DINNER IN HONOR OF PROFESSOR JOHN BATES CLARK 365 
portrait of myself such as the one that hangs in the other room, I should 
be able to identify it; but if I should encounter in print a word portrait 
such as we have just listened to, I should at once begin searching for the 
man to whom this prize should be awarded. Nevertheless I am as grateful 
as a man can be to those who are able to say those things under the 
influence of the priceless friendships which I take in full measure, without 
demurrers of any kind. The sentiments I return in full measure; but to 
express them fittingly, I should need, as the Seripture says, “to speak with 
the tongues of men and angels.” I have thought of trying to condense 
into a speech Cicero’s two essays on Friendship and on Old Age—the two 
subjects that are germane to the meeting tonight. I should have to append 
a supplement showing the relation of friendship to old age—showing you 
how powerfully friendship tends to extend life into the old age period. 
That is the reason I reached my eightieth birthday, and I thank you for 
bringing me to it, and for still treating me so kindly as to encourage the 
hope of further years. I invoke the same blessings in full measure for 
you all. 
Cicero's essays would have made rather a long speech and therefore I am 
going to take as mine the speech of one of my fellow townsmen made In 
my early days. I am going to give you the whole address verbatim, as 
made by General Burnside of Civil War fame. It was with great difficulty 
that he could be persuaded to appear in public, when that involved a 
speech; and, when he made one, it was brilliantly brief. When he came 
back from the Civil War to be Governor of the State of Rhode Island, 
and a great reception was tendered to him, the speakers vied with one 
another in friendly compliments; and all that he was able to say, by way 
of response, was, “I am much obliged to you, my friends, for your kind 
regards.” His friends accepted that, as being the most appropriate thing 
he could say on the occasion; and they read the fullest measure of 
meaning into every word. I should like to say just here and now that I am 
profoundly obliged to you, my dear friends, for your very kind regards. 
Now as we cannot have a longer speech from General Burnside and 
cannot afford to take the very long one from Cicero, I am going to avail 
myself of one of the “rights and privileges” which attach to the conferring 
of an academic degree. I take it that you have conferred on me the 
degree of Octogenarius “with all the hereditaments and appurtenances 
thereto in any wise appertaining.” One of these is the privilege of telling 
stories of the past; and I want to tell of one little incident which has its 
application. When I was five years old I went to visit my great grand- 
father, who was then ninety-seven years old, and who, in 1775, had been 
in the first revolutionary army, called to drive the British out of Boston. 
He had served through a great part of the war. I saw him, conversed 
with him, and sat by him at the table, and I have his journal, kept during 
the war. Now that enables me to say that, at second hand, I remember 
the American Revolution. I have direct testimony about it, and I 
remember a great many things which happened after that date. 
Of the things best known are the success of the Revolution, the forma- 
tion of the Federal Union and the adoption of the Constitution of the