Speeches: Literary and Social | Page 7

kind.
Above all, that nothing is high, because it is in a high place; and that
nothing is low, because it is in a low one. This is the lesson taught us in
the great book of nature. This is the lesson which may be read, alike in
the bright track of the stars, and in the dusty course of the poorest thing
that drags its tiny length upon the ground. This is the lesson ever
uppermost in the thoughts of that inspired man, who tells us that there
are
"Tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones,
and good in everything."
Gentlemen, keeping these objects steadily before me, I am at no loss to
refer your favour and your generous hospitality back to the right source.
While I know, on the one hand, that if, instead of being what it is, this
were a land of tyranny and wrong, I should care very little for your

smiles or frowns, so I am sure upon the other, that if, instead of being
what I am, I were the greatest genius that ever trod the earth, and had
diverted myself for the oppression and degradation of mankind, you
would despise and reject me. I hope you will, whenever, through such
means, I give you the opportunity. Trust me, that, whenever you give
me the like occasion, I will return the compliment with interest.
Gentlemen, as I have no secrets from you, in the spirit of confidence
you have engendered between us, and as I have made a kind of
compact with myself that I never will, while I remain in America, omit
an opportunity of referring to a topic in which I and all others of my
class on both sides of the water are equally interested--equally
interested, there is no difference between us, I would beg leave to
whisper in your ear two words: INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. I
use them in no sordid sense, believe me, and those who know me best,
best know that. For myself, I would rather that my children, coming
after me, trudged in the mud, and knew by the general feeling of
society that their father was beloved, and had been of some use, than I
would have them ride in their carriages, and know by their banker's
books that he was rich. But I do not see, I confess, why one should be
obliged to make the choice, or why fame, besides playing that
delightful REVEIL for which she is so justly celebrated, should not
blow out of her trumpet a few notes of a different kind from those with
which she has hitherto contented herself.
It was well observed the other night by a beautiful speaker, whose
words went to the heart of every man who heard him, that, if there had
existed any law in this respect, Scott might not have sunk beneath the
mighty pressure on his brain, but might have lived to add new creatures
of his fancy to the crowd which swarm about you in your summer
walks, and gather round your winter evening hearths.
As I listened to his words, there came back, fresh upon me, that
touching scene in the great man's life, when he lay upon his couch,
surrounded by his family, and listened, for the last time, to the rippling
of the river he had so well loved, over its stony bed. I pictured him to
myself, faint, wan, dying, crushed both in mind and body by his
honourable struggle, and hovering round him the phantoms of his own
imagination--Waverley, Ravenswood, Jeanie Deans, Rob Roy, Caleb
Balderstone, Dominie Sampson--all the familiar throng--with cavaliers,

and Puritans, and Highland chiefs innumerable overflowing the
chamber, and fading away in the dim distance beyond. I pictured them,
fresh from traversing the world, and hanging down their heads in
shame and sorrow, that, from all those lands into which they had
carried gladness, instruction, and delight for millions, they brought him
not one friendly hand to help to raise him from that sad, sad bed. No,
nor brought him from that land in which his own language was spoken,
and in every house and hut of which his own books were read in his
own tongue, one grateful dollar-piece to buy a garland for his grave. Oh!
if every man who goes from here, as many do, to look upon that tomb
in Dryburgh Abbey, would but remember this, and bring the
recollection home!
Gentlemen, I thank you again, and once again, and many times to that.
You have given me a new reason for remembering this day, which is
already one of mark in my calendar, it being my birthday; and you have
given those who are nearest and dearest to me a new reason for
recollecting it