from the lakes to the gulf--the wounds of war
healed in every heart as on every hill, serene and resplendent at the
summit of human achievement and earthly glory, blazing out the path and
making clear the way up which all the nations of the earth must come in
God's appointed time! [Great applause.]

SARAH GRAND

MERE MAN

[Speech of Sarah Grand [Mrs. M'Fall] at the annual ladies' banquet of
the Whitefriars Club, London, May 4, 1900. Max O'Rell [Paul Blouet]
acted as chairman. L. F. Austin, who spoke earlier than Madame Grand,
said, turning to Max O'Rell: "It used to be said of certain
politicians by way of odium that they mumbled the dry bones of
political economy; but you, sir, who sit trembling in that chair
[laughter]--you are trying not to look it, but you are trembling with
apprehension of the delicately anointed barb with which Madame Sarah.
Grand will presently transfix you [laughter]; you must feel that we
shall not very long be permitted even to mumble the barren epigrams of
a vanished ascendancy."]

MR. CHAIRMAN:--I have the honor to propose the toast of "Mere
Man" [laughter], but why "Mere Man," I want to know? After all that has
been said this evening so truthfully on the subject of "Sovran Woman,"
it is impossible for me to use such an epithet without feeling myself in
an invidious position, in the position of the dog that bites the hand
which has just caressed it--or rather I should feel myself in that
position if I were in any way responsible for the use of the ungracious
word. I beg most emphatically to state that I am not in any way
responsible for it. I decline to be identified with such an expression:
I decline to be accused of calling man any names [laughter], any names
that I have not already called him. [Laughter.] I do not decline out of
consideration for mere man altogether, but in self-defence. To use such
an expression deprives me of any dignity which I might myself derive
from the dignity of my subject. Besides, the words in my mouth, were I
to be identified with them, would be used against me as a bomb by a
whole section of the press, to blow me up. [Laughter.] I object to be
blown up for nothing by a whole section of the press. [Laughter.] That
is the sort of thing which almost ruffles my equanimity. My comfort is,
that no one can accuse me of having originated such an expression,
because it is well known no woman ever originated anything. [Laughter.]
I as