[Speech of Simeon Ford at a banquet given to Sir Henry Irving by the Lotos Club, New York City, October 29, 1899. The President, Frank R. Lawrence, occupied the chair.]
[Speech of Simeon Ford at a banquet given to Sir Henry Irving by the Lotos Club, New York City, October 29, 1899. The President, Frank R. Lawrence, occupied the chair.]
Gentlemen:—I cannot but envy you the intellectual treat in which you are revelling, in being permitted to listen to the resistless eloquence of both me and Sir Henry Irving. It is not often that two such stars as me and Sir Henry will consent to twinkle in the same firmament. But your gifted President can accomplish wonders. He is what Weber and Fields[3]call a "hypnotister."
As the President has said, I am not one of the set speakers. I just blew in here, and blew in my good money to attend this feast, like the rest of the rank and file, and now I have to work my passage as well. I am simply put in as a filler. The President, with his awe-inspiring, chill-producing gavel, is the "wrapper," and I am the filler; and you, who smoke, have observed ere this that a mighty fine wrapper is often associated with a very rank filler.
If I had had about twenty minutes' warning I could have prepared a eulogy on Sir Henry, setting forth his virtues as a man and an actor in such a way that he never would have recognized himself, and with such eloquence that Dr. Greer [David H. Greer] would have looked like thirty cents. But I did not get the twenty minutes, so poor Sir Henry must content himself with the few scant bouquets with which he has already been bombarded.
A sober, able-bodied eulogizer with a good address and a boiled shirt can get a pretty steady winter's job in this Clubat board wages. I have, in my poor, weak way, eulogized several distinguished men in this historic room, all of whom I am happy to say, are now convalescent. I eulogized Joe Choate and he got a job at the Court of St. James; I eulogized Horace Porter, and he is now playing one night stands at the Moulin Rouge; Dr. Depew, and he not only got sent to Washington, but got a raise of wages at the Grand Central Depot; yet when I saw him the next day and delicately intimated that I was yearning to view the scenic beauty of his great four track system, his reception reminded me of the lines of Longfellow, beginning—
"Try not the pass, the old man saidDark lowers the tempest overhead."
and so, instead of resting that night on a beautiful Wagner hair-mattress, I had to be content with "excelsior."
The only man who really appreciated my efforts was dear old Joe Jefferson. When I gave him to understand that I was anxious to see him in one of his matchless characterizations, he inquired if I had a family that shared my anxiety, and when informed that I had, he generously tendered all hands a pass to the family circle. The Lord loves a cheerful giver, but the Lord help any one who strikes Joe for a free pass.
I can understand that the life of an actor must be a trying one, and success difficult to achieve, and it must be a source of great gratification to Sir Henry to feel that he has done so much to elevate the stage as well as the price of admission. But he deserves success, and the last time I gave up three dollars to behold him, and afterwards, with a lot of enthusiasts, took his horses from his carriage and dragged him in triumph two miles to his hotel, I really felt that I had had a run for my money.
But if, Sir Henry, in gratitude for this beautiful tribute which I have just paid you, you should feel tempted to reciprocate by taking my horses from my carriage and dragging me in triumph through the streets, I beg that you will restrain yourself for two reasons. The first reason is—I have no horses; the second is—I have no carriage.
[Speech of Simeon Ford at the Annual dinner of the Manhattan Bankers of the New York State Bankers' Association, February 7, 1900. The President, Warner Van Norden, presided.]
[Speech of Simeon Ford at the Annual dinner of the Manhattan Bankers of the New York State Bankers' Association, February 7, 1900. The President, Warner Van Norden, presided.]
Gentlemen:—As I sat here this evening, listening to the strains of that fine old Bankers' anthem entitled "When you ain't got no money, why you needn't come around," I was thinking what a grand idea it was for you magnates to get together once a year to exchange ideas and settle among yourselves what shall be done, and who shall be done, and how you will do them. Personally, I'd prefer to exchange cheques rather than ideas with many here present; not but what the ideas are all right, but somehow, when money talks I am always a fascinated listener.
I did not come here voluntarily, but at the pressing invitation of some of my most pressing creditors on your committee. They said Secretary Gage would be here, and Mr. J. P. Morgan, and that without my presence the affair would seem incomplete, but that if we three got together we could settle various perplexing financial problems right on the spot. The committee told me to choose my own subject and they would endorse anything I would say—without recourse. They delicately intimated, however, that any playful allusions to the City Bank better be left unsaid; and so I can only remark:—
"And I would that my tongue could utter,The thoughts that arise in me!"
and let it go at that.
I must say, however, that Secretary Gage made one serious mistake. If he had consulted me (which he never did, although he had abundant opportunity) I would have advised him to put his money in an institution I know about where it would have received a rousing welcome and where I could have taken a fall out of it myself. If the price of the Custom-House had gotten into my hands, and I'd been given twenty-four hours' start, I believe I could have given the secretary a run for his money. But, instead, he placedit in a rich, smooth-running, well-oiled institution where it was used in averting a panic and straightening out financial tangles, and greasing the wheels of commerce, and similar foolishness.
This is the first opportunity I have had of meeting you Bank Presidents collectively, and when you are thawed out. I have met most of you, individually, when you were frozen stiff. I never supposed you could warm up, as you seem to have done, my previous impressions having been of the "How'd you like to be the iceman" order. Sometimes I have thought I'd almost rather go without the money than get a congestive chill in a Bank President's office, and have him gaze into my eyes, and read the inmost secrets of my soul, and ask unfeeling questions, and pry rudely into my past, and throw out wild suggestions about getting Mr. Astor to endorse for me, and other similar atrocities. And even if I succeed in deceiving him he leads me, crushed, humiliated and feeling like thirty cents, to a fly cashier, who, taking advantage of my dazed condition, includes in my three-months' note, not only Christmas and the Fourth of July, but St. Patrick's Day, Ash Wednesday and sixteen Sundays, so that, by the time he has deducted the interest, what's coming to me looks like a Jaeger undershirt after its first interview with an Africanblanchisseuse. That's the kind of thing the poet had in mind when he wrote—"I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows."
I have observed that one's reception at a bank varies somewhat with the condition of the money market. Go in when money is easy and the President falls on your neck, calls you by your first name, and cheerfully loans you large sums on your "Balloon Common" and your "Smoke Preferred," and you go on your way rejoicing. The next day, news having arrived that a Gordon Highlander has strained a tendon in his leg while sprinting away from a Dutchman near Ladysmith, or an Irish ladychefhas sent home two pounds sterling to her family, money goes up to one hundred and eighty per cent. a minute, and you get a note requesting you to remove your "Balloon Common" and your "Smoke Preferred" and substitute Government Bonds therefore. And still you wonder at crime.
But if you really want to know the meaning of the terms"Marble Heart" and "Icy Eye" go into one of these refrigerating plants for a loan when money is tight. It is prudent at such times to wear ear-muffs and red mittens fastened together by tape so they can't be lost, for you will need 'em.
As soon as you reach the outer air—which will be in about a second—run home and plunge the extremities in hot water, and place a porous plaster on what remains of your self-esteem.
Bankers are too prone to judge a man by his appearance, so that the very men who need the money most have the hardest work to get it. They are apt, especially at the City Bank, to discriminate against the "feller" who looks rocky, in favor of the Rockafeller. Clothes do not make the man! If they did, Hetty Green wouldn't be where she is and Russell Sage would be in the Old Ladies' Home. If Uncle Russell had to travel on his shape, he never would see much of the world. Yet, beneath that ragged coat there beats a heart which as a beater can't be beat—a heart as true (so the Standard Gas people say)—as true as "steal."
But after all, Banks and Trust Companies do a lot of good in a quiet way, especially to their directors—in a quiet way. See what a convenience some of our Trust Companies have been to their directors of late. It would sometimes be mortifying for these directors to have to attempt to borrow money on certain securities, in institutions with which they were not connected, because, instead of getting the money, they might get six months.
I had intended to touch upon a few vital questions concerning finance this evening, but the night is waning and I guess you've all been "touched" sufficiently of late, so I will restrain myself, and give some other orator a chance to get himself disliked.
[Speech of James A. Froude at the banquet of the Royal Academy, London, April 29, 1876. The President, Sir Francis Grant, in introducing Mr. Froude, said: "The next toast is 'The Interests of Literature and Science.' This toast is always so welcome and so highly appreciated that it needs no exordium from the chair. I cannot associate with the interests of literature a name more worthy than that of Mr. Froude, the scholar and distinguished historian."]
[Speech of James A. Froude at the banquet of the Royal Academy, London, April 29, 1876. The President, Sir Francis Grant, in introducing Mr. Froude, said: "The next toast is 'The Interests of Literature and Science.' This toast is always so welcome and so highly appreciated that it needs no exordium from the chair. I cannot associate with the interests of literature a name more worthy than that of Mr. Froude, the scholar and distinguished historian."]
Sir Francis Grant, Your Royal Highnesses, My Lords, and Gentlemen:—While I feel most keenly the honor which you confer upon me in connecting my name with the interests of literature, I am embarrassed, in responding, by the nature of my subject. What is literature, and who are men of letters? From one point of view we are the most unprofitable of mankind—engaged mostly in blowing soap-bubbles. [Laughter.] From another point of view we are the most practical and energetic portion of the community. [Cheers.] If literature be the art of employing words skillfully in representing facts, or thoughts, or emotions, you may see excellent specimens of it every day in the advertisements in our newspapers. Every man who uses a pen to convey his meaning to others—the man of science, the man of business, the member of a learned profession—belongs to the community of letters. Nay, he need not use his pen at all. The speeches of great orators are among the most treasured features of any national literature. The orations of Mr. Grattan are the text-books in the schools of rhetoric in the United States. Mr. Bright, under this aspect of him, holds a foremost place among the men of letters of England. [Cheers.]
Again, sir, every eminent man, be he what he will, be heas unbookish as he pleases, so he is only eminent enough, so he holds a conspicuous place in the eyes of his countrymen, potentially belongs to us, and if not in life, then after he is gone, will be enrolled among us. The public insist on being admitted to his history, and their curiosity will not go unsatisfied. [Cheers.] His letters are hunted up, his journals are sifted; his sayings in conversation, the doggerel which he writes to his brothers and sisters are collected, and stereotyped in print. [Laughter.] His fate overtakes him. He cannot escape from it. We cry out, but it does not appear that men sincerely resist the liberty which is taken with them. We never hear of them instructing their executors to burn their papers. [Laughter.] They have enjoyed so much the exhibition that has been made of their contemporaries that they consent to be sacrificed themselves.
Again, sir, when we look for those who have been most distinguished as men of letters, in the usual sense of the word; where do we find them? The famous lawyer is found in his chambers, the famous artist is found in his studio. Our foremost representatives we do not find always in their libraries; we find them, in the first place, in the service of their country. ["Hear! Hear!"] Owen Meredith is Viceroy of India, and all England has applauded the judgment that selected and sent him there. [Cheers.] The right honorable gentleman [Mr. Gladstone] who three years ago was conducting the administration of this country with such brilliant success was first generally known to his countrymen as a remarkable writer. During forty years of arduous service he never wholly deserted his original calling. ["Hear! Hear!"] He is employing an interval of temporary retirement to become the interpreter of Homer to the English race [cheers], or to break a lance with the most renowned theologians in defence of spiritual liberty. [Cheers.]
A great author, whose life we have been all lately reading with delight, contemplates the year 3000 as a period at which his works may still be studied. If any man might be led reasonably to form such an anticipation for himself by the admiration of his contemporaries, Lord Macaulay may be acquitted of vanity. The year 3000 is far away, muchwill happen between now and then; all that we can say with certainty of the year 3000 is that it will be something extremely different from what any one expects. I will not predict that men will then be reading Lord Macaulay's "History of England." I will not predict that they will then be reading "Lothair." [Laughter.] But this I will say, that if any statesman of the age of Augustus or the Antonines had left us a picture of patrician society at Rome, drawn with the same skill, and with the same delicate irony with which Mr. Disraeli has described a part of English society in "Lothair," no relic of antiquity would now be devoured with more avidity and interest. [Loud cheers.] Thus, sir, we are an anomalous body, with very ill-defined limits. But, such as we are, we are heartily obliged to you for wishing us well, and I give you our most sincere thanks. [Cheers.]
[Speech of Melville W. Fuller at the fifth annual dinner of the New England Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, December 22, 1888. The President, Heman L. Wayland, D.D., said in introducing Justice Fuller:—"The reverence of New England for law and her readiness to make law (a readiness, perhaps our enemies will say, to make them for other people) naturally suggests the topic which is first on the programme—'New England in the Supreme Court.' I shall not enlarge upon the sentiment, lest I should only mar the canvas which will shortly be illumined by the hand of a master. The case of New England versus The World has long been in court; the evidence is in; the learned counsel have been heard; and now, before the case is finally given to the intelligent jury of the human race, it remains only that we hear a charge from his honor, the Chief Justice of the United States."]
[Speech of Melville W. Fuller at the fifth annual dinner of the New England Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, December 22, 1888. The President, Heman L. Wayland, D.D., said in introducing Justice Fuller:—"The reverence of New England for law and her readiness to make law (a readiness, perhaps our enemies will say, to make them for other people) naturally suggests the topic which is first on the programme—'New England in the Supreme Court.' I shall not enlarge upon the sentiment, lest I should only mar the canvas which will shortly be illumined by the hand of a master. The case of New England versus The World has long been in court; the evidence is in; the learned counsel have been heard; and now, before the case is finally given to the intelligent jury of the human race, it remains only that we hear a charge from his honor, the Chief Justice of the United States."]
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the New England Society:—I thank you sincerely for the courtesy which has afforded me the opportunity of being with you this evening, and am deeply sensible of the compliment paid in the request to respond to the sentiment just given.
We all know—we have heard over and over again—that the "Day We Celebrate" commemorates an emigration peculiar in its causes. It was not the desire to acquire wealth or power, nor even the spirit of adventure, that sent these colonists forth. They did not go to return, but to abide; and while they sought to make another country theirs, primarily to enjoy religious independence, they were much too sagacious not to know that emancipation from the ecclesiastical thraldom, of which they complained, involved the attainment of political rights and immunities as well. And so this day commemorates not simply the heroism of struggle and endurance in silence and apart, for a great cause, notsimply the unfeigned faith which rendered such heroism possible, but the planting of that germ of local self-government which has borne glorious fruit in the reconcilement of individual freedom with a national sway of imperial proportions.
It commemorates the advent of that first written constitution of civil government, that first attempt of a people in that form, by self-imposed fundamental law, to put it out of their own power to work injustice; that agreement, signed upon the sea, "to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws and ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices," as should be "thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony," to which all "due submission and obedience" was promised. And this was followed a few years later in the sister colony of Massachusetts Bay by that "Body of Liberties" which, it is well said, may challenge comparison with Magna Charta itself or the latest Bill of Rights. Instinct with the spirit of common law, though somewhat ameliorating its rigor, these "rites, privileges and liberties," to be "impartially and inviolably enjoyed and observed throughout our jurisdiction forever," commence with the preamble that "the free fruition of such liberties, Immunities and privileges humanitie, Civilitie and Christianitie call for as due to every man in his place and proportion without impeachment and Infringement, hath ever been and ever will be the tranquillitie and Stabilitie of Churches and Commonwealths. And the deniall and deprivall thereof, the disturbance. If not the ruine of both. We hould it therefore our dutie and saftie, whilst we are about the further establishment of this Government, to collect and expresse all such freedomes as for present we foresee may concern us, and our posteritie after us."
And so they ordain that no man's life or liberty or property can be taken away, or his honor or good name stained, or his goods or estate in any way damaged under color of law or countenance of authority, unless by due process; that every person, inhabitant or foreign, shall enjoy the same justice and law general to the plantation; that there shall be no monopolies, except for new inventions profitable to the country, and for a short time; no imprisonment without bail except for crimes capital and contempts in opencourt; freedom of alienation and power to devise; no primogeniture, no escheats on attainder and execution for felony; succor to those fleeing from tyranny; full freedom to advise, vote, give verdict or sentence according to true judgment and conscience; in short, the expression or the indication of those safeguards to liberty, the possession of which enables a people to become and to remain free.
Well may we claim for these documents large influence in forerunning the organic laws of the several States, and that matchless instrument which a century ago was framed in this fortunate city, which had been blessed before as the place where the Declaration put on immortality.
And now in the latter half of the third century, since the bearers of the underlying principles of Republican rule placed their feet upon that rock, whose shadow was to become a solace to the weariness of the perpetual toils and encounters of the land, we may well hope that what they sought has been achieved, an enduring Government of laws and not of men; security to freedom and to justice, "justice, that venerable virtue, without which," as exclaimed New England's eloquent orator, "freedom, valor and power are but vulgar things."
It is delightful to keep these remembrances alive, and while duly recognizing the rightful claims of all our brothers to their share in the foundation of the institutions of a common country, to dwell upon what the forefathers were, what they accomplished and what they still accomplish through the works that follow them. And as it is not unnatural that at the same time we should felicitate ourselves upon whatever of eminence or good fortune has attended the efforts of their descendants, the reference, Mr. President, you have made in connection with this toast to the court over which I have the honor to preside enables me with propriety to indulge in an allusion to those from New England who have labored in that field.
On the seventh of April, 1789, a committee was appointed by the Senate "to bring in a bill for organizing the judiciary of the United States." Able as were his colleagues, it has been generally conceded that "that great act was penned" by the chairman of that committee, Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut. On the twenty-fourth of September—the dayupon which the Judiciary Act became a law—President Washington nominated for the Supreme Court of the United States a chief justice and five associates, among the latter William Cushing, of Massachusetts, who, after holding high judicial office under the Crown, but supporting the cause of his country in the Revolution, becoming the first chief justice of the State of Massachusetts, passed from that distinguished station to the Federal bench, as one of his eminent successors has done in our day, and who was commissioned to, but compelled to decline, the headship of the court. Then came Ellsworth, whose great services in framing the Federal Constitution in the Connecticut Convention, in the United States Senate, in high diplomatic position, were complemented by those he performed in the discharge of the duties of this exalted office.
And so, following the careers of Marshall and Taney, Chase (fresh from magnificent conduct of the national finances under circumstances of tremendous difficulty), and Waite, from long and successful practice at the bar, won enduring fame by deserving and obtaining the commendation that a place rendered so illustrious by their predecessors had lost nothing in their hands; men of New England birth, thus dividing in number the incumbency in succession to Ellsworth, while he who has but just entered upon that service, proud of the Prairie State from whence he comes, has never ceased to regard with affection that particular portion of the Fatherland in which he first saw the light.
Ellsworth and Waite, Baldwin and Field, and Strong, of Connecticut; Chase and Woodbury, and Clifford, of New Hampshire; Cushing and Storey, and Curtis, and Gray, of Massachusetts—these are names written imperishably upon the records of the Court. But of the five from Connecticut, Pennsylvania and California and Ohio claim four, and of the three from New Hampshire, Ohio and Maine two; while the Old Bay State preserved her hold on hers.
Surely it is not too much for me to say, that up to the present time New England has in this sphere of public usefulness vindicated her title to regard by the exhibition on the part of her sons of that devotion to duty and that adherence to principle which characterized the men to whose memory the celebration of this day is dedicated.
May that memory ever be precious, and reliance upon that Providence which sustained them under the tribulations of their time, and has conducted their children in triumphant progress through succeeding years, never be less. [Applause.]
[Speech of Hamlin Garland at the eighty-second dinner of the Sunset Club, Chicago, Ill., January 31, 1895. The chairman of the evening, Arthur W. Underwood, introduced Mr. Garland to speak in relation to the general subject of the evening's discussion, "The Tendency and Influence of Modern Fiction." Mr. Underwood said: "To some of us the field of modern fiction may have seemed before this evening a wilderness without a chart. We are fortunate in having with us a man who has left the 'main travelled roads' of fiction and, to mix metaphors a little, a man who can tell us whether the 'idols' that are 'crumbling' are those of the realist or those of the idealist,—Mr. Hamlin Garland."]
[Speech of Hamlin Garland at the eighty-second dinner of the Sunset Club, Chicago, Ill., January 31, 1895. The chairman of the evening, Arthur W. Underwood, introduced Mr. Garland to speak in relation to the general subject of the evening's discussion, "The Tendency and Influence of Modern Fiction." Mr. Underwood said: "To some of us the field of modern fiction may have seemed before this evening a wilderness without a chart. We are fortunate in having with us a man who has left the 'main travelled roads' of fiction and, to mix metaphors a little, a man who can tell us whether the 'idols' that are 'crumbling' are those of the realist or those of the idealist,—Mr. Hamlin Garland."]
Gentlemen:—It is very interesting and pleasant to have the critic come at the problem in his mathematical fashion, but that will not settle it. I will tell you what will settle it—the human soul of the creative man; because if he has the creative power and impulse in him it will make no difference to him whether or not a single person in the world reads or understands his book, or appreciates and understands his painting. What could the critic do with Claude Monet thirty-five years ago? What could the critic do with Robert Browning when he appeared? What has the critic done thus far with Walt Whitman, the greatest spiritual democrat this nation has ever produced? This question is not settled by the schools; it is not settled by critics; it is not to be settled by a group of realists or a group of veritists, or the latest group of impressionists. It is to be settled by the creative impulse of the man, first; and second, and always subordinate to the real artist, the public.
Now, I am perfectly willing to admit that there has been for the past year or two a revival of what might be called the "shilling shocker" in literature, but it seems to me Professor McClintock entirely overestimates and exaggerates theinfluence of the "yore and gore" fictionists; and even if it were true that they filled the magazines to the exclusion of Mr. Read [Opie P. Read] and myself—
[Mr. Read: Which they don't:]
Which they don't—and if it were true that the pendulum is swinging toward the "shilling shocker," it does not follow that it will be a century before there is a return to the thoughtful study of social life. This romance can die, and these books be as dead as Hugh Conway's "Called Back" in less than ten years. I am perfectly willing to admit all these mutations of taste, but there is something deeper than that. Do you know, I have a notion that the reign of cheap melodrama and farce-comedy on our stage and of the "shilling shocker" during the last two years is due largely to our financial condition. Many of you are business men, and I know how you talk. I ask you to go to see a serious play, and you say: "Well, I will tell you; I am pretty well worn out when business is done, and things are not going just as they should, and I would rather go to the theatre to laugh these days. I don't care to go to the theatre to think."
In precisely the same way, when you are called upon, after a hard day of business care and worry, to read a book, and I say to you: "Read Israel Zangwill's 'Children of the Ghetto'; it is one of the greatest studies of our day," you say: "The fact is, I should go to sleep over it. I must have something that has fighting in it. I want 'yore and gore' fiction this year. Later on, when I get over my business difficulties and get where things are easy with me, I'll try Zangwill's 'Children of the Ghetto.' I will sit down with my wife and have her read it aloud." There is great significance in this confession as it appears to me.
And what is this "yore and gore" fiction when you analyze it? It is simply a sublimated "dime novel" which, by reason of increased demand for easy reading, on the part of the tired brain, has been put into a little better cover, and published by Harpers. Hitherto it was published by Beadle or some other fellow of that sort. It is current now. The people are reading it. They will continue to do so for a year or two, and then it will disappear. I like what Zangwill said of it a while ago. I cannot quote it exactly, but itwas like this: "I had a dream the other night, wherein I scrambled over the roofs of buildings pursued by detectives. I lowered myself by drain pipes. I did business in dark corridors. I retreated up narrow passages with my good broadsword flaming, and laid scores of men at my feet. I was sealed up in dungeons. I was snatched out of the deep by the hair of my head. I slew men in hecatombs; and then, when the morning came and I awoke, there was not a shred of intellectual wrack left behind on which my mind could take hold. I had dreamed it all with the cerebellum. It was all organic. Why didn't I dream a novel by Turgenef, or Bjornsen? It takes brains to write "Fathers and Sons" or the "Bankrupt," and it takes brains to read such masterpieces."
With all due respect to the very calm and fine position taken by Professor McClintock [Prof. W. D. McClintock had asserted his belief that the twentieth century would stand for a great revival of romantic literature], this novel of lust and war does not strike me as being very high-class art. It may seem good and fine and fresh and inspiring, this fiction which slays its millions, but I am a good deal of a Quaker. I would not slay anybody for anything. Therefore, such art does not appear beautiful to me. I do not believe it is good for our youth to read "yore and gore" fiction.
Thereareromancers—Prof. McClintock named one—who have personal quality. I don't care what school of fiction a man belongs to if he has something to say to me which has not been said a thousand times by somebody else. Such a man is Robert Louis Stevenson. He slew men also, but he uttered something beside war cries. But this "shilling shocker," this searching after the dreadful and the unknown which is red with blood, does not strike me as literature at all. It is all the work of the cerebellum. It is not the work of the cerebrum. I should put it like this—If a man can tell us something that has not been told before; if he can add something to the literature of the world—a real creation—if he can, like the coral insect, build his own little cell upon the great underlying mass of English literature, I do not care what you call him, nor what he calls himself, he is worthy my support.
It is not safe to always reckon a man's merit by the saleof his books. The author of "Old Sleuth" measured in that way would be the greatest American writer, in fact, the greatest writer of any time. You can't reckon the sale of such books by numbers; you reckon them by tons. It is easy to make a book sell, but the thing is to produce an original work of art, to put something forth with the imprint of your own personality as a creative artist.
I believe old Walt Whitman stated the whole problem when he said: "All that the past was not, the future will be." I do not believe that the future of the world is to be a future of war. I believe it is to be a future of industrial peace as Professor Pearson [Charles W. Pearson] has indicated. And I believe that the literature and the art of that future will not be based upon war; it will be humanitarian, and at its best always an individual statement of life. In other words, the whole tendency of modern art is towards the celebration of the individual by the individual, and you cannot class writers in any hard and fast division. There is not an artist living who delineates "things as they are." There is not a writer living holding that for a theory, or who has that desire for a fundamental impulse. Art is selection, and upon the individual soul of the creative artist is laid the burden of choice. It is in the way he chooses his material and in the way he works it out that he is to be judged. He may be a story-teller like Stevenson, or he may be a novelist like Zangwill. All I ask of him is just simply this—he must be an individual creative artist; he must not repeat, must not imitate for the sake of gain.
[Speech of John Gilbert at a banquet given by the Lotos Club in recognition of the fiftieth anniversary of his first appearance on the stage, New York City, November 30, 1878. The chairman of the dinner was Whitelaw Reid, President of the Lotos.]
[Speech of John Gilbert at a banquet given by the Lotos Club in recognition of the fiftieth anniversary of his first appearance on the stage, New York City, November 30, 1878. The chairman of the dinner was Whitelaw Reid, President of the Lotos.]
"Cæsar, We Who Are About To Die Salute You." Such the gladiator's cry in the arena standing face to face with death. There is a certain appositeness in the words I have just uttered that probably may correspond to my position. Understand me, I do not mean to die theatrically at present. [Laughter.] But when a man has arrived at my age, he can scarcely look forward to very many years of professional exertion. When my old friend, John Brougham [Mr. Brougham:—"I am not going to die just yet."] [laughter], announced to me the honor that the Lotos Club proffered me, I was flattered and complimented. But I said: "John, you know I am no speechmaker." He replied, "Say anything." "Anything," I said, "anything won't do." "Then," said he, "repeat the first speech of Sir Peter Teazle, 'When an old bachelor marries a young wife, what is he to expect?'" [Laughter.] Well, I think I can paraphrase that and say, "When a young man enters the theatrical profession, what is he to expect?" Well, he may expect a good many things that are never realized. However, suffice it to say that fifty years ago I made my debut as an actor in my native city of Boston. I commenced in the first-class character of Jaffier in Otway's charming tragedy of "Venice Preserved." The public said it was a success, and I thought it was. [Laughter.] The manager evidently thought it was, too, for he let me repeat the character. Well, I suppose it was a success for a young man with such aspirations as I had. There might havebeen some inspiration about it—at least there ought to have been—for the lady who personated Belvidera was Mrs. Duff, a lovely woman and the most exquisite tragic actress that I ever saw from that period to the present.
After this, I acted two or three parts, Mortimer, Shylock, and some of those little, trifling characters [laughter], with comparative success. But shortly after, and wisely, I went into the ranks to study my profession—not to commence at the top and go to the bottom [laughter]—but to begin at the bottom and go to the top, if possible. As a young man, I sought for pastures fresh and new. I went to the South and West, my ambition still being, as is that of all youthful aspirants for dramatic honors, for tragedy. At last I went to a theatre, and to my great disgust and indignation I was cast for an old man—at the age of nineteen. [Laughter.] However, I must do it. There was no alternative and I did it. I received applause. I played a few more old men [laughter]; I found at last that it was my point, my forte, and I followed it up and after this long lapse of years, I still continue in that department. I went to England and was received with kindness and cordiality and, returning to my own country in 1862, I was invited to join Wallack's Theatre by the father of my dear friend here [alluding to Mr. Lester Wallack], his father whom I am proud to acknowledge as a friend of mine nearly fifty years ago, and I am also proud to say my dramatic master. [Applause.] I need not tell you that since that time I have been under the direction of his son. What my career has been up to the present time you all know. It requires no comment from me. I am no longer a young man, but I do not think I am an old man. [Applause and laughter.] I owe this to a good constitution and moderately prudent life. [Shouts of laughter.] I may say with Shakespeare's Adam, that
"In my youth I never did applyHot and rebellious liquors in my blood,Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,Frosty, but kindly."
Will you permit me, gentlemen, to thank you for the very high honor you have conferred upon me this evening and allow me to drink the health and prosperity and happiness of the Lotos Club? [Cheers.]
[Speech of William S. Gilbert at a dinner given to him and to Sir Arthur Sullivan by the Lotos Club, New York City, November 8, 1879. Whitelaw Reid, the President, in introducing Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Sullivan, said: "We do not welcome them as men of genius. It sometimes happens that men of genius do not deserve welcome. But we do greet them as men who have used their undoubted genius to increase the happiness of their kind [applause]; men whose success has extended throughout the nations and has added bright hours to the life of every man and woman it has touched. [Applause.] That success has depended on no unworthy means. Respecting themselves and their art, they have always respected their audiences. They have so married wit and humor, and a most delicate fancy, and the best light music of the time, to the public temper, that we have seen here in New York, for example, their piece so popular that we hadn't theatres enough in town to hold the people who simultaneously and unanimously wanted to hear it. I propose first the health of a gentleman who, not merely in the piece that has so long been the rage of the town, but in a brilliant series of previous successes, has always given us wit without dirt [applause]—a drama in which the hero is not a rake, and the heroine is not perpetually posing and poising between innocence and adultery."]
[Speech of William S. Gilbert at a dinner given to him and to Sir Arthur Sullivan by the Lotos Club, New York City, November 8, 1879. Whitelaw Reid, the President, in introducing Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Sullivan, said: "We do not welcome them as men of genius. It sometimes happens that men of genius do not deserve welcome. But we do greet them as men who have used their undoubted genius to increase the happiness of their kind [applause]; men whose success has extended throughout the nations and has added bright hours to the life of every man and woman it has touched. [Applause.] That success has depended on no unworthy means. Respecting themselves and their art, they have always respected their audiences. They have so married wit and humor, and a most delicate fancy, and the best light music of the time, to the public temper, that we have seen here in New York, for example, their piece so popular that we hadn't theatres enough in town to hold the people who simultaneously and unanimously wanted to hear it. I propose first the health of a gentleman who, not merely in the piece that has so long been the rage of the town, but in a brilliant series of previous successes, has always given us wit without dirt [applause]—a drama in which the hero is not a rake, and the heroine is not perpetually posing and poising between innocence and adultery."]
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen:—As my friend Sullivan and I were driving to this Club this evening, both of us being very nervous and very sensitive, and both of us men who are highly conscious of our oratorical defects and deficiencies, and having before us vividly the ordeal awaiting us, we cast about for a comparison of our then condition. We likened ourselves to two authors driving down to a theatre at which a play of theirs was to be played for the first time. The thought was somewhat harassing, but we dismissed it, because we remembered that there was always an even chance of success [laughter], whereas in the performance in which we were about to take part there was no prospect of aught but humiliating failure.
We were rather in the position of prisoners surrendering to their bail, and we beg of you to extend to us your most merciful consideration. But it is expected of me, perhaps, that in replying to this toast with which your chairman has so kindly coupled my name, I shall do so in a tone of the lightest possible comedy. [Laughter.] I had almost said that I am sorry to say that I cannot do so; but in truth I am not sorry. A man who has been welcomed as we have been here by the leaders in literature and art in this city, a man who could look upon that welcome as a string on which to hang a series of small jokes would show that he was responding to an honor to which he was not entitled. For it is no light thing to come to a country which you have been taught to regard as a foreign country, and to find ourselves in the best sense of the word "at home" [applause] among a people whom we are taught to regard as strangers, but whom we are astonished to find are our intimate friends [applause]; and that proffered friendship is so dear to us that I am disposed, in behalf of my collaborateur and myself, to stray somewhat from the beaten paths of after-dinner oratory, and to endeavor to justify ourselves in respect to a matter in which we have some reason to feel that we have been misrepresented.
I have seen in several London journals well-meant but injudicious paragraphs saying that we have a grievance against the New York managers because they have played our pieces and have offered us no share of the profits. [Laughter.] We have no grievance whatever. Our only complaint is that there is no international copyright act. [Applause.] The author of a play in which there is no copyright is very much in the position of an author or the descendants of an author whose copyright has expired. I am not aware that our London publishers are in the habit of seeking the descendants of Sir Walter Scott or Lord Byron, or Captain Marryat, and offering them a share of the profits on their publications. [Laughter.] I have yet to learn that our London managers seek out the living representatives of Oliver Goldsmith, or Richard Brinsley Sheridan or William Shakespeare, in order to pay them any share of the profits from the production of "She Stoops to Conquer," or "The Good-Natured Man," or "The Merchant ofVenice." [Laughter.] If they do so, they do it on the principle that the right hand knows not what the left hand doeth [laughter], and as we have not heard of it, we presume, therefore, that they have not done so. And we believe that if those eminent men were to request a share of the profits, they would be met with the reply that the copyright on those works had expired.
And so if we should suggest it to the managers of this country, they would perhaps reply with at least equal justice: "Gentlemen, your copyright never existed." That it has never existed is due entirely to our own fault.
We consulted a New York lawyer, and were informed that, although an alien author has no right in his works, yet so long as they remain unpublished, we held the real title in them, and there was no process necessary to make them our own. We, therefore, thought we would keep it in unpublished form, and make more profit from the sale of the pianoforte score and the words of the songs at the theatres and at the music publishers.
We imagined that the allusions in the piece were so purely British in their character, so insular in fact, that they would be of no interest on this side; but events have shown that in that conclusion we were mistaken. At all events, we have also arrived at the conclusion that we have nobody to blame but ourselves. As it is, we have realized by the sale of the book and the piano score in London about $7,500 apiece, and under those circumstances I do not think we need to be pitied. [Laughter.] For myself, I certainly do not pose as an object of compassion. [Laughter.]
We propose to open here on the first of December at the Fifth Avenue Theatre with a performance of "Pinafore." I will not add the prefixing initials, because I have no desire to offend your republican sympathies. [Laughter.] I may say, however, that I have read in some journals that we have come over here to show you how that piece should be played, but that I disclaim, both for myself and my collaborateur. We came here to teach nothing—we have nothing to teach—and perhaps we should have no pupils if we did. [Laughter.] But apart from the fact that we have no copyright, and are not yet managers in the United States, we see no reason why we should be the only oneswho are not to be permitted to play this piece here. [Laughter and applause.]
I think you will admit that we have a legitimate object in opening with it. We have no means of knowing how it has been played in this country, but we are informed that it has been played more broadly than in the old country—and you know that may be better or worse. [Laughter.]
Afterward we propose to produce another piece, and in the fulness of time the longer it is delayed perhaps the better for us [laughter], and we propose to present it to an audience [laughter] in the same spirit in which we presented "Pinafore"—in a most serious spirit—not to permit the audience to see by anything that occurs on the stage that the actors are conscious of the really absurd things they are doing. Whether right or not, that is the way in which it was presented in London. We open with "Pinafore," not to show how that ought to be played, but to show how the piece that succeeds is about to be played, and to prepare the audiences for the reception of our new and highly preposterous story. [Applause.]
The kindness with which we have been received this evening emboldens me to believe that perhaps you will not consider this explanation altogether indecent or ill-timed. I have nothing more, gentlemen, to say, except to thank you most heartily for the complimentary manner in which you proposed our health, and to assure you that it is a compliment which is to me personally as delightful as it is undeserved. [Applause.]