HENRY M.  STANLEY

          ADDRESS DELIVERED IN BOSTON, NOVEMBER, 1886

          Mr. Clemens introduced Mr. Stanley.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, if any should ask, Why is it that you are here as
introducer of the lecturer?  I should answer that I happened to be around
and was asked to perform this function.  I was quite willing to do so,
and, as there was no sort of need of an introduction, anyway, it could be
necessary only that some person come forward for a moment and do an
unnecessary thing, and this is quite in my line.  Now, to introduce so
illustrious a name as Henry M. Stanley by any detail of what the man has
done is clear aside from my purpose; that would be stretching the
unnecessary to an unconscionable degree.  When I contrast what I have
achieved in my measurably brief life with what he has achieved in his
possibly briefer one, the effect is to sweep utterly away the ten-story
edifice of my own self-appreciation and leave nothing behind but the
cellar.  When you compare these achievements of his with the achievements
of really great men who exist in history, the comparison, I believe, is
in his favor.  I am not here to disparage Columbus.

No, I won't do that; but when you come to regard the achievements of
these two men, Columbus and Stanley, from the standpoint of the
difficulties they encountered, the advantage is with Stanley and against
Columbus.  Now, Columbus started out to discover America.  Well, he
didn't need to do anything at all but sit in the cabin of his ship and
hold his grip and sail straight on, and America would discover itself.
Here it was, barring his passage the whole length and breadth of the
South American continent, and he couldn't get by it.  He'd got to
discover it.  But Stanley started out to find Doctor Livingstone, who was
scattered abroad, as you may say, over the length and breadth of a vast
slab of Africa as big as the United States.

It was a blind kind of search.  He was the worst scattered of men.  But I
will throw the weight of this introduction upon one very peculiar feature
of Mr. Stanley's character, and that is his indestructible Americanism--
an Americanism which he is proud of.  And in this day and time, when it
is the custom to ape and imitate English methods and fashion, it is like
a breath of fresh air to stand in the presence of this untainted American
citizen who has been caressed and complimented by half of the crowned
heads of Europe who could clothe his body from his head to his heels with
the orders and decorations lavished upon him.  And yet, when the untitled
myriads of his own country put out their hands in welcome to him and
greet him, "Well done," through the Congress of the United States, that
is the crown that is worth all the rest to him.  He is a product of
institutions which exist in no other country on earth-institutions that
bring out all that is best and most heroic in a man.  I introduce Henry
M. Stanley.