University of Virginia Library

SPEECH AT THE SCOTTISH BANQUET IN LONDON.

AT the anniversary festival of the Scottish Corporation of London on
Monday evening, in response to the toast of “The Ladies,” Mark Twain
replied. The following is his speech as reported in the London Observer:—

“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. (Laughter.) 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 herself as a `lady,' but speaks of her
as a woman. (Laughter.) 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. (Loud cheers.) 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:—

(Laughter.) 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 the 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:—
—and so on. (Laughter.) I do not remember the rest; but, taken altogether, it seems to me that
poem is the noblest tribute to woman that human genius has ever brought forth—(laughter)—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. (Renewed laughter.) The
phases of the womanly nature are infinite in their varicty. 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. (Much laughter.) Who does not sorrow for the loss of Sappho, the sweet singer
of Israel? (Laughter.) Who among us does not miss the gentle ministrations, the softening influences,
the humble piety of Lucretia Borgia? (Laughter.) 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. (Roars of laughter.) 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.—(laughter)—but
because she wrote those divine lines—
(More laughter.) 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—
(laughter)—the gifted Ben Lomond, and the great new Scotchman, Ben Disraeli.[1] (Great laughter.)
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—(laughter)—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. (Cheers.) 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. (Cheers.) Woman is all that she
should be—gentle, patient, long suffering, 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 of misfortune that knock
at its hospitable door. (Cheers.) 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! (Loud and prolonged cheering.)