes bella volentes quæ
super omnes pestilentias libris nocent."
And by "libris" he meant culture.