WEDNESDAY EVENING CLUB. ADDRESS AT THE CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION OF THE CLUB, I HAVE been hoping, Mr. Secretary, sincerely hoping, that I might be excused altogether this evening; and now, that I have been so kindly — I had almost said so cruelly called on, I must be pardoned if all that I attempt to say shall take the form of an apology, rather than of an address. I left New York only an hour before noon to-day, rather than miss this meeting; and I could not help thinking, as I came along, that if the nine men. our sacred Nine who founded this Club just a hundred years ago, could have had it predicted to them that two of their successors for my friend Mr. Mason was with me should come all the way from New York to Boston, in seven hours, to celebrate their Centennial, they would, one and all, have pronounced it as incredible and fabulous as any thing in the Arabian Nights. And I am not quite sure, sir, that our successors, a hundred years hence, will have seen any thing in this line more remarkable. There must be a practical limit to the speed of human locomotion, and I sometimes doubt if it has not been almost reached. Such a journey, however, has not been without fatigue; and absent as I have been from home for nearly a month past, and having returned thus rapidly only two hours ago, I am afraid I shall find it impossible to collect my scattered and jaded thoughts, and to deal, as I could wish to deal, with the only topics befitting this occasion. But, indeed, sir, were it otherwise with me, I should hardly know how to add any thing worth adding to what has been already so impressively said by yourself, and by the other gentlemen who have followed you. And then, too, Mr. Secretary, all the associations, all the traditions, all the usages, of this Club seem to rise up in judgment before me at this moment, and to protest against my attempting any thing like a formal speech. Why, sir, the great. peculiarity and the great charm of our meetings, from first to last, has been their purely unceremonious and unconventional character. We have come together, from week to week, always and only, to exchange words and thoughts and feelings in the most social and conversational way" dextræ jungere dextram, ac veras audire et reddere voces." In our whole hundred years, there has hardly been such a thing as a formal address heard at our meetings until to-night; and one almost instinctively shrinks from celebrating our Centennial Anniversary by a direct defiance and violation of a custom, which has held us together in unity and harmony so long. My own tongue, certainly, would cleave to the roof of my mouth, were I to attempt - malice aforethought—any thing rhetorical to-night. I fear it is beginning to do so already. And yet, my friends, I should in vain endeavor to repress some acknowledgment, feeble and faltering though it may prove to be, of the satisfactions and enjoyments which I have derived, in common with you all, from my relations to this Club. In looking back, indeed, over the forty years since I was elected a member of it, I find that I have been a terrible truant, and that long, long gaps have occurred in my attendance at its meetings. Nearly twelve years of public service at Washington, and repeated visits to Europe, have made a large deduction from my enjoyment of the opportunities and privileges which belong to our membership. Yet enough, and more than enough, has been left for the most grateful remembrance. The mere consciousness that once in every week, on a stated night, we were privileged to go - if we were in the way of going to the house of a friend, to meet familiar faces, and to learn the latest word in all the departments of law or medicine, of theology or science, of commerce or politics, from the chosen representatives of every profession and calling, has been, I venture to say, for all of us, as I know it has been for myself, a source of gratification and pleasure not easily exaggerated, and one quite apart from the enjoyments of the meetings themselves. But the meetings themselves, I need not say, have never been wanting in materials of entertainment of almost every variety. I have more than once wished, since we began to contemplate this Centennial commemoration, that there could have been kept some continuous record of these weekly meetings. What a story it would have told of men and of events! Even now, it may not be too late to gather up the reminiscences and 'traditions of our meetings, and to make them into a little book of remembrance, a little volume of "Memorabilia of the Wednesday Club," with sketches and photographs, perhaps, of persons and places. There may be diaries from which facts may be gleaned, like the diary of our illustrious member John Quincy Adams, from which we have just heard. A group of this very Centennial gathering would be a fit frontispiece for such a volume. From such a record, the distinguished guests we have so often had with us could not be omitted. I recall the occasional presence at my own house, or at others' houses, not merely of such men as Webster and Everett, and good Bishops Fitzpatrick and Eastburn, and Governor Clifford and Governor Washburn, and Agassiz, of our own State and neighborhood; but of Lyell and Thackeray, of William C. Rives and Thomas H. Benton, of George Peabody and Dr. Barnas Sears. I am particular in recalling this last name, because I cannot but remember that the accident - I should rather say the Providence of Dr. Sears's presence at one of our meetings determined the whole direction and success of the Peabody Trust for Southern Education. It was at this Club, ten or eleven years ago, that I first communicated to him the great endowment of Mr. Peabody, and took the first step towards securing his inestimable advice and counsel in its administration. And from that little volume of Memorabilia, as made up by our excellent Secretary, who alone could do it justice, he would not willingly omit, I am sure, an account of some of our anomalous and exceptional meetings: — That, for example, at the Café de Paris, in 1868, when six or seven of our number, of whom he and I were two, had so humorous and so charming a reunion in a foreign land. And I should be sorry to have him forget a meeting at Brookline, too, when the Club did me the favor and honor to come out to my suburban villa, where I was passing a winter; their first and only meeting in the country, I believe, and the only one at which the visible presence of ladies was welcomed at our repast. Of the men with whom we have been associated as members, not a few have been already named with peculiar interest and affection, Judge Davis, James Savage, Ephraim Peabody, and Charles Mason; the Curtises, Dr. Homans, and Dr. Hayward. But I confess I have no stronger or more vivid personal association, to-night, than with Francis C. Gray, so genial, so accomplished, so quick-witted, with such a marvellous memory, with such an exhaustless fund of information and anecdote. The Club has had no more devoted member, certainly, in my day, nor any one more worthy of respectful and affectionate remembrance on this occasion. But I dare not trespass longer on the closing hours of our festival, lest I should be held responsible for the ice-cream being melted, or for the stewed oysters being cold. Let me only remind you how striking a contrast our Century Club for so it must henceforth be called - presents to that which I have just visited in New York, with its five or six hundred members and all its sumptuous apartments and appointments! That Club, which owed its name, I believe, to the original number of its members, is a comparatively modern creation of the wealth and culture of the great Commercial Metropolis of our country. No one who has experienced the charm of its hospitality so recently as I have done, can fail to recognize it as a grand institution, worthy of the noble city it adorns, and fitly presided over, at one time by the late genial Gulian C. Verplanck, and now by the veteran poet, William C. Bryant. But what a contrast it presents to that on which Time, rather than any caprice or choice of our own, is now casting the same or a similar title! Founded in the darkest hours of our revolutionary struggle, with only nine members at the outset, and hardly more than three times nine now, our little Club has gone along quietly and prosperously for a hundred years. Quietly and prosperously, I trust, it will not fall short of a second century; and we all hope and predict that it may live a thousand years. It is peculiarly a Home Club, not dependent on costly buildings or onerous assessments, and without any popular element which could be affected by accidental circumstances. It will not be permitted to die out; and we may confidently send down our greetings and good wishes as we hereby all do to those who shall celebrate its successive Centennials, in a far, far remote futurity, with our heartiest hopes and prayers that they may be in the enjoyment of all, and more than all, the social and political advantages in which we now rejoice; and that they may remember our names as kindly and as proudly as we, this night, recall those of George Richards Minot, and John Eliot, and John Quincy Adams, and John Thornton Kirkland, and the rest, whom we look back upon so reverently as our forerunners and founders ! - |