This is a very unconventional after-dinner speech.  Especially it will be thought strange that in returning thanks I should deliver something very much like a homily.  But I have thought I could not better convey my thanks than by the expression of a sympathy which issues in a fear.  If, as I gather, this intemperance in work affects more especially the Anglo-American part of the population, if there results an undermining of the physique not only in adults, but also in the young, who as I learn from your daily journals are also being injured by overwork—­if the ultimate consequence should be a dwindling away of those among you who are the inheritors of free institutions and best adapted to them, then there will come a further difficulty in the working out of that great future which lies before the American nation.  To my anxiety on this account you must please ascribe the unusual character of my remarks.

And now I must bid you farewell.  When I sail by the Germanic on Saturday, I shall bear with me pleasant remembrances of my intercourse with many Americans, joined with regrets that my state of health has prevented me from seeing a larger number.

ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY

AMERICA VISITED

     [Speech of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster, at the
     breakfast given by the Century Club, New York City, November 2,
     1878.]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:—­The hospitality shown to me has been no exception to that with which every Englishman meets in this country, in the endless repetition of kind words and the overwhelming pressure of genial entertainment which has been thrust upon me.  That famous Englishman, Dr. Johnson, when he went from England to Scotland, which, at that time, was a more formidable undertaking than is a voyage from England to America at the present time, met at a reception at St. Andrew’s a young professor who said, breaking the gloomy silence of the occasion:  “I trust you have not been disappointed!” And the famous Englishman replied:  “No; I was told that I should find men of rude manners and savage tastes, and I have not been disappointed.”  So, too, when I set out for your shores I was told that I should meet a kindly welcome and the most friendly hospitality.  I can only say, with Dr. Johnson, I have not been disappointed.

But in my vivid though short experience of American life and manners, I have experienced not only hospitality, but considerate and thoughtful kindness, for which I must ever be grateful.  I can find it in my heart even to forgive the reporters who have left little of what I have said or done unnoted, and when they have failed in this, have invented fabulous histories of things which I never did and sayings which I never uttered.  Sometimes when I have been questioned as to my impressions and views of America, I have been tempted to say with an Englishman who was hard pressed by his constituents with absurd solicitations:  “Gentlemen, this is the humblest moment of my life, that you should take me for such a fool as to answer all your questions.”  But I know their good intentions and I forgive them freely.