338 Extracts from Addresses
to all for your presence here to-day, and a statement of how extremely
glad we are to come here. We had to visit a great many institutions, and
it was proposed that not more than one of us should lecture here, but
it seemed that with one accord we all wanted to come to Houston, and
here we are.
Sir Henry Jones: I cannot respond adequately to the kind words with
which we are welcomed; and I shall merely say that it is a real and deep
pleasure to me to come back to you. I think that I can add to this and
speak for all the members of the British Mission, that from the beginning
of our visit to America to our arrival in Houston, all our experience has
been fortunate and happy. It began well. On our first landing in New
York, news received in mid-ocean, so good that we hardly dared believe
it, was corroborated. Bulgaria had verily given in, and matters were
obviously and decisively moving as we desired and the complete victory
of the arms of the Allies seemed secure. That was, indeed, a great joy
to us: for we had lived long amidst the losses and sorrows of the war,
and were looking forward to still greater losses, more sorrowing hearths
at home, and worse sufferings in the trenches during the coming winter.
It is easier for most of us to feel gratitude than to express it. But I
cannot recall our first evening in New York City without more happy
and most grateful memories. Not because at that time the floodgates
of festive oratory were thrown open, and have never since been closed;
but because we then felt, for the first time, the intensity of America’s
sympathy and the depth of its kindliness towards the Mother Country,
and recognized the strength of the bond that unites these two great na-
tions. The days which succeeded in New York and afterwards in Wash-
ington and throughout the whole series of cities, where we conferred
and communed and enjoyed the generosity of the American people, only
deepened that first impression. Those who, from one point of view,
should never have separated had come together again. The coming to-
gether of America and Britain was a family reunion. The lad who had
felt injured by a fond, but rather blundering and very unfortunate old
father and who had left and gone off on his own in a somewhat over-
independent spirit and a little apt to forget whose blood throbbed in his
arteries and whose great traditions enriched his soul, was forgetting his
wrongs. I know no greater event in human history than this “home-
coming,” this reunion of the hearts and purposes of these two nations.
Moreover, I consider that I have a real cause of gratitude as regards
the mission upon which, on your invitation in America, the British Gov-
ernment has sent us. For I could hardly desire or conceive a more
agreeable trust, or one more full of promise of good, if it be well fulfilled,