"The Drama," by Sir Henry Irving; "Literature," by James Russell Lowell; 'The Poets' Corner," by John Lothrop Motley; "Woman," by Horace Porter; "The Press—right or wrong," by Whitelaw Reid; "The Hollander as an American," by Theodore Roosevelt; "The Army and Navy," by General William T. Sherman; "Music," by Sir Arthur Sullivan; "Tribute to Holmes," by Charles Dudley Warner; and " The Force of Ideas," by Heman Lincoln Wayland.
It is a remarkable fact that this is the first attempt to compile a collection of after-dinner speeches. Hitherto the only available speeches of this class were those that happened to be included in the collected addresses of noted orators. Now the reader may find diversion or instruction in the perusal of the best efforts of all typical post-prandial orators of recent times. Here will be found a wide range of toasts to which responses have been made by some of the most famous personages of the past century. The theme of their respective speeches does not in every instance conform altogether to the toast or sentiment to which they were requested to respond. The Editors, accordingly, have preferred to take the title from the theme of the address rather than from the toast itself, but the explanatory note preceding each speech invariably cites the actual toast, as given by the toast-master or the chairman of the banquet. Many of the brightest, wittiest, and wisest sayings of our time have been engendered amid the incense of fragrant Havanas and the aroma of café noir. There is something particularly inspiring in a group of men who are in the best of spirits, owing to a good dinner and genial company, and who settle back comfortably in their chairs to listen to some scientific, literary, political, or perhaps satirical, discourse from a noted speaker whose words may be flashed around the world. The origin and development of after-dinner speaking is fully explained in the charming essay on that subject written especially for this work by Dr. Lorenzo Sears, Professor of American Literature at Brown University. Dr. Sears is the author of a standard work entitled "The Occasional Address," and is eminently fitted to write on a subject of this character.
After-dinner speaking commends itself especially to
