The climax was reached when Henry Ward Beecher, concluding his
address, turned round and addressed Mr. Spencer in these words:
"To my father and my mother I owe my physical being; to you, sir, I
owe my intellectual being. At a critical moment you provided the safe
paths through the bogs and morasses; you were my teacher."
[Footnote 73: "An occasion, on which more, perhaps, than any other in
my life, I ought to have been in good condition, bodily and mentally,
came when I was in a condition worse than I had been for six and
twenty years. 'Wretched night; no sleep at all; kept in my room all
day' says my diary, and I entertained 'great fear I should collapse.'
When the hour came for making my appearance at Delmonico's, where the
dinner was given, I got my friends to secrete me in an anteroom until
the last moment, so that I might avoid all excitements of
introductions and congratulations; and as Mr. Evarts, who presided,
handed me on the dais, I begged him to limit his conversation with me
as much as possible, and to expect very meagre responses. The event
proved that, trying though the tax was, there did not result the
disaster I feared; and when Mr. Evarts had duly uttered the
compliments of the occasion, I was able to get through my prepared
speech without difficulty, though not with much effect.
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