[Speech of James Russell Lowell at the annual banquet of the Royal
Academy, London, May 1, 1886, in response to the toast, "The Interests
of Literature." The President of the Academy, Sir Frederic Leighton,
said, in introducing Mr. Lowell: "In the name of letters, of English
letters, in the broadest sense, I rejoice to turn, not for the first
time at this table, to one who counts among the very foremost of their
representatives. As a poet richly endowed, as a critic most subtle and
penetrating, among humorists the most genial, as a speaker not
surpassed--who shall more fittingly rise in the name of Literature
than Mr. Russell 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 so 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 be 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.]
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