I began to tread it when I was very young,
without influence, without money, without companion, introducer, or
adviser, and I am bound to put in evidence in this place that I
never lighted on these dragons yet. So have I heard in my day, at
divers other odd times, much generally to the effect that the
English people have little or no love of art for its own sake, and
that they do not greatly care to acknowledge or do honour to the
artist. My own experience has uniformly been exactly the reverse.
I can say that of my countrymen, though I cannot say that of my
country.
And now passing to the immediate occasion of your doing me this
great honour, the story of my going again to America is very easily
and briefly told. Since I was there before a vast and entirely new
generation has arisen in the United States. Since I was there
before most of the best known of my books have been written and
published; the new generation and the books have come together and
have kept together, until at length numbers of those who have so
widely and constantly read me; naturally desiring a little variety
in the relationship between us, have expressed a strong wish that I
should read myself. This wish, at first conveyed to me through
public channels and business channels, has gradually become
enforced by an immense accumulation of letters from individuals and
associations of individuals, all expressing in the same hearty,
homely, cordial unaffected way, a kind of personal interest in me--
I had almost said a kind of personal affection for me, which I am
sure you would agree with me it would be dull insensibility on my
part not to prize.
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