And my enjoyment of the reported speeches will not be the less
keen because I can so well imagine them.... In conclusion, Lord
Rosebery said that the keynote to the character of the man in whose
honour they were gathered together to-day was, first and last,
integrity. (Applause.) He did not say of him that he had been
infallible. Which of us was infallible? (Laughter.) But this he would
say, that the great man whose statue they were looking on for the last
time had been actuated throughout his career by no motive but the
desire to do that, and that only, which would conduce to the honour
and to the stability of the country that gave him birth. Of him it
might truly be said, as had been said of another, `That which he had
to give, he gave.' (Loud and prolonged applause.) His Lordship then
pulled the cord, and the sheeting rolled up into position...
Not, however, because those speeches will so edify and soothe me, nor
merely because those veiled statues will make less uncouth the city I
was born in, do I feverishly thrust on you my proposition. The wish in
me is that posterity shall be haunted by our dead heroes even as I am
by Umberto. Rather hard on posterity? Well, the prevision of its
plight would cheer me in mine immensely.
KOLNIYATSCH
1913.
None of us who keep an eye on the heavens of European literature can
forget the emotion that we felt when, but a few years since, the red
star of Kolniyatsch swam into our ken.
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