Other entertainments were given at this time. Some of the theatres were thrown open to the guests of the Institute of Journalists; Sir Edward Lawson gave them a lunch at Taplow, there was a cordial little reception at the Press Club; while the Athenæum Club conferred honorary membership on Zola for the period of his stay in London. That last distinction was the most unexpected of all, and assuredly the Bishops belonging to the Athenæum cannot have known of it. At the Authors' Club dinner, which closed the round of "semi-official" gatherings, there were some eighty men of letters, with a sprinkling of publishers and others, present. When Mr. Oswald Crawfurd had proposed Zola's health--which he did in excellent French and very laudatory terms--the novelist, no orator, as he had carefully stated at the outset of his sojourn, read his reply, which may be given here as a specimen of his few public utterances, for he did not read or make more than a score of speeches in the whole course of his career. "Since I reached London," he said, "I have received so many greetings and have so often been called upon to respond thereto, that I am a little ashamed to speak again. I need not, however, solicit your indulgent attention for any length of time. Indeed, in all modesty, I ask your permission to be very brief on this occasion. Nothing could have touched me more deeply than your very flattering invitation. I know that eminent writers are here assembled to extend to me the right hand of fellowship, and I feel that it is no longer the journalist but the novelist that is being entertained. (Applause.) Moreover, you have reminded me that in Paris I am the president of the Société des Gens de Lettres; so that in my person you honour all French literature. (Applause.) I should wish, therefore, to allow my own personality to disappear, and be nothing more than the delegate of my French brethren, to whom I shall attribute by far the greater part of the very cordial homage you have paid to me. I desire, indeed, gentlemen, to insist upon the feeling of fitting modesty that I shall carry away with me from all these functions. You have told me, Mr. Chairman, that, after conquering the world, I have come to conquer England. Will you allow me to reply that I know what I ought to think of my conquest? Amidst all the plaudits, I well understand that the opinion of your critics has not changed in regard to my works. Only, you have now seen their author, and have found him less black than report painted him. (Laughter and applause.) Then, too, you have reflected--'Here is a man who has fought hard and worked a great deal'; and belonging as you do to a great nation of workers, you have honoured work in me. (Applause.) Lastly, it has occurred to you that a man cannot have conquered the world--according to the facetious expression of two of your number--without being worthy of some praise.