Modern Eloquence Volume Ii Part 30

MR. PRESIDENT, YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN:--I am aware that there are some of my most distinguished colleagues now present whose claims to the honor of replying to your amiable words far exceed my own. But I also know that they will not grudge me that distinction and none of them would appreciate it more than myself, whom you have elected to mention in connection with your toast. I only hope that my companion, the brilliant representative of the Drama, may be inclined to forgive me for taking precedence of him, for his art had already attained a state of perfection while ours was still lisping on a feeble tibia to the ill-balanced accompaniment of some more sonorous instrument of percussion. It was all we had to offer at the time, but I am sure that since then we have steadily improved. But even then we were accustomed to ring up the curtain, and so I look upon myself as a mere overture or prelude to the good thing, the word-painting, which will follow. ["Hear! Hear!"] Let me a.s.sure him that the composer knows no greater delight than when he is called upon to combine his art with that of the dramatic author, even should our most divinely-inspired moments be but faintly conveyed to the audience through the medium of the--otherwise excellent but still metropolitan--under ground orchestras at our disposal. My only regret is that none of us were permitted to accompany the fascinating heroine of his latest work through the play. Some correspondingly alluring music has doubtless been lost to the world.

On the last occasion that the toast of Music was responded to in this room, it was remarked that popularity was not without its drawbacks. I fear, sir, there are not many of us who are actually groaning under the oppressive weight of over-popularity--at least not to any very alarming extent. [Cheers.] But I may permit myself to say that while the popularity of music itself is undeniable, it is not so equally obvious that the fact is an absolutely unmixed blessing; perhaps the very familiarity which it undoubtedly enjoys subjects it more than any other art to the fitful temper of fas.h.i.+on--to rash and hastily-formed judgments--as well as to the humors of self-complacent guides whose dicta all too frequently prove the dangerous possession of a very small allowance of real knowledge.

"Academic" is, I believe, sir, the winged word in daily use to mark those of us who may still cling to the effete and obsolete belief that music remains a science, difficult of acquirement and not either a toy art, or a mere nerve t.i.tillater. We are not, sir, by any means ashamed to bear the stigma of being academic; on the contrary, we feel it a genuine compliment--gratifying because, although perhaps unintentionally it implies that we have acquired the possession of "that one thing"

which (as Wilhelm Meister was informed by the venerable Three) "no child brings into the world with him,"--that is, "reverence"--reverence for our great past as well as, I hope, a due estimation of the vigorous activity of the present. So our sweet-natured muse smiles benignly upon the impish gambols of the "new boy" who has the supreme advantage of not having been to school, for any appreciable length of time at least, and who seems to derive considerable satisfaction from his endeavors to improve the education of those who have never left it. [Laughter.]

We are sometimes instructed that English Purcell (whose glorious memory our musicians mean to honor in a few months), that German Bach ought to be considerably touched up to suit the altered requirements of the day, and that the rich hues of romantic Weber--nay, even of his giants.h.i.+p the great Beethoven himself--are fading visibly and rapidly. Far be it from the academics to undervalue the great significance of "modernity." Our musical palette, the orchestra, has in our own time been enriched by the addition of many brilliant colors. Music has become, if possible, still more closely allied with and indebted for inspiration to each and all of the sister arts: while the peremptory and ever-increasing demand upon the dexterity as well as the intellectual grasp of the executant has brought into the field such an array of splendid artist interpreters as possibly the world has never before seen. ["Hear! Hear!"] What the effect produced by audible performance of the works of the great past-masters in music may be upon the ricketty understandings is difficult even to guess at. The healthily trained student, however, to whom the preservation of the history of his art is still of some consequence, shows that the word "perishable" has positively no meaning to him so long as tough paper and honest leather hold together. To him those n.o.ble scores can never become dumb, sealed, or silent books; he has only to reach them down and, reading, hear them speak--each master in the language of his own time--in living notes, as glowing now as when they were first penned.

It is not without some diffidence, sir, that I allude before sitting down to that time when our own English music had a high and most honorable place among the arts of the nations--because, alas! that recollection necessarily compels the remembrance of a subsequent and too prolonged period of decayed fortunes. But I must allow myself to say a few words in recognition of the efforts of the three of our native contemporary composers, who never tire in the endeavor to reclaim the lost ground. For, within very recent years, much has been achieved which has been helpful towards the recapture of the position, towards the recovery of the old-time renown. That "artist corps" may perhaps not be a very numerous company and besides it is without doubt, in the words of a popular lyrical humorist, a somewhat "nervous, shy, low-spoken" little band, which is content to wait and work incessantly in the service of its national music. Generous in acknowledgment of the efforts of all who a.s.sist its onward progress, it has already done much, can and will do more. I said advisedly "national music" because its members, hailing as they do from all the subdivisions of this country, are no doubt, with so many widely differing musical characteristics by birthright, that it is not at all unreasonable even for the most modest among them--and this virtue still attaches to some, I should say, to all, of them--build great hopes of a definitely distinct British music, such as you, Sir John [Millais], doubtless had in your mind when you honored our art by proposing this toast; such our very best painters would willingly hail and acknowledge; such as your own Academy would welcome in that genial manner which for many years past it has so generously taught us to expect. [Cheers.]

WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

FAREWELL TO THE STAGE

[Speech of William C. Macready at a farewell banquet given in his honor, London, March 1, 1851, on the occasion of his retirement from the stage. Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton acted as chairman. He said: "Gentlemen, I cannot better sum up all I would say than by the words which the Roman orator applied to the actor of his day, and I ask you if I may not say of our guest as Cicero said of Roscius, 'He is a man who unites yet more of virtues than of talents, yet more of truth than of art, and who, having dignified the scene by various portraitures of human life, dignifies yet more this a.s.sembly by the example of his own.' [Great applause.] Gentlemen, the toast I am about to propose to you is connected with many sad a.s.sociations, but not to-day. Later and long will be cherished whatever may be sad of these mingled feelings that accompany this farewell,--later when night after night we shall miss from the play-bill the old familiar name, and feel that one source of elevated delight is lost to us forever. ["Hear! Hear!"]

To-day let us only rejoice that he whom we so prize and admire is no worn-out veteran retiring to a rest he can no longer enjoy [cheers]--that he leaves us in the prime of his powers, with many years to come, in the course of nature, of that dignified leisure for which every public man must have sighed in the midst of his triumphs; and though we cannot say of him that his 'way of life is fall'n with the sere, the yellow leaf,' yet we can say that he has prematurely obtained 'that which should accompany old age, as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends'--[cheers]--and postponing for this night all selfish regrets, not thinking of the darkness that is to follow, but of the brightness of the sun that is to set, I call upon you to drink with full gla.s.ses and full hearts, health, happiness, and long life to William Macready."]

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--I rise to thank you, I should say to attempt to thank you, for I feel the task is far beyond my power.

What can I say in reply to all that the kindly feeling of my friend has dictated? I have not the skill to arrange and address in attractive language the thoughts that press upon me, and my incompetency may perhaps appear like a want of sensibility to your kindness, for we are taught to believe that out of the heart's fulness the mouth speaks. But my difficulty, let me a.s.sure you, is a contradiction to this moral.

[Cheers.] I have to thank my friend, your distinguished chairman, for proposing my health to you and for the eloquence--may I not add the brilliant fancy, with which he has enriched and graced his subject. But that we may readily expect from him, who in the wide and discursive range of his genius touches nothing that he does not adorn. ["Hear!" and cheers.] I have to thank you for the cordiality and--if I may without presumption say so,--the enthusiasm with which the compliment proposed has been received, and for the honor--never to be forgotten--that you have conferred on me, by making me your guest to-day.

Never before have I been so oppressed with a sense of my deficiency as at this moment, looking on this a.s.semblage of sympathizing friends crowded here to offer me a spontaneous testimony of their regard. I observe among you many who for years have been the encouraging companions of my course; and there are present too those who have cheered even my very earliest efforts. To all who have united in this crowning tribute, so far beyond my dues or expectations--my old friends, friends of many years, who welcomed me with hopeful greeting in the morning of my professional life, and to younger ones who now gather round to shed more brightness on my setting, I should wish to pour forth the abundant expression of my grat.i.tude. [Loud cheers.] You are not, I think, aware of the full extent of my obligations to you. Independent of the substantial benefits due to the liberal appreciation of my exertions, my very position in society is determined by the stamp which your approbation has set upon my humble efforts. [Cheers.] And let me unhesitatingly affirm that without undervaluing the accident of birth or t.i.tular distinction, I would not exchange the grateful pride of your good opinion which you have given me the right to cherish, for any favor or advancement that the more privileged in station could receive. [Great cheering.]

I really am too much oppressed, too much overcome to attempt to detain you long; but with the reflection and under the conviction that our drama, the n.o.blest in the world, can never lose its place from our stage while the English language lasts, I will venture to express one parting hope--that the rising actors may keep the loftiest look, may hold the most elevated views of the duties of their calling. ["Hear!

Hear!" and cheers.] I would also hope that they will strive to elevate their art, and also to raise themselves above the level of the player's easy life, to public regard and distinction by a faithful ministry to the genius of our incomparable Shakespeare. [Cheers.] To effect this creditable purpose, they must bring resolute energy and unfaltering labor to their work; they must be content "to scorn delights, and live laborious days;" they must remember that whate'er is excellent in art must spring from labor and endurance:--

"Deep the oak, Must sink in stubborn earth its roots obscure That hopes to lift its branches to the sky."

This, gentlemen, I can a.s.sure you, was the doctrine of our own Siddons, and of the great Talma; and this is the faith I have ever held as one of their humblest disciples. [Applause.]

Of my direction of the two patent theatres on which my friend has so kindly dilated, I wish to say but little. The preamble of their patents recites as a condition of their grant, that the theatres shall be inst.i.tuted for the promotion of virtue and to be instructive to the human race. I think those are the words. I can only say that it was my ambition to the best of my ability to obey that injunction ["Hear!

Hear!"] and believing in the principle that property has its duties as well as its rights, I conceived that the proprietors should co-operate with me. [General cries of "Hear!"] They thought otherwise, and I was reluctantly compelled to relinquish on disadvantageous terms my half-achieved enterprise. Others will take up this uncompleted work, and if inquiry were set on foot for one best qualified to undertake the task I should seek him in the theatre which, by eight years' labor, he has from the most degraded condition raised high in public estimation, not only as regards the intelligence and respectability of his audiences, but by the learned and tasteful spirit of his productions. [Cheers.]

Gentlemen, I shall not detain you longer. All that I could desire and far more than I ever could expect you have conferred upon me in the honor you have done me to-day. It will be a memory that must remain as an actual possession to me and mine, which nothing in life can take from us. The repet.i.tion of thanks adds little to their force, and therefore, deeply as I am already obliged to you, I must draw still further on your indulgence. You have had faith in my zeal for your service; you will, I am sure, continue that faith in my grat.i.tude, for the value you have set upon it. With a heart more full than the gla.s.s I hold, I return you my most grateful thanks, and have the honor of drinking all your healths.

[Mr. Macready who had displayed considerable emotion during some portions of his address, then resumed his seat amid enthusiastic cheering.]

JUSTIN McCARTHY

IRELAND'S STRUGGLE

[Speech of Justin McCarthy at a dinner given in his honor, New York City, October 2, 1886. When the speaking began, Judge Browne, who presided, asked the audience to drink the health of Justin McCarthy, the guest of the evening, with this quotation from Thomas Moore:--

"Here's the Poet who drinks; here's the warrior who fights; Here's the statesman who speaks in the cause of men's rights; Charge! hip, hip, hurrah! hurrah!"

Continuing, Judge Browne said: "We feel it a proud privilege to be permitted to gather and do honor to one who has done honor to our name and nation in a foreign land. When the great leader of the Irish people was bidding you good-by at the other side of the water, he said that the aid you had rendered him and his colleagues had largely helped to advance the interests of Ireland in her onward march to freedom. Our knowledge of you enables us to indorse that statement.

[Applause.] What you have written in one of our city papers has shown us step by step the progress of the Home Rule movement. That great work has been accomplished by the Irish leader there can be no doubt.

I witnessed it personally a few short weeks ago, when standing in the strangers' gallery in the House of Commons, I saw a handful of Irish members under the leaders.h.i.+p of Parnell withstand the a.s.saults of six hundred English members. [Applause.] It was an awe-inspiring sight.

When one remembers that within the four walls of that small building that group of Englishmen were making laws for three hundred millions of people, and that the representatives of a nation numbering only five millions were enabled to keep them in check at the bidding of Parnell, I was struck with astonishment. Not only have the Irish people Parnell with them now, but they have Gladstone [applause], and more than half of the English people; and we have in addition Justin McCarthy [prolonged applause], and with this continuation of moral force we are certain to win Home Rule for Ireland soon. Gentlemen, I give you the health of our guest, Justin McCarthy."]

GENTLEMEN, FRIENDS, ALL:--I am very sure you will believe that I speak with the utmost sincerity when I say that, although much in the habit of addressing public meetings of various kinds, friendly and hostile, I really do feel somewhat embarra.s.sed in rising to address this entirely friendly meeting to-night. The warmth and the kindness of your reception, many of you Irishmen, some of you Americans, does surprise and does, to a great extent, overpower me. Judge Browne, your chairman, has regretted the absence of Eugene Kelly. I myself regret his absence on personal and on public grounds; on personal grounds for his sake, and still more, as I am rather selfish, for my own sake. [Applause.] For his sake because ill health keeps him away, and for my own sake because I have never yet had the chance of meeting him, and had finally hoped that here to-night I should have the pleasure of making his acquaintance. I should not complain very much for myself after all, for the worthy gentleman who fills the place of Mr. Kelly so ably--I mean Judge Browne [applause]--has said more complimentary things of me than I really deserve before a gathering so influential and so representative as this.

Upon the great political questions which interest me, and which interest you, I shall perhaps have occasion to say a few words, perhaps more than a few words Monday night, and I hope to see many of the gentlemen who are now here present then, and if they be wavering on the question of Home Rule I am nearly certain they will go away stanch disciples of justice to Ireland, in a legislative sense, at all events. [Applause.]

There may be some among you who do not entirely agree with me upon my views regarding the relations between England and Ireland. Some may regard me with more favor as a writer of books than as an expounder of Home Rule for Ireland. [Cries of "No! No!"] I will therefore regard this occasion as a welcome given by you to me personally, and shall not go into any political question whatever. Regarding myself, I may a.s.sume this much, at least, that the question of Home Rule for Ireland is now universally regarded in America as one of those questions bound up with the great cause of civilization and of progress, and I entirely agree with the chairman when he said that the Irish people in this struggle do not entertain any feelings of hate or enmity for the English people.

[Applause.] I may say sincerely that I would not have joined the agitation if it had been selfish and merely for the sake of Ireland alone, and not, as it has been, a movement for the advancement of freedom and enlightened ideas among other struggling nations of the earth. [Applause.]

I have said over and over again, in England as well as in Ireland, that the cause that I was advocating was one of interest and of the most vital importance to England as well as to Ireland. [Applause.] Many years ago I heard Mr. Bright deliver a great speech in the House of Commons in favor of a French commercial treaty. He wound up that great speech by saying that the adoption of that treaty would be a policy of justice to England, and of mercy to France. I call the policy that I and my colleagues in the English Parliament are identified with, a policy of justice to Ireland and of mercy to England. [Applause.] I call it a policy of mercy to England because it is a policy which shall bury forever the rancor of centuries that has existed between Irishmen and Englishmen; a policy which will change things so far that Ireland, instead of being the enemy at the gate shall be the friend at the gate, who, if need be, can speak with some effect to the enemy from without.

After a long, a very long and a very bitter agitation, we now at last are within reach of the consummation of our hopes. [Applause.]

I am glad indeed to receive from an audience in this city, composed as it is of many nationalities, such a hearty endors.e.m.e.nt of the policy which I and my people have carried out in struggling to give Ireland her rights. I see here the Irish harp and the American stars and stripes.

Long and forever may these flags wave side by side. [Prolonged applause.] How shall we distinguish between Irishmen and Americans? Are the echoes which resound in this hall Irish or American echoes? [Cries of "Both! Both!"] The voices that speak are Irish certainly, but the roof, the walls that give back the sound are American. [Applause.] May we not therefore claim the indistinguishable unity of nationality, of sentiment, and of feeling?

I should be ungrateful, indeed, gentlemen, did I not express my warm acknowledgments for this greeting which you have given me--this hearty Irish welcome. I shall never forget the words of warmth which you have spoken to myself personally and the expressions of encouragement which you have given to my people and my cause. I shall tell my friends when I go back, that among the best supporters we have upon this side are Americans and Irish-Americans who believe firmly in the justice of Ireland's cause and of the determined yet peaceable, strictly peaceable, character of the struggle which Ireland's representatives are making for the re-establishment of her Parliament in College Green. [Prolonged applause.]

ALEXANDER KELLY McCLURE

AN EDITORIAL RETROSPECT

[Speech of Colonel A. K. McClure, editor of the "Philadelphia Times,"

delivered at a banquet at Philadelphia, December 9, 1896, commemorating the fiftieth year of his connection with the press of Pennsylvania. Governor Daniel H. Hastings, in introducing the guest of the evening, concluded by saying: "I said in the beginning that he is the Nestor of Pennsylvania journalism. Yes, like the King of Pylos, in Grecian legend of the siege of Troy, he is the oldest of the living chieftains. Forney, Morton, McMichael and most of the pioneers of our modern journalism are gone. McClure has been to Pennsylvania what Horace Greeley was to New York journalism. Dana, of the 'Sun,' and McClure, of the 'Times,' are the links connecting the present with the past of American journalism. To-night the roses of friends.h.i.+p and fraternity are growing upon the walls that separate us in our life-work, and we are here to join in our congratulations and good wishes to him in whose honor we meet--Colonel Alexander K. McClure."]

MR. CHAIRMAN:--I cannot express the measure of my grateful appreciation of this imposing greeting, so exceptional alike in welcome, in numbers, and in distinction. I accept it as a tribute to the matchless progress made by our newspapers during the present generation, rather than a personal tribute to an humble member of the profession, whose half century of editorial labor furnishes the occasion for leading men of State and Nation to pay homage to American journalism, now the great forum of our free inst.i.tutions.

The duties and responsibilities of journalism are largely defined by their environment, and there may be fitness in this occasion to refer to the political, business, social and moral conditions under which the Juniata "Sentinel" was founded fifty years ago, in contrast with the greatly changed conditions which confront the journals of to-day. The people of Juniata county were a well-to-do cla.s.s, adapted to the primitive conditions in which they lived. The enervating blight of luxury and the despair of pinching want were strangers in their midst.

They believed in the church, in the school, in the sanct.i.ty of home, in integrity between man and man. Christianity was accepted by them as the common law, sincerely by many and with a respect akin to reverence by all; and that beautiful humanity that springs from the mingled dependence and affection of rural neighborly ties, ever taught that the bruised reed should not be broken. They had no political convulsions such as are common in these days. Even a sweeping political revolution would not vary the party majority over a hundred in the few thousands of votes they cast, and excepting in the white heat of national contests, their personal affections often outweighed their duties to party. Public vices and public wrongs in local administration were rarely known, and there was little to invite the aggressive features which are so conspicuous in modern journalism. Ministers mingled freely with the every-day life of their flocks and were exemplars of simplicity, frugality and integrity, and the lawyer who hoped to be successful required first of all to command the confidence of the community in his honesty. The ballot and the jury-box were regarded as sacred as the sacrament itself, and the criminal courts had usually little to do beyond the cases of vagrant offenders. Business was conducted as a rule without the formality of contracts, and those whose lives justly provoked scandal were shunned on every side. This community possessed the only real wealth the world can give--content; and the local newspaper of that day, even under the direction of a progressive journalist, could be little more than a commonplace chronicler of current events.

The most satisfactory newspaper work I have ever done, I mean the most satisfactory to myself, was during the first few months after I founded the "Sentinel." There was pardonable boyish pride in seeing my name given with studied prominence as editor and proprietor, and the reading of my own editorials was as soothing as the soft, sweet strains of music on distant waters in summer evening time. They were to my mind most exquisite in diction and logic, and it was a source of keen regret that they were so "cabined, cribbed, and confined" within the narrowest provincial lines, whereby the world lost so much that it greatly needed. I knew that there were others, like Chandler, Gales, Greeley, Ritchie, Prentice, and Kendall, who were more read and heeded, but I was consoled by the charitable reflection that entirely by reason of fortuitous circ.u.mstance they were known and I was not. Then to me life was a song with my generously self-admired newspaper as the chorus.

There came rude awakenings, of course, from those blissful dreams as the shock of editorial conflict gradually taught me that journalism was one unending lesson in a school that has no vacations.

I have pleasant memories also of the intimate personal relations between the village editor and his readers. Most of them were within a radius of a few miles of the publication office, and all the influences of social as well as political ties were employed to make them enduring patrons.

With many of them the question of sparing from their scant income three cents a week for a county paper, was one that called for sober thought from year to year, and it often required a personal visit and earnest importunity to hold the hesitating subscriber. I well remember the case of a frugal farmer of the Dunker persuasion who was sufficiently public-spirited to subscribe for the "Sentinel" for six months, to get the paper started, but at the end of that period he had calculated the heavy expenses of gathering the ripening harvest and decided to stop his paper for a while. I need not say that he was enthusiastically confronted with many reasons why a man of his intelligence and influence should not be without the county newspaper, but he yielded only to the extent of further considering the matter with his wife. He returned in a few days and spread suns.h.i.+ne around the editorial chair by saying that his wife had decided to continue for another six months, as the paper would be very handy in the fall for tying up her apple-b.u.t.ter crocks.

A few years after I had settled down in this quiet community to devote my life to journalism, a shrill, weird voice was heard in the beautiful valley of the Juniata as the iron horse made his first visit to us with his train of cars. It was welcome music as it echoed over the foothills of the Alleghenies, and entirely new to nearly all who heard it. With the railway came the telegraph, the express, and the advent of the daily newspaper among the people. In a single year the community was transformed from its sedate and quiet ways into more energetic, progressive, and speculative life. It was a new civilization that had come to disturb the dreams of nearly a century, and it rapidly extended its new influences until it reached the remotest ends of the little county, and with this beneficent progress of civilization came also the vices which ever accompany it, but against which the civilization itself is ever fortified by the new factors called into requisition to strengthen its restraining power. While advancing the better attributes of mankind it has left unrest in the shop, the field, the forest, and the mine, where there was content in other days, but that unrest is the inevitable attendant of our matchless strides in the most enlightened civilization of the age, and it will ever present new problems for our statesmans.h.i.+p.

It should be remembered that while Philadelphia had then two journals of national fame under the direction of such accomplished editorial writers as Joseph R. Chandler and Morton McMichael, there was not a daily newspaper in this city, or in the State, that had a circulation of 5,000, excepting only the "Ledger," then a penny journal almost unknown outside of the city. Even the New York "Tribune" and the New York "Herald" then relatively quite as distinguished as national journals as they are to-day, did not have a daily circulation of over 15,000. There are several daily journals now published in Philadelphia, each of which circulates more newspapers every day than did all the great dailies of New York and Pennsylvania combined, fifty years ago. There were then successful penny papers in New York and Pittsburg as well as Philadelphia, but the penny journal of that day was only a local newspaper in its way, and was unfelt as a political factor.