Chapter VIII: At a Royal Academy Dinner

On Saturday evening, May 3, 1886, the annual dinner of the Royal Academy was held at Burlington House, the chair being occupied by the president, Sir Frederic Leighton. On his right hand were the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Cambridge, Prince Christian, Prince Henry of Battenberg, the Duke of Teck, the Lord Chancellor, and the Archbishop of York; and on his left hand were Prince Albert Victor of Wales, the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, the Italian Ambassador, etc., etc.

Mr. LOWELL, in responding for “Literature,” said:

YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESSES, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN,--I think I
can explain who the artist might have been who painted the
reversed rainbow of which the professor 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 (_laughter_);
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
a shower one is said to make the tree answer for an
umbrella. (_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
(_laughter_), 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
is most naturally 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. (_Laughter._)
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. (_Laughter._) 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. (_Laughter._) 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
which 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 (_cheers_); and the other is that
I represent also that growing 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 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. (_Cheers._)
I will not detain you longer. I know that the essence of
speaking here is to be brief, but I trust 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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