Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z
History
Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z
Speeches, addresses, etc.
The second thing I was aware of was that I was ordered to Crete to run
the blockade, describe the Cretan rebellion from the Cretan side, and
from the Turkish side; and then I was sent to Spain to report from the
Republican side and from the Carlist side, perfectly dispassionately.
[Laughter.] And then, all of a sudden, I was sent for to come to Paris.
Then Mr. Bennett, in that despotic way of his, said: "I want you to go
and find Livingstone." As I tell you, I was a mere newspaper reporter. I
dared not confess my soul as my own. Mr. Bennett merely said: "Go," and
I went. He gave me a glass of champagne and I think that was superb.
[Laughter.] I confessed my duty to him, and I went. And as good-luck
would have it, I found Livingstone. [Loud and continued cheering.] I
returned as a good citizen ought and as a good reporter ought and as a
good correspondent ought, to tell the tale, and arriving at Aden, I
telegraphed a request that I might be permitted to visit civilization
before I went to China. [Laughter.] I came to civilization, and what do
you think was the result? Why, only to find that all the world
disbelieved my story. [Laughter.] Dear me! If I were proud of anything,
it was that what I said was a fact ["Good!"]; that whatever I said I
would do, I would endeavor to do with all my might, or, as many a good
man had done before, as my predecessors had done, to lay my bones
behind. That's all. [Loud cheering.] I was requested in an off-hand
manner--just as any member of the Lotos Club here present would
say--"Would you mind giving us a little resume of your geographical
work?" I said: "Not in the least, my dear sir; I have not the slightest
objection." And do you know that to make it perfectly geographical and
not in the least sensational, I took particular pains and I wrote a
paper out, and when it was printed, it was just about so long
[indicating an inch]. It contained about a hundred polysyllabic African
words. [Laughter.] And yet "for a' that and a' that" the pundits of the
Geographical Society--Brighton Association--said that they hadn't come
to listen to any sensational stories, but that they had come to listen
to facts. [Laughter.] Well now, a little gentleman, very reverend, full
of years and honors, learned in Cufic inscriptions and cuneiform
characters, wrote to "The Times" stating that it was not Stanley who had
discovered Livingstone but that it was Livingstone who had discovered
Stanley. [Laughter.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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