Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/65

Rh thing that I did not myself conscientiously believe to be true. If this is the reason of your being here, I am proud, very proud of it; and I may promise you that this shall be so to the last, and that, in this respect at least, you will have a fair chance of not becoming sorry for the honor you are doing me to-night.

My friends, who addressed you, have said much of what I have tried to do for our country. They have touched very lightly upon what that country has done for me. In speaking of this you must bear with me for indulging in some personal reminiscence.

The brilliant scene here before me recalls to my mind with great vividness the September day in 1852, when I landed upon these shores as an exile from my native land—an exile in consequence of my participation in the revolutionary attempts of that period to give the old Fatherland national unity and free institutions akin to those we here enjoy—an exile, without friends here, save some companions in misfortune, ignorant of the language of the country, a stranger to all the sights I saw and the sounds I heard. I well remember my first wanderings through the streets of New-York, some of which were at the time decorated with the trappings of a Presidential campaign, then almost unintelligible to me. I remember my lonely musings on a bench in Union Square, the whirl of the noise and commotion near me only deepening the desolation of my feeling of forlornness; the future before me like a mysterious fog bank; my mind in a state of dismal vacuity, against which my naturally sanguine temperament could hardly bear up, and which nobody can well imagine, who has not passed through a similar plight. Still, I was firmly determined, that for better or worse, this should be my home, my country, for the rest of my life.

My knowledge of things American was very slight. I had indeed received some distinct and strong impressions.