He comes from an impressionist
State where the grass is blue [laughter], where the men are either
all white or all black, and where, we are told, quite often the
settlements are painted red. [Laughter.] He is a soldier, a
statesman, a scholar, and, above all, a lover; and among all the
world which loves a lover the descendants of those who, generation
after generation, with tears and laughter, have sympathized with
John Alden and Priscilla, cannot fail to open their hearts in
sympathy to Henry Watterson and his star-eyed goddess. [Applause.]
I have the honor and great pleasure of introducing him to respond
to the toast of 'The Puritan and the Cavalier.'"]
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--Eight years ago, to-night, there
stood where I am standing now a young Georgian, who, not without reason,
recognized the "significance" of his presence here--"the first
southerner to speak at this board"--a circumstance, let me add, not very
creditable to any of us--and in words whose eloquence I cannot hope to
recall, appealed from the New South to New England for a united country.
He was my disciple, my protege, my friend. He came to me from the
southern schools, where he had perused the arts of oratory and letters,
to get a few hints in journalism, as he said; needing so few, indeed,
that, but a little later, I sent him to one of the foremost journalists
of this foremost city, bearing a letter of introduction, which described
him as "the greatest boy ever born in Dixie, or anywhere else.
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