the beginning that I did not take the Ascot Cup; and as I have failed to
convince anybody that I did not take the cup, I might as well confess I
did take it and be done with it. I don’t see why this uncharitable
feeling should follow me everywhere, and why I should have that crime
thrown up to me on all occasions. The tears that I have wept over it
ought to have created a different feeling than this–and, besides,
I don’t think it is very right or fair that, considering England has been
trying to take a cup of ours for forty years–I don’t see why they should
take so much trouble when I tried to go into the business myself.
Sir Mortimer Durand, too, has had trouble from going to a dinner here,
and he has told you what he suffered in consequence. But what did he
suffer? He only missed his train, and one night of discomfort, and he
remembers it to this day. Oh! if you could only think what I have
suffered from a similar circumstance. Two or three years ago, in New
York, with that Society there which is made up of people from all British
Colonies, and from Great Britain generally, who were educated in British
colleges and. British schools, I was there to respond to a toast of some
kind or other, and I did then what I have been in the habit of doing,
from a selfish motive, for a long time, and that is, I got myself placed
No, 3 in the list of speakers–then you get home early.
I had to go five miles up-river, and had to catch a, particular train or
not get there. But see the magnanimity which is born in me, which I have
cultivated all my life. A very famous and very great British clergyman
came to me presently, and he said: “I am away down in the list; I have
got to catch a certain train this Saturday night; if I don’t catch that
train I shall be carried beyond midnight and break the Sabbath. Won’t
you change places with me?” I said: “Certainly I will.” I did it at
once. Now, see what happened.
Talk about Sir Mortimer Durand’s sufferings for a single night! I have
suffered ever since because I saved that gentleman from breaking the
Sabbath-yes, saved him. I took his place, but I lost my train, and it
was I who broke the Sabbath. Up to that time I never had broken the
Sabbath in my life, and from that day to this I never have kept it.
Oh! I am learning much here to-night. I find I didn’t know anything
about the American Society–that is, I didn’t know its chief virtue.
I didn’t know its chief virtue until his Excellency our Ambassador
revealed it–I may say, exposed it. I was intending to go home on the
13th of this month, but I look upon that in a different light now. I am
going to stay here until the American Society pays my passage.
Our Ambassador has spoken of our Fourth of July and the noise it makes.
We have got a double Fourth of July–a daylight Fourth and a midnight
Fourth. During the day in America, as our Ambassador has indicated, we
keep the Fourth of July properly in a reverent spirit. We devote it to
teaching our children patriotic things–reverence for the Declaration of
Independence. We honor the day all through the daylight hours, and when
night comes we dishonor it. Presently–before long–they are getting
nearly ready to begin now–on the Atlantic coast, when night shuts down,
that pandemonium will begin, and there will be noise, and noise, and
noise–all night long–and there will be more than noise there will be
people crippled, there will be people killed, there will be people who
will lose their eyes, and all through that permission which we give to
irresponsible boys to play with firearms and fire-crackers, and all sorts
of dangerous things: We turn that Fourth of July, alas! over to rowdies
to drink and get drunk and make the night hideous, and we cripple and
kill more people than you would imagine.