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THE LADIES
DELIVERED AT THE ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL, 1872, OF THE SCOTTISH
CORPORATION OF LONDON
Mr. Clemens replied to the toast "The Ladies."
I am proud, indeed, of the distinction of being chosen to respond to this
especial toast, to "The Ladies," or to women if you please, for that is
the preferable term, perhaps; it is certainly the older, and therefore
the more entitled to reverence. I have noticed that the Bible, with that
plain, blunt honesty which is such a conspicuous characteristic of the
Scriptures, is always particular to never refer to even the illustrious
mother of all mankind as a "lady," but speaks of her as a woman. It is
odd, but you will find it is so. I am peculiarly proud of this honor,
because I think that the toast to women is one which, by right and by
every rule of gallantry, should take precedence of all others--of the
army, of the navy, of even royalty itself--perhaps, though the latter is
not necessary in this day and in this land, for the reason that, tacitly,
you do drink a broad general health to all good women when you drink the
health of the Queen of England and the Princess of Wales. I have in mind
a poem just now which is familiar to you all, familiar to everybody. And
what an inspiration that was, and how instantly the present toast recalls
the verses to all our minds when the most noble, the most gracious, the
purest, and sweetest of all poets says:
"Woman! O woman!---er
Wom----"
However, you remember the lines; and you remember how feelingly, how
daintily, how almost imperceptibly the verses raise up before you,
feature by feature, the ideal of a true and perfect woman; and how, as
you contemplate the finished marvel, your homage grows into worship of
the intellect that could create so fair a thing out of mere breath, mere
words. And you call to mind now, as I speak, how the poet, with stern
fidelity to the history of all humanity, delivers this beautiful child of
his heart and his brain over to the trials and sorrows that must come to
all, sooner or later, that abide in the earth, and how the pathetic story
culminates in that apostrophe--so wild, so regretful, so full of mournful
retrospection. The lines run thus:
"Alas!--alas!--a--alas!
----Alas!--------alas!"
--and so on. I do not remember the rest; but, taken together, it seems
to me that poem is the noblest tribute to woman that human genius has
ever brought forth--and I feel that if I were to talk hours I could not
do my great theme completer or more graceful justice than I have now done
in simply quoting that poet's matchless words. The phases of the womanly
nature are infinite in their variety. Take any type of woman, and you
shall find in it something to respect, something to admire, something to
love. And you shall find the whole joining you heart and hand. Who was
more patriotic than Joan of Arc? Who was braver? Who has given us a
grander instance of self-sacrificing devotion? Ah! you remember, you
remember well, what a throb of pain, what a great tidal wave of grief
swept over us all when Joan of Arc fell at Waterloo. Who does not sorrow
for the loss of Sappho, the sweet singer of Israel? Who among us does
not miss the gentle ministrations, the softening influences, the humble
piety of Lucretia Borgia? Who can join in the heartless libel that says
woman is extravagant in dress when he can look back and call to mind our
simple and lowly mother Eve arrayed in her modification of the Highland
costume? Sir, women have been soldiers, women have been painters, women
have been poets. As long as language lives the name of Cleopatra will
live. And not because she conquered George III.--but because she wrote
those divine lines:
"Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God hath made them so."
The story of the world is adorned with the names of illustrious ones of
our own sex--some of, them sons of St. Andrew, too--Scott, Bruce, Burns,
the warrior Wallace, Ben Nevis--the gifted Ben Lomond, and the great new
Scotchman, Ben Disraeli.--[Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, at that time Prime
Minister of England, had just been elected Lord Rector of Glasgow
University, and had made a speech which gave rise to a world of
discussion]--Out of the great plains of history tower whole mountain
ranges of sublime women: the Queen of Sheba, Josephine, Semiramis, Sairey
Gamp; the list is endless--but I will not call the mighty roll, the names
rise up in your own memories at the mere suggestion, luminous with the
glory of deeds that cannot die, hallowed by the loving worship of the
good and the true of all epochs and all climes. Suffice it for our pride
and our honor that we in our day have added to it such names as those of
Grace Darling and Florence Nightingale. Woman is all that she should be
gentle, patient, longsuffering, trustful, unselfish, full of generous
impulses. It is her blessed mission to comfort the sorrowing, plead for
the erring, encourage the faint of purpose, succor the distressed, uplift
the fallen, befriend the friendless--in a word, afford the healing of her
sympathies and a home in her heart for all the bruised and persecuted
children that knock at its hospitable door. And when I say, God bless
her, there is none among us who has known the ennobling affection of a
wife, or the steadfast devotion of a mother but in his heart will say,
Amen! |
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