Humility

 

HUMILTY

 

Your majesties, your royal highnesses, ladies and gentlemen: Having no facility for speech-making and no command of oratory nor any domination of rhetoric, I wish to approve of the administrator’s generosity of Alfred Noble for this prize.

 

It is an honor too long in the coming and a well-deserved one at that! I am, by far, the most deserving of this reward. No one else comes close. I realize I am supposed to be humble about this honor, but my incredible talent speaks for itself – a powerful and artistically unique contribution to modern American literature.

 

Writing is, at best, a lonely life. As I grew in public stature, I shed my loneliness, but my work never deteriorated. A great writer must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.

 

There is no question of my pleasure and pride in receiving this well-deserved award. I roar with pride in my considerable talent and the great good I have contributed to mankind. The extent of this compensation is not enough to reward my personal merits.

 

I now feel free to express to you the fact that I should have received this homage, so rightfully earned, years ago. I also know that deep down inside me that I would receive this prestigious prize as I always considered myself on a par with Kipling, Thomas Mann, Pearl Buck, Albert Camus, Hemingway, et al. The fact that I have joined such greats is my just due.

I have always thought my oevre should be noticed and appreciated. You have afforded me this recognition, and that, after all, is the right and proper thing to do.

 

In conclusion, I simply cannot continue to heap praise on a prize that should have been awarded to me many years ago. I sense your shame!