And,
as it is of your creation, and owes its being to you, I have no
reluctance in urging it as a reason why, in addressing you, I
should not so much consult the form and fashion of my speech, as I
should employ that universal language of the heart, which you, and
such as you, best teach, and best can understand. Gentlemen, in
that universal language--common to you in America, and to us in
England, as that younger mother-tongue, which, by the means of, and
through the happy union of our two great countries, shall be spoken
ages hence, by land and sea, over the wide surface of the globe--I
thank you.
I had occasion to say the other night in Boston, as I have more
than once had occasion to remark before, that it is not easy for an
author to speak of his own books. If the task be a difficult one
at any time, its difficulty, certainly, is not diminished when a
frequent recurrence to the same theme has left one nothing new to
say. Still, I feel that, in a company like this, and especially
after what has been said by the President, that I ought not to pass
lightly over those labours of love, which, if they had no other
merit, have been the happy means of bringing us together.
It has been often observed, that you cannot judge of an author's
personal character from his writings. It may be that you cannot.
I think it very likely, for many reasons, that you cannot. But, at
least, a reader will rise from the perusal of a book with some
defined and tangible idea of the writer's moral creed and broad
purposes, if he has any at all; and it is probable enough that he
may like to have this idea confirmed from the author's lips, or
dissipated by his explanation.
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