American Ideas for English Readers

The following address was delivered on the occasion of the unveiling of the bust of the poet Gray in the hall of Pembroke College, Cambridge, May 26, 1885:

I have been asked to say a few words, but they must be very few, as the train is waiting for me that takes me back to keep an engagement. Mr. Gosse has told you he has been present at many memorial unveilings, and the newspapers inform me that I also have been present at the unveiling of perhaps too many. But never have I been present on any occasion with more pleasure than on this. You have now, in the words which Lord Houghton quoted, and which I would extend in a wider sense than he did, a beautiful memorial to Gray in permanent form. We also, thanks to Mr. Gosse, possess a photograph of this memorial in permanent form. But we have in our hearts and memories, I think, a memorial to the man quite as true and quite as permanent -- that is, permanent for us. Very few words are fitting on an occasion which commemorates the one of the English poets who has written less and pleased more perhaps than any other. There is a certain appropriateness in my speaking here to-day. I come here to speak simply as the representative of several countrymen and countrywomen of mine who have renewed that affirmation, which I like always to renew, of the unity of our English race by giving something more solid than words in commemoration of the poet they loved.